27 April 2020

Update no.954

Update from the Sunland
No.954
20.4.20 – 26.4.20
Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            As a consequence of the outrageous pronouncements this week by the Bully-in-Chief (BIC) [see below], the Press and We, the People, overlooked an extraordinary Supreme Court ruling on Monday – Ramos v. Louisiana [589 U.S. ____ (2020); No. 18–5924]. The case deals with the law in Louisiana and Oregon that allows non-unanimous verdicts in criminal trials—in both states, a 10-2 verdict is sufficient to convict.  The case challenges the Supreme Court’s precedent Apodaca v. Oregon [406 U.S. 404 (1972); 22.May.1972] that allowed the non-unanimous conviction to stand in a rather quirky 4-1-4 decision.  This particular decision is not much better in that the majority, while ostensibly six justices, they were only three who agreed with the decision as written by Associate Justice Gorsuch.  Justice Kavanaugh wrote an interesting opinion concurring in part and expounding on his view to stare decisis that was his effort to justify his concurrence with the majority in overruling the Apodaca precedent.  Justice Alito wrote for the three dissenting justices (Roberts & Kagan), arguing that the Apodaca precedent should stand and would have affirmed the non-unanimous verdict tolerance.  So, it is now the law of the land—unanimous juries for convictions in all criminal trials.
            I will be candid and confess my ignorance at the outset.  All of my life, childhood to old age, I have been under the erroneous assumption that unanimous jury convictions were long accepted principle of American jurisprudence.  As I learned upon reading this case, I have been mistaken.  The unanimous 12-person jury goes back to at least to 1769 [Blackstone 4-27-343].  Justice Gorsuch cited 9 Hen. III c.29 [circa 1225] as the genesis, however, I could not find the statute to verify the language.  The point is a unanimous 12-person jury has been the standard for quite a few years.  The Ramos majority noted the rather dark basis for Louisiana’s change from unanimous to 10-2 majority at the state’s constitutional convention in 1898 to “establish the supremacy of the white race.”  We might expect that from Louisiana, but even more bizarre was Oregon’s change to non-unanimous conviction in the 1930s that can be traced to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, e.g., D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” [8.2.1915].
            The Constitution is voiceless regarding unanimous juries for criminal convictions.  And yet, this widely divided Court “sees” the answer in its interpretation of the history and supporting documentation.  To me, the most interesting aspect of the Ramos ruling is the reasoning of the so-called ‘strict constructionists’ and ‘fundamentalists’ in their establishment of new law without a single direct word in the Constitution.  Convenience is a powerful force, so it seems.

            Aspiring to be the doctor-in-chief is simply not enough for the BIC.  Now, he wants to be the idiot-in-chief.  He brain-farts aloud to the nation and the world that disinfectants like bleach works on surfaces, perhaps disinfectant can be injected into human beings to clear the virus.  He says, “I’m not a doctor, but I have common sense.”  NO!  You do NOT have common sense . . . injecting disinfectant?  Really?  Erroneously pumping Hydroxychloroquine without proper testing is bad enough, injecting disinfectant is off the page.
            As a consequence of the BIC’s idiotic statement, the Washington State Emergency Management Department immediately issued a tweet:
Please don’t eat tide pods or inject yourself with any kind of disinfectant.
If you need help with #COVID19 issues, we have lots of resources at https://t.co/C4x8jjWLOx
Just don’t make a bad situation worse.
7:57 PM – April 23, 2020
Then, the next day the manufacturer of Lysol disinfectant felt compelled to issue an emphatic public statement.
Due to recent speculation and social media activity, RB (the makers of Lysol and Dettol) has been asked whether internal administration of disinfectants may be appropriate for investigation or use as a treatment for coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).
As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).  As with all products, our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information.
We have a responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts. For this and other myth-busting facts, please visit Covid-19facts.com. (emphasis by the originator)
-- Reckitt Benckiser Company plc statement of 24.April.2020.
My Lord, what have we become!  Our so-called president has no marbles left in the confines of that little, tiny, orange-painted skull of his.  The BIC is an open, active threat to the well-being and safety of American citizens; HE is a clear and present danger.  Worse, no one can shut him up.  And, even if he is not re-elected this fall, he is probably still not going to shut-up.  He must be quarantined incomunicado until he is no longer a threat; his words are hurting people.  He is welcome to sell his worthless snake-oil to his believers, just do NOT do it in the public domain.  The rest of us do not need his crap!
            His sycophants howl that he is only trying to give hope to We, the People.  NO, he is NOT!!!  He is on the verge of killing people with his idiotic brain-farts.  He is NOT offering hope or positive perspective; he is selling worthless snake-oil, or worse now, fatal toxic snake-oil.  And, the worst part is, there are too many people who actually believe what he says and act on his brain-farts; case in point, the idiots in the street protesting against the stay-at-home orders in some states.  The transgression is not the protesting; (look at the myriad videos from multiple states) it is the paucity of any (none) protective measures by the protesters to break the chain of potential viral transmission.  These idiots, like their idiot-in-chief, do not understand, comprehend, or otherwise appreciate what they are dealing with this highly infectious virus because the BIC drowns out the medical and scientific professionals.
            Now, the idiots are attacking Doctor Anthony Fauci, MD, perhaps the world’s most renowned epidemiologist.  STOP!  Listening to the BIC is bad enough; muzzling the one expert we should all be listening to is wrong in every possible way, manner, or aspect.
            If the BIC wants to be a comedian and tell jokes, or to be a talking head pundit espousing whatever nonsense comes into his little pea brain like Alex Jones and his ilk, then resign and move on to do what he wants to do.  We, the People, hired him to be the freakin’ president of the United States; we did NOT hire him to be a comedian.  If he wants to tell some jokes, he should attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—that is the proper time and place.  The daily COVID19 White House news conference is NOT, I repeat NOT, the time for such conduct or behavior.

