The US Presidency 2020

[kkwd]

Just checking, you really sure you want to commit to his ability to deal with state governors as evidence of his performance through all this?

Yes.

 

[brihard]

Yes.

Huh, ok. Neat.

 

[Pelorus]

https://www.axios.com/senate-inteligence-committee-russia-trump-b2f29fe2-4373-4cb5-9bc6-0f071a0be544.html

Senate Intel affirms that Russia interfered to help Trump in 2016

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the fourth volume of its report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, which focused on a December 2016 intelligence community assessment provided to President Obama.

Why it matters: The bipartisan report affirms the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the election to help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, noting that the assessment "reflects proper analytic tradecraft despite being tasked and completed within a compressed timeframe."

The big picture: The highly redacted report breaks with an investigation by the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee in 2018, which disagreed with the intelligence agencies' assessment and concluded that the Russian government did not explicitly intend to help Trump win the election.

• The Senate committee found "specific intelligence reporting to support the assessment that Putin and the Russian Government demonstrated a preference for candidate Trump," and that Putin "approved and directed" aspects of the interference.
• The Senate committee also disagreed with the House's claim that the intelligence agencies did not comply with analytical standards, noting: "The Committee found the ICA presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."
• "The Committee did not discover any significant analytic tradecraft issues in the preparation or final presentation of the ICA."

Worth noting: The report finds that U.S. intelligence agencies did not use information from the infamous Steele dossier to support its findings. The dossier was included in a highly classified annex to the assessment, which was in line with President Obama's directive.

Direct link to the report: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6844148-Report-Volume4.html

 

[kkwd]

Huh, ok. Neat.

Since all actions taken during this pandemic flow to through and from governors it is very important. I rate the relationships in the number one place.

 

[brihard]

Since all actions taken during this pandemic flow to through and from governors it is very important. I rate the relationships in the number one place.

Right. Agreed there. It’s just that you seem to feel his relationship with the governors is a significant factor in whether he’s doing a good job or not... But you also seem to suggest he’s doing a good job. There’s just a weird contradiction there given how dismally he has managed to perform in his interaction with any governor who- what was it a few weeks ago? Doesn’t show him enough ‘appreciation’?  He certainly has not set a high bar for how history will judge intergovernmental cooperation between federal and state levels in a crisis.

On the plus side, giving credit where it’s due, at least he managed to spike demand and disrupt supply for a drug that turns out to probably not help but that others badly need. So his forays into pharmacology appear to be right up there with his skills at running a university or a charity.

 

[mariomike]

he managed to spike demand and disrupt supply for a drug that turns out to probably not help but that others badly need. So his forays into pharmacology appear to be right up there with his skills at running a university or a charity.

"There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported."

 

[Retired AF Guy]

He is doing his job and congress is not.

Which is fortunate for Trump because if Congress was doing its job he would be breaking rocks in Leavenworth.

 

[kkwd]

Warning: The following headline is satire.

Trump created a massive wound in Mother Earth that may never heal. Then proceeded to involuntarily relocate innocent tree.  ;D

The real headline from the New York Daily news is:

Climate-change denier Trump plants a tree to celebrate Earth Day

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-trump-tree-planting-earth-day-environment-20200422-vz47rknqjzfffifh2i4mtczwmq-story.html

 

[OceanBonfire]

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

..., Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.”

Azar’s optimistic public pronouncement and choice of an inexperienced manager are emblematic of his agency’s oft-troubled response to the crisis.

...

Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company.

Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.

...

At HHS, Harrison was initially deputy chief of staff before being promoted, in the summer of 2019, to replace Azar’s first chief of staff, Peter Urbanowicz, an experienced hospital executive with decades of experience in public health.

This January, Harrison became a key manager of the HHS virus response. “Everyone had to report up through him,” said one HHS official.

One questionable decision, three sources say, came that month, after the White House announced it was convening a coronavirus task force. The HHS role was to muster resources from key public health agencies: the CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Office of Global Affairs and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

Harrison decided, the sources say, to exclude FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from the task force. “He said he didn’t need to be included,” said one official with knowledge of the matter.

When task force members were announced January 29, neither Hahn nor the FDA were included. Hahn wasn’t put on the task force until Vice President Mike Pence took over in February. Two of Hahn’s high-profile counterparts were on it from the start: CDC director Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

...


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-former-labradoodle-breeder-tapped-to-lead-u-s-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE

 

[Pelorus]

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

If nothing else, I suppose we can look forward to a lively debate by future historians as to whether the Trump era of the United States is best described as a Kleptocracy (a government with corrupt leaders that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political powers) or as a Kakistocracy (a government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens)...

 

[kkwd]

If nothing else, I suppose we can look forward to a lively debate by future historians as to whether the Trump era of the United States is best described as a Kleptocracy (a government with corrupt leaders that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political powers) or as a Kakistocracy (a government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens)...

To be fair any assessment should be far in the future. At the moment, (well, for the past 3 years) Trump has been hated, not just disliked. I am sure many people think all evil in the world flows into and out of Trump.

