I hope everyone made it through the hurricane. Let’s hope that’s it for this hurricane season.
Yesterday, after Donald Trump denied he had sent covid test machines to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin confirmed that he had. But the Kremlin denied that Trump and Putin have been talking on the phone since. What to make of this? Maybe Putin thought Trump needed a reminded that I own you. Also, Woodward cited an intelligence analyst as the source of the covid machine story, so it must be assumed the intelligence agencies knew about this. Whether the intelligence agencies know about the phone calls isn’t clear. See also Marcy Wheeler.
I found a news story from April 2020 in which Trump brags about these particular test machines, by Abbott Labs.
A coronavirus test made by Abbott Laboratories and introduced with considerable fanfare by President Donald Trump in a Rose Garden news conference this week is giving state and local health officials very little added capacity to perform speedy tests needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That’s a whole new ballgame,” Trump said. “I want to thank Abbott Labs for the incredible work they’ve done. They’ve been working around-the-clock.”
Yet a document circulated among officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency this week shows that state and local public health labs were set to receive a total of only 5,500 coronavirus tests from the giant manufacturer of medical devices, diagnostics and drugs, according to emails obtained by Kaiser Health News.
Elsewhere — I’ve been working really hard at ignoring the polls. But the polling issue gets in my face sometimes anyway. One issue that keeps coming up is that in both 2016 and 2020, Trump voters were undercounted. I keep seeing headlines saying that Dems are terrified Trumpers are being undercounted again. Now I see in a Newsweek story that pollsters are now “correcting” for the undercount in various ways. Maybe they’re over-correcting? A recent article by Nate Cohn in the New York Times goes into more detail about different ways polls are being “weighted,” arriving at different results. See also Josh Marshall’s miscellaneous thoughts on polling. It’s entirely possible the race isn’t quite as close as the polls are saying.
Getting back to hurricanes — Trump, Vance, and other right-wing tools have been flagrantly and shamelessly lying their butts off about the FEMA response to Helene and Milton. (For some reason, I keep wanting to call yesterday’s storm “Winslow.” Maybe there will be a Hurricane Winslow some day.) Vance wrote an op ed for the Wall Street Journal about the Biden-Harris mismanagement of Helene, which of course I can’t read. Meanwhile, politicians of the affected areas, including Republicans, have been heaping praise on FEMA and the rest of the feds. The people whose lives have been impacted will, sooner or later, figure out who’s telling the truth. Although I understand there are people who refuse to ask FEMA for help because they’ve been told FEMA will confiscate their houses.
At Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley writes Trump Is Doing His Best to Make the Hurricane Into a Bad Issue for Him. Mathis-Lilley reminds us of times that Trump tried to politicize or otherwise unnecessarily inject himself into situations and got burned in the process. The Bible Stunt and the Bleach Suggestion, for example. He may well be overplaying his hand now. I guess we’ll see, won’t we, North Carolina?
Foghorn Winslow would be a nice hurricane name.
Seriously though… for years, I thought of climate change as something in the future (after my lifetime) and/or far away.
But for the past two years or so, I've seen it creeping closer and closer to where I live. For example, a 150 year old building about 40 miles from us was recently destroyed by high winds. I've seen flooding in towns just a few miles from me.
There are no "safe" places anymore. I fully expect something catastrophic at my doorstep within the next five years or so.
Slightly OT but in the same vein of Repugs trying to make everybody sick; MTG is all in for drinking raw milk, owning the libs and flipping her middle finger at govn't food regulations and the CDC all at the same time. No surprise she never read fellow-Georgian Flannery O'Connor's stories (The Enduring Chill – main character gets very sick from drinking raw milk). Let raw milk be their new KoolAid, literally. I say go for it, right on MTG, way to stay relevant and in the news, cheers!
<i>Yesterday, after Donald Trump denied he had sent covid test machines to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin confirmed that he had.</i>
You would have preferred poison? It lookes like a simple, humanitarian gesture by one head of state to another. There was a world-wide pandemic on at the time.
Did you miss the part where what was sent to Putin was for his personal use, and that there was a severe shortage of such machines in the U.S.? I’ll give you a pass on this one, but try harder next time.
Is the cult going to try to "go with" their leader as he deteriorates? MTG seems to be on that path for sure. Hell, she may have to. You might be able to break bad but breaking sane may not be a possible option. It is the rare soul who can break out of addiction and a cult memberships sure act like an addiction in my experience. Most can't break free even with treatment.
Too many people seem determined to stay crazed. Some are looking for lifeboats. The harsh fact is that all we have is just this one planet. A denial lifeboat gives you only the illusion of safety and escape. Fixing the blame does nothing to fix the problem. It appears many cannot or will not see that reality. They continue to blame the immigrants, the government, the messengers, or anyone but themselves.
Our path to the future needs us to make a sharp turn now. We may get by– but only with sanity and only by the skin of our teeth.
My best guess is that if you find yourself behind MTG, you took the wrong path.
Just checking in. I made it through the hurricane. Cat 3 at landfall about 25 miles from my house, Cat 2 by the time it got to me. But it was still pretty hairy for a while. No serious damage. Power still out. Fortunately not too hot or humid. Cold showers no fun. A lot of folks fared worse. This is the first time I've had a hotspot connection.
It’s good to hear from you. Hang in there!