            Just a little related reminder from history, this week, 59 years ago, President Kennedy issued a public statement that he "bears sole responsibility for the events of the past few days" – the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by U.S. sponsored Cuban exiles.  The little history blurb reminded me of contemporary times.  Can anyone imagine, even in your wildest dreams, the BIC EVEREVER doing such a thing?  I guess his parents taught him that he was never ever wrong, and he was incapable of any mistakes, and that apologizing for the real mistakes he made was a sign of weakness and thus never, ever done.  President Kennedy was a real president.  The BIC is just a common bully masquerading and pretending to be a president.  The BIC bears no, not even the remotest, resemblance to any real president.  I previously cited President Carter as the low-point for presidential performance, but now President Carter appears like a blessed saint from the Mount.  If only the BIC had just a smidgen of humility and had studied even just a little history, this whole abysmal situation might have been monumentally better and more constructive for We, the People.  Oh well, we cast our lot with Oh So Great Orange One Bully-in-Chief.  We must endure until he goes away.  May God bless We, the People, and this once grand republic.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.953:
Comment to the Blog:
“In time, we’ll have a discussion of disaster preparedness in this country.  The history of FEMA back at least to Hurricane Katrina ought to be a topic, along with the Chump’s failure to use the Defense Production Act and many societal factors.
“The reality of the current virus situation is that some of the states are making the only prevention effort they can by trying to stop gatherings of any sort.  We don’t really know what’s going on but it may be working in some places.  This isn’t the best practice for the situation, but that practice would involve having test materials, personnel, labs, and related resources available along with personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and whatnot.  None of that was available at the beginning of the crisis, and most of it still isn’t in place.  No sound numbers about the virus’s prevalence, course, treatment, or fatality rate exist at present, but eventually, we’ll be able to piece together a picture of what is happening today.
“One of the qualities you lauded in Vice President Pence’s briefing was “unemotional.”  You might want to take some deep breaths and bring that quality to the blog.  You are indulging in the same behaviors that will lose the Presidential election for the Democrats.  “Chump is a villain” will not motivate voters despite its truth.
“If it weren’t the Chump’s brownshirts protesting the lock-downs, it would be someone else, due to human nature.  In fact, it already was someone else a couple of weeks ago here in Ohio.  Human beings socialize. Telling us to avoid each other doesn’t work well.
“I may be in one of the vulnerable groups.  That depends on the specific criteria and on a somewhat dubious diagnosis.  I take reasonable precautions against the virus, but I’m more afraid of the people who are so scared.  Fauci and his kind are presenting their messages in dramatically wrong ways.  Marketers never, ever use that level of fear-mongering because it invariably backfires, as we’re seeing.  On top of that, the infectious disease experts ignore all that is known about both human behavior and the human cost of economic collapse.  Those factors will kill more Americans than the virus.”
My response to the Blog:
            Oh my, yes, I’m game there; great topic.  To me, the COVID19 federal response has been and will continue to be the new basement for failure, i.e., what not to do.  The Katrina failure was bad, but it was a spot failure compared to the breadth of the COVID19 disaster.  We are not out of this debacle yet, so retrospective analysis is not productive.
            [Temporary side note: One of the myriad assignments of any POTUS is to mobilize the assets of the nation during a unified response to any national crisis.  It is our collective strength that applies the full weight of this nation.  We have exemplary examples: Lincoln & the Civil War; Roosevelt & Great Depression + WW2; and with some trepidation, I will add Truman & Korean War.  It appears to me that the BIC will be rendered to the failure side of the ledger when the time comes.  My negative examples: Hoover & the Great Depression; Kennedy/Johnson & Vietnam; Carter & Iran; and, Bush43 & Katrina + Iraq.]
            I agree with your observations and assessment of our current situation.  The experts have been warning about a 1918-like influenza pandemic potential for years; the forecast is live now.  The template for local & federal response has existed for years.  For the federal government to take what is perilously close to a laissez-faire approach to the COVID19 crisis suggests FEMA had no plan; and, we are just making this up as we go along.
            [Another related side note: A friend and fellow author has a new book in the final stages of publication.  The title is “VIRAL.”  He has been researching and working on it for years.  The timing is just a smidge late, but he offers an impressive ‘image’ of what could be a far more progressive approach to dealing with a viral pandemic, e.g., COVID19.  He’s done a helluva good job at presenting a complex problem and a practical solution in a fictional story based on real-world facts—very informative, engaging, and entertaining.]
            I still contend we are still flying blind.  We see glimpses of the horizon (in aviation terms), but we are flying blind thanks to the failure of the federal government to prepare for what we knew was coming.  We are still relegated to reactionary response and glimpses of the situation.  To this day, we still have no clue regarding the extent of this pandemic.
            Your counsel is quite appropriate, and this week’s Blog is more of the same after the BIC’s Friday COVID19 daily briefing.  I do offer one notable exception, as you will see.  Unfortunately, I call ‘em as I see ‘em, and it is no better this week.
            You may well be correct.  However, the job of POTUS in such situations does not involve amplifying the problem.  Further, I would have no objections to those protests if those individuals involved had simply taken precautions to avoid viral transmissive conditions.  This virus may not be as fatal as others, but it is surely more contagious than most.  Prohibition is not a viable approach in a free society, but sometimes it is the best knee-jerk reaction to get ahead of a problem.  Again, to me, POTUS should be mobilizing the nation, guiding We, the People, regarding our situation and our contribution to victory, and keeping us focused on the objective.  The fellow occupying that office and position of employment has done none of those things.  He is only interested in selling his snake-oil elixir to his believers.
            You offer an interesting perspective on Fauci’s contributions to this situation.  Fauci is a scientist who is steeped in dealing with facts and best practices.  He is NOT the president, whose job it is to find the balance point between many conflicting factors.  I do not see Fauci as trying to sell anything other than his best counsel on dealing with a highly infectious virus.  Unfortunately, the fellow whose job it is to take the best information we can collect and help guide the rest of us through a difficult time has chosen to take a far more selfish path.

