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Check out this poor schlub being interviewed by Rep. Katie Porter of California.
More important, check out the faces behind him – presumably colleagues or family. They are wincing as Dr. Robert R. Redfield is exposed as yet another Trumpite bumbler in the time of Covid-19. Rep. Porter, in her first term, has become the scourge of corporate and government “leaders” who try to out-wait her few minutes of questioning. Originally from Iowa, Rep. Porter went to Yale University and Harvard Law School, where her mentor was Elizabeth Warren. On Thursday, she was doing what she does best, in a hearing into the lack of preparation for the rampaging virus – specifically the lack of tests and who will bear the cost when any tests are finally available after a scandalous delay. Rep. Porter said she had violated her own rule of not alerting the hapless witnesses. She sent her line of questioning to Dr. Redfield’s office a week ahead of time so he could be prepared. But he appears to know nothing, nothing -- staff work in the time of Trump. Dr. Redfield is a 68-year-old relic, a virologist who previously “served” in government during the early days of AIDS. In his unprepared and ignorant fashion, Donald Trump tried to do away with government medical and research agencies but was forced to find a few people who could pretend to expertise, while Trump’s family and friends filled their gunnysacks with loose cash. In 2018, Dr. Redfield was brought in as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Not even having the bluster of a bank president, Dr. Redfield was confronted by the terror of the House. Rep. Porter had her facts and figures on hand – how much a test would cost. But most people seeking emergency treatment could not afford this perhaps life-saving process. Would the government cover the cost of a test, Rep. Porter asked. Dr. Redfield took the punches, waited for the bell to ring. But Rep. Porter kept telling him: not good enough. She wanted to know if the government would take care of its people. She told him she has researched his powers. You can do this, according to law, she said. Rep. Porter does this better than I can describe it, better than any lawmaker I have ever seen. Most legislators talk about themselves. She talks about law, about reality. Watch the video. It’s a Perry Mason moment – the stunning reversal in real time—that almost never happens in trials or hearings. In the end, battered and beaten, Dr. Redfield succumbs, seems to promise government coverage. I do not know if his foggy submission has any legality. Trump might well fire him any hour now, say it was all a mistake. Once again, Katie Porter has exposed the stupidity and callousness of this regime. * * * Dr. Redfield: https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership.htm Rep. Porter: https://porter.house.gov/about/
bruce
3/13/2020 11:02:13 am
george,
George Vecsey
3/13/2020 04:43:49 pm
Bruce: want to lose faith in this administration? check out Trump's sedated reading of a prompter today....the man sounded drugged, plus he cannot read, He's gotten this country into a mess by ignoring and hiding information -- didn't want his numbers to look bad for the election. GV
bruce
3/13/2020 05:02:09 pm
george, 3/13/2020 11:09:58 am
It is easy to see that Rep. Porter is a disciple of Sen. Warren. I have seen Warren in action close up in my state of Mass many times.
George Vecsey
3/13/2020 04:46:00 pm
Alan: Somebody I know has a Warren-for-President sweatshirt, going back to, I think, 2015. She would be a major factor in the Senate majority next January. If we make it. GV
george
3/13/2020 05:12:05 pm
george,
Andy Tansey
3/15/2020 07:41:38 pm
Just a bit of candid self-centeredness here, I have been consciously extremely worried and depressed over what is happening here in NYC and around the world. This bit about Porter and Warren did much to cheer up this HLS dad.
Roy Edelsack
3/13/2020 01:26:20 pm
Amazingly, Porter's staff had informed Dr. Redfield in writing prior to the hearing that she was going to ask these questions and seek a commitment from him for free virus testing.
bruce
3/13/2020 02:38:36 pm
roy,
George
3/13/2020 04:48:30 pm
I think Rep., Porter was stunned to find the doctor had not been advised where she was going. The afterthought personnel in this "government" are incapable. An entire administration of incompetents
bruce
3/13/2020 05:06:23 pm
george, 3/13/2020 06:34:36 pm
Since South Caroline, Biden has exhibited an energy and air of confidence that had been lacking. Even his outburst with the "Trumped" up questioner had a positive effect.
George
3/13/2020 07:21:53 pm
Alan: I totally agree. Jolt of adrenalin.
Roy Edelsack
3/19/2020 01:53:48 pm
I'm going to go obscure here. The English pop group, The Small Faces, made a "concept" album to compete with "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Tommy." It was not commercially successful. But the album, "Ogden's Nutgone Flake," is slowly being recognized as a minor classic. The story involves Stan, who is traumatized when he notices a half moon in the sky. Seeking wisdom, he goes on a quest to learn more. In the final song the secret of life is explained to him thusly:
Roy Edelsack
3/19/2020 02:07:28 pm
Obviously the above was meant for the other thread. I’m not getting much sleep. Comments are closed.
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QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html |
