Month: March 2020

Virus, Virus Everywhere

/ oleblacklady / 2 Comments

When 45 visited the CDC to reassure the nation that he was firmly in command of the response to the covid19 epidemic, he wore a red Make America Great campaign cap. Even though we’ve become inured to a multitude of his breaches of protocol, this was still striking. Rather than a chief executive rallying his nation to fight an invisible foe, we were watching a  partisan campaign rally, the rest of us be damned. The RealityTVPresident was being transparent; he thinks governing is campaigning. He started officially running for re-election on Inauguration Day and every decision he’s made in office has been with an eye toward staying. Now that we’re in the thick of election season, having survived the sham Impeachment trial has unleashed his inner Music Man full throttle. So he filled the airwaves with falsehoods directly contradicted by administration officials because that’s how he rolls. Why not, it’s been working for him, at least as far as he can tell. 

He also demonstrated why he is incapable of taking charge of this emergency. Standing in a CDC lab, surrounded by infectious disease experts, he gave the then current number of covid19 cases he’d gotten from the “Great Fox News”, his words. He’s so embedded in that fantasy, that he can’t turn to the scientists surrounding him who have the actual data. One wonders where he thinks Trump/FoxNews got their information, or is he willing to concede that they often make stuff up to favor him. The RealityTVPresident is so distrustful of nonpartisan objective expertise that he has nowhere to turn. Undaunted, he believes that he inherited his scientific knowledge from an uncle who taught at MIT. Just that assertion screams his scientific ignorance, and yet he went on to say that he really “gets this stuff”, so he seems to feel perfectly equipped to manage covid19 without additional guidance.

One other disturbing development in the increasingly frequent interactions he’s having with the mainstream media is the solicitous praise for the Donald that drips from his subordinates’ remarks, reminiscent of the televised Cabinet meetings in the past. It rings of Kim Jong Un. 

         That goes a long way toward explaining why the US response has been so sluggish. It lacks forethought and vision. Trump likes to point to his ban on Chinese travelers early as a master stroke. That was right down his alley; it’s an emergency extension of his overall approach to immigration ala Stephen Miller. America is for Americans and no foreigner belongs here. The policy was supposed to buy some time to rev up our preparedness. The administration dithered away the time and has been lying about it ever since. After all, the first cases in China were reported in November. 

Completely predictably, covid19 arrived from other sources because none of the ABCs of epidemic response were being followed. There’s no doubt that the public health officials were trying to get the ear of our reigning stable genius, but his entourage of partisan yesmen don’t have any real experience or expertise in managing infectious disease outbreaks. Their big picture is narrowly defined in the contours of Trump/FoxNews. Given their Keep America Isolated proclivities, they skipped the first step, coordination with other countries. The way to keep infectious diseases from our shores is to help address them where they are. Tick, tock. . .

Even more disastrous was the America First move to insist on a US test rather than use the German test supplied by the WHO. In a typical ‘it’s everybody else’s fault’ statement, National Security Advisor Robert O’brien blamed the Chinese for the delay in releasing the viral sequencing data. Yet another big fat lie. How were the Germans able to act so quickly? The Chinese released the data on the day after they finalized it. Chinese scientists are no fools; they know that the rest of the world could help them figure out a treatment or vaccine. Not so with Americans bent on going it alone. Tick, tock. . .

However, one advantage of testing done only through the CDC while it struggled to produce a lab test that other labs could use was that it allowed 45 to claim that we were safe while covid19 ravaged the world. What you don’t know comes back to bite you in the ass. 

State run healthcare systems can be very efficient. They can act rapidly and easily assess the extent of the problem. They can develop sites to screen and house patients who must be quarantined and treated without regard for payment status. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day in drive thru sites. The Chinese built a large hospital complex in 2 weeks. Here in the US, everything’s scattershot. We’re at the mercy of a hopefully well prepared government, like Barack Obama with Ebola and H1N1 flu or George Bush with SARS. Instead, we’re now at the mercy of whatever commercial enterprise sees profit in the undertaking and decides to jump in. With lab tests, there is an additional step of FDA approval before the product can be used commercially, in other words billed for. 

Despite the task force announcement that insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid will cover it, the trick is to make sure that the uninsured can get tested without breaking the bank, given that it will come with an expensive ER visit and a battery of other diagnostic tests and procedures. Right now the most common experience is that a patient gets the ER visit but can’t get a lab test; big bill, no result! VP Pence refused to answer a question from the press about the uninsured, another indication that the administration’s concern tends toward the monied. Dr Fauci bluntly testified before a Congressional committee that the US can’t institute drive thru testing or broad testing across the population. “Do I think we should be. Yes.” It was never part of their vision so it was simply not possible. It would require a complete philosophical reorientation of a system firmly entrenched in free enterprise.  