Another contribution:
“Cap, one of your more forceful blogs-your views on your ‘leader’, your snake oil man, came through very strongly.  I do hope Cap as a friend you can sail through this unpleasant period and come out smiling again.  Certainly, I agree with your views as many of your countrymen will.  Surely he will be gone this autumn.  The sun will shine again.”
My reply:
            Yes, last week’s Update was rough.  Unfortunately, there is more of the same in this week’s Update, as a consequence of the BIC’s Friday news conference / daily briefing.
            So far so good for us.  We are abiding the federal & state guidelines.  I eagerly await the day when we can return to “sunlit uplands.”  I trust y’all are safe & sound as well.
 . . . follow-up comment:
“OK, looking forward to seeing it. I can’t believe you’ll say things he doesn’t deserve. Does he still have any supporters?”
. . . my follow-up reply:
            I call ‘em as I see ‘em.  He deserves far worse than I can possibly give him.  Oh my, yes, he has many supporters who swear on their mother’s graves that the BIC’s snake-oil elixir has cued them of all their ills; they are true and committed believers, and they have no interest in any facts that might expose or disparage the worthlessness of his snake-oil elixir.  His supporters should never be underestimated.  When he says he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in New York City and his supporters would still hang with him, he is spot on correct; that is the level of belief in his snake-oil elixir.

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap                  :-)

20 April 2020

Update no.953

Update from the Sunland
No.953
13.4.20 – 19.4.20
Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            WOW!  The Monday, White House, COVID19 news conference was off the bizarre scale.  The Bully-in-Chief (BIC) was really hot, insisted on a campaign video to pump up his image, and attacked anyone and everyone in the Press.  The Oh So Great Orange One is not seeming quite so great anymore.  I cannot remember such an air of desperation in this fellow, and that makes him extraordinarily dangerous and likely to do any crazy thing to protect himself.  Of course, the BIC persists in his claims of unbounded, limitless authority to do whatever he wants.  He says his authority is total, and only he will decide what happens next, except for one little, teeny-weeny, little problem—the Constitution.  Sad but true, the BIC really should read and study the Constitution.  The BIC is engaging in a Herculean, and perhaps illegal, effort to alter the facts associated with the COVID19 crisis.  This is yet another “crowd size,” alternate universe debacle for this deeply flawed man.  He is incapable of dealing with facts; the only thing on this planet or in this universe that matters to him is his image—how he perceives others see him, or maybe it is ONLY about how he sees himself.
            The BIC loves to point his crooked finger at the Obama administration—the great boogeyman under the bridge—as the culprit for anything and everything.  OK, let’s assume he is correct, i.e., “The shelves were bare when I became president.”  What did he do for the last three years?  Did someone in the Obama administration block any preemptive action by the BIC’s administration?  As I said, he is a wounded and cornered beast lashing out at everyone.
            The USG is getting engaged in part, although the BIC is also desperately trying to shuck as much responsibility as he possibly can.  He wants credit for saving the world from this ‘scORge’ (so he says), but he will never accept responsibility.  The BIC claimed millions of items are being delivered over the next months . . . just in time for the demand to drop off.  To the administration’s credit, the USG has finally taken aggressive steps within the constraints of a free society to help citizens weather the storm and hopefully assist the nation in recovery.  The USG is a day late and a dollar short, but they appear to be rapidly extending the weight of the government in helping resolve this virus fight.  He certainly appears to be going the extra mile.  Better late than never!  Thank you, Mister President, for the efforts of your administration in the last few weeks.
            The BIC likes to say, “zero cases, zero deaths, on January 17th.”  The BIC’s statement means absolutely nothing when you do not have testing data to identify infected individuals.  All his statement means is he was ignorant—blind to reality.  By the time the BIC found religion with respect to the COVID19 pandemic, the cows were out of the barn.  His late action jumped us from containment to isolation.  For the record:
-- 21.January.2020: 1st confirmed case in the United States occurred in Washington state.  The rapid rate of infection in New York suggests the actually first infected person (who may have been asymptomatic) arrived in that state and probably traveled from Italy.
-- 29.February.2020: 1st death reported in the United States.  There may have been earlier deaths, but our paucity of testing means the early deaths may have gone undetected or misidentified as pneumonia.
            Closing the doors to travelers from the PRC and Europe was the correct action . . . just too late.  The BIC likes to say in his defense is to remind us of his actions and add the note that we had no infections and no deaths when he began to act after all his denials and erroneous public statements.  What he fails to acknowledge is the virus has up to a 14-day incubation period before symptoms can be detected and worse, the scientists established that they faced asymptomatic transmission.  The rapid spread of the virus after the travel ban tells us all that the virus was inside the United States by the time the travel bans were ordered.  Further, the missing link in BIC’s incessant revisionist chatter is testing.  We had no way to detect the virus until well after the infection was already spreading in this country.  Despite the BIC’s perpetual, false declarations, the United States does NOT have sufficient broad testing means—everyone cannot be tested, despite the BIC’s claims.  We still do not have adequate testing.  What the BIC fails to acknowledge is that because of a paucity of testing the COVID19 infection spread without his or our knowledge.  He is desperate to cover-up his lack of response for six-plus weeks prior to taking action.  He will try mightily to revise history, to erase history, but he will not and cannot succeed; history is history.  We will not forget.

