192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
blatham
 
  2  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 03:09 pm
Voices From The Right - Michael Gerson
Quote:
Coronavirus isn’t another Hurricane Katrina. It’s worse.

One symptom of the coronavirus outbreak — at least for me — has been nasty flashbacks to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. At the time, I was a policy adviser to President George W. Bush, visiting New York for meetings. The day after the storm hit, I recall talking to a colleague at the White House and helpfully offering that the federal response “looked pretty good from here.”

The next several days had the quality of a nightmare, as images of unrelieved suffering filled the news. The crisis, it turned out, was unprecedented — not just a massive hurricane but a citywide flood. When it came to providing relief and maintaining order, the normal procedure was to defer to state and local authorities. They quickly proved incapable or incompetent. Many Americans assumed that the main federal component of the response — the Federal Emergency Management Agency — could do emergency response and logistics on a large scale. But FEMA wasn’t (and isn’t) an elite corps of emergency responders. It was (and is) a skeletal organization that expands by hiring contractors in time of need. And the need is usually defined as putting up trailers while a relatively thin strip of destroyed coastal homes is rebuilt.

As the scale of Katrina’s destruction became evident, some at the White House proposed to preempt state and local roles and send in the military. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered legal objections to conducting operations on U.S. soil. Others made the case that if we took action, we would “own” the situation — creating the impression we could replace the institutions that had primary responsibility.

We found, of course, that the president owns every crisis that can be solved only on a national scale.

So why the flashbacks? Because the United States again faces a circumstance in which the problem may be larger than the institutions that normally deal with it. Public health is mainly the responsibility of states and localities. Americans may think the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is leading a national response to the coronavirus. It isn’t. The CDC has a weak role in setting and implementing policy, and it is not sufficiently staffed to do the job people think it is doing. The working group headed by Vice President Pence — while needed and helpful — only has the power of cajoling. In a public health emergency, there is no national coordinating function.

In normal circumstances, I am all for federalism. But some problems have a scope — say, fighting a war or constructing a national highway system — that overwhelms the theory of local control.

Coronavirus is likely to be this kind of problem. As America moves to the mitigation stage of the outbreak, social distancing measures — such as closing schools, ending mass gatherings and restricting travel — are the next line of defense. But the problem with such measures is that they tend to be imposed too late and/or lifted too early. And the current implementation of social distancing by states and localities can best be called spotty.

All the elements now exist for a swiftly unfolding emergency, on a scale that dwarfs Katrina. Because of the early absence of adequate tests, we have very little idea how prevalent the disease is in the country and little idea of how fast it is spreading. Dangerously and absurdly, political leaders have been using the low number of confirmed cases as the evidence of success when it is actually a measure of our blindness.

While administration officials were speaking the word “contained,” the virus was spreading unhindered in some places for weeks. And if sickness begins to come in a sudden rush, it will swamp the health-care system, leading to shortages of masks, hospital beds, ventilators and personnel (as it has in northern Italy).

“The glaring risk today,” as J. Stephen Morrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told me, “is that the elderly and those with fragile health suffer extreme illness but are unable to access life-sustaining care and die in large numbers.”

In just 17 days, Italy went from three confirmed cases of coronavirus to 16 million people under quarantine. In a similar circumstance, the United States would need an assertive, active, early federal role in encouraging mitigation, readying the health-care system and helping states and localities bear the cost of the crisis. Agencies would have to aggressively use their power to influence, because there is no time for Congress to give them the real power to act. Some logistical role for the military may even be helpful.

I can imagine the objections. Some may argue that this would trample on the authority of states and localities, and that the administration would own whatever follows.

But an unprecedented emergency may require going beyond traditional thinking and traditional roles. And the administration owns the situation already.

0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 03:15 pm
Quote:
Josh Marshall
@joshtpm
31m
I wish all these quarantined officials the best. But the turnabout of this year's CPAC from a multi-day COVID-19 trolling event to a vector of the contagion is something that would scarcely be believable in a movie script.

We knew from the very outset that this administration would be a huge anomaly that historians (if there were any left) would analyze and about which they would write countless tomes.

But I don't think anybody expected this level of subject matter and this level of utter disaster to the nation.
0 Replies
 
coldjoint
 
  0  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 03:16 pm
@blatham,
Quote:
We have no clear idea of what the world will look like one month up the road.

The dip today was caused by oil, not virus. Also everyone expects a recovery.
Quote:
We have no clear idea

You at headquarters again?
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:25 pm
@Builder,
Quote:
In the minds of these desperado never-trumpers...

Name one — a reckless Republican who opposed Trump in 2016 and has never supported him — who'd you have in mind?
blatham
 
  3  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:31 pm
Quote:
Bruce Bartlett
@BruceBartlett
It's absolutely essential Democrats make clear that the current crisis isn't due solely to Trump's stupidity & incompetence, it results from the governing philosophy of his party, which hates government & done everything in its power to undermine its effectiveness for decades.