According to the New York Times The Daily postcast, it was a research lab at University of Washington that  stumbled upon the first known US case of community transmission. The lab developed its own test which did not have clearance from the FDA to report results outside of their study. However, they felt compelled to notify the health department with their first positive which they estimated indicated that the virus had been in the community for as long as two weeks. Thus it was not the protective apparatus of the government that detected this first case but those pesky scientists. 

Agent Orange is focused on the numbers: the Dow Jones primarily and then the covid19 case count. His take on the docking of a cruise ship off San Francisco with several virus infected passengers was like a third quarter football score, “I like the numbers where they are; I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault. And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either.” Note, he’s talking about his numbers, not grandmothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Fault and blame are his high priority. Like many a slave master, he was counting something, just not people. The man has no soul. 

Keep America Isolated hamstrung the covid19 response: failure to coordinate globally before the virus arrived; insistence on making a US test; limited screening without testing; shuttering the borders while sending Americans out to infect the world.

And apparently keeping the numbers down has been the government’s mission. As the CDC was forced to expand the criteria for who should be tested and the number of cases mounted, the CDC stopped reporting. They are no longer updating their website daily with the number of cases; they will not release the number of tests done. The agency says that it can no longer monitor testing or cases which are being done at the local level, a departure for the role that the agency has always played in disease outbreaks. If it could get data on Zika testing and cases from South America, it would seem it could manage here at home. Instead it reflects an HHS policy to camouflage the extent of the disease and the response as part of partisan politics. That policy reflects a fear among federal officials of enraging El Presidente.  

Ironically, the president, VP and conservative politicians who gathered at CPAC have been exposed. 45 has continued to mingle with them, even riding on Air Force One with Matt Gaites. He and the new chief of staff have chosen to self quarantine, but not the commander in chief. He’s continued to shake hands at appearances and has refused to get tested. He has at least deferred rallies for now. In the intervening days, 45’s exposures have expanded; an aide to the Brazilian president who now has tested positive dined at Mar-o-lago with 45. The Australian Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton who later met with Ivanka, Bill Barr and Kelleyanne Conway also tested positive and they meet frequently with the president. The Mayor of Miami who also met with the Brazilian aide is positive as well. These incidents continue to raise the specter of the disease spreading widely in the West Wing and Mar-o-lago where there are a lot of old rich people at highest risk for serious infection.

Some estimates are that 70-80% of people will become infected, so the multiple interactions within the GOP caucus members suggests that many will be affected. Given their ages, one or two of them will probably get pretty sick. In the meantime, they’re spreading it to staff and ancillary personnel across the capital. Certainly, a role modelling president would volunteer to be tested and follow recommendations of public health officials. It’s a national security issue; if he became seriously ill, it affects the country’s leadership such as it is. If he doesn’t become ill, he could show that the disease course is short-lived and mild. 

But our president could do neither. A positive test would destroy him. In his mind, it would demonstrate some personal failure; he would have to lie about it, not usually a problem but refusing a test means that a positive can’t leak to the press. Still, it seems improbable that the presidential physician is not monitoring him for symptoms and insisting on testing. Of course, the virus is being shed long before symptoms develop so to abstain from testing is to spread the epidemic. El Presidente is not one to respond to insistence, even from his closest advisors. There should be a law, but if we’ve learned anything from 45, it is that much presidential tradition is embedded in the idea that the office holder places his allegiance to the country at the forefront, fixing the oath to uphold the Constitution in his heart. No one could have anticipated that people would elect a president without a heart who would use the Constitution as a stepping stone to absolute rule. Through negligence, covid19 could bring down a man who believes he’s impervious. 

Eventually, the doctors prevailed and 45 announced that he had been tested. The press corp was being checked for symptoms before the last press conference and 45 conceded that staff was also being monitored. It’s probably too late, but at least they’ll have access to the best medical care. We can all speculate the odds that the report of his negative test result is factual; the question has to be asked given his history.

In his Oval Office speech, Trump blundered through a series of mistruths and misstatements of his own policy initiatives that bear his uniquely xenophobic lens. The MAWAPresident has a limited bag of tricks which make his responses fairly predictable, something that he never wants to be. It was important to 45 to characterize covid19 as a foreign virus even though viruses have no nationality. He then linked the foreign invader to clusters of US cases seeded from Europe except that never happened. Voila! His announcement of a travel ban for all Europeans entering the country. He’s used this logic before, i.e the Latinx are taking your jobs, so they must be kept out and thrown out. All Muslims are terrorists, so they must be kept out and thrown out. 

