This morning I ran a column in the Washington Post on the President’s claim that he has “total” and “absolute” power to order all states to lift their pandemic orders and re-open the economy. Both Republicans and Democrats have objected to the President’s statementsin last night’s press conference. The fact is that our Constitution was designed expressly to bar such claims. Absolutes find little sanctuary in a Constitution designed for limited government with shared powers.
President Trump shocked many by his declaring that “When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total. The governors know that.” If they “know” that, they know little about the Constitution. As I have previously written, the states and their governors hold the primary responsibility to prepare and deal with pandemics. President Trump spent weeks correctly stating that basic principle of federalism — statements that I supported. Now he appears to have done a 180 on the issue and claiming that, while governors can put these orders in place, he has absolute authority to lift them. He stated yesterday that he allowed the governors to make these decisions but that they did so only because he let them. He maintains that he always had total authority over these decisions. That position in constitutionally incomprehensible.
What is more interesting is why the President felt the need to trip this wire and draw the ire of not just Democrats but a broad array of conservative and libertarian leaders. It is also entirely unnecessary. If the federal government calls for loosening these restrictions, many governors will follow suit. Moreover, it will put huge pressure on others.
The problem is that President Trump is losing that persuasive authority with such unnerving statements about absolute power. This is a baffling and alarming claim. At a time when the President’s team is being praised for real progress on a number of fronts (and the virus appears to be generally declining or leveling off), the President quashed on the good press by triggering a debate over his claim of “ultimate,” “absolute,” and “total” power. The only thing that is clear is that these claims are not even aspirational; they are incomprehensible under of our constitutional system.
Of course, the same people that said they wanted Trump because he “says what he means” have spent 3 years trying to explain that he didn’t mean what he said. Well, take him for his words now, on that he has total power and absolute right to do what he wants.
Fish Wings, so true. Now, amid a global crisis, almost everything Trump says requires a clarification or walkback of some kind.
“No, President Trump Does Not Have Total Power Over The States”
– Professor Turley
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Congress may end the confusion by issuing a formal Declaration of War against COVID-19 or China.
A formal Declaration of War will establish that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;…”
A formal Declaration of War will provide the President the power to issue comprehensive and pervasive wartime proclamations.
A formal Declaration of War will absolutely establish that America is under “invasion” allowing Congress to suspend Habeas Corpus giving the Commander-In-Chief and President Lincolnesque “total power” over the United States and individual States.
That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
To wit,
America is in a condition of hysteria, incoherence, chaos, anarchy and rebellion.
President Abraham Lincoln seized power, neutralized the legislative and judicial branches and ruled by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Union.”
President Donald Trump must now seize power, neutralize the legislative and judicial branches and rule by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Republic.”
Does the “Commerce Clause” allow for the federal government to order the States to open up their stores and businesses? I don’t agree with it but under the current interpretation of the Constitution the answer is absolutely yes. The powers already granted to the Federal government via Supreme Court judgements under the Commerce Clause go way beyond this.
That leaves the question as to what powers the Congress has delegated to the president via statutory law(the National Emergencies Act, others?) and whether or not he’s acting within that law. I don’t know the answer to this question…which is why I came here, but Turley didn’t help.
The expansion of the meaning of the Commerce Clause was lead by the Democrats(FDR) over a long period of time, but most notably around the Great Depression. It is fascinating to see leftists and establishment figures seamlessly transition(just for this instance) to a conservative reading of the Constitution with no sense of the ironic heights they’ve reached.
Congress has the power to regulate the “flow” “…of commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;…” to preclude corruption, bias and favor by one jurisdiction over another.
Congress has no power to regulate, in any form or fashion, private property or the product of private enterprise or the design, engineering, production or marketing of any aspect of the products of free enterprise.
Consumers of commercial products and services may sue for damages. Free individuals and enterprises may self-regulate to assure against litigation with the potential to drive enterprises and/or entire industries into insolvency.
The only other enumerated power of Congress to regulate is that of the “value” of “…money…” and “…land and naval Forces.”
Government exists to facilitate the freedom of individuals.
Individuals are provided maximal freedom while government is severely limited and restricted to its sole role of merely facilitating the maximal freedom of individuals.
_________________________
Merriam Webster
commerce noun
com·merce | \ ˈkä-(ˌ)mərs
\
Definition of commerce
(Entry 1 of 2)
1 : social intercourse : interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments … a negotiated peace that will reestablish intellectual commerce among them …— P. B. Rice
2 : the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place a major center of commerce interstate commerce
_________________________
Article 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof,
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
Wow, Jonny, I thought for sure you would find some preposition or punctuation you could hang an opinion on so that you would support your Dear Leader. Amazing I be.
Sigh. I agree with many of Trump’s actions. Even Democrat governors have praised Trump as doing everything in his power to help them. But it is also true that he regularly places little land mines in his own path. Totally unhelpful but he can’t seem to resist.