Because this is true. And because it is true, it is of critical importance to acknowledge it and proclaim it if America is to come out of this horror.
blatham
 
  3  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:37 pm
Quote:
tedfrank
@tedfrank
27m
Federalist Society cancels March 12 conference in DC.

They are just giving credence to the hoax. Selfish traitorous bastards.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:42 pm
@blatham,
Quote:
which hates government

Not quite as bad as hating the country. Why would anyone vote for a party that has such a low regard for this country and its citizens? When you hate something you destroy it if you can. Democrats will not be given that opportunity.
0 Replies
 
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:44 pm
@blatham,
Quote:
They are just giving credence to the hoax.

No one said it was a hoax. You are perpetuating a lie. What else is new?
blatham
 
  2  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:44 pm
@blatham,
Her too. What is wrong with these neverTrumpers?!
Melania Trump cancels California fundraiser
The move comes amid mounting concern about the coronavirus.


Aside from all else, just how fucked are the propagandists at Fox in trying to wend their way through the bullshit where every day the bullshit is shown, by Republicans themselves, to be bullshit.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 04:56 pm
@blatham,
Quote:
Republicans themselves, to be bullshit.

Like Democrats proved to be with their impeachment and their lies on the FISA warrants? This virus took all that out of the news. That will have a longer lasting effect than this virus.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  3  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 05:19 pm
@coldjoint,
coldjoint wrote:

Quote:
They are just giving credence to the hoax.

No one said it was a hoax. You are perpetuating a lie. What else is new?


https://www.politicususa.com/2020/02/28/mick-mulvaney-calls-the-coronavirus-a-hoax-to-bring-down-trump.html

coldjoint
 
  -1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 05:29 pm
@snood,
And after he explained himself. But he did use the word "hoax". I guess you can hang on to that, and repeat it ad infinitum, my mistake.
0 Replies
 
Builder
 
  -1  
Mon 9 Mar, 2020 10:28 pm
@hightor,
Quote:
Name one


Sure; hightor is one.
Builder
 
  -1  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 03:06 am
Italy in totes lockdown over a few hundred cases/deaths?

Where is this heading? Really?

0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 03:21 am
@Builder,
Quote:
Sure; hightor is one.

That's so cowardly. If you specifically want to criticize someone, cite the particular statement you object to and explain why you think it is wrong. Incorrectly assigning someone to a defined group to which he has no connection whatsoever either demonstrates your lack of understanding or willful ignorance. I'd guess it's probably both in your case. It would be like labeling you a "Clintonista".

Here are some prominent "nevertrumpers":

Joe Scarborough
George Will
Max Boot
Richard Painter
Steve Schmidt
Jennifer Rubin
Bill Kristol

None of them fit your "desperado" characterization — which isn't surprising since you've repeatedly demonstrated a propensity to misuse language and define terms incorrectly. "Hippy" doesn't mean "hypocrite", for instance. And I am not a "nevertrumper"...look it up.
Builder
 
  -1  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 03:39 am
@hightor,
You're all never-trumpers. You just won't admit it.

I have no idea what a Clintonista might be.

Care to expand on that descriptor of yours?

We all know why Trump is your 45th POTUS, but you folk are still living in denial.

You're even denying your denial, and that's some kind of psyche hangup, there is no name for, as yet.

Get your collective **** together, and find a meaningful candidate for the 2020 election cycle, because Biden isn't gonna cut it, and neither is indy Sanders.



snood
 
  3  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 03:59 am
@Builder,
You just make sure to keep that cocksure bluster going when you post here after your traitorous fraudulent pervert “President” gets his ass beat in November.
hightor
 
  3  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 04:03 am
@Builder,
Quote:
You're all never-trumpers. You just won't admit it.

You still don't seem to be able to comprehend the meaning of the term.
Quote:

I have no idea what a Clintonista might be.

Any reasonably intelligent person could guess, and someone like you could simply do a search.
Quote:

We all know why Trump is your 45th POTUS, but you folk are still living in denial.

Yeah, he won an election by getting a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Where has anyone denied that Trump is the president? Even the real "nevertrumpers" admit he currently holds the office.
Quote:
You're even denying your denial, and that's some kind of psyche hangup, there is no name for, as yet.

Not approving of someone or disliking someone isn't "denial" of anything. How can people criticize Trump's performance if they deny that he's the president? Why would they bother?
Quote:
Get your collective **** together, and find a meaningful candidate for the 2020 election cycle, because Biden isn't gonna cut it, and neither is indy Sanders.

It ain't gonna happen. What you see is what we get.
Builder
 
  0  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 04:10 am
@snood,
Quote:
keep that cocksure bluster going when you post here after your traitorous fraudulent pervert “President”......


He's your president. And you can join old mate in the never-trump brigade.

You kids just don't appreciate the value, in not having that Clinton kid in the driver's seat.

That era just had to end. Heavy sighs.
Builder
 
  -2  
Tue 10 Mar, 2020 04:11 am
@hightor,
Quote:
You still don't seem to be able to comprehend the meaning of the term.


We all know what it means.


Your denial of it isn't my problem.
 

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