Patterico's Pontifications

9/30/2022

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:12 am



[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Amplifying the outraged voice of freedom fighters in Iran:

After President Raisi condemned the West at the United Nations General Assembly last week, President Biden offered a brief and weak comment about the protests taking place in Iran:

“Today we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”

And yet, although President Biden said that we stand with the Iranian protesters, the State Department extended entry visas to the Iranian president, and at least one Iranian guard member to enter the U.S.

One way for the U.S. to keep attention fixed on the protests is to amplify the voices of the protesters:

The challenge for Biden is to help the protesters without allowing the regime to portray them as American stooges. The most useful thing the US can do is amplify the voices of the protesters and help them evade the regime’s blackouts, the better to communicate with each other and coordinate their protests.

Suggestions include allowing satellite equipment to be sent to Iran while lifting international sanctions. Also this:

[T]he State Department should also use every opportunity to draw attention to the protests and encourage American allies to do likewise. Every statement relating to the negotiations over the revival of the Iran nuclear deal should be accompanied with a strong reiteration of solidarity with the protesters and an equally forceful denunciation of the crackdown.

Finally, the White House must become more involved:

[T]he White House should make it clear that any Iranian official linked to abuses against protesters will be subject to sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. Here, too, the Biden administration has made a good start, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing sanctions against the “morality police.”

Meanwhile, while it’s difficult to get an accurate count of protesters killed and arrested, an estimated 83 protesters have been killed by security forces, and a reported 3,000 protesters are currently detained.

Iranian-in-exile, human rights worker and journalist Masih Alinejad, who currently lives in an FBI safehouse after several recent kidnapping plots with the goal of taking her back to Iran to face consequences were uncovered by the FBI, addressed politicians in the West for appealing to the Iranian government on behalf of protesters:

Second news item

A humiliated President Putin announces annexation:

Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the biggest annexation of territory in postwar Europe on Friday, claiming control over swaths of Ukraine in defiance of international law and in spite of his forces facing another significant battlefield setback.

The Russian leader repeated his threat of nuclear war, suggesting he would be prepared to use his vast arsenal to defend the four partially occupied regions of his neighbor’s south and east. It was a dramatic escalation in the seven-month conflict, which has seen Putin respond to heavy losses by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists while intensifying his confrontation with the West.

Heh:

The ceremony at the Kremlin came hours after shelling killed 25 people in Ukraine’s southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

“I want to say this to the Kyiv regime and its masters in the West: People living in Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens forever,” Putin said.

Immediately after Putin’s announcement, President Biden slapped new sanctions on Russia, which include:

Department of Treasury sanctioned 14 international suppliers for supporting Russia’s military supply chains. Treasury is also sanctioning 278 members of Russia’s legislature for enabling Russia’s attempt at annexation. The State Department is imposing visa restrictions on Russian national Ochur-Suge Mongush for torturing a Ukrainian prisoner of war. The Department of State is also imposing visa restrictions on another 910 individuals, including members of the Russian military, Belarusian military officials and proxies acting in Russia-held portions of Ukraine. The Department of Commerce is also adding 57 entities to the Entity List for violating U.S. export controls.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky announced that Ukraine has signed and submitted a hoped-for fast-tracked application to NATO, and said that “Ukraine will not hold any negotiations with Russia as long as Putin is the president of the Russian Federation. We will negotiate with the new president”.

Alexander Baunov provides an interesting analysis of Putin’s speech today:

Putin’s speech on the occasion of the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia was a rather tedious enumeration of myths and legends about an ancient and imaginary West. But there were three aspects worthy of attention from a practical point of view.

“The Nord Stream gas pipelines were blown up by the USA.” The practical consequences are that Russia is now “entitled” to respond in kind, Russia is not responsible for stopping energy supplies to Europe, & Gazprom may not have to pay for missed deliveries.

The appeal to Ukraine to immediately cease hostilities, withdraw its troops from the new “Russian” territories and sit down at the negotiating table.

Since all four annexed regions are only partially controlled by Russian troops, this is an announcement that conventional warfare will continue unless the Russian ultimatum is followed. The same ultimatum was issued on the eve of Russia’s invasion in February.

“The US, without any military necessity, dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ‘set a precedent, by the way.’”

Guess who the precedent is for? The implication is that Russia is better than the US, it won’t drop atomic bombs without military necessity—but what if such a need arises? It’s practically an announcement of things to come.

This says it all:

And finally, here is the NATO Secretary of General making it very clear that the four illegally annexed regions and Crimea are all Ukraine, as well as pledging NATO support:

Third news item

It’s unclear why they did this??:

At the center of the change are borrowers who took out federal student loans many years ago, both Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans. FFEL loans, issued and managed by private banks but guaranteed by the federal government, were once the mainstay of the federal student loan program until the FFEL program ended in 2010.

Today, according to federal data, more than 4 million borrowers still have commercially-held FFEL loans. Until Thursday, the department’s own website advised these borrowers that they could consolidate these loans into federal Direct Loans and thereby qualify for relief under Biden’s debt cancellation program.

On Thursday, though, the department quietly changed that language. The guidance now says, “As of Sept. 29, 2022, borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans.”

It’s a real puzzle… Progressive lawmakers were caught off guard and not happy with the announcement.

Fourth news item

Ginni Thomas told the Jan. 6 Committee that she believes the 2020 election was stolen, but also said that she didn’t discuss it with her husband:

“Regarding the 2020 election, I did not speak with him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities,” Thomas said under oath in her opening statement obtained by CNN. “And I did not speak with him at all about the details of my post-election activities, which were minimal, in any event. I am certain I never spoke with him about any of the legal challenges to the 2020 election, as I was not involved with those challenges in any way.”

Fifth news item

Unimagineable:

Fort Myers Beach, which sits on a 7-mile-long island along the Gulf of Mexico, saw “total devastation, catastrophic,” Fort Myers Beach Town Councilman Dan Allers said Friday. “Those are words that come to mind when you see what you see.”

He also said that pictures show the damage but don’t “show the magnitude of exactly what it is.”

“I’d say 90% of the island is pretty much gone,” Allers said. “Unless you have a high-rise condo or a newer concrete home that is built to the same standards today, your house is pretty much gone.”

Allers told CNN that many people in the town struggled to get to higher ground amid the storm surge.

“I’ve heard stories of people getting in freezers and floating the freezers to another home… and being rescued by higher homes,” Allers said.

Sixth news item

Apple exec keeps it classy:

One of Apple’s top executives is leaving the tech giant after he was filmed making a crass joke about how he “fondles big-breasted women” for a living. Tony Blevins, Apple’s vice president of procurement, made the *wacky comment when he was approached by Daniel Mac, a creator whose shtick is asking people in luxury vehicles how they make their money. “I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women,” Blevins said in the video as he got out of his Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. “But I take weekends and holidays off. Also, if you’re interested, I got a hell of a dental plan.”