Yes, the feds have some authority over the states, but it is not total. I disagree with President Trump’s eagerness to re-open the economy. It is not a wise move, as it would only lead to the sick overwhelming hospitals before a solid treatment protocol is ironed out. I don’t blame him for hoping this passes soon and the economy roars back to life. A lot of people are suffering financially. A lot of people are out of toilet paper. But I disagree with any concrete plans to get people back to work until and unless there is a treatment proven to work. Several drugs have been approved to treat Covid-19, and about 10 more are in the pipeline. During this testing phase, dosage, side effects, contraindications, and what works best will be determined. This is not a part that you can skip. When this becomes a treatable disease, then we can open up the economy again.
Ventilators have been found to cause too much mechanical damage to the lungs of a Covid-19 patient. The virus attacks the lungs directly. A ventilator forces air into lungs that are inflamed and filled with mucous. Doctors increase the pressure of the ventilator as the O2 blood sat levels drop. At some point, the lungs tear, and the patient dies. That’s why around 80% of those who go onto a ventilator with Covid-19 will never come off it. It’s not some benign supportive care, like fluids, allowing your own body to heal itself. A proven treatment protocol, which they are working on now, would keep people off of ventilators.
We are almost there. Hang tight.
No, Karen, we are not “almost there”, unless you are referring to getting rid of that albatross in the White House. Like Trump, you’re trying to ignore the reality coughing right in your face.
Your assessment regarding ventilators is overly simplistic. People only are put on ventilators because their lungs are failing and doctors believe they will die unless there is an intervention. The only other interventional treatment is ECMO: extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, which is lung bypassing, like heart bypassing for heart surgery. ECMO is done for very premature infants who cannot breathe on their own, and carries with it a whole host of very serious risks, plus it requires very highly skilled nurses to be at bedside nearly constantly. People who go on ventilators are very sick and at high risk to die to begin with. Their lungs don’t “tear”–they just fail.
Even if an effective antimicrobial chemotherapy is developed, that would not be reason enough to throw away the only weapons we have, which are social distancing, forbidding large gatherings, hand washing, gloves, using sanitizer and getting tested. If we can get a safe, effective vaccine and herd immunity, it will be safer to reopen things, but that’s a long way off.
One other thing: researchers are not entirely sure exactly what COVID-19 does to the lungs: does it damage the terminal alveoli (air sacs where the blood receives oxygen and discharges wastes), does it damage the airways themselves, causing constriction and inflammation, does it somehow interfere with the pressure gradients that cause oxygen to move into the blood stream and wastes to go out, and does it affect other organs and parts of the body, too? There is evidence that in some cases it inflames the heart muscle itself. There is much to be learned.
One other thing: researchers are not entirely sure exactly what COVID-19 does to the lungs…
Not true.
As I have stated many times for the past 6 weeks, SARS Coronavirus has been studied, researched and analyzed from China, Middle East to America and all points in between since 2002. None of this is particularly new. You are only concerned about it now because it has come to our shores. I stated this a while back and a resident attorney on this blog, took umbrage to it and insulted me instead, par for the course.
See:
Receptor and viral determinants of SARS-coronavirus adaptation to human ACE2
EMBO J. 2005 Apr 20;24(8):1634-43. Epub 2005 Mar 24.
Angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a protein receptor within lung cells (pneumocytes) that serves as a point of attachment for SARS Coronavirus. In normal health, ACE2 counters the effects of the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS). RAAS is responsible for conducting cascades of proteins within the cardiovascular, respiratory and renal systems that control blood pressure and fluid hemodynamics. By entering via ACE2 the virus down-regulates (minimizes the effects) of RAAS. HIV does the same exact thing to a different protein receptor called CD4 on T Helper Cells and hence damages the immune system. SARS Coronavirus, once inside the lungs and damages ACE2 which allows the RAAS to run unopposed. Renin, Angiotensin, Aldosterone are 3 hormones that are paramount, and unopposed lead to catastrophic damage. Hypertension is controlled with medications that specifically inhibit those hormones selectively. Without ACE2 to do its normal thing, the delicate physiology of the cardiovascular, respiratory and renal systems run amuck. Thus RAAS mediates lung, heart and kidney injury precisely because the Coronavirus has removed its natural opponent: ACE2. HIV causes AIDS because it removes the CD4 T Helper cell from the immune system armamentarium. Without CD4 T Cells, the immune system falters. Without ACE2, the RAAS system falters.
Those individuals who already have underlying respiratory, cardiovascular or kidney diseases like hypertension, heart disease, hyperlipidemia, COPD, asthma, Type II Diabetes and obesity (which places in peril both the lungs and the heart), stand the most to suffer.
As to ventilators, you can not have a reasonable discussion on their use unless if you discuss the physics and physiology of the pulmonary system. It is complicated. Few people can engage this type of discussion. Few. Medical students, Residents and Fellows struggle with these discussions. Laymen would find it difficult to follow.
News agencies aren’t interested in informing Americans about these things though they should. Instead they shoot for sensational click / bait hit pieces that stir the uninitiated on both sides of the aisle.