            After the debacle of the Monday briefing (noted above), I want to draw attention specifically to the Friday daily USG COVID19 briefing.  What an amazing and refreshing change.  The BIC did NOT attend.  Vice President Pence led the meeting.  It was informative, appropriate, science-based, unemotional, and stands in incredible contrast to the BIC-led meetings earlier in the week.  The best thing the BIC can do for all of us is just disappear.  Let Vice President Pence and the scientists handle the daily status briefings.  We do NOT need the BIC’s defensive, self-protective and self-adoration nonsense.  The paucity of chaos that always surrounds the BIC was an enormously refreshing change, especially with the BIC’s destructive tweets on that very day.  “Liberate Minnesota . . . Michigan . . . and Virginia.”  Really!  With his destructive tweets, he incites his radical fringe to violate the very guidelines his administration has put in place to protect us all.  Just go to Mar-a-Lago and enjoy the sun, Mister President; you’ll still get all the credit.  The governor down there worships you.  We do not need your presence in any manner or form.  Just disappear.  You can come back out of your quarantine when this crisis is under control and it is time for the presidential debates this fall.
            Oh wait!  Just when I thought we were going to get away without the BIC’s chaos, he showed up and chaos ensued.  He brought up the 2nd Amendment numerous times at the end of the COVID19 briefing.  Damn, I should have known it was too good to be true.  He simply cannot put together a cogent sentence.  Basta!  Basta!  Make this pain stop.

            On Friday, the BIC tweets:
LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!
8:25 AM - Apr 17, 2020
Is he out of his freakin’ mind?  ‘Liberate,’ ‘siege,’ really!  Why on God’s little green earth would he choose to incite violence, armed conflict, and rebellion?   Oh wait, again, I almost forgot, he’s a cornered and wounded beast.  He will do anything to save himself.  Dangerous times lie ahead.

            After all we have sacrificed . . . it only takes one idiot to threaten us all.  Now we have a bunch of idiots out protesting the public restrictions and some of them blatantly displace pseudo-automatic assault rifles and their TRUMP-2020 signs.  Worst of it, the BIC (the fellow who is supposed to be the president of the United States) is the biggest idiot among the bunch (see above).  He is pitting governors against each other, telling the governors, hey fellas you’re on your own, sort it out.  The BIC is contradicting his very explicit instructions.  Why?  One simple reason: he is doing what he thinks will minimize his responsibility for all the negatives in this crisis and the potential for ballooning a second wave of infections.  We see signs in the scientific data that suggest we are finally flattening the hospitalization and intubation curves just barely below our medical treatment capacity threshold.  This is not to say that the BIC has not done anything—he has and he deserves credit for his accomplishments, and he has indeed done something right, albeit a tad late, but still correct.  But as I have observed multiple times, the BIC is his own worst enemy.  He takes one step forward and 20 steps backward.  He just cannot help himself.

            What the BIC refuses and fails to acknowledge is the real issue is not how many people die, but how they die.  He loves to point out the annual death totals from car accidents or common influenza.  If this was only about the potential mortality of old folks like me, his advocacy would be closer to tolerable.  The mortality rate with COVID19 was NOT the issue.  The central, primary, and fundamental issue in this pandemic crisis is the medical treatment capacity.  If the hospitalizations exceeded the treatment capacity, the insufficient treatment would kill people, not the virus.  If the mortality rate for COVID19 was 100%, the treatment capacity would not matter.  To the best of our knowledge so far, the COVID19 mortality rate is 1-2%, which in turn means most folks can recover with treatment.  If the hospitalizations exceeded capacity, then the necessary triage decisions are required.
            Jeanne and I are in the higher risk age group.  For me, the virus risk is not what scares me.  What really scares the hell out of me is going to a hospital because I have a serious reaction to the COVID19 infection or some other serious medical issue, and a doctor says, “You’ve lived a good life, but your time is up.  Our limited treatment capacity must be given to lower risk people.”  When I see these idiots protesting in the streets without taking the appropriate precautions to protect themselves and others around them, I see them as direct threats to the safety of my family and me.  Further, they are directly threatening the medical professionals and the first responders.  This is NOT about freedom of choice.  Those idiots do NOT have the right to choose for me.  If they want to play Russian roulette with their health, I’m good with that; just put a bullet in the cylinder, spin it and pull the trigger.  I am not so foolish, and I do NOT want those idiots threatening my life with their foolish, ill-informed, misguided conduct.  Yes, I’m taking this personally.
            Don’t listen to the damn BIC; he has no freakin’ idea what he is talking about or doing.  The BIC is the worst and most threatening idiot on the face of this planet, not just in this country, because other idiots like those protesters listen to the man and actually believe the BIC’s snake-oil elixir has or will cure their ills.  I do not care a hoot what they believe.  They can believe whatever they wish for whatever reasons they wish.  When their beliefs affect or threaten my life, or the lives of my family, it becomes a monumentally different problem.  Further, freedom of religion does not preempt public safety.  Some of these money-grubbing evangelical pastors who insist upon defying the law and common sense in the name of freedom of religion are threatening all of us.  They incessantly bang on the drum that we are attacking Christianity by restricting large assemblies.  Bullshit!  Bullshit, I say.  Their rights do not include threatening my life.  Yes, I am angry.  I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
            The very nature of pandemic infection exponentially grows with just one infector who is left unchecked and able to infect millions in a matter of days or weeks.  It only takes one.  I understand and accept the fact that young folks characteristically believe they are invulnerable and perhaps even immune from serious health problems.  Us older folks call that syndrome NAFOD—No Apparent Fear Of Death.  I outgrew that syndrome decades ago; others have not yet outgrown the syndrome.
            I do not like these restrictions and precautions any more than the next person.  But I am intelligent enough to see what my choices and actions can do to other people.  I respect your right to Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness.  I only ask that you respect my right to the same.