Seventh news item

Navalny opines on the war and the end game in a strongly worded and insight op-ed. Read the whole thing!:

What does a desirable and realistic end to the criminal war unleashed by Vladimir Putin against Ukrainelook like?

If we examine the primary things said by Western leaders on this score, the bottom line remains: Russia (Putin) must not win this war. Ukraine must remain an independent democratic state capable of defending itself.

This is correct, but it is a tactic. The strategy should be to ensure that Russia and its government naturally, without coercion, do not want to start wars and do not find them attractive. This is undoubtedly possible. Right now the urge for aggression is coming from a minority in Russian society.

[…]

In my opinion, the problem with the West’s current tactics lies not just in the vagueness of their aim, but in the fact that they ignore the question: What does Russia look like after the tactical goals have been achieved? Even if success is achieved, where is the guarantee that the world will not find itself confronting an even more aggressive regime, tormented by resentment and imperial ideas that have little to do with reality? With a sanctions-stricken but still big economy in a state of permanent military mobilization? And with nuclear weapons that guarantee impunity for all manner of international provocations and adventures?

[…]

War is a relentless stream of crucial, urgent decisions influenced by constantly shifting factors. Therefore, while I commend European leaders for their ongoing success in supporting Ukraine, I urge them not to lose sight of the fundamental causes of war. The threat to peace and stability in Europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism, endlessly inflicted by Russia upon itself. Postwar Russia, like post-Putin Russia, will be doomed to become belligerent and Putinist again. This is inevitable as long as the current form of the country’s development is maintained. Only a parliamentary republic can prevent this. It is the first step toward transforming Russia into a good neighbor that helps to solve problems rather than create them.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

10/8/2021

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 3:45 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Here we go!

First news item

Putz:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) withheld support for a joint statement condemning last weekend’s protests against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) because it also wouldn’t include a rebuke of her political views, Axios has learned.

I assumed that there was a consensus that public restrooms were a no-go for harassing politicians. Instead I’m told that being harassed in a public restroom is just “part of the process”. Anyway, I look forward to seeing even more Democrats confront and call out their heathen colleagues in public restrooms.

Silly putz:

The Vermont independent on Friday shot down the idea of negotiating with Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona face-to-face, telling reporters on Capitol Hill,”It’s not a movie. I don’t know if you are a movie writer. This is not a movie.”

He labeled Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona as a pair of obstructionists holding up the bulk of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.

“My criticism of Senators Manchin and Sinema is not their views, but my strong criticism is when the American people, President and 90% of your colleagues want to go forward, it is wrong to obstruct,” he added, per the Associated Press’s Farnoush Amiri…

Two people do not have the right to sabotage what 48 want, what the president of the United States wants. That, to me, is wrong,” Sanders said, echoing Biden’s remarks from earlier in the week.

How silly is Bernie’s argument? This silly:

[T]his tweet conveniently leaves out the 50 Republican senators. Followed to its conclusion, this would suggest that 52 senators should not be able to block what a minority of 48 senators want.

Second news item

Too bad, so sad:

The White House on Friday formally blocked an attempt by former President Donald Trump to withhold documents from Congress related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, setting up a legal showdown between the current and former presidents over executive privilege.

In a letter to the National Archives obtained by NBC News, White House Counsel Dana Remus rejected an attempt by Trump’s attorneys to withhold documents requested by the House Select Committee regarding the then-president’s activities on Jan. 6, writing that “President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents.”

Third news item

Inevitable:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan Friday to phase out the gifted and talented programs for elementary school students that many educators say discriminate against Black and Hispanic children enrolled in the nation’s largest public school system.

It will be replaced by a program called “Brilliant NYC” that will expand the pool of students being offered accelerated learning, and not limit it to just the incoming kindergarteners who scored well on an optional exam that put them on a path to attend the city’s elite middle schools and high schools.

“The era of judging 4-year-olds based on a single test is over,” de Blasio said in a statement. “Brilliant NYC will deliver accelerated instruction for tens of thousands of children, as opposed to a select few. Every New York City child deserves to reach their full potential, and this new, equitable model gives them that chance.”

Fourth news item

Turning a blind eye to abuse:

From gassing sleeping towns and bombing hospitals, schools, and bakeries to employing yearslong starvation sieges and using crematoriums to conceal the mass murder of prison populations, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has spared nothing in its brutal pursuit of survival over the past decade.

When men, women, and children took to the streets in the spring of 2011 to call for political reform—many holding roses in the air to represent peace—Assad labeled them “germs.” Ten years later, at least half a million Syrians are dead, 100,000 more individuals have disappeared, and more than half the population remains displaced. More prosecutable evidence of war crimes has amassed against Assad’s regime than against the Nazis at Nuremberg…

Indeed, the world seems to be gradually accepting Assad back into the global community—and thereby helping to normalize the atrocities his regime has committed…

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has also adopted a largely hands-off approach to Syria. And although the Biden administration itself may not be welcoming Assad back into the fold with open arms, it has clearly left open the door for others to do so—shattering international norms and rewarding the 21st century’s most notorious war criminal with a rebirth. One official, speaking anonymously, even admitted the Biden administration will not act to prevent or reverse U.S. allies reengaging with and normalizing Assad’s regime.

Fifth news item

Ah, I see:

Having made a thorough case that Trump’s tariffs had failed, Tai might have been expected to say that President Joe Biden’s administration is therefore junking them and trying something new. The fact that she neither did that nor explained why the tariffs are staying suggests that its inaction stems from considerations of domestic politics rather than of foreign or economic policy. Unions that support Biden have also supported the tariffs. In the end, the president would rather avoid giving Republicans another rationale for saying that he is soft on China.

The price of not looking soft, unfortunately, is to continue to inflict damage on the U.S. economy in return for nothing.

Sixth news item

Executive privilege held by a *former* president?

Steve Bannon will not cooperate with the House select committee investigating January 6, his lawyer said in an email obtained by CNN that cites former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege. Bannon’s attorney told the committee that “the executive privileges belong to President Trump” and “we must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege.” The letter from Bannon’s legal team goes on to say it may be up to the courts to decide whether he is ultimately forced to cooperate — essentially daring the House to sue or hold him in criminal contempt. “As such, until these issues are resolved, we are unable to respond to your request for documents and testimony,” wrote the lawyer, Robert Costello.

“Consider”???

“Though the Select Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral,” Thompson and Cheney said.