Become informed. Learn. Seek understanding from reliable medical scientific sources.
The following link might be of interest to some here. It is an excellent source for medical students, Residents and Fellows Physician trainees
https://meded.ucsd.edu/ifp/jwest/index.html
Receptor and viral determinants of SARS‐coronavirus adaptation to human ACE2
https://www.embopress.org/doi/10.1038/sj.emboj.7600640
Human angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a functional receptor for SARS coronavirus (SARS‐CoV). Here we identify the SARS‐CoV spike (S)‐protein‐binding site on ACE2. We also compare S proteins of SARS‐CoV isolated during the 2002–2003 SARS outbreak and during the much less severe 2003–2004 outbreak, and from palm civets, a possible source of SARS‐CoV found in humans. All three S proteins bound to and utilized palm‐civet ACE2 efficiently, but the latter two S proteins utilized human ACE2 markedly less efficiently than did the S protein obtained during the earlier human outbreak. The lower affinity of these S proteins could be complemented by altering specific residues within the S‐protein‐binding site of human ACE2 to those of civet ACE2, or by altering S‐protein residues 479 and 487 to residues conserved during the 2002–2003 outbreak. Collectively, these data describe molecular interactions important to the adaptation of SARS‐CoV to human cells, and provide insight into the severity of the 2002–2003 SARS epidemic.
Published in 2005
SARS-Coronavirus and ACE2: not new information
heres an interesting story. NIH funded bat coronavirus research at Wuhan bsl 4 lab
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211257/Wuhan-lab-performing-experiments-bats-coronavirus-caves.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline&__twitter_impression=true
this is so pathetic
this was a continuation of dangerous experiments on coronaviruses orginally funded by the science geeks under the Obama admin, which paused them
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/
but why did they restart them right before Trump took office?
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/12/feds-lift-gain-function-research-pause-offer-guidance
oh, maybe these dangerous studies had nothing to do with the covid-19
but i suspect this is why Trump stopped calling it a China virus. Probably Xi explained it to him on the phone that maybe these experiments which were conducted both in the US and with NIH funding and grants paid to the Wuhan bsl 4 labs– were very much part of an American “epidemiological study” too
I suspect Fauci knows very well about this whole story
it wasnt the bats. It was the palm civets.
what are palm civets?
You got your story from Twitter / UK Daily Mail
🤭
Natacha – have you not read about how ventilators are associated with mechanical damage with the lungs of Covid-19 patients?
Of course only the sickest are put on one. Why would anyone else be put on one? Did I say to throw them away? No. I said we need a verified treatment protocol that will help keep people from going on them in the first place.
Too many people think that more ventilators are a solution. They are a stop gap, not a solution. It’s not like they are a cure. They are part of supportive therapy. However, due to the nature of Covid-19’s affect on the lungs, there is a high correlation with mechanical damage.
I know someone whose lungs were shredded on a ventilator. His oxygen sat levels kept dropping, so his doctors had to increase the ventilation pressure. He literally had holes torn in his lungs. So, yes, it does happen. Once his lungs started tearing, that was it. This was years ago, so it’s not just Covid-19 that creates that scenario. This has been a common complication of the disease.
If the blood oxygen level keeps dropping, and nothing else works, then there may be nothing else to be done but ventilate. But therapy has evolved from routinely putting Covid-19 patients on ventilators, to trying other methods before using it as a last, and risky, resort.
As for “herd immunity” – that would require that around 95% of the population get, or are vaccinated against with a positive titer, to SARS-CoV-2. Without an effective vaccine, that would require 95% of the global population to get sick. Global, because due to the nature of travel, this would require global herd immunity, or else we would immediately import it again. If 95% of 324 million people in the US get Covid-19, millions would die.
That would be a bad thing.
On the higher rate of deaths of ventilated Covid-19 patients, compared to typical intubated people in respiratory distress:
https://time.com/5818547/ventilators-coronavirus/
“Generally speaking, 40% to 50% of patients with severe respiratory distress die while on ventilators, experts say. But 80% or more of coronavirus patients placed on the machines in New York City have died, state and city officials say.
Higher-than-normal death rates also have been reported elsewhere in the U.S., said Dr. Albert Rizzo, the American Lung Association’s chief medical officer. And similar reports have also emerged from China and the United Kingdom. One U.K. report put the figure at 66%. A very small study in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the disease first emerged, said 86% died.”
“We know that mechanical ventilation is not benign,” said Dr. Eddy Fan, an expert on respiratory treatment at Toronto General Hospital. “One of the most important findings in the last few decades is that medical ventilation can worsen lung injury — so we have to be careful how we use it.”
But some doctors say they’re trying to keep patients off ventilators as long as possible, and turning to other techniques instead.
Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.
Only a few weeks ago in New York City, coronavirus patients who came in quite sick were routinely placed on ventilators to keep them breathing, said Dr. Joseph Habboushe, an emergency medicine doctor who works in Manhattan hospitals.