            It is one of the systemic flaws on our system of governance.  The federal government levels requirements on states, cities and individuals, and fails to provide the resources to perform or fulfill those requirements.  So the BIC has done here.  He has pushed just about everything off onto the state governors and the BIC has failed to provide the resources.  Now, the states are carrying a large part of the burden and the federal government in the name of the BIC has claimed no responsibility, no obligation, no requirement to support the states.  Case in point, the USG provided a bunch of new testing machines to the states and yet provided none of the materials required to run the machines.  As a consequence, the states must compete against each other for those materials.  One gargantuan difference in situations like this, the federal government can and does print money; the states cannot.  The federal government can and should be the buffer, the surge capacity, the traffic cop, and the conductor for standardization.

            Testing is quite akin to the instrument panel of an aircraft.  A pilot can fly blind at night and in the clouds if s/he has the proper functional instruments and training to use them correctly.  S/he cannot possibly do so if s/he has no instruments, or those instruments are erroneous or inaccurate.  So it is with a pandemic.  We need accurate data to make effective decisions.  I see some states reporting virtual flat lines (very few infections) and I question the validity of the indications.  Without sufficient testing across a broad spectrum of society, we cannot ‘see’ the virus.  We have no way to know what the real situation is in this instance, or any other for that matter.  The flat line could be accurate, or it could be simply that there is no testing.  Anyone who has studied probability and statistics in college recognizes we need statistically significant sampling to have any faith whatsoever in the deduced conclusion(s).  So, when the BIC claims “zero infections, zero deaths,” he was ignorant; he had no clue whatsoever.  The subsequent infections, hospitalization and deaths suggest the actual infections occurred well in advance and where undetected until it was too late for containment.  This is the consequence of the BIC’s narcissism, egocentricity, and paucity of any semblance of intellectual curiosity.  The BIC’s serious personality flaws were tolerable when isolated to his little fiefdom . . . not so much so in a society that prides itself on freedom of choice and the rights of man.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.952:
“It is really getting tiresome, Cap!”
My response:
            OMG!  I could not agree more.  I passed that tiresome threshold years ago.  I want this nightmare to be over.  It cannot be over soon enough for me.  He dominates the news.  I wish he could be ignored, but he is the POTUS and cannot be ignored.  Virtually nothing else can pass through his saturation of all forms of the news media.  If you do not want me ruminating about the BIC, please give me another topic more to your liking or interests.  I would love to discuss or debate anything else other than the OSGOO, but these are the days in which we live.  I write about what is before us.  Please give me anything you wish to discuss or talk about—anything other than the BIC.
            These days will be over eventually.  It is only a matter of when.  I truly believed he could not be elected in a modern, informed, free country; but I was wrong . . . dreadfully wrong; and, I am not so egocentric to publicly admit my failure.  I do not discount his prospects for this fall, which is why I incessantly encourage everyone—every single eligible citizen—to vote.  Republicans are a minority, but they are a voting minority; thus, we have what we have today.

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap                  :-)

13 April 2020

Update no.952

Update from the Sunland
No.952
6.4.20 – 12.4.20
Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            Now, on Tuesday, true to his moniker, the Bully-in-Chief (BIC) threatened the World Health Organization (WHO), claiming the WHO failed to alert the world regarding the pandemic threat out of some misguided preference for the PRC.  [NOTE: The threatening words were the BIC’s spoken words, not anything generated by the Press.]  This particular episode is precisely why he deserves the moniker Bully-in-Chief, because that is exactly what he is and how he acts.  He emphatically does NOT act like a proper POTUS or even a smidgen of a leader in a free society, and thus he does not deserve the title of president.  He blames everyone else except himself.  He is simply not worthy to hold that office on behalf of We, the People.
            Further, I am beginning to see signs of his direct attempts to negate the constitutional election process in November of this year.
            Then, we have Doctor BIC who persists in pushing Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, against the counsel of the medical experts just because someone told him that some obscure doctor somewhere thought it was having anecdotal positive effects with a few suspected COVID19 patients.  Sadly, the first question that persistently comes to me in these discussions is, what is in it for him?  Does he have some hidden deal to profit from pushing Hydroxychloroquine?  These are the depth we are brought to in the BIC’s character flaws.
            The BIC goes on to publicly state:
“You have to understand I am a cheerleader for this country.  I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else.  I’m not going to go out and start screaming this could happen, this could happen.”
I have said this before, and I must say it again; if only the BIC had studied just a little bit of history, he might have been a little better prepared to lead us through this episode.  Prime Minister Winston Churchill led his nation, and arguably the free world, through the darkest of days, weeks and months during the summer of 1940 with his words and actions.  The BIC is a very long way from Churchill’s stature as a leader, but the BIC could have learned from studying Churchill.  When the BIC says he is a cheerleader, he is abdicating his role as the quarterback or coach to winning the game.  Sure, the cheerleader is important, but the cheerleader cannot win the game.  Churchill chose the facts he needed to inform the people of what they faced and offered words of resolute defiance of the enemy the British faced in the summer of 1940. The BIC’s situation is different, and yet it is quite similar.
            Especially on this specific issue, I do not care a hoot what the BIC thinks or feels.  I only care about the scientists and medical professionals.  The BIC is NOT one of those.  The pharmaceutical approval process is there for a reason—to protect We, the People.  He seeks to shortcut the tried and true methodical process because he has a hunch—a gut feel.  His conduct may be acceptable for his personal life, but it is categorically unacceptable to a nation he was elected to lead.
            The worst part of all this . . . he will use his usual chaos, confusion, obfuscation, and subterfuge in his desperate attempt to mask the truth . . . even if he knows the truth.  This is what the BIC does and does so well.  Some of us may not like how the BIC acts or what the BIC does, but some people do, and others look the other way because they think they are getting something they want from this despicable man.  God help us all.