Seventh news item

Ouch:

The U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs in September, after economists predicted employers would hire roughly 500,000 new workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

This month is the second in a row in which job growth fell short of expectations, with the U.S. adding 366,000 jobs in August despite economists’ predictions of 728,000 new jobs.

There are currently 5 million fewer people on payrolls than there were in February 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic forced shutdowns of businesses across the country, according to the Bureau. The shortage of workers coincides with high numbers of job openings, with almost 11 million job openings towards the end of July this year.

So, Covid money is running out, eviction moratoriums are decreasing, and with this negative report out, one wonders exactly what are Americans living on? This, as businesses are desperate for employees (see: Help Wanted signs everywhere).

Smart comment from JVW as we discussed this subject this morning: Economists expected 500,000 hires last month and we got fewer than 200,000. How long before the Biden Team tells us that *next* summer will be “recovery summer”??

Eighth news item

Pushing back against cancel culture:

“If this is what being canceled is like, I love it,” the 48-year-old [Dave Chappelle] said in response to a standing ovation. The line, and many more like it, was greeted by rapturous applause from the crowd… At another point, he was more blunt: “Fuck Twitter. Fuck NBC News, ABC News, all these stupid ass networks. I’m not talking to them. I’m talking to you. This is real life.”

But that is precisely what the LGBTQ community, and in particular trans women, have objected to after Chappelle used their real lives, bodies and gender identity as punchlines in The Closer. “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact,” he says in the special, his last of a string of Netflix specials

Also inevitable:

California students will soon be required to take ethnic studies to graduate high school.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 101 into law on Friday afternoon, requiring California high school students to take ethnic studies to graduate, starting with the class of 2030. Educators and recent studies attest to the benefits of students learning the histories and cultures of marginalized communities, but a few parents still worry the requirement could create more tensions between students.

Criticism of the requirement:

The editorial board at the Los Angeles Times opposed the bill because it provides too much flexibility for local districts to design their own curricula that could deviate from the state’s own model curriculum. Thousands from California’s Jewish community signed a petition opposing the bill because it would allow districts to use a previous draft of the model curriculum that has been criticized for containing anti-Semitic content.

Victoria Samper, a parent volunteer for Latinx for Quality Education, said she and her organization opposed the requirement because, she said, these conversations about oppression cultivates a “victim mentality” for students. Samper said ethnic studies should focus primarily on the historical figures who overcame adversity.

Have a nice weekend.

–Dana

7/18/2020

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:46 am



[guest post by Dana]

This week’s open thread is bookended by heroes. Feel free to share any news items in the comments. Please make sure to include links.

First news item

The sad loss of some “good trouble”:

Two towering figures of the American civil rights movement died Friday, a major loss for a nation still grappling with protests and demands for racial equality decades later.

John Robert Lewis died at age 80 after a battle with cancer. Rev. Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian died at age 95 of natural causes.

Both men were the epitome of “good trouble” — Lewis’ favorite saying and approach to confronting injustices guided by his belief in nonviolence. They worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the forefront of the historic struggle for racial justices in the 1960s.

Barack Obama on John Lewis:

John Lewis — one of the original Freedom Riders, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the people of Georgia for 33 years — not only assumed that responsibility, he made it his life’s work. He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example…In so many ways, John’s life was exceptional. But he never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country might do. He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, a longing to do what’s right, a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect.

A beautiful obituary here.

Rest in peace.

Second news item

Asking the question: What are Federal law enforcement officers doing in Portland?

By all appearances, there are now at least 100 federal law enforcement officers on the ground in Portland. But media reports suggest that many of those officers (a) are not wearing identifiable uniforms or other insignia, (b) are not driving marked law enforcement vehicles, and (c) are not identifying themselves either publicly or even to those whom they have detained and arrested. Making matters worse, local authorities—from the mayor to the sheriff to the governor—have repeatedly insisted not only that they don’t want federal assistance but that the federal response is aggravating the situation on the ground. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, in contrast, has repeatedly taken to Twitter to claim that local authorities are refusing to restore order—albeit with only vague references to which federal laws are not being enforced (and repeated allusions to “graffiti” and other property damage by “violent anarchists”).

In all of these respects, what’s happening in Portland appears to be a reprise of much of what happened in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of June, when Attorney General William Barr called upon a wide array of statutory authorities to commandeer hundreds of federal law enforcement officers in order to “restore order” in the nation’s capital. At the time, many who both criticized and defended Barr’s actions pointed to the federal government’s unique legal authority over the District of Columbia—implying (whether as a feature or a bug) that the same authorities wouldn’t be available, at least to the same extent, in the 50 states. But if nothing else, the events in Portland appear to underscore that the federal government sees no such distinction—and that it believes it has the power to similarly deploy federal law enforcement authorities across the country, even (if not especially) over the objections of the relevant local and state officials.

Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, interviewed on NPR:

CUCCINELLI: Well, I can’t speak to this specific instance, but the federal courthouse there is protected by Federal Protective Services, who are being supported by both CBP and ICE officers and – because of the violence there and the graffiti. I’m sure you’ve seen all of that. And they are attempting to make arrests. They are attempting to identify violent rioters and to then pick them up, arrest them and go and have them prosecuted federally.

MCCAMMON: Are you saying this has only happened once?

CUCCINELLI: The offenses there are federal.

MCCAMMON: Are you saying this has only happened once?

CUCCINELLI: I’m not speaking to the number of times it has happened. I’m telling you what they’re doing in terms of a process. And I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks. We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere. And if we have a question about somebody’s identity – like the first example I noted to you – after questioning determine it isn’t someone of interest, then they get released. And that’s standard law enforcement procedure, and it’s going to continue as long as the violence continues.

Related: Attorney General Rosenblum Files Lawsuit Against Homeland Security

Third news item

Waiting for it to disappear on its own, I guess:

President Trump says he will not issue a national mandate requiring Americans to wear masks in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“I want people to have a certain freedom and I don’t believe in that, no,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace that will air in full on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump also seemed to express skepticism about the efficacy of masks, noting that public health officials initially said that facial coverings were not necessary for healthy individuals, before later adding that he is a “believer in masks.”

“I don’t agree with the statement that if everyone wore a mask, everything disappears,” Trump said, referring to Wallace’s mention of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying that the country could get the virus under control in four to six weeks if everyone wore a mask.

Don’t bug me, I’ve got stuff to do:

Trump in recent weeks has been committing less of his time and energy to managing the pandemic, according to advisers, and has only occasionally spoken in detail about the topic in his public appearances. One of these advisers said the president is “not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be distracted by it. He’s not calling and asking about data. He’s not worried about cases.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews countered in a statement: “President Trump has always acted on the recommendations of his top public health experts throughout this crisis as evidenced by the many bold, data-driven decisions he has made to save millions of lives. Any suggestion that the President is not working around the clock to protect the health and safety of all Americans, lead the whole-of-government response to this pandemic, including expediting vaccine development and rebuilding our economy is utterly false.”