But increasingly, physicians are trying other measures first. One is having patients lie in different positions — including on their stomachs — to allow different parts of the lung to aerate better. Another is giving patients more oxygen through nose tubes or other devices. Some doctors are experimenting with adding nitric oxide to the mix, to help improve blood flow and oxygen to the least damaged parts of the lungs.
Natacha – you said lungs don’t tear while on a ventilator.
Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury (VILI)
“Volutrauma refers to the tissue damage caused by the excessive stretching of tissues that occurs when the lung is over-inflated, a concept that makes intuitive sense given that even an organ as expansile as the lung has a threshold volume above which structural failure ensues.”
Atelectrauma refers to the injury caused by the repetitive re-opening of closed lung units, something that can happen if regions of the lung become derecruited with each expiration and then recruited again during the next inspiration (5,65,73). Injury from atelectrauma is commonly ascribed to shear forces, which are those operating tangentially to the epithelium (i.e., in the axial direction relative to the airway) as apposed surfaces are peeled apart. However, in vitro studies (55,56,74) supported by detailed computational modeling (23,54,75-82) suggest that the culprit forces actually act normally to the surface (i.e., radial to the airway) and that cell injury is caused by the large axial gradient in these normal forces that occurs during the passage of the air-liquid interface (56) as depicted in Figure 2. Interestingly, injury and pressure gradients are more severe as the advancing air-liquid interface moves more slowly due to thinning of the residual fluid film left on the airway wall. In any case, it is clear that movement of high surface tension air-liquid interfaces over epithelial surfaces is highly damaging (77,83), and indeed can cause cellular necrosis after only a small number of passages…
Another possible explanation for volutrauma-atelectrauma synergy is suggested by our recent study of how VILI affects the size of the leak in the blood-gas barrier. By injecting three different sizes of fluorescently-labelled dextran molecules into mice having varying degrees of VILI and then observing the appearance of each molecule in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) (Figure 5), we determined that the holes in the blood-gas barrier appear to follow a power-law distribution (92). That is, there are a large number of very small holes, a small number of large holes, and the intermediate sized holes number such that the histogram of hole sizes is approximately linear in a log-log plot. The significance of this finding lies in the fact that it can potentially be explained by a rich-get-richer mechanism. That is, whereby VILI begins with the generation of small holes, and this initial injury then progresses by the enlargement of these holes in a way that favors holes that are already large (e.g., large holes might correspond to weaker than average areas of the barrier that are particularly susceptible to becoming perforated).
Several drugs have been approved to treat Covid-19, and about 10 more are in the pipeline.
There are currently NO drugs on the market that have been approved to treat COVID-19. None
Some drugs can be used off label treat Covid-19. They have not gone through the complete approval process for that specific use. This is not all that unusual. If I contract Covid I am definitely taking hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax early in the game.
Why Zithromax?
Isnt that an antibiotic? For a virus?
Yes.
@anon @ 8:12
https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/antibiotics-kill-coronavirus-3534867/
I stand corrected. The FDA approved an Abbreviated New Drug Application for hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets.
It is still undergoing testing for covid 19
When the liberals like it, the Congress/President have unassailable “emergency powers” to close churches, deny free movement and deny assembly based, presumably, on the Article 1, Section 9, constitutional authority to suspend Habeas Corpus in condition of rebellion or invasion.
There has been no rebellion or invasion.
The Constitution does not provide or deny healthcare.
___________________________________________
Article 1, Section 9
“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
_________
When the liberals don’t like it, the Congress/President have NO “total power over the states” (no citation).
When the liberals like it, Americans have absolute rights, freedoms, privileges and immunities.
When the liberals don’t like it, Americans absolutely DO NOT.
In fact, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are not qualified and hold absolute dominion, the desire for power by individuals aside.
Elected officials are obligated to function as best they can under fundamental law.
Individuals are provided maximal freedom by the Constitution.
Government is severely limited and restricted to its singular role of merely facilitating the maximal freedom of individuals.
Inferior levels of governance have no standing in a case of providing or denying constitutional rights and freedoms.
In the event that COVID-19 is declared to have constituted an “invasion” in a formal Declaration of War by Congress, “The President shall be commander in chief…when called into the actual service of the United States;…”
______________________________________________________________________
Article 2, Section 2
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States;
Jonathan: It’s not really surprising that Trump now claims “total” and “absolute” power to order states to lift their pandemic orders and open up the country. He decided to “trip this wire”, to use your phrase, because Trump now believes he has unlimited powers due to Senate Republicans refusal to put on any semblance of an impeachment trial and gave him a get-out-of-jail free card! You emboldened the Senate Republicans by being the only constitutional scholar to testify against the two articles of impeachment in the House. So you should not really be shocked that Trump would now claim powers not granted to him by the Constitution. He has done since his first day in office. As they say, what goes around comes around.