            Despite the BIC’s insults to the Press and incessant, blatantly false claims to the contrary, the testing and supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are not in ample quantities for the states.  The Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), issued a report of “pulse surveys” conducted March 23–27, 2020, with hospital administrators from 323 hospitals across 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.  The report concluded, “Hospitals described specific challenges, mitigation strategies, and needs for assistance related to personal protective equipment (PPE), testing, staffing, supplies, and durable equipment; maintaining or expanding facility capacity; and financial concerns”—quite the opposite of what the BIC has been persistently telling us.  Numerous spot reports from a wide variety of Press outlets report exactly the same thing as the IG.
            The difficulty in accusing anyone, including the BIC, of lying is that of intention.  He perpetrator must “know” he is saying (or writing) something that is false.  The BIC may be clinically incapable of knowing or understanding the truth.  Regardless of his intentions, the words he is speaking in public before the nation and the world are FALSE!  As we have known for many years, long before he became president, the BIC is incapable of telling the truth.

            This week, we witnessed what I suspect will be a preview of what is likely to come in November.  On Tuesday the 7th, Wisconsin held its primary election . . . but not without considerable controversy.  We still do not have the results since a week’s wait was part of a deal that did not happen.
            Governor Anthony Steven Evers of Wisconsin faced quite the conundrum in the weeks prior to the election.  POTUS declared a national emergency on 13.March in the rapidly spreading COVID19 crisis.  On that day, Governor Evers declared a statewide public health emergency and initiated shelter-in-place orders on the 24th.  He also decided to not postpone the primary election, but with requests for absentee ballots overwhelming the state’s election system, the Governor extended the counting of absentee, mail-in ballots by one week (thus the week noted above).  Republicans objected, and the legal challenges quickly escalated.  On Monday, the 6th, the Supreme Court issued an odd Per Curiamruling that was most definitely NOT a unanimous opinion of the court.  The ruling upheld a lower court stay on the governor’s order to extend counting of absentee ballots—Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee (RNC v. DNC) [589 U. S. ____ (2020)].  Associate Justice Ginsburg wrote for the four dissenting justices and concluded, “Now, under this Court’s order, tens of thousands of absentee voters, unlikely to receive their ballots in time to cast them, will be left quite literally without a vote.”  So, the day before the election, Wisconsin voters were left with a choice—violate the lockdown to vote at their designated polling station, or not vote, or at least not have their vote counted.  In essence, Associate Justice Kavanaugh, writing for the majority of the Supremes, said . . . sorry folks, rules are rules, regardless of the circumstances.
            On Tuesday, many Wisconsin residents stood in long lines, six feet apart, for a very long time in the chilly springtime air.  We are supposed to get the results this coming Tuesday.
            I fear the RNC v. DNC ruling portends a very rocky road ahead as we grapple with the consequences of the COVID19 pandemic and the constitutionally mandated election on Tuesday, November 3rd.  Desperate times lead desperate people to do desperate things.  Republicans are desperate to retain Executive power in the persona of the BIC—it is their only choice.  So, Republicans in various states will do anything and everything to reduce vote counts, which in turn favors Republicans.  As I have written before, the BIC is quite capable of creating sufficient chaos and uncertainty to postpone the election or negate the results of the election to retain power.  The electoral process has already been disrupted.  The questions before us over the next seven months will be how far will this disruption go, and how will it affect or alter the outcome?