Fourth news item

Oh no:

Disturbing new revelations that permanent immunity to the coronavirus may not be possible have jeopardized vaccine development and reinforced a decision by scientists at UCSF and affiliated laboratories to focus exclusively on treatments.

Several recent studies conducted around the world indicate that the human body does not retain the antibodies that build up during infections, meaning there may be no lasting immunity to COVID-19 after people recover.

Strong antibodies are also crucial in the development of vaccines. So molecular biologists fear the only way left to control the disease may be to treat the symptoms after people are infected to prevent the most debilitating effects, including inflammation, blood clots and death.

“I just don’t see a vaccine coming anytime soon,” said Nevan Krogan, a molecular biologist and director of UCSF’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute, which works in partnership with 100 research laboratories. “People do have antibodies, but the antibodies are waning quickly.” And if antibodies diminish, “then there is a good chance the immunity from a vaccine would wane too.”

Fifth news item

The vexing problem of reopening schools:

The White House has blocked CDC officials from testifying in a House Education and Labor Committee hearing scheduled next week on reopening schools, a senior CDC official confirmed to The Daily Beast. The committee’s chair, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), had invited CDC Director Robert Redfield last week to testify on July 23 to discuss “the immediate needs of K-12 public schools to safely reopening.” But, at the direction of the White House, Redfield won’t attend.

California governor says schools in counties on COVID-19 watchlist (33/58 counties) must stay closed:

A county has to be off the state’s COVID-19 monitoring list for 14 consecutive days before schools there can reopen for in-person learning. Under the new mandate, it’s unlikely that many California districts will be able to have classroom instruction at the start of the school year.

Sixth news item

Considering Trump, conservatives, and the three likely outcomes of the presidential election:

So let’s walk through the three most likely outcomes of the presidential election and ponder the impact of those events. One can reasonably foresee a narrow Trump victory, a narrow Trump loss, and (based on present polling trends) a decisive Trump loss…Analyzing a close Trump victory is easy. It would not only decisively reaffirm the bond between Trump and the GOP, it will represent a second consecutive national political earthquake…He’ll be the man who survived a pandemic, urban unrest, impeachment, and a special counsel. He’ll stand astride the GOP like a colossus…If Trump loses narrowly, expect a viciously toxic atmosphere—with furious Trump partisans blaming enemies within and without for Trump’s loss, and opportunistic populists delicately positioning themselves to serve as better standard-bearers for the new, truly populist Republican Party…A serious Trump loss, however, leads to interesting, branching possibilities—but all against the sad (for conservatives) backdrop of progressive energy that could well surpass anything Hillary Clinton could have accomplished had she won in 2016…First, the Trump die-hards will still play the victim (“It was the pandemic!” “It was the media!”), and the smaller GOP left over after a blowout loss will hail mainly from the deepest red states and districts, so there will be an audience for Trump apologetics…

Hero:

On July 9th, my six year old nephew Bridger saved his little sister’s life by standing between her and a charging dog. After getting bit several times on the face and head, he grabbed his sister’s hand and ran with her to keep her safe. He later said, “If someone had to die, I thought it should be me.”

90 stitches later, Bridger continues to recover from the harrowing event. God bless his noble little heart.

Have a good weekend.

–Dana

6/20/2020

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:21 am



[guest post by Dana]

Here are a few news items for you to chew over. Feel free to post any that you think readers would be interested in learning about. Please make sure to include links.

First news item

Amy Klobuchar and the writing on the wall:

The white Minnesota senator, who had seen her prospects fall as racial tensions swept the nation, said she called the presumptive presidential nominee Wednesday night and made the suggestion. Biden had already committed to choosing a woman as his running mate.

“I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket,” Klobuchar said on MSNBC. “If you want to heal this nation right now — my party, yes, but our nation — this is sure a hell of a way to do it.”

Reportedly, the choice is now between Susan Rice and Kamala Harris. Elizabeth who??

Second news item

Trump promises “wild evening” at Tulsa rally tonight:

Pressed on why he wasn’t using his presidential bully pulpit to encourage rally attendees to wear masks, Trump described masks as “a double-edged sword.” When asked if he recommended people wear them, he added: “I recommend people do what they want.”

More from the interview:

The president stood by his tweet earlier Friday warning protesters that law enforcement in Tulsa will not treat them “like you have been in New York, Seattle or Minneapolis.” Trump said, “That’s got to be the least controversial of my tweets.”

“Oklahoma’s much tougher on law and order” than some parts of the country, he said, and insisted that protests are packed with anarchists, agitators and looters. “They’re all together.”

He relished the lifting of a health and safety curfew in Tulsa for his supporters and said he has no intention of wearing a mask at the rally and that people should do what they want.

“I don’t feel that I’m in danger,” he said. “I’ve met a lot, a lot of people, and so far here I sit.” (Everyone who meets with Trump, including this reporter, is tested beforehand.)

Third news item

Court says Oklahoma rally participants not required to wear masks:

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request to require everyone attending President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa this weekend to wear a face mask and maintain social distancing inside the arena…

The court ruled that the two local residents who asked that the thousands expected at Saturday night’s rally be required to take the precautions couldn’t establish that they had a clear legal right to the relief they sought. Oklahoma has had a recent spike in coronavirus cases, but in a concurring opinion, two justices noted that the state’s plan to reopen its economy is “permissive, suggestive and discretionary.”

“Therefore, for lack of any mandatory language in the (plan), we are compelled to deny the relief requested.”

Fourth news item

When what we *need* something to be transcends all else:

Linger for a moment on this: A white mayor dismissing the black resident’s explanation charging ahead with an emotionally fraught investigation against him that could result in enhanced penalties.

Fifth news item

When the horse is already out of the barn:

A District Court judge in Washington, D.C. has denied an injunction attempt by the Trump administration to stop former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s tell-all book from being sold in bookstores from June 23. In a ruling handed down Saturday morning, Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote that Bolton’s book… has already been widely distributed to news media for excerpt and 200,000 copies have been shipped across the country. The judge wrote, “given the widespread dissemination of the books, the ‘horse is already out of the barn’.”

…“Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States. He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability,” Lamberth wrote. “But these facts do not control the motion before the Court. The government has failed to establish that an injunction will prevent irreparable harm. Its motion is accordingly DENIED.”