It turns out, the MAWAPresident got a little carried away in his address, overstating his ban a bit. This marked another presidential first; the first Oval office address where the president misrepresented his own policies, not extemporaneously but from prepared remarks from a teleprompter. Actually, the policy applies only to non-US citizens who have travelled to 26 countries, excluding the UK and Ireland. Why those two? Trump was making a political statement to support the two countries with strong borders as a result of Brexit. Apparently, he’s unaware that nothing has changed in the UK except the vote to leave. The contours of an agreement are being negotiated while the borders remain as open as ever. That rates a demerit on geography, current affairs and international relations. There was no communication with European allies beforehand; they literally heard it on the TV, another demerit. 

A more cynical interpretation of the UK exemption is that Trump owns golf courses there so he’s protecting reservations. Given his allegiance to his properties, that couldn’t have been far from his mind. His exception flies in the face of Britain’s second highest number of reported cases in Europe outside Italy, so the ban is not about the disease burden or the threat of transmission here.

Active duty and DOD civilians can no longer travel to or within most of Europe and any Level 3 regions, but not including South Korea, a hotter spot than Europe. Perhaps coincidentally, Trump also has properties in Seoul and two other cities. The military will scale back their exercises as well. We’ve crossed the frontier to a heightened national security threat. 

Dreaming that he was striking out at trade with the EU, he announced that European imports would also be banned, an assertion he had to immediately retract; that would have really sent the markets down the toilet. 

Nowhere in the address was there mention of resolution of the testing debacle, in part because he began with congratulating himself on mounting the best covid19 response on the globe, an obvious figment of his imagination. To then shift to fixing a problem he refused to acknowledge was impossible.

The speech served to divert attention from both the inadequate federal response and the expanding number of infections. It was simply an excuse to insult allies in the context of a health crisis, not an attempt to control viral spread. A ban on non-citizens coming from the same location as citizens who are allowed to travel is just prejudice; it has no benefit in preventing spread of a virus that doesn’t check IDs. All the recurrent Trumpian themes are here: the targeting of non-citizens, the partisan play to the base, segregating his attempts at governance to his slice of the electorate, self-aggrandizing monetary gain and his head buried in a reality of his own making.

A ban on non-citizens coming from the same location as US citizens who are allowed to travel is just prejudice; it has no benefit in preventing spread of a virus that doesn’t check IDs.

While 45 would like to pretend that covid19 is coming from abroad, we have more than enough to share here. Pro Basketball players, politicians and actors are popping up positive all over the place. One wonders if their wealth had something to do with their testing priority. There is no restriction on American travel; apparently we are free to carry it around the world. He’s president of the US, not the world; he feels no fealty to anything outside our borders. 

And it’s not only US citizens let loose on Europe. Some commentators have suggested that the UK and Ireland may experience an additional screening burden as residents from other EU zone countries try to find more freedom of movement. It’s not that they don’t have a significant number of cases, including Britain’s health minister. At the same time, Trump’s misinformation sent thousands of Americans to European airports desperate to book often pricey tickets home. Large crowds pressed closely together was dangerous for all including airport personnel. If it’s not 45’s shore, it’s not his problem. 

The folly of the original policy has been reversed so the ban now includes the UK and Ireland. But the change came without detailed coordination with customs in airports so that returning passengers were crammed into long corridors leading to customs booths, delayed further by screening protocols. This is another example of a royal edict style of governance that doesn’t coordinate with other federal agencies or local officials. They just don’t grasp the details of complicated operations; the “deep state” bureaucracy is a necessary component of efficient operation. The cogs that make the wheels turn can’t be spurned without consequences. But the blame game continued with federal authorities blaming airport managers for cramming hordes of people into viral incubators. And yet, local officials have been forced to react to surprise shifts in policy without any prior notification. It seems a perfect set up; when someone doesn’t know what they’re doing, they can’t anticipate the outcomes, but they can always find someone else to blame.

In the meantime, can screening of returning US citizens impact viral spread without adequate testing. It should be clear by now that patients are infectious before they develop symptoms, perhaps for 10 days, an unusually long time as viruses go. The Chinese let no suspected person tested pass go; they went immediately to an area awaiting test results and quarantine if positive. Here, after screening, will the person be allowed to travel through crowded areas on the way home to self-isolate before the 4 hours to 2 days it will take to get a test result. That screening protocol is a sieve, not sealed containment.