 

[Infanteer]

To be fair any assessment should be far in the future. At the moment, (well, for the past 3 years) Trump has been hated, not just disliked. I am sure many people think all evil in the world flows into and out of Trump.

You are not wrong.  In general, I think 20 years are required to allow for proper historical perspective to be formed.  It's almost a rule in military history, as it takes 20 years for participants to retire, documents to be released, and various accounts to be compiled in a scholarly fashion.  Everything before then is going to suffer from the tyranny of the now.

I use the Mulroney and Chretien ministries as a good example.  We are now at 20+ years since their terms, and more comprehensive perspectives of their leadership can be formed.  Both made significant policy decisions that improved Canada - Mulroney ensured our diplomatic and economic relevance as a G7 nation, while Chretien made the hard choices to ensure our fiscal survival, and kept us out of a bad war in Iraq.

We still need another 10 to 15 years to properly assess the Harper ministry, and we are far too close to Trudeau's for any objective assessment at this point.  The same goes for the Trump administration.

 

[mariomike]

In general, I think 20 years are required to allow for proper historical perspective to be formed. 

In that case, he's got nowhere to go but up. 

Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#Siena_College_Research_Institute,_Presidential_Expert_Poll_of_2018

* Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and the 24th president. As such there are 44 unique individuals who have held the U.S. Presidency.

 

[OceanBonfire]

Kushner-backed program chartering flights to address hospital shortages raises questions in Congress

A flight from China chartered by the U.S. government touched down at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday last week. Inside were nearly 6 million surgical masks and some respiratory equipment.

But the supplies on board weren’t tucked into the national stockpile or distributed by the federal government among cities hardest hit by novel coronavirus despite the average taxpayer bill of $750,000 to $800,000 per flight.

Instead, the masks and other life-saving equipment were owned by Medline, one of the nation’s largest privately held manufacturers and distributors of medical supplies. They were loaded onto cargo trucks and driven to the company’s warehouse in suburban Chicago.

It was up to Medline to decide who gets the protective gear and what price they would pay.

The sole federal requirement imposed on Medline was that it would promise to sell half its cargo to designated "hot spots" facing outbreaks of the coronavirus. Medline says it is currently selling protective gear at a loss and isn't charging extra for the expedited processing.

"All the product is ours, until it goes to our customers," a Medline spokesperson told ABC News.


https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/kushner-backed-program-charters-flights-medical-supplies-behalf/story?id=70291872

 

[Brad Sallows]

So the government is transporting privately-owned supplies, which means the US is able to have those supplies.  Hard to see what the Democrats are objecting about, unless they'd rather take a principle over having the supplies.

 

[OceanBonfire]

Trump's disinfectant idea shocking and dangerous, doctors say

Doctors and health experts urged people not to drink or inject disinfectant on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested scientists should investigate inserting the cleaning agent into the body as a way to cure COVID-19.

“This is one of the most dangerous and idiotic suggestions made so far in how one might actually treat COVID-19,” said Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia. He said infecting disinfectants would be likely to kill anyone who tried it.

“It is hugely irresponsible because, sadly, there are people around the world who might believe this sort of nonsense and try it out for themselves,” he told Reuters.

Trump said at his daily media briefing on Thursday that scientists should explore whether inserting light or disinfectant into the bodies of people infected with the new coronavirus might help them clear the disease.

“Is there a way we can do something like that by injection, inside, or almost a cleaning?,” he said. “It would be interesting to check that.”


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-trump-disinfectant/trumps-disinfectant-idea-shocking-and-dangerous-doctors-say-idUSKCN2261N7

 

[Remius]

I’m pretty sure they don’t have to look at that kind of research....

To be fair, that should have been a question to ask behind closed doors and yeah it doesn’t look good. 

But if people are going to attempt to ingest lightbulbs and Lysol or winded based on what the president asked (he didn’t actually say to take the stuff) then that says more about the people doing this to themselves.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I’m pretty sure they don’t have to look at that kind of research....

To be fair, that should have been a question to ask behind closed doors and yeah it doesn’t look good. 

But if people are going to attempt to ingest lightbulbs and Lysol or winded based on what the president asked (he didn’t actually say to take the stuff) then that says more about the people doing this to themselves.

We had kids eating tide pods because their friends tell them it'll be fun. I'm not optimistic.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Trump has jumped a shark which is jumping another shark.

One guy and his wife consumed a cleaning product related to chloroquine.  I doubt many people will consume or inject Lysol, thankfully.

 

[OceanBonfire]

Pence comes under fire for going maskless at Mayo Clinic

...

And Pence was the only participant not to wear a mask during a roundtable discussion on Mayo’s coronavirus testing and research programs. All the other participants did, including Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn, top Mayo officials, Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn.

...


https://apnews.com/96a451475c34ed11b3698e3dc4eff371

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/pence-comes-under-fire-for-going-maskless-at-mayo-clinic-1.4915780

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vp-pence-mask-mayo-clinic-policy/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pence-fire-maskless-mayo-clinic-70392870