            Comments and contributions from Update no.951:
Comment to the Blog:
“As the excellent statistics-and-predictions blog fivethirtyeight (.com) has pointed out, useful numbers around the panic/pandemic don’t exist.  In their post on the subject, they point out the lack of standards for data gathering, differing choices around who’s tested, and the ignoring of collateral damage due to the response.  Deaths and damage due to mental health/domestic violence/addiction issues, lack of available medical resources for other needs, and the collapse of the economy will be counted later.  For now, no sound numbers are available for any aspect of the panic.
“My guess is that we’re near the peak of new novel coronavirus cases, at least here in Ohio.  Flu season continues, but that should ebb soon also.
“I want to give credit where credit is due.  Governor Inslee (D) of Washington and Governor DeWine (R) of Ohio have acted as effectively as possible given the situation without the showboating of Governor Cuomo.
“The next sentence is mostly not about Trump.  Simply trying to scare people into carrying out your orders is dreadfully poor communication.  Outside the military, the backfires typically overwhelm the result you sought.  Angry blame gets even worse results.  We do indeed need to discuss our national resilience, but I’ll wait until calm returns.
“We have discussed the FISA ‘courts’ and the PATRIOT Act before.  We need to dispose of that entire error and find saner ways to function as a nation.
“We shall see whether the state of emergency ends as the danger of the virus ebbs.
“I don’t address conspiracy theories.
“Your other comment had a good idea, although I don’t know how to carry it out.  Does the Chump even play on golf courses he doesn’t own?  He wouldn’t be much good as a groundskeeper, but maybe the PGA would give him a job.”
My response:
            You raise numerous good points regarding “the numbers.”  I would add, the failure of the USG to have established standards gives us false numbers, but they are better than nothing, but cannot be considered accurate.  The number of deaths is pretty close to a hard number, but that would only be true if every death is tested for COVID19 infection.  For example, death by pneumonia occurs for many reasons, not just COVID19.  The number of infections is suspicious because of general testing failure.  The BIC loves to claim the USG has performed 1.6M tests and that is the best in the world; what he thinks we are too stupid to recognize is, 1.6M (even if true & accurate) is a spit in the ocean with a population of 330M (0.5%)—hardly statistically significant.  He is desperate to erase his failures in the first two months of this event.
            I sincerely hope Ohio is near the peak.  The only ones who appear to have peaked are RoK and PRC (if we could believe their reporting).  This too shall pass . . . in time.
            I would add Governor Newsom of California.  I’m not quite so hard on Governor Cuomo.  His daily briefings are a little quirky for me, but I give him credit for his concerted efforts to accurately report the situation in New York.  I have far more faith in his reporting than I do in the BIC’s reporting.  He also handles himself in front of the Press infinitely better than the BIC does.  The BIC’s abysmal performance in Monday’s briefing was a demonstration of his shallowness, egocentricity, and incompetence.  His persistent attacks on the Press for doing their job is impeachable, IMHO.
            Just one comment on national resilience: we have endured the BIC’s persistent misconduct and incompetence for nearly four years.  That is resilience.
            We need something better to replace the FISA & PATRIOT Act.  Until we do, they are the best we have, and we must make them work as efficiently as possible.  Much like the PPACA; it is far from perfect, but it is better than what we had.
            Do you suspect the current national emergency would not end when the COVID19 crisis ebbs, as it inevitably will?  To be candid, I truly fear the BIC might try to use this situation to suspend the Nov’2020, or worse to invalidate any results not in his favor.
            Re: conspiracy theories:  neither do I!  They are a waste of my precious time.  And, any effort I expend, as I did in the TWA 800 event 25 years ago, serves no purpose, since people wish to believe what they want to believe, not what is true.
            It is well past time for him to be gone.  He should confine himself to being a doting grandfather, but he probably fails at that as well.
 . . . Round two:
“A couple of short notes.  The form of ‘resilience’ that concerns me today is specifically disaster preparedness.  The early analysis attributes much of our failure in this specific event to corporations and governments using the ‘just in time’ production and logistics methods developed during the 1960s and 1970s in Japan.  My courses on this referred to it as ‘just in time rather than just in case,’ and allowed a certain level of risk.  It saves money.  Essentially what many current sources agree on is that now, the ‘just in case’ risk has materialized--as it always will at some time in some form.  Given the course of this event outside of South Korea, I agree.  While we're focused on the lock-down, the best practice for meeting type of event includes having large amounts of skilled people, test kits, personal protective equipment (PPE) and household supplies available ‘just in case.’
“We shall see what we shall see, but states of emergency don't have a good percentage of being ended promptly in other places.”
 . . . my response to round two:
            I am quite reticent to lay this unpreparedness on the doorstep of corporations.  They are NOT public welfare entities.  They are businesses for profit and return to the shareholders.  “Just in time” is precisely a means to minimize sunk or overhead costs (e.g., inventory retention costs) and optimize profit.  No, preparedness for a national emergency is the clear and emphatic province of the USG.  The BIC’s effort to deny history and his attempt to write his own history instead will fail.  As he always does, he blames his failures on President Obama.  He has been POTUS for nearly four years; any unpreparedness we encountered in the COVID19 pandemic is his and his alone.  He must bear the consequences.  “Just in case” belongs to the USG, not the states, not corporations—the USG.
            Yes, we shall see what we shall see.  I do not put anything past the realm of possibility for the BIC.  He is desperate . . . desperate times lead desperate people to do desperate things.  With this fellow, anything is possible to shore-up his image of himself and keep the leaking balloon inflated.
 . . . Round three:
“I think I detect a blame tone in your response.  I'm not really interested in blame, but in preventing future events from getting as dramatically out of hand as this one has.  I partly agree with your assessment of where responsibility lies but be aware that the outcome of our approach will be called socialism.  If we're looking at how we got here, we need to go back at least 35 years, because the government's failures of preparation coincide with the corporate takeover of politics.  Deregulation of production and logistics is the specific reason we don't have the equipment and supplies we need, and deregulation of the medical industry is why we don't have the people.  ‘Smaller government’ has given us this day.
 . . . my response to round three:
            Apparently, I failed in my attempt to communicate.  I am not a fan or proponent of the blame game—serves no purpose.  I am an advocate for understanding our mistakes to improve for the future.  As a former military man, we called the process after-action reports.  As an engineer, we called it forensic examination—what failed and why?  We are both after the same objective; how do we learn from the mistakes of this event to improve future performance?
            I do not and cannot agree that the outcome is socialism.  Further, I do not agree with your assessment that deregulation of business brought us to this consequence.  Both President Roosevelt and President Truman faced daunting challenges as they struggled to prepare the nation for war that was thrust upon them.  The administrations of neither president were ready for war, and businesses of the day were certainly not as regulated as they are today.  With a staunchly and heavily isolationist country, President Roosevelt faced powerful enemies rapidly overrunning the free world.  He coaxed, prodded and coached Congress and the nation to pass several key laws to mobilize the industrial capacity of the country for war before Pearl Harbor.  President Truman faced the hegemonic aspirations of Stalin’s Soviet Union rapidly spreading its tentacles into free countries struggling with recovery from the devastation of global war.  He convinced Congress to pass the Defense Production Act of 1950 [PL 81-774; 64 Stat. 798; 8.9.1950] a couple months after the Soviets convinced the DPRK to invade the South.  President Bush (43) failed miserably in mobilizing the nation for the war we faced, and we still bear the burden of that failure to this day.  This president publicly and proudly states he is “not responsible.”  We have never heard any of his 44 predecessors makes such foolish, misinformed, ignorant statements.  This president failed to prepare or mobilize the nation for this fight.  He has finally made lame gestures toward that end, but he still does not understand his job in this crisis.  I cannot agree that we see the consequences of smaller government; I believe we see the effects of misapplied government.  For the BIC and his son-in-law to claim and publicly state that the federal government’s stockpile of medical supplies belongs to them to dole out as they see fit is nothing short of an insult to We, the People.  The USG had the capacity, the assignment, and the moral obligation to mobilize the nation when the first signs of potential pandemic appeared in Wuhan, PRC.  As always, We, the People, bear the burden and consequences of the USG’s lack of preparedness, and the burden is made worse by an administration that does not see, understand or appreciate its responsibility in such situations.  The BIC persists to this moment to pit the states against each other like this is some kind of national game of Monopoly.  As the Italians say, Basta!  And so it goes.
 . . . Round four:
“It's not a war.
“It's a failure of planning for disasters.  While disasters are unlikely to happen in a given week, they are a certainty over time.  Requiring corporations to manufacture and store sufficient supplies will be seen as socialism.  If the government does the work itself, the cry will be ‘communism.’”
 . . . my response to round four:
            True!  The COVID19 crisis is not armed conflict . . . yet.  War in this context is a figure of speech.
            I understand and appreciate the observation, and I agree with your assessment.  However, to any intellectually informed citizen, neither is accurate.  I see and define socialism and communism as state control of the economy.  We are a long way from that condition.  We have had slivers of socialism in our society for nearly a century and still do.  The debate for us is the degree or extent.  I am far closer to Bernie Sanders’ “democratic socialism” than I am the Marx/Engels variant.
            I have no problem with USG preparedness with designated operations, e.g., given xxx conditions, corporation A will stop producing automobiles and begin manufacturing aircraft.  Those are called contingency plans.  Our current problem is I have seen no (zero) evidence that the USG held any contingency plans for a pandemic medical situation; thus, the USG has been solely reactionary AND LATE!  We saw a micro-view of the paucity of contingency plans in the Puerto Rico debacle (Hurricane Irma, 6.9.2017 & sub).  To be fair, the BIC is not the first and presumably will not be the last to fail in that task, but that does not absolve him for his failure.  The military is far better at contingency planning—not perfect but better, e.g., the military had plans for a potential attack on Pearl Harbor, but they ignored the intelligence and failed to activate the plans; further, they held several exercise drills in the years ahead for such an attack, but failed to listen to the intelligence community.