The Oval office speech followed an announcement of economic interventions by Trump before he had discussed it with Congressional leaders. Fresh off surviving impeachment, he forgot that there is a legislative process independent of his whims. Moscow Mitch pushed back, representing that Congress wasn’t a rubber stamping Duma. Like a toddler mid temper tantrum, Trump met only with GOP leaders and is refusing to speak to Speaker of the House Pelosi, sending Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to negotiate instead. It’s difficult to imagine that Pelosi won’t be driving a hard bargain. Once again, he’s governing MAWAland, not the United States. Free testing, paid sick leave and support directed at covid19 victims are high on the Democratic agenda, trying to improve conditions that support testing, social distancing and self quarantines. The GOP’s focus arises from their trickle down economic orientation: give money and tax breaks to businesses. 

A proposed payroll tax deferral for both employer and employee contributions does nothing for people not working, or those working in the gig economy and the self employed. Democrats wanted to sunset any payroll tax exemption while the GOP wanted them to be permanent, essentially eliminating the source of funding for Social Security and Medicare. Characteristically, forced childbirth advocates desire to include Hyde amendment language that excludes the use of federal funds for abortion was a temporary stumbling block, although how it figures into sick leave or covid19 testing is obscure. It was just propaganda dressing Trump could use with evangelicals. The GOP opposes expansion of Medicaid on principle, so the use of Medicaid to cover testing and diagnosis of viral infection was a stumbling block in negotiations as well. 

Pelosi can pass a House bill comfortably, but contrary to McConnell’s minor assertion of independence, GOP Senators are waiting for the BullyPresident to issue his royal approval, hoping he might point the way toward that lofty goal. He is still so pissed about Impeachment that beyond not talking to the House Speaker, he has to be dragged tooth and nail into compromise. But he is being boxed in by public criticism outside his cheering squad of his covid19 response, so he must wedge his best deal for his corporate cronies into relief for the populace he purports to represent.

For his part, Trump is all about economic support of industry: the cruise, travel and airline industries, with a sop to small businesses in the form of loans. He’s hoping that his meet and greets with business leaders and government subsidies/tax breaks will buoy Wall Street. He’s nudged the Fed into dropping the interest rate and the treasury to dump short term money into the market. None of that can counterbalance the ineptitude of the federal response and Agent Orange’s management of the crisis and his evident fuzzy understanding of what should be done. Thank God Fauci is everywhere cleaning up the mess. And then there is the slowdown in the global economy as one country after another hunkers down. 

In an economy driven by consumer purchasing of services, just the losses from a few large cancelled events are staggering: $8 million for March Madness, Final Four $100+million, South by Southwest $355 million and Frozen Four (hockey) $10 million. That’s just the cost to the cities without considering the airlines, restaurants and their employees, Uber and cab drivers and the retail spending of those workers. Add in the cancellation of the NFL, NHL NBA seasons and the vendors who work those events.  The economic uncertainty lies in how long this state of affairs will last and how many financial supplements will be created.

The RealityTVPresident seemed hell bent on modelling anti-hygienic practices during his make-up press conference in the Rose Garden. He shook hands with the 15 people packed shoulder to shoulder behind him; he caressed the microphone where others subsequently spoke, keeping in mind that he often spits when he speaks; there was no hand sanitizer in sight. The president touched his face as did others in the group. At least, no one seemed to be coughing. “These are all the things that the public should avoid” would have been a great banner crawling across the screen. It speaks to the lackadaisical concern with which the president seems to be taking the whole affair. 

His message was the puffery of theater. He declared a state of emergency so that he’ll have billions of dollars at his disposal to deal with the crisis in the usual way he greases corporate palms. He’s talking to private industry to expand testing and big pharma. Slyly, he indicated he hasn’t gotten what he wants out of Pelosi to pass an economic relief package and negotiations would continue. Of course, Pelosi has the votes for whatever she wants, so she doesn’t have to play ball except for her desire to have a bipartisan.

45 did mention that the problem with testing was NOT HIS FAULT. He’s not a buck stops here kind of guy. He has previously shifted the blame for his halting response somehow to Barack. Who else; it always scores well with the base and Trump/FoxNews pundits. In an administration consumed with dismantling federal regulations, certainly they would have scanned the FDA for potential obstacles as covid19 ravaged China. And yet, when confronted with a question about dismantling the Obama’s Office of Global Pandemic Response from the NSC, Trump denied that he knew anything about it. The chief executive who claims to control every action of his subordinates, he lamely referred questions to John Bolton. Perhaps it’s detailed in that book he can’t publish, at least until Trump is out of office.