Note To Genuine New Readers:
Occupation By Sock Puppets Continues
Yesterday an army of aliases descended on these Comment Threads to buttress conservative arguments. It appears the occupation is still in effect. At least 10 names tagged to comments here have never been seen before. Predictably these comments have a cookie cutter, pro-Trump tone. Observers have no estimate of when this occupation might lift.
Mr. Shill presents the symptoms of the comorbidities TDS, Wuhan Flu and an unknown number of congenital defects.
Is there a doctor in the house?
Doesn”t the Commerce Clause allow for that? Hasn”t the SCOTUS ruled iyt be br more far reaching?
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/microsoft-performance-artist-marina-abramovic-new-age-witch-spirit-cooking-satanism-id2020/
It is funny to see Democrats re-discover States Rights and, in the case of California, Secession-Lite.
But then the original Confederacy was always a Democrat thing.
Turley Comes Close To Identifying Problem
The Professor offers this astute observation:
“The problem is that President Trump is losing that persuasive authority with such unnerving statements about absolute power. This is a baffling and alarming claim”.
………………………………………………………………
Yes, Professor, Donald Trump has no credibility or moral authority. Those voids become a crippling handicap amid a national crisis.
One could argue with absolute certainty that Trump is a central component of this crisis. Not a day goes by when Trump isn’t starting a stupid arguement of some kind. He either lacks the temperament to manage this crisis, or Trump is indeed a stooge for Vladimir Putin. Because only a stooge would continue starting arguments at such a perilous moment.
Historians will write that it was a tragedy that Republicans blocked Trump’s removal from office. Had Trump been removed, the pandemic crisis would have been easier to manage. Mike Pence might well have been an adequate caretaker. And Republicans might have saved their party under Pence’s leadership.
“Yes, Professor, Donald Trump has no credibility or moral authority. Those voids become a crippling handicap amid a national crisis.”
*********************************
Let’s be a little more specific and say that for a great many of TDS sufferers, Trump has no credibility, blah, blah blah.
The rest of us are a tad more objective:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/trump-s-handling-of-coronavirus-approved-by-60-in-gallup-poll-k86e29ot
Olly, your poll is from March 24. This is April 14. Did 3 weeks slip by you??
Olly, this article, from April 8, cites several polls taken last week. Trump typically scores in the low to mid 40’s with disapproval in the low 50’s.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/08/coronavirus-polling-shows-majorities-disapproving-trumps-handling/2967994001/
I’m certain Mespo is far more aware of the dates than you are aware you are responding to his post.
Olly, I haven’t seen Mespo’s post and I dont take my cues from him.
LOL! You responded to Mespo’s post using my name, you dolt. Here’s a copy of the post you replied to:
mespo727272 says:
April 14, 2020 at 12:56 PM
“Yes, Professor, Donald Trump has no credibility or moral authority. Those voids become a crippling handicap amid a national crisis.”
*********************************
Let’s be a little more specific and say that for a great many of TDS sufferers, Trump has no credibility, blah, blah blah.
The rest of us are a tad more objective:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/trump-s-handling-of-coronavirus-approved-by-60-in-gallup-poll-k86e29ot
Olly, you and Mespo have always had that pale orange font which I sometimes confuse.
You don’t see the names?
The fact you are so reticent to admit you made such a simple mistake, reflects such poor character that you cannot be trusted on anything you post.
By the way, your computer settings are of no concern to me. Does your computer scramble the letters in our name or is that something that occurs naturally in that dysfunctional head of yours?
Turley claims to be “baffled” at Trump’s claim of “absolute power”? Where have you been for 4 years now? How could you just now start to notice that Trump is a lying narcissist? These daily campaign rallies are force-fed to Americans under the guise of “pandemic briefings”, and are nothing but open displays of Trump’s serious mental illness–his airing of grievances and his sparring with journalists. If the American people want to receive information on the status of the CDC’s response to COVID-19, they have to sit through a campaign rally. Sort of like those religious groups that provide food and shelter to the homeless or those struggling with substance abuse: to get a meal and warm bed, they have to listen to a sermon first.
Yesterday, in addition to repeatedly doubling down on his claim of absolute power, Trump lied about Joe Biden, claiming that Biden accused him of xenophobia for instituting the China travel ban (after which 400,000 still entered the U.S., per “exceptions”) and that he later apologized for it Neither of these things is true. He also said he knew nothing about any shortage of ventilators or PPE, even though governors of several states are still begging for these items.
Turley claims Trump’s “team” is being praised for “real progress on a number of fronts”? Huh? Only on Trump News Network, a/k/a Fox News. Everyone else decries the total lack of leadership, lack of any clear direction, the delay in responding, despite plenty of warnings, the early lying about the extent of the problem, the lack of vaccine or medical treatment, inconsistent guidelines, like about wearing masks, for example, pivoting to blame everyone else and the general incompetence of Trump and his “team”. COVID-19 is being brought under some measure of control by the states that have instituted stay at home orders. The ones doing the hard work are those who are following their states’ guidelines to stay home, which is costing them dearly.
