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And Donald [Sleezebag]? “I haven’t had any interaction with him yet,” Fauci says. “But in fairness, there hasn’t been a situation.”There surely will be, though. At some point, a new virus will emerge to test [Sleezebag]’s mettle. What happens then? He has no background in science or health, and has surrounded himself with little such expertise. The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, a group of leading scientists who consult on policy matters, is dormant. The Office of Science and Technology Policy, which has advised presidents on everything from epidemics to nuclear disasters since 1976, is diminished. The head of that office typically acts as the president’s chief scientific consigliere, but to date no one has been appointed.Other parts of [Sleezebag]’s administration that will prove crucial during an epidemic have operated like an Etch A Sketch. During the nine months I spent working on this story, Tom Price resigned as secretary of health and human services after using taxpayer money to fund charter flights (although his replacement, Alex Azar, is arguably better prepared, having dealt with anthrax, flu, and sars during the Bush years). Brenda Fitzgerald stepped down as CDC director after it became known that she had bought stock in tobacco companies; her replacement, Robert Redfield, has a long track record studying HIV, but relatively little public-health experience.Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, a veteran malaria fighter, was appointed to the National Security Council, in part to oversee the development of the White House’s forthcoming biosecurity strategy. When I met Ziemer at the White House in February, he hadn’t spoken with the president, but said pandemic preparedness was a priority for the administration. He left in May.Organizing a federal response to an emerging pandemic is harder than one might think. The largely successful U.S. response to Ebola in 2014 benefited from the special appointment of an “Ebola czar”—Klain—to help coordinate the many agencies that face unclear responsibilities. In 2016, when Obama asked for $1.9 billion to fight Zika, Congress devolved into partisan squabbling. Republicans wanted to keep the funds away from clinics that worked with Planned Parenthood, and Democrats opposed the restriction. It took more than seven months to appropriate $1.1 billion; by then, the CDC and NIH had been forced to divert funds meant to deal with flu, HIV, and the next Ebola.How will [Sleezebag] manage such a situation? Back in 2014, he called Obama a “psycho” for not banning flights from Ebola-afflicted countries, even though no direct flights existed, and even though health experts noted that travel restrictions hadn’t helped control sars or H1N1. Counterintuitively, flight bans increase the odds that outbreaks will spread by driving fearful patients underground, forcing them to seek alternative and even illegal transport routes. They also discourage health workers from helping to contain foreign outbreaks, for fear that they’ll be denied reentry into their home country. [Sleezebag] clearly felt that such Americans should be denied reentry. “KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” he tweeted, before questioning the evidence that Ebola is not as contagious as is commonly believed.[Sleezebag] called Obama “dumb” for deploying the military to countries suffering from the Ebola outbreak, and he now commands that same military. His dislike of outsiders and disdain for diplomacy could lead him to spurn the cooperative, outward-facing strategies that work best to contain emergent pandemics.Perhaps the two most important things a leader can personally provide in the midst of an epidemic are reliable information and a unifying spirit. In the absence of strong countermeasures, severe outbreaks tear communities apart, forcing people to fear their neighbors; the longest-lasting damage can be psychosocial. [Sleezebag]’s tendency to tweet rashly, delegitimize legitimate sources of information, and readily buy into conspiracy theories could be disastrous.
They certainly wouldn't have gone along with anything Hillary said to do, after three years butting heads with her.
QuoteThey certainly wouldn't have gone along with anything Hillary said to do, after three years butting heads with her.Is it a bad thing when idiots kill themselves off? Isn't that at the heart of Darwinian thinking?
Since you're arguing that idiocy is heritable
is it a bad thing when people with, say, cystic fibrosis die off?
QuoteSince you're arguing that idiocy is heritableAm I?
Also, leaving aside morality, the disease does seem to strike densely populated urban areas, eg New York, ie Blue Zone. Red areas are less affected by the disease, but more likely to fret about economic downturn since many of them were marginal already. I live in Bay County, FL; we've been shaky since the hurricane in 10/18, but there have been all of three coronavirus deaths. Just for context.
I would take 441 to Ocala, 27 to Alt 27 to Chiefland, US 98 to Newport and the Wildlife area, FL 267 to FL 20 to Niceville and down into Eglin...
Eh, Amash is out anyway. Well, I can save the bother of registering, so that's something. I'm just going to avoid saying who I like from now on, it's clearly cursed.
Uno could probably make you deader...