Governors, state and local health departments have jumped into the breach. The state to state approach punishes those who live in conservative penny pinching states who favor handouts to businesses over the suffering of individuals. They have systematically underfunded public health resources for years.

We have to be thankful that governors, state and local health departments have jumped into the breach. They’ve shut down events and schools. They’ve contracted with labs to do their own drive thru covid19 testing; New York is selling its own hand sanitizer, albeit made with prison labor. By-in-large, public health has been underfunded for some time and states will need federal relief for their expenditures when the government dropped the ball. They will also need some economic support for lost revenues from business struggling with social distancing. The problem with a primarily state to state approach is that it punishes those who live in conservative penny pinching states who have little empathy for the suffering of individuals. They’re more sympathetic to hand-outs for businesses. The disparities in infection and death rates between states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare and those who didn’t would make an interesting study when the epidemic resolves.   

In sum, the Dow Jones is down into bear market territory, professional and college sports have been cancelled, the cruise industry is on hiatus, Broadway lights went dark and all the associated food and service industry workers are winding down to closure. Colleges and schools are closing, concerts, theater and any large gatherings are being canceled or audiences themselves are asking for ticket refunds and not attending. All of the effective public health interventions have come from the state and local officials or private businesses. 

The US service economy is grinding to a halt for who knows how long. Covid19 testing is still woefully inadequate, unavailable to most. Even as the administration continues to claim more kits are available, local and state officials complain that reagents are missing or the tests are not all functional. For now, the CDC, state labs and the government have made the number of tests unknowable. But we know that even Iran and Vietnam are testing more regularly than the US. These facts in addition to the slowdown in the global economy and the lag in resumption of Chinese production are good reasons for Wall Street to be tanking.

 All but the most devoted Trumpophants can see that not only is the PiedPiperPresident lying, he clearly has no idea what’s happening or what to do. Good thing he has Pence to blame when it comes crashing down. But life will become more uncomfortable; as production and distribution slows, shortages will last longer. Hopefully the first run of hoarders will stay home to give others a chance. Why so much toilet paper? If 45 is lucky, the vagaries of covid19 will not totally disrupt life in the US for longer than the 5 months it has taken China through dragonian measures to control the disease. That will give El Presidente the fall to convince his MAWA Nation that he should remain on his throne even though he doesn’t have the nation’s interests at heart and has no commitment to protect it.

March 16, 1995 Mississippi legislature finally ratifies the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery 130 years after it rejected it in 1865.

National Intelligence with a Partisan Scope

/ oleblacklady / Leave a comment
Spy drawing

The country’s national intelligence apparatus is our eyes and ears in the country and the world. It is the bulwark of protection for our citizens and institutions.  When it fails, things like 9/11 happen. When it has opted out of investigating the threat from white supremacist, shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Chabad of Poway synagogue in California and the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin happen. At the same time, there are numerous examples of how it has erred in the past, harassing private citizens like Martin Luther King and legitimate organizations like Anti-Vietnam War and civil rights groups under J. Edgar Hoover. Post 9/11, the NSA has illegally violated the privacy of citizens, both domestically and abroad.

45 has set a course to return to intelligence through a partisan political scope similar to the Bush era which pushed us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least then the real intelligence was gathered; it was simply massaged into a false picture that served a political purpose but did not represent reality. In fact, that reimagining has continued throughout the war years, with the Defense Department telling the nation that we were on the threshold of winning the war. They posited that they just needed to add a little more of this or that and victory would come. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 In his quest to do everything bigger and with more evil flare, Agent Orange is digging into the intelligence agencies to root out the “deep state” which in his mind is anyone who is disloyal to his conspiracy infected vision of the world. He began by relentlessly attacking the agencies’ personnel in the most personal ways, even before he was inaugurated, driving out some of the most dedicated public servants in the federal government. Once the Mueller investigation was underway, he tirelessly attacked the agency leadership as well, having unleashed his Trump/FoxNews mastiffs to chomp on them from all sides, percolating up complex conspiracy theories to make 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon like links from any one name to every other one. 

His objective is to blind the intelligence agencies to the reality that lies outside his own house of cards. The movie, The Report (2019) illustrates how the interpretation of information informs the pursuit of sources as well as the questions asked. CIA/NSA agents were afraid to unearth facts about the enhanced interrogation techniques of the Bush era, even though they constituted torture, illegal under international treaties on the conduct of war. 