Sixth news item

Hey, this CHAZ sure doesn’t sound like the utopia the brochure advertised:

At least two people were shot and one was killed inside Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) area early Saturday morning, and police say they are investigating despite it being in a “no-cop” zone of the city.

Videos recorded Saturday morning show volunteer medics scrambling to help the purported victims after Seattle Police Department radio dispatchers received multiple reports of three to six gunshots around 2:20 a.m. People involved in the incident were seen fleeing the scene north from 10th Avenue and East Pine street in the city’s Capitol Hill autonomous protest zone, also called CHAZ. Seattle Police abandoned the closest East Precinct building on June 8th after days of confrontations with protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

6/6/2020

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:33 am



[guest post by Dana]

Here are a few news items that caught my eye. Please feel free to post any other news items that you think might interest readers.

First news item

NYT opinion editor James Bennet says paper solicited op-ed from Tom Cotton because of his tweets:

When asked about the senator’s claim that the Times approached him to write the op-ed, Bennet admitted that the opinion page had seen Cotton’s tweets on the subject and “we did ask if he could stand up that argument. I’m not sure we suggested that topic to him but we did invite the piece.”

Bennet didn’t read the op-ed before publication:

When asked why he did not personally read Cotton’s column before publishing it, Bennet said it was “another part of the process that broke down.” He added, “I should have been involved in signing off on the piece… I should have read it and signed off.”

Second news item

Justifying one, not the other: George Floyd protests called for social distancing, protests to reopen economy did not:

…some commentators, inside and outside of public health, are questioning the wisdom of these anti-racist protests, concerned they will increase the spread of COVID-19 and worsen existing racial, ethnic and economic inequities in COVID-19 deaths. Some even compare these risks to those posed by the anti-lockdown protests against COVID-19 regulations.

As public health professionals with expertise in infectious disease epidemiology, social epidemiology and public health and clinical practice, we categorically reject these false equivalencies.

Protesters are in the streets demonstrating against police brutality and white supremacy not because they are indifferent to the risk of COVID-19. They are doing what they can to protect themselves and their communities precisely because the institutions that are supposed to protect and serve them have been killing black people in this country far longer than the coronavirus has.

Third news item

Reporting from protest in Utah:

Fourth news item

GOP convention woes:

…Now, after a high-stakes and public feud with Democratic officials in a state he won four years ago, Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee are moving to largely shift convention proceedings, including the president’s acceptance speech on the final night, out of Charlotte. After a call with the R.N.C., state chairmen officially told delegates that they should hold off on purchasing airline tickets to Charlotte for the late-August event.

How the convention unraveled two years after Charlotte was selected is the story of an uneasy partnership between Republican officials and mostly Democratic leaders in North Carolina; a president who coveted a coronation and delivered an unyielding imperative to the state’s governor; and the extraordinary disruption from a global pandemic that transformed public life in the country. Once it became clear that health concerns over the coronavirus threatened the possibility of a full-throated celebration for the president, the fragile alliance buckled under the weight of partisan acrimony.

Fifth news item

Barr begs to differ, says he didn’t give order to clear protesters:

Attorney General William Barr says law enforcement officers were already moving to push back protesters from a park in front of the White House when he arrived there Monday evening, and he says he did not give a command to disperse the crowd, though he supported the decision.

Barr insisted there was no connection between the heavy-handed crackdown on the protesters and Trump’s walk soon after to St. John’s Church. The attorney general said he had learned in the afternoon that Trump wanted to go outside, and said that when he went to the White House in the evening, he learned of the president’s intended destination.

Sixth news item

Door closing on hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment?:

major clinical trial showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, likely closing the door to the use of the highly publicized medicine in the sickest patients — a use for which it was widely prescribed as the pandemic hit the U.S.

The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t.

“Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease,” University of Oxford epidemiologist Martin Landray, one of the study’s leaders, said in a statement. “This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomized trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.”

Seventh news item

Commander of the Pacific Air Forces tells us what he’s thinking about. Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. is expected to be confirmed as the next chief of staff of the Air Force. He will be the first black service chief in U.S. history:

Have a good weekend.

–Dana

6/5/2020

Public Protests And Health Risks During Pandemic

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:09 pm



[guest post by Dana]

In light of the George Floyd protests, some public health officials have changed their minds about Americans being outdoors in large groups during the pandemic:

For months, public health experts have urged Americans to take every precaution to stop the spread of Covid-19—stay at home, steer clear of friends and extended family, and absolutely avoid large gatherings.

Now some of those experts are broadcasting a new message: It’s time to get out of the house and join the mass protests against racism.

It’s a message echoed by media outlets and some of the most prominent public health experts in America, like former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who loudly warned against efforts to rush reopening but is now supportive of mass protests. Their claim: If we don’t address racial inequality, it’ll be that much harder to fight Covid-19. There’s also evidence that the virus doesn’t spread easily outdoors, especially if people wear masks.

The experts maintain that their messages are consistent—that they were always flexible on Americans going outside, that they want protesters to take precautions and that they’re prioritizing public health by demanding an urgent fix to systemic racism.

But their messages are also confounding to many who spent the spring strictly isolated on the advice of health officials, only to hear that the need might not be so absolute after all. It’s particularly nettlesome to conservative skeptics of the all-or-nothing approach to lockdown, who point out that many of those same public health experts—a group that tends to skew liberal—widely criticized activists who held largely outdoor protests against lockdowns in April and May, accusing demonstrators of posing a public health danger. Conservatives, who felt their own concerns about long-term economic damage or even mental health costs of lockdown were brushed aside just days or weeks ago, are increasingly asking whether these public health experts are letting their politics sway their health care recommendations.

“Their rules appear ideologically driven as people can only gather for purposes deemed important by the elite central planners,” Brian Blase, who worked on health policy for the Trump administration, told me…

Some members of the medical community acknowledged they’re grappling with the U-turn in public health advice, too. “It makes it clear that all along there were trade-offs between details of lockdowns and social distancing and other factors that the experts previously discounted and have now decided to reconsider and rebalance,” said Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School. Flier pointed out that the protesters were also engaging in behaviors, like loud singing in close proximity, which CDC has repeatedly suggested could be linked to spreading the virus.

“At least for me, the sudden change in views of the danger of mass gatherings has been disorienting, and I suspect it has been for many Americans,” he told me.

Health officials who have deemed this cause to be worth a potential health risk, yet deemed protesting to open the economy and getting back to work as not worthy of a potential health risk, have lost a tremendous amount of credibility. By making a determination that one cause is more worthy than the other, renders judgment against Americans based not upon health concerns, but based upon an ideological one instead. Why would we trust them with future decisions about public health risks?