And, BTW, a study on the safety and efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 that was being done in Brazil was stopped because too many study participants began developing heart arrhythmias.
The President declared a NATION WIDE state of emergency which he, not governors can lift. Their states are still under the state of emergency until he lifts it. A governor does not have authority to lift the President’s executive order. This seems very straightforward to me. Why is this even an issue?
Steve, the issue is that the federal government is a government of enumerated powers and not plenary ones.
Health is generally a state level issue and the states likewise have had the power to declare emergency public health orders in the past, not so much the central federal government. That is background and history, but federal statutes have increased federal leadership over health matters over time, and it’s actually the Democrat party that was staunchly in favor of a more and more federal role in such things ever since FDR and Truman. Recently we had a thing called “Obamacare” for example. Which had a lot of problems but some merit in the notion of attempting to coordinate a national health care policy, if not a system.
Anyhow Republicans have at times lent their bipartisan support however. Now we see a Republican president asserting a perhaps overbroad statement of his own leadership authority. In some other time it will be vice versa. Presently the partisan voices will claim federalism (iew, respect for states rights) when they are not in charge of POTUS but when they regain it federalism will be out the door again.
I recall President Andrew Jackson’s response to a Supreme Court ruling (about Native Americans) he did not like: “The Court has made its ruling; now let them enforce it.” El Presidente may issue some sort of decree that he believes will result in the dissolution of state shutdowns of commerce. But he will need the approval of Congress to impose any sanctions on states that ignore him.
If what you say is true, why do we have a sanctuary cities, counties, and States? All of which is contrary to U.S. law.
Trump should leave it in the Governors hands for their own state. You give a person enough rope and he will hang himself
What is more interesting is why the President felt the need to trip this wire and draw the ire of not just Democrats but a broad array of conservative and libertarian leaders. It is also entirely unnecessary.
We have a front row seat to an unwinding of the progressive administrative state and look who’s pulling the strings. For months now we’ve had democratic governors whining that their federal master failed to prepare their own states for an event such as this pandemic. The President made it quite clear that the states themselves failed to exercise their constitutional authority to prepare their own states. He hasn’t exerted federal control over the states as they’ve dealt with this pandemic. Now he has triggered governors to rightfully declare the President’s statements, if exercised, would be unconstitutional. He has triggered widespread condemnation over federal overreach. The states now assert they have total control over their own states. It’s about time they grew a spine, took ownership of their states and weakened the federal government’s unconstitutional control.
So if you’re looking for a why did the President trip this wire, look no further than this President’s campaign promise to rollback unnecessary federal regulatory requirements and return power to the states. He’s forced progressive Democrats to reject the very administrative state they helped create. Awesome!
So, Olly, if monitoring of communicable diseases and development of vaccines is solely the responsibility of the states, why do we even have a CDC? Do you know what the CDC does? Have you ever read the “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” and do you know what information is compiled and reported weekly and why? Why is there a World Health Organization that, inter alia, monitors developing communicable diseases, helps in vaccine development and coordinates the response to communicable diseases among various countries? Is each state supposed to belong to the WHO? A national crisis should be coordinated on a national level. Someone should come up with a plan to coordinate how the entire US can best use resources to limit the spread of an infectious diseases and pool resources. Wait a minute. Someone did come up with such a plan. Trump rejected it.
Trump is an incompetent loser who cheated his way into the White House. He wanted this gig for the power and what he thought would be adulation. COVID-19 has exposed this fraud for what he really is. No attorney ever told him he has absolute power, so he either wasn’t bright enough to listen to what he was told, or this was just a raw exposure of the depth and extent of his narcissism. Yesterday’s tirade should alarm even you Trumpsters.
Natch shows up and trolls like trolls do
it was not a tirade, i heard it,, it was wrong and over-broad self description, but not a tirade.
don’t you ever tire of your own strident voice? everything has been a disaster for 3 years with you. boring!
You don’t think the interrupting journalists, refusing to answer their questions, calling any media other than Fox “fake” (he even said “you know you’re fake”) and lying about Joe Biden criticizing him for xenophobia and apologizing constituted a tirade? Well, most other people do.
sorry no. and i was just speaking to the immediate conversation in question not whatever else he said that excited you.
the questions the CNN lady asked on this point were simple, direct, and relevant, for once. trump gave a simple, direct, and yet constitutionally incorrect answer. that exchange was not even a minute long and not close to a tirade.
you’re on to whatever other stuff now. but hey you’re in the habit of moving goalposts to defend your own assertions i know.
” lying about Joe Biden ”
“You know, we have right now a crisis with the a Coronavirus emanating from China In moments like this this is where the credibility of the president is most needed as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria xenophobia hysterical xenophobia to a and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science.” JB
Joe Biden has since agreed that the Chinese Travel Ban was a wise thing. When he posted his plan on the net it tracked what Trump was already doing.