Trump has over the years added layer upon layer to his shield, now much like the original diving suits topped by an airtight soundproof metal helmet that he frequently uses to bury his head in the sand. The ideas in his head date from the 80s, made increasingly more rigid as the world changed around him. The minute something intrudes on his radar, he quickly pops his head under the ocean floor and dials up his Trump/FoxNews oxygen supply to explain what’s really happening in a language he can understand. Post-Impeachment, everything is a Democratic Party plot, like the intelligence report of continuing Russian interference in our elections and the covid-19 virus epidemic itself.

And now, when 45 thinks that Democratic tendrils have extended beyond the intelligence agencies and federal bureaucracy into the White House, even somehow turning his own partisan political appointees into turncoats, he’s determined to cut those bits out. Beyond Bill Barr’s Justice Department investigations into past investigations, a new thing on the horizon is the creation of his own federal hiring apparatus. According to Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, for over a year, a small group of extremely conservative Republican Trumpophants, headed by Mrs. Justice Clarence Thomas, Jenny, has been meeting weekly to discuss a hitlist of those that must go and another list of new hires. Competence is optional; supreme loyalty to Donald the King is the only qualification. 

Trump has hired a new US Director of Presidential Personnel whose mandate is to pick political appointees across the government. Actually, Johnny McEntee is a rebounder from earlier in the administration when he served as Trump’s bodyguard/personal assistant. He was summarily escorted out of the White House for unknown security issues, at the prompting of John Kelly. McEntee’s charge is to get rid of the traitors in the White House and the executive branch. He has added a new assistant, a 23 year old senior at George Washington University. Neither the 29 year old director or his assistant has any training or experience in human resources. Agent Orange is snugging up his cocoon ever tighter. 

Now that the intelligence agencies are being equipped with partisan blinders, very real threats to our national security are blooming. Even as Pompeo is touting the ceasefire in Afghanistan as the first step to peace and American troop withdrawal, how will we know what is actually happening with partisan intelligence? While an actual end to the war in Afghanistan is a laudatory accomplishment, this is Campaign Trump Productions Inc, scripted to make it look like troop withdrawal is 45’s next accomplishment, no matter what the situation on the ground is. It’s the Bush playbook all over again, this time for exit instead of entry. 

The prospect of Manchurian candidate minded intelligence gathering is frightening. Think about the fruits of Giuliani’s hanky panky in Ukraine in the absence of objective intelligence gathering; the public would know much less about the corrupt politics of the Trump administration. Giuliani continues and the new partisan intelligence agencies may stop investigating outside of their conspiracy theories, just as the Justice Department is doing. The future could bring ignoring evidence and turning a blind eye to Russian active measures across the world in an effort to chime in on the Putin narrative that Russia is a friend who deserves to return to global counsels of power.  

The threat to national security from corrupted intelligence intersects with the global covid-19 epidemic. Biased intelligence gathering not only strips the country of a conduit to evaluate the extent and impact of the disease, the current administration lacks the scientific personnel to understand the implications and construct a defense here at home. For instance, Iran is a disease hot spot; Turkey’s Erdogan has unleashed a flood of new Syrian refugees on Europe to blackmail them into supporting his war against Assad’s alliance. Spread of covid-19 to this group will be deadly and potentially devastating for control of spread in Europe. Our intelligence resources in the region have already been compromised.

The epidemic has implications for military readiness, as troops and their families in South Korea, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East are at risk. And unvarnished information about these events, not the mantra “we’re doing great” is critical to prevention and preparedness.

The MAWAPresident has made it clear that he cares little about the epidemic outside our borders. His continued emphasis on his early closure of traffic from China is anti-immigrant campaign spin for Trumpophants even as it was ineffective in preventing covid-19 infections here. And his misguided America First demand to transfer Americans from the quarantined cruise ship in Japan may have hastened community spread of disease domestically.  

This closed world view is also apparent in 45’s refusal to assist other national or international efforts, except interestingly enough Iran. It goes without saying that international cooperation is the best way to tackle a virus that respects no borders. But in another politically honed move, 45 demonstrated his humanitarian side in what Pompeo has termed support of the Iranian people as opposed to the authoritarian government that is oppressing them. Of course the US imposed sanctions are the major reason why the death toll in Iran is so high. They lack facilities and the needed medical equipment and supplies to treat disease victims. At the same time, Pompeo knew it was an empty gesture. Iranian hardliners would never allow US agents of any kind into their country awash as they are in the paranoia of US desired regime change. Of course they refused and the propaganda coup only cost a tweet or two. 