Given protesters’ close proximity to one another and the number of unmasked protesters, it’s not unreasonable to think that we will see an increased rate of infection. Also, given the large number of black people involved in these protests, it also seems likely that, if there is an outbreak, an already hard-hit community will experience a surge over the next few weeks. Howard Koh, former assistant secretary for health during the Obama administration, says that he supports the protests but recognizes the dangers of Covid-19 spreading rapidly: “We know that a low-risk area today can become a high-risk area tomorrow.”

Obviously, people across the nation believe that publicly protesting the murder of George Floyd and the problem of racial injustice outweighs any risk of becoming infected (or infecting others). Health officials are recommending that protesters self-quarantine for two weeks after coming back from a protest rally. Some public health departments are also recommending that protesters get tested for Covid-19 no later than 5-7 days after the event – even if they don’t feel sick or show symptoms.

The report leaves health experts with this question: “I think what’s lost on people is that there have been real sacrifices made during lockdown. People who couldn’t bury loved ones. Small businesses destroyed. How can a health expert look those people in the eye and say it was worth it now?”

(Of course, rallies are held outside in open spaces, which experts say poses less risk of infection than when a large group is indoors in a limited, enclosed space.)

Back in April when many Americans were publicly gathering at rallies to push for the economy to re-open, the protesters took a lot of heat for gathering during a pandemic. I was one of those critics. My objection wasn’t that they were protesting, it was the fact that they were doing so without observing social distancing measures (six foot distance from neighbor and wearing a face mask). I feel the same way about today’s protesters. If you want to protest, have at it. But at the very least, wear a mask, and try to keep a safe distance from your neighbor. As I said back in April:

… while I appreciate a healthy wariness of government overreach where civil liberties are concerned, and inconsistent foolishness from some governors, this does not change the fact that we are facing a highly contagious virus that doesn’t care about principles, political persuasions, personal philosophies, or anything that one might claim takes priority over practicing reasonable safety measures. We are not being compelled to permanently modify our behaviors. We are being asked to temporarily modify our behavior in order to help prevent further transmission of a deadly virus which is highly contagious and has wreaked havoc across the nation in a very short period of time. And it’s the sort of highly contagious virus that requires everyone to hold the line. Six feet apart and a mask when out in public. How is that a big deal? No matter what you think of government or social distancing orders put in place to help minimize the spread of the disease, let me ask you, why the isn’t your family, or your neighbor worth the extra effort?

Here are comments from Dr. Fauci regarding the protests and public health risk:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, called it a “delicate balance.”

“The reasons for demonstrating are valid, yet the demonstration itself puts one at an additional risk,” Fauci said Friday in an interview with WTOP.

Fauci said not only is it a risk to have protesters gathered in proximity to one another, the nature of demonstrations presents a health risk because people chant and yell with their mouths uncovered.

There have also been instances of protesters coughing on each other after police deployed irritants, such as tear gas or pepper spray.

“I get very concerned, as do my colleagues in public health, when they see these kinds of crowds,” Fauci said. “There certainly is a risk. I can say that with confidence.”

Compounding the risk, especially in the D.C. area, is the fact that the protests are happening in places where the coronavirus was spreading at a significant rate before the mass protests started.

“It’s a perfect setup for further spread of the virus in the sense of creating these blips which might turn into some surges,” Fauci said.

If Fauci had one piece of advice for someone who plans to go out and protest, it would be to wear a mask and keep it on the entire time.

“I’ve seen on TV, as the demonstrations heat up, people might take their masks off,” he said. “You might have situations where you would foster the spread of infection and that’s really of concern.”

–Dana

3/6/2023

Did China Interfere for the Liberals in the Last Two Canadian Elections? [Updated]

Filed under: General — JVW @ 7:38 pm



[guest post by JVW]

I guess I missed this over the weekend in the regular press, but The Spectator provides coverage today:

It’s been a sticky couple of weeks for Canada’s natural governing party, as the Liberals like to call themselves. Anonymous sources from CSIS, Canada’s intelligence agency, leaked information to two major Canadian media outlets, the Globe and Mail and Global News. The reports say China interfered in Canada’s two most recent federal elections, and that CSIS alerted the government, but that despite warnings the Liberals — who won both elections with a minority government — did nothing.

It’s simultaneously a crisis for the Liberals and a bit of a yawn. Canadians already knew Justin Trudeau was soft on China’s “basic dictatorship.” If there was to be foreign interference from one of the most aggressive world powers on the map — and why wouldn’t there be? — they wouldn’t expect him to stand up to it.

I find it hard to believe that Canadian voters, even supporters of Trudeau’s Liberal Party, would be so sanguine about election interference from a malevolent world power, but hey, maybe I’m just an unreconstructed Cold Warrior. I mean, Justin’s old man sure was accommodating to the Soviets back in the day, wasn’t he? (Not to mention the Cubans — one Cuban in particular — but let’s not go down that road. If you know, you know.) Going on:

In the 2021 election, according to reporters for the Globe and Mail who reviewed the leaked information, China intervened to keep a Liberal minority government in power — seen as the least prejudicial scenario for Chinese interests — and to prevent the election of anyone critical of Beijing, such as Conservative MP Kenny Chiu.

Chiu had criticized the crackdown on the Hong Kong protests, but more significantly, he introduced a private member’s bill to establish a registry of foreign agents (something the US has had in place since 1938). He lost his seat to a candidate reportedly preferred by Beijing, and was identified in the leaks as the target of a disinformation campaign.

Erin O’Toole, Conservative leader at the time of the 2021 election, said his party lost eight to nine seats because of disinformation from China. These disinformation campaigns — according to the CSIS leaks — were spread by leveraging Chinese-Canadian organizations, Chinese-language media outlets and Chinese social media network WeChat.

Seems a bit more involved than purchasing a bunch of Facebook ads that hardly anybody saw or starting up a few Twitter bot farms. And it wasn’t Beijing’s first time at the rodeo either:

As for the 2019 election, Global News published allegations from an unnamed CSIS source that China intervened on behalf of eleven candidates — nine Liberals and two Conservatives — and that the Chinese consulate in Toronto had transferred substantial funds to their campaigns via a large interference network.

But perhaps the most serious claim in the 2019 context was that sitting Liberal MP Han Dong knowingly participated in the foreign interference network, along with politician Michael Chan, who has been described as a longtime “kingmaker” within the Liberal party. Both Dong and Chan have denied the allegations.

The article also details how Chinese students studying at Canadian universities were organized into volunteer networks for Liberal candidates and how Chinese-Canadians were secretly reimbursed for financial donations made to Liberal candidates and causes. But without a national registry of foreign agents, as Kenny Chiu sought to get through the Canadian Parliament, it becomes pretty difficult to investigate these allegations. And the U.S. has its own issues with Chinese students acting as enforcers for the Chinese Communist Party.