The press has been rude and ignorant. They write stories that do not represent the truth. You don’t know any better because your mind is fixed so we hear the same things over and over again. Unfortunately most of those things you write are either meaningless or wrong.
Biden’s comments quoted above where when Trump began insisting on calling the corona virus the China Virus, a position he abandoned after Premier Xi talked to him in March.
No, the reason for the comment was because of the Chinese Traveler’s Ban as demonstrated in multiple comments made by Biden. Additionally Biden didn’t refer to the Chines virus he said “right now a crisis with the a Coronavirus ” Additionally the first people to refer to the Wuhan virus I believe were the Chinese. It was repeated as was the China Virus by the MSM. I believe Trump started calling it the China Virus after Xi’s government made some nasty statements and after he passed the Chinese Travellers Ban. He ceased using it probably because he no longer had a need to use it when the media reversed itself 180 degrees. He likely felt other things were more important at the time than that name.
if monitoring of communicable diseases and development of vaccines is solely the responsibility of the states, why do we even have a CDC? Do you know what the CDC does?
That’s a strawman fallacy. Nothing in my post questioned constitutionally legitimate federal agencies and their responsibilities.
Is each state supposed to belong to the WHO?
Another strawman.
A national crisis should be coordinated on a national level.
Redundant. I’m sure President Trump appreciates your recognition of his efforts to coordinate the national response. 20 years of failures to properly prepare at the state and federal level and of course you’ll lay all the blame on this President. I guarantee that he will be proven to have taken action that led to successes and failures. Now that he has the governors taking control over functions that they’ve ignored, history will prove their failure to prepare was the most consequential of all.
The people are the govt. Trump and other civil servants, along with the military serve the people. Realize who the govt. is.
We the people.
No Jill that people stuff was just a propaganda ploy of the Founders to encourage the average folk to enlist in the Continental Army against the King in England, so that they could share in a more dispersed aristocracy and kingship called the United States, if they were lucky enough to win.
the government is actually just who the government leadership says it is. In any time, in any nation. You know who they are in any nation and any time, because they have little badges, guns, and the organization to use them.
In America however there are “checks and balances,” ie, a system of competing government officials all scolding each other at any given time. It’s very clever and has stood the test of time to make a government weak enough to allow the very rich to stay very rich, and yet strong enough to try and handle emergent circumstances such as the covid disease with laws and edicts and so forth.
Good time to test the constitution. He does over interstate or intra country commerce. Within the state it depends on powers granted 9th and 10th amendment. BUT protecting the entire nation comes first so the results should be uniform. Should be.
Wickard V Fillburn 1942./ Mike, you probably know the case., I mentioned it in another post or two.
And good luck filing stuff in federal court now it will more than ever be easily ignored or dismissed.
If the Commerce clause back then could give Congress the power to tell people whether to grow corn in their own backyard or not for fear of disrupting national production quotas, then the Commerce Clause certainly can give the POTUS to dictate some orders to close or open business if an emergency is deemed now.
Turley did not elaborate this because he is a federalist, but, that’s the full Supremacy that we were theoretically left with after the Democrat president FDR commandeered every inch of America to win WW II.
We will see how this goes. Just wait for the avalanche of bankruptcies to begin, then you will see things never seen before. Although the unlimited big bank bailouts of 2008 gives us a clue as to how it may go.
ahh, at last someone hits the nail on the head: I have three words for you, Dormant – Commerce – Clause!
Except for one thing – in a declared national emergency, the Federal government, meaning the President of the United States, DOES have total power. And we are in a national emergency.
He does not have total power. There is still a bill of rights, there are still enumerated federal powers. The statement by Trump was overbroad. However, there needs not be a huge hissy fit over it, as he’s clearly cooperating with the governors overall.
He’s not leading in spirit or reality. He’s not using the power he has to grab hold of the chaos his lack of leadership has created for supplies and direction. It’s the feds responsibility through National Stockpiles and the Defense Procurement Act to maintain and martial what’s needed. He reacted slowly and then weakly. That’s where we are.
book, there may be some truth in what you say. it’s hard to know, again, because there are so many potential bureaucratic actors and authorities, inside the private sector and the public sector.
i hope that whatever portion of blame Trump has earned, the other bureaucratic actors will not escape responsibility and judgment. I can’t see how hospital just in time inventory practices to leverage profits are compatible with a sufficient warehousing of simple stuff like gloves or masks. The idea the government is supposed to stock all those things deeply and the hospitals just go to them seems like it may be an oversimplification. I’m not up to speed on the precise modelling of critical supplies for the pandemic
I have no problem sticking blame on Trump but if other parties are going to evade their own accountability for a wide systemic failure, that will not leave us much better off in the long run. Because somebody on down the line will be just as unprepared. This is often how it is in bureaucracies that have leadership who just assumes the worst won’t happen and if it does, oh well, I guess I will just get a different job anyways. Because incompetence is not sufficiently punished anywhere.
I guess that was the whole point of the pandemic preparedness planning, warnings, etc.