The  US response has been handicapped by the fact that this administration dismantled the Office of Global Health in the National Security Center which coordinated the emergency response infrastructure from the national security level on down. This infrastructure included offices around the world who brought American expertise to those countries to interrupt the spread of a disease before it reached the US, the most effective way to prevent an epidemic from becoming a pandemic. The center was developed under the Obama administration to respond to Ebola, so it had to go in the Trump obsession to obliterate Barack from government. It has also thinned out CDC personnel through its anti-scientific approach to public health which drove long time professionals to more friendly environments. It has tried to cut budgets at the CDC, NIH and HHS which Congress has resisted; both the CDC and NIH will be instrumental in developing a vaccine. When questioned by the press about this, Agent Orange responded with the ridiculous assertion that he could just hire these doctors back as if there is all the time in the world and they haven’t moved on to other organizations. The time is now; every day delayed is a day lost.

45 displayed all of his flaws in his covid-19 press conference. He focused on the stock market as a campaign tool rather than a concern for the health of the nation. ‘Everything is alright, trust me, because we are taking care of everything’ was his major pitch, as if this message is different from every other falsehood out of his mouth. To ask the stock market to trust him is to thrust uncertainty, the major investor destabilizer, into the forefront. 

In part, his tenuous grasp on the processes involved in mounting a response to a major infectious disease epidemic has created faux facts in his mind. And then there is his belief that the wave of disease will disappear in the spring, similar to the flu. There is no real basis to believe that except that all epidemics come to an end at some point. But the Spanish Flu pandemic throws up a big red flag here; infections did wane in the spring and summer of 1917, but the virus roared back with a vengeance in the fall to continue globally for almost another two years.

As is always the RealityTVPresident’s first move, control over the messaging was quick and deadly. After Dr Anthony Fauci delivered a less optimistic picture about the coronavirus in a new conference with the president, the administration has banned any statement from any public health authority without clearance from Mike Pence, his newly appointed coronavirus czar. Pence, of course, a noted scientist, has extensive experience in public health. Oh wait, he’s a political hack whose experience, clouded by religious zealotry, resulted in the worst HIV epidemic in Indiana. He must believe he’s acquired some immunity from God since he met with a child who has covid-19. He could be spreading it among administration officials, CPAC where he spoke after being appointed czar and even Agent Orange himself.

In that regard, I have to extend kudos to the former CDC Director, Thomas Frieden, who proved himself quite the politician when he was questioned about Pence’s leadership qualifications by Christiane Amanpour. He disclosed that he advised Pence to begin clean needle exchanges to stop the HIV epidemic and Pence followed his advice. Of course, he failed to mention that the governor resisted and delayed beginning the program which cost many people their health. Frieden understands all too well how to keep his voice from censure. 

45’s messaging is clear. His primary concern is optics. He needs to buoy Wall Street going into the election, his indicator of economic health. But because he’s a pathological liar unable to distinguish truth from fantasy, there’s no reason to believe anything coming out of his mouth. His faithful flock do and for that 40% of the population, we can only hope their refusal to take precautions will not end in a higher infection and casualty rate than those who heed the preventative actions recommended by the CDC. A MAGA hat is no defense against viral infection. Unfortunately covid-19 is so contagious that their inaction will put everyone at risk. 

Of course, the actual economy will be impacted by both international and domestic factors. Because the US is primarily a service economy that runs on consumerism, the impact of the epidemic on consumer spending across the board can’t help but dampen the economy, even beyond the impact of the virus on Chinese production and international supply chains. The hand sanitizer and surgical mask industry are doing great; airlines and the travel industry not so much.

Trump/FoxNews and sycophants like Medal of Freedom Rush Limbaugh immediately politized the epidemic by downplaying the threat and accusing Democrats of hyping anti-Trumpism in hopes of worsening the epidemic. The junior Donald said flat out that Democrats want people to die from covid-19. The irony here is the usual conservative projection that accuses Democrats of politicizing an issue when they began with name calling and false attribution. With Pence in charge, we can look for the CDC information to be spoiled, polluted by partisan hands. This can compromise state and local efforts to combat the spread of the disease.

If we escape the potentially major catastrophic impact of this epidemic, it will be luck from the vagaries of the virus itself, not from Americans’ best nature or leadership from the White House.

This is a narrative reminiscent of the Flu pandemic of 1917, which extended to 1919. Where government and public health officials refused to cancel war bond rallies, military parades, sports events, etc the virus spread rapidly through whole cities. During the pandemic, there were bodies lying in the streets of Philadelphia, mass graves were dug as coffins ran out, whole households were wiped out. As the first case of community spread has been reported in California, the keep-Trump-in-office approach will be reluctant to enforce quarantines and eliminate public gatherings–imagine a MAWA rally being cancelled!  Still, as a cowardly germaphobe, he is unlikely to put his life on the line to demonstrate he’s on top of the pandemic. It’s hard to know if he understands that he could be at risk.