Naturally, Justin Trudeau has responded in the expected fashion: suggesting that anti-Asian racism is at work, questioning the accuracy of intelligence reports, and even dismissing warnings from CSIS to the Liberal Party prior to the 2021 elections that Han Dong had troubling connections to China. The Prime Minister has thus far refused to call for Parliament to open an inquiry into the allegations. We don’t have to imagine the outrage that would ensue down here if a Republican President behaved as callously. But, as The Spectator reminds us, PM Trudeau is the same person who got away with draconian lockdowns during COVID, who froze the bank accounts of protesters against his government, who gave out multi-million dollar no-bid government contracts to his friends and cronies, who took family vacations paid for by lobbyists, and who apparently got aggressive with a female opposition politician, yet he somehow seems to skate away with the most unctuous and insincere apologies each and every time.

Maybe China recognizes a kindred authoritarian in Justin Trudeau, and maybe they see the same attitude of “nothing to see here so long as the economy is decent and the government isn’t coming after me” that the Chinese authorities see in their own people. In any case, it’s sad to witness this sort of rot in Rupert’s Land.

UPDATE 8:55 pm PST – Earlier tonight PM Trudeau admitted that his government largely ignored earlier recommendations on how to combat foreign interference in elections:

His comments came Monday night as he tasked the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) with once again reviewing the issue of foreign interference in Canada, with a special eye on election meddling.

That body released a report back in 2019 that urged Ottawa to take the threat of foreign interference more seriously.

[. . .]

“We have to do a better job on following up on those recommendations. I fully accept that,” Trudeau told a news conference Monday night.

He announced he’s asked Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and the Clerk of the Privy Council to bring forward a plan to implement any outstanding recommendations from NSICOP reports in the next 30 days.

Just as I wrote in the post: an unctuous and insincere (non-)apology. And he’ll get away with it, as he will the whitewashed report which will come from a toady he will appoint to run the investigation.

– JVW

11/16/2020

Why “If the Left Gets to Have Their Dangerous Gatherings, We Get to Have Ours!” Is the Wrong Conclusion

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



It’s happened so often it’s a running joke with conservatives: public health experts decried mass public gatherings . . . until those gatherings were motivated by George Floyd’s death and calls for racial justice — and all of a sudden the gatherings were OK. But there was never really a clear explanation as to why.

Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, studies Covid-19. When, wearing a mask and standing at the edge of a great swell of people, she attended a recent protest in Houston supporting Mr. Floyd, a sense of contradiction tugged at her.

“I certainly condemned the anti-lockdown protests at the time, and I’m not condemning the protests now, and I struggle with that,” Dr. Troisi said. “I have a hard time articulating why that is OK.”

Mark Lurie, a professor of epidemiology at Brown University, described a similar struggle.

“Instinctively, many of us in public health feel a strong desire to act against accumulated generations of racial injustice,” Dr. Lurie said. “But we have to be honest: A few weeks before, we were criticizing protesters for arguing to open up the economy and saying that was dangerous behavior.

“I am still grappling with that.”

This is old news, and the linked New York Times story is an old story, from July 6. I am thinking about it now because I am reading Nicholas Christakis’s book Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live (affiliate link). I was reminded how bizarre it was to see some conservatives’ reaction to the verdict of public health experts like those just quoted: OK, then, if they get to have their gatherings then we get to have ours!

It was as if, as long as you could find hypocrisy among some public health experts, that meant that all public health advice was suddenly worthless.

As Christakis makes clear, it is not. Social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, and similar common sense practices have been around forever. And despite what you might see in the fever swamps — Alex Berenson, Scott Atlas, and the people who quote them — these measures work. They do not make a virus disappear. But they do reduce transmission significantly.

And yet too many people want to deny that, citing the hypocrisy of the above-mentioned public health experts as evidence.

I see this all too often in any discussion about science where politics enters the picture. If you can find one scientist with whom you politically disagree who is caught saying something contradictory, or silly, it means their point of view is wrong. That’s actually a perfect description of the ad hominem fallacy, but people still use that sort of reasoning every day.

Radical thought here: maybe the best idea is not to cast aside all public health advice, but to find better and more reliable people on whom to rely. Was Dr. Fauci saying “go ahead and protest because racism is a more important public health issue than COVID-19”? No. He was saying he was “very concerned.” And what was Christakis himself saying when the above-linked New York Times article was published? Well, he happens to have been extensively quoted in it. So let’s look!

Others take a more cautious view of the moral stakes. Nicholas A. Christakis, professor of social and natural science at Yale, noted that public health is guided by twin imperatives: to comfort the afflicted and to speak truth about risks to public health, no matter how unpleasant.

These often-complementary values are now in conflict. To take to the street to protest injustice is to risk casting open doors and letting the virus endanger tens of thousands, he said. There is a danger, he said, in asserting that one moral imperative overshadows another.

“The left and the right want to wish the virus away,” Dr. Christakis said. “We can’t wish away climate change, or the epidemic, or other inconvenient scientific truths.”

He said that framing the anti-lockdown protests as white supremacist and dangerous and the George Floyd protests as anti-racist and essential obscures a messier reality.

When he was a hospice doctor in Chicago and Boston, he said, he saw up close how isolation deepened the despair of the dying — a fate now suffered by many in the pandemic, with hospital visits severely restricted. For epidemiologists to turn around and argue for loosening the ground rules for the George Floyd marches risks sounding hypocritical.

“We allowed thousands of people to die alone,” he said. “We buried people by Zoom. Now all of a sudden we are saying, never mind?”

If public health experts turn on a dime, and suddenly minimize the importance of public health measures they advocated until yesterday, it doesn’t mean public health measures are unnecessary. It means those particular “experts” are unreliable and you should not listen to them. But there are plenty of experts who didn’t take the wokeness bait.

Yes, it’s an old discussion, but as we head back into a nasty COVID season, it’s an important one. Find the good experts, and listen to those folks.

7/6/2020

The Mixed-Messaging That Health Care Professionals “Grapple” With

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:24 am



[guest post by Dana]

I’ve written about the conflict of health care professionals condemning protesters rallying against the lockdown (and to re-open the economy) and health care professionals sanctioning protests after the murder of George Floyd. In the latter, they often cited, not the science, but rather the greater good involved. Here’s a look at these health care workers “grapple” with trying to reconcile their conflicting views:

As the pandemic took hold, most epidemiologists have had clear proscriptions in fighting it: No students in classrooms, no in-person religious services, no visits to sick relatives in hospitals, no large public gatherings.