Another contribution:
“The FBI has made way too many mistakes .. see Judicial Watch YouTubes .. Under James Comey they were not a government entity to be trusted .. Am positive you don’t agree but that’s fine considering the sources you read and believe.. just think of how flippant he was over HRCs emails .. wow
“Border security is needed to also prevent more COVID-19 cases from slipping into the country and the drug crisis is far from over.
“At least Trump responded faster than China did to the virus situation.. If we had known about it being in China sooner we could have stopped travel sooner and/or tested people coming in ..
“I see you STILL published the UNTRUTH about Trump disbanding the response team (in true CNN style .. publish a lie, then no one ever sees the truth because all they remember is the lie) even though I showed you what actually took place .. two organizations with cost impacted duplicate responsibilities were combined.. and how did that impact response ??”
My reply:
            Unfortunately, Tom Fitton is not a reliable news source.  Yes, the FBI made more mistakes than I would expect for a top-line law enforcement organization.  The mistakes illuminated in these reports are largely administrative rather than substantive, and they pale in comparison to the transgressions of J. Edgar Hoover, e.g., VENONA Project.  I do not see Comey’s handling of the HRC fiasco as flippant, but I certainly agree with you that she was shown far too much deference.  I still believe she committed multiple crimes with respect to her private server, unilaterally deleting “personal” eMails, and destroying the server, and she should be tried in a court of law and punished for those crimes.
            Yes, agreed, border security and immigration control are forever, 24/7/365 tasks of the federal government.  My point on the incident was the imagery.  It looked like a direct attempt by the BIC to deflect attention from the previous day’s rather dark report.  It had no (well, very little) relevance to the medical crisis we are in.  As such, it appeared to be yet one more of an infinite number of actions the BIC takes to protect his vaunted image—me, me, me.  Yes, the drug crisis is far from over, but the drug crisis has been going on for 50+ years; the COVID19 only four months.
            [BTW, on a personal note: my current writing project is a novel (pure fiction) about a notional new approach to drug addiction.  I have been progressively more critical of Nixon’s war on drugs, and what he and subsequent administrations {including the current one} have done to corrode our freedom of choice and fundamental right to privacy in the name of the war on drugs.  It is one thing to criticize; it is altogether another thing to offer a better way to deal with drug addiction and protect our rights.  At least I have been searching for a better way.  You might find it interesting, and perhaps even entertaining.]
            In the COVID19 crisis, the POTUS did the right thing is restricting travel to and from the PRC.  However, I do believe you are wrong regarding the PRC’s response to COVID19 when compared to the USA.  They quarantined the entire area of Wuhan and enforced it with the PLA.  They literally built large hospitals from the ground up in days.  They have done things we are highly unlikely to do in this country.  The POTUS deserves credit; he had the balls to declare a national emergency to recommend self-isolation to break the chain of infection.  However, he will be condemned for denying the problem even existed for at least six weeks.  He was way too late to get religion regarding this crisis, and now we have the largest infection rate (which I believe is way under reported) in the world.  The BIC failed on multiple levels, and I will argue he made this crisis far worse than it needed to be, but at least he finally felt the problem—better late than never.  On sum, his negatives vastly over-shadow his positives.  When he vehemently attacks the Press for doing their job, as he did yesterday (Monday), he evaporates any goodwill that might or should be due him.  He is his own worst enemy.
            Sorry, too many independent reliable sources.  Further, whether true or not, we see the consequence of the USG’s gross ill-preparedness for this pandemic.  If they had an office, that office (the BIC’s office) failed, period, full stop.  I do not care what the BIC claims.  He cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap                  :-)