The MAWAPresident’s America First focus motivates his belief that the country can escape harm by rolling up into a little ball like a pill bug. In that, he has been completely misled. In this completely integrated world today, there is no magic sphere to enclose a territory. We have our first reported case of community disease spread as a result. Despite warnings not to retrieve passengers from the quarantined cruise ship off Japan, a drastic mistake in and of itself, the BullyPresident insisted on bringing them to military installations, one of which is in California. As reported on MSNBC, a whistleblower has filed a complaint that personnel were sent to settle the passengers without instructions in proper isolation techniques or protective gear. This includes airline personnel. It is believed that the first community acquired case is someone exposed to someone exposed in this operation. The picture is further complicated by a delay in diagnosis, because the person did not fit the CDC criteria for covid-19 testing. 

The CDC is struggling with a shortage of tests and labs in which to run them, another casualty of budget and personnel cuts. The initial batch was flawed but the organization announced that all states will have tests by next week. As it is, the test is only moderately accurate. This means that very few Americans have been tested, and only when they report typical symptoms or they travelled from areas with infections. Secretary Azar did his misinformation bit by lying about testing across the Sunday TV news shows. In this situation, we have no idea how prevalent infections are in this country, less than 500 people have been tested early on.  Because the virus is fairly contagious, that was only the beginning. The virus is infectious before people develop symptoms, one reason for its easy spread, so there are now over 75 cases in just a few days, clearly the tip of the iceberg that will be revealed in the coming days.

More importantly, new cases require teams of epidemiologists to ferret out contacts, chase them down and effect quarantine measures. As healthcare and other workers self-quarantine, personnel shortages will crop up in a number of areas. Of course, as communities move to shut down public interaction, this may become less of a problem except at healthcare facilities. The Daily Podcast from the NYT, presents a good summary of what is known about the virus and how people can protect themselves. 

The response so far may have advanced through a series of unintentional human errors which can be anticipated in any complicated multi-organizational undertaking. However, honest disclosure of mistakes and the corrective measures would go a long way to engender both trust and compliance with the steps to come.

Bogged down in his exclusive domestic focus, the RealityTVPresident appears to have forgotten a host of other global travellers. There are US soldiers stationed abroad who interact with their families and may have been transferred back to the states or some other locations. Airline personnel, businessmen, international conference attendees, NGO workers, students, commercial sea traffic workers, travel guides etc are only a few of the routine travelers who have probably not altered their travel schedules except as their destinations have cancelled gatherings. The covid-19 task force has not yet instituted travel restrictions, although it has issued some warnings. The airlines have actively taken the lead in this area by cancelling flights. The world watched China belatedly shut down and somehow thought it didn’t have to be equally aggressive in preventative moves until the infection was upon them. This is 1917 all over again, unimpeded by lessons learned from the mistakes of the SARS, MERS and Ebola epidemics in the not so distant past.

Still, it is important to retain perspective. Covid-19, a new virus with as yet little community immunity, primarily causes a mild disease, similar to a cold or flu. It’s basically a few days off work or out of school over 98% of the time. While 2% mortality is 20 times higher than with seasonal flu, it is far less than Ebola and MERS. Mortality statistics are soft because the prevalence of the virus is still unclear. There is no treatment or vaccine. Viruses mutate rapidly and the covid-19 of today may not be the one present in the future. We want to be as cautious about contracting it as we are about the flu, where even now, most people don’t get the vaccine; this is a good time to make a habit of basic hygienic procedures that prevent the spread of many common viruses. It is also crucial to observe self-quarantine measures after potential exposure. People who feel sick should stay home! Moreover, we must heed the warnings of public health experts, not politicians, when measures to increase social distancing, facility closures and quarantines in specific areas when asked. Despite the many sacrifices in daily life this may require, no cheating. It’s not whether any individual contracts the disease, but the potential to spread it to many others who could be more susceptible to severe disease.

In this divided country where the government’s approach is to dissemble and splinter, it is a big ask to put the interest of the whole above our individual groups. Americans, contrary to what they’d like to believe, are not better than they appear right now; this is who they’ve been for most of the nation’s history. A sudden detente between the entrenched right and left won’t happen in the face of a mild disease. If we escape the potentially major catastrophic impact of this epidemic, it will be luck from the vagaries of the virus itself, not from Americans’ best nature or leadership from the White House.

On March 2, 1807 Congress banned the importation of the enslaved beginning January 1, 1808. It failed to create a punishment for smugglers who continued to traffic in the enslaved.