So when conservative anti-lockdown protesters gathered on state capitol steps in places like Columbus, Ohio and Lansing, Michigan, in April and May, epidemiologists scolded them and forecast surging infections. When Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia relaxed restrictions on businesses in late April as testing lagged and infections rose, the talk in public health circles was of that state’s embrace of human sacrifice.

And then the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on May 25 changed everything.

Soon the streets nationwide were full of tens of thousands of people in a mass protest movement that continues to this day, with demonstrations and the toppling of statues. And rather than decrying mass gatherings, more than 1,300 public health officials signed a May 30 letter of support, and many joined the protests.

That caused the public to ask: Was public health advice in a pandemic dependent on whether people approved of the mass gathering in question? For me, it’s an uphill climb to believe that the advice of any number of health care professionals wasn’t contingent upon a subjective view of the protests in question.

Journalist Thomas Chatterton Williams pinpoints the why:

The way the public health narrative around coronavirus has reversed itself overnight seems an awful lot like … politicizing science. What are we to make of such whiplash-inducing messaging?

But lets hear about the struggle for reconciling this whiplash-messaging from the professionals themselves:

Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, studies COVID-19. When, wearing a mask and standing at the edge of a great swell of people, she attended a recent protest in Houston supporting Floyd, a sense of contradiction tugged at her.

“I certainly condemned the anti-lockdown protests at the time, and I’m not condemning the protests now, and I struggle with that,” she said. “I have a hard time articulating why that is OK.”

Mark Lurie, a professor of epidemiology at Brown University, described a similar struggle.

“Instinctively, many of us in public health feel a strong desire to act against accumulated generations of racial injustice,” Lurie said. “But we have to be honest: A few weeks before, we were criticizing protesters for arguing to open up the economy and saying that was dangerous behavior.

“I am still grappling with that.”

To which Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, added: “Do I worry that mass protests will fuel more cases? Yes, I do. But a dam broke and there’s no stopping that.”

And about the letter that 1,300 epidemiologists and health care workers signed:

Some public health scientists publicly waved off the conflicted feelings of their colleagues, saying the country now confronts a stark moral choice. The letter signed by more than 1,300 epidemiologists and health workers urged Americans to adopt a “consciously anti-racist” stance and framed the difference between the anti-lockdown demonstrators and the protesters in moral, ideological and racial terms.

Those who protested stay-at-home orders were “rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives” the letter stated.

By contrast, it said, those protesting systemic racism “must be supported.”

“As public health advocates,” they stated, “we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health.”

Note: “There is as of yet no firm evidence that protests against police violence led to noticeable spikes in infection rates. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found no overall rise in infections, but could not rule out that infections might have risen in the age demographic of the protesters. Health officials in Houston and Los Angeles have suggested the demonstrations there led to increased infections, but they have not provided data. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has instructed contact tracers not to ask if infected people attended protests.”

And yet health care professionals are willing to cast a vote for the “moral imperative,” no matter who it might impact, because it is seen as the greater good:

Mary Travis Bassett, who is African American, served as the New York City health commissioner and now directs the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. She noted that even before COVID-19, Black Americans were sicker and died more than two years earlier, on average, than white Americans.

And she noted, police violence has long cast a deep shadow over African Americans. From the auction block to plantations to centuries of lynchings carried out with the complicity of local law enforcement, blacks have suffered the devastating effects of state power.

She acknowledged that the current protests are freighted with moral complications, not least the possibility that a young person marching for justice might come home and inadvertently infect a mother, aunt or grandparent.

“If there’s an elder in the household, that person should be cocooned to the best extent that we can,” Bassett said.

But she said the opportunity to achieve a breakthrough transcends such worries about the virus.

“Racism has been killing people a lot longer than COVID-19,” she said. “The willingness to say we all bear the burden of that is deeply moving to me.”

Nicholas A. Christakis, professor of social and natural science at Yale University, observes that there are actually two moral imperatives involved for health care professionals: To comfort the afflicted and to speak truth about risks to public health, no matter how unpleasant.

To that end he says that those two values are now in conflict:

To take to the street to protest injustice is to risk casting open doors and letting the virus endanger tens of thousands, he said. There is a danger, he said, in asserting that one moral imperative overshadows another.

“The left and the right want to wish the virus away,” Christakis said. “We can’t wish away…inconvenient scientific truths.”

He said that framing the anti-lockdown protests as white supremacist and dangerous and the George Floyd protests as anti-racist and essential obscures a messier reality.

When he was a hospice doctor in Chicago and Boston, he said, he saw up close how isolation deepened the despair of the dying — a fate now suffered by many in the pandemic, with hospital visits severely restricted. For epidemiologists to turn around and argue for loosening the ground rules for the George Floyd marches risks sounding hypocritical.

“We allowed thousands of people to die alone,” he said. “We buried people by Zoom. Now all of a sudden we are saying, never mind?”

–Dana

6/14/2020

New Campaign Ads From Biden And Trump

Filed under: General — Dana @ 3:47 pm



[guest post by Dana]

You decide:

“Too Scared To Face The People” is from the Biden camp:

“Kneel” is from the Trump campaign:

As far as clarity of messaging goes, both ads were effective in being clear. And it seems that both camps have figured out that a shorter campaign ad draws more eyes for the duration of the ad.

Overall, though, points go to the Biden camp for a really powerful ad set against the backdrop of the pandemic and the George Floyd killing. The camp ran with the opening given them by Trump. The concluding summation, “Too scared to face the people, too small to meet the moment, too scared to lead,” packs a quiet wallop. The Biden camp knew when, and how to strike, and thus hit their target with precision.

Meanwhile, Trump’s ad relies on a loud WWE sort of narration, claiming that “Biden fails to stand up to the radical leftists fighting to defund and abolish the police.” (FTR, Biden has said that he would not defund the police.) Biden’s deference to the far left is contrasted with a “law and order” Trump, who stands up for, not just minority-owned businesses, but also for the American flag. It’s a pedestrian ad from the Trump camp. Nothing inspiring. Personally, I think it has an amateurish feel to it.

Interestingly, it was reported last week that the Trump campaign is considering dropping the relatively new “Keep America Great” campaign slogan:

The campaign to reelect Donald Trump is testing alternatives to the “Keep America Great” slogan, according to The Washington Post.

The shift to a less triumphant message follows the coronavirus pandemic and widespread protests at the death of George Floyd.

The recent economic downturn has also taken the shine off the slogan, as a strong economy had been one of the president’s key campaign messages.

According to sources cited by the Post, alternative ways of persuading the public are being discussed by key players within the campaign.

Here are a few of the recent slogans the campaign has tried out lately:

Transition to Greatness!
The Best Is Yet to Come
Great American Comeback
Promises Made, Promises Kept

–Dana

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