September 11, 2020 6:40 AM
Morning Reads for Friday, September 11, 2020
- Never forget.
- Never forget.
- Never forget.
- The apple insanity has commenced.
- Can’t wait to see the pictures!
- Live not by lies.
- The Social Dilemma.
- Big Brother gets into the font business.
- Coming soon, to a city near you.
- If Facebook is interested, I can give them a list.
- Reality has been cancelled.
- Questionable reality. Again.
- Everybody loves baby turtles.
- Maybe 2020 MLB needs its own Bingo Card.
About Author
Ginny
Get off my lawn.
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The man just cannot tell the truth, he is totally unaware of the difference between what he thinks and reality:
“President Trump on Thursday defended his decision to mislead the public about the deadliness of the coronavirus as documented in Bob Woodward’s new book, declining to call his misstatements about the virus and its spread a “lie” and saying he needed to show “strength” in the face of the crisis.
“I want to show a level of confidence, and I want to show strength as a leader, and I want to show our country is going to be fine one way or another,” Trump said at a news conference.
“There is no lie here. What we’re doing is we’re leading,” he said, insisting that America is “rounding the final turn” of the pandemic and that the nation had done “much, much better than the European Union” in its response to the virus. The U.S. not only has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the world, but it also has a higher rate of infection than most EU member states. ”
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911608521/trump-says-his-misleading-coronavirus-comments-were-meant-to-show-strength
I feel like voters should be having nuanced discussion of this issue, particularly the premise that Leading=Ignoring/Avoiding/Misleading.
It simply wouldn’t have been difficult leadership to say, OK, we have a problem, and it could be a potentially big one, and we need to be ready to address the worst case, but we’re strong and resourceful, and we’re Americans and we can handle the truth and still be positive. So let’s go and get this done!
And then do the things that need to get done. With regular updates of facts and assurances.
I sometimes think- would this course of action have worked in my marriage? If my wife brought a concern to me, and I didn’t directly address it, or squirmed away from the tough conversations….?
It doesn’t make for an enduring and meaningful relationship.
I’m usually an optimist in life. But I have a bad feeling about this winter coming up.
The countries that used dramatic measures to control corona virus are now going back to those measures due to increases of infection rates.
The UK just made everyone wear a mask and limit gatherings to 6 people. There are fines and jail time for those breaking the rules.
Spain has a new outbreak, France closes schools due to a surge in cases, and Germany has seen a rise in cases.
Here in the US, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina have seen a rise in cases. UGA, GT, Kennesaw, and Georgia Southern all reported a dramatic rise in cases.
I’m afraid Christmas will be a disaster since the regular flu and corona virus will both be circulating.
I suggest everyone get a flu shot to at least lessen the chances of being laid low by the flu. And I recommend keeping up the mask wearing and social distancing.
It’s frustrating as heck to live like this. But it is what it is.
Maybe our strategy is working. As the WSJ reported cases are falling in the US. Cases are rising in the EU. Maybe we are getting it right. Maybe Trumps travel ban from China and then later expanded enable the US to prepare while not panicking it’s populous. Could be we might be building a herd defense. Maybe we test more than anywhere else so we have higher results.
Problem one was that there never was a coherent strategy. Maybe the travel ban helped, maybe it was a drop in a bucket because the ban was limited and never addressed what to do with anyone infected who got to use planes anyways. We then surely squandered time in securing PPE and testing supplies, and never got political support for common sense preventive measures. I feel the majority of folks are finally realizing – over six months into it- that some basic preventive measures – even if inconvenient – help out a lot.
But states were left to fend for themselves. There was a dearth of national leadership in securing and distributing supplies to hot spots and setting (and adhering) to other priorities like benchmarks for safe economic activities.
I think there may have been a herd immunity strategy at the top, but that it could never ever be discussed because that means pretty much allowing people to die. And of course because most every scientist and public health advocate disagreed that it was necessary to let people die to overcome the illness. But herd immunity is a complex construct, and we still know very little about it, and herds can be conceived as those living in a small town in rural Georgia, or the entire populace of the U.S. And we still have a ways to go before we can measure and understand immunity, or even conceive that people still won’t get sick if preventive measures aren’t taken.
But- suppose no state or the federal government did anything at all- and just let survival of the fittest take hold. Beating the projections on that is not the benchmark. The benchmark needs to be- what is the best we could have done? A “strategy” that leaves nearly 200K people dead (to date) and tens of thousands of others with long-term impairments, when a better job could have resulted in lower harm? That’s a losing strategy.
Also, it’s not about the number of raw tests taken. It’s about the rate of infection (positivity rate) that sheds light on how good you’re containing spread. And as for testing capacity, it’s about, at least, per capita testing rate.
Science is tough, man. I am not an epidemiologist, but I have studied public health data. It’s not easy to understand for anybody. That’s why what we needed most was a strategy that created national unity, and energy around taking common-sense measures, and addressing shifting community needs. I felt little unity, little community awareness, little sense of being on the same human team….
Talk about grifting the American people!
$250,000,000 could help a lot of folks instead of a Trump cronies:
“Senior House Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s awarding of a $250 million communications contract to help “defeat despair and inspire hope” over the coronavirus pandemic, as they questioned the political motivations behind the taxpayer-funded messaging campaign.
The lawmakers are also calling on the administration to halt the contract while it’s under investigation, according to a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that was shared with POLITICO.
The lawmakers also raised concerns that the contract will be overseen by Michael Caputo, a longtime GOP operative and former Trump campaign staffer who was installed as HHS’ top communications official this spring. Watchdogs have questioned Caputo’s role in shaping communications during the pandemic, and POLITICO reported this week an adviser to Caputo sought to prevent infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci from speaking on the risks of coronavirus to children. Caputo, the Democrats’ letter notes, is “not a public health professional.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/hhs-congress-coronavirus-contract-412219
It was good for Obama https://www.politico.com/story/2011/06/obama-donors-net-government-jobs-056993
“Patronage” is just part of the traditional way politics is done. Big donors or bundlers might just get that ambassadorship to Luxembourg. And as the traditional swamp would have it, those folks may also get jobs and contracts somehow… So politics is not the perfect meritocracy you say?
So I see but a little difference between patronage and a typical political appointment and this case. It just turns out that Caputo is probably 100% political in his approach to communications. But interfering with other official communications is an administrative hazard- and this administration doesn’t care. So it’s more about holding the administration accountable for factual communications and good policy implementation.
Also, I don’t know details about ethics rules, and I know there is a revolving door rule about working with the government, then being a lobbyist, but are there rules and timeframes for work between the government and campaigns? If not, perhaps there should be….