Now I seriously do entertain the possiblity that Trump has dropped the ball. he stopped flights from China which shows that he took it seriously on some level. And then what? he should have stopped flights from Europe, everywhere maybe. Pronto. And he didn’t. Yes I know the press was whining; but the powers were there and I think in retrospect they should have been used more especially obviously restricting flights from Europe which appears to have been the primary vector into New York City.
but if a bunch of hospital execs were going cheap on inventory of masks and gloves and maybe respirators too, then let them be accountable as well. It’s a multi-layered system of accountability that is needed.
‘
this is a more complicated notion however and they are always going for ten second sound bites on tv. its why i generally dont watch it. everything is oversimplified.
I appreciate your willingness to at least consider “shortcomings” – to put it mildly – of Trump, but your point here about hospitals is off base.
There is such a thing as a national stockpile for pandemic supplies and it is managed by the federal government with a budget set by Congress. There was a WH pandemic taskforce with a NSC seat before Trump disbanded it. There were numerous warnings from our intelligence agencies and other federal sources which were not taken seriously.
Hospitals on the other hand are either public and probably beleagured from caring for indigent and under-insured patients or private and then operating on a margin not necessarily based on planning for a pandemic. How many private businesses are? Is yours?
book. Im both lucky and paranoid, so I keep sufficient cash reserves and supplies close at hand., i have the old box of n95 masks i bought during 03/04 SARS and yet more since then. so say nothing of about 4-6 months of food, guns, ammo, the whole shebang. i just need an old jeep resistant to a possible EMP to round out my survival cache. but i am just another nobody out herei n flyover.
as for hospitals many of them are not public they are private. in fact i think most are private. and among those many are for profit. however they nonprofits and the for profits both are run alike far as I can tell. they squeeze every penny for more profit so they can build more buildings and layer on the bureaucracy. the line workers from techs to doctors are the least to benefit unless of course they are specialists in elective surgeries which is where they make the big money
they generally are bunch of shirkers when it comes to public health.
now what saves us are the blood banks and the local county health departments, those are the outfits that really are in tune to public health emergencies. the system, to the small extent it is oriented towards public health, is run from below not above
im not discounting that there is a national stockpile here and there, various federal agencies and statutes enabling it, but the line response to public health has been expected to come from the line level workers. this is usually a good thing because it allows rapid response to emergent new problems which bubble up locally.,
here however the novel threat emerged overseas and we had some warning of it. there was a failure to respond fully at the federal level, i would agree, but i am not sure of the details, and in the meantime I am not letting the bloated hospital bureaucracies off the hook .
now for some statistics. in 2013 about a fifth of hospitals were government owned, a fifth were for profit, and 3/4 were private owned nonprofits.
the following statistics are more detailed and more up to date:
https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals
“Total Number of All U.S. Hospitals
6,146
Number of U.S. Community 1 Hospitals
5,198
Number of Nongovernment Not-for-Profit Community Hospitals
2,937
Number of Investor-Owned (For-Profit) Community Hospitals
1,296
Number of State and Local Government Community Hospitals
965
Number of Federal Government Hospitals
209
Number of Nonfederal Psychiatric Hospitals
616
Other 2 Hospitals
123
Total Staffed Beds in All U.S. Hospitals
924,107
Staffed Beds in Community 1 Hospitals
792,417
Intensive Care Beds 3 in Community Hospitals
Medical-Surgical Intensive Care 4 Beds in Community Hospitals
55,663
Cardiac Intensive Care 5 Beds in Community Hospitals
15,160
Neonatal Intensive Care 6 Beds in Community Hospitals
22,721
Pediatric Intensive Care 7 Beds in Community Hospitals
5,115
Burn Care 8 Beds in Community Hospitals
1,198
Other Intensive Care 9 Beds in Community Hospitals
7,419
Total Admissions in All U.S. Hospitals
36,353,946
Admissions in Community 1 Hospitals
34,251,159
Total Expenses for All U.S. Hospitals
$1,112,207,387,000
Expenses for Community 1 Hospitals
$1,010,271,112,000
Number of Rural Community Hospitals
1,821
Number of Urban Community Hospitals
3,377
Number of Community Hospitals in a System 10
3,491
1. Community hospitals are defined as all nonfederal, short-term general, and other special hospitals. Other special hospitals include obstetrics and gynecology; eye, ear, nose, and throat; long term acute-care; rehabilitation; orthopedic; and other individually described specialty services. Community hospitals include academic medical centers or other teaching hospitals if they are nonfederal short-term hospitals. Excluded are hospitals not accessible by the general public, such as prison hospitals or college infirmaries…..”
“now for some statistics. in 2013 about a fifth of hospitals were government owned”
Because of the Medicare program and other things the federal government has more influence over almost all hospitals than it seems that this discussion recognizes.
book i even have a fat stock of clean white cotton bond paper and a couple manual typewriters in my “disaster preparedness business response plan”
heck i even have candles and an old kerosene lamp in case we need to start doing deeds the old fashioned way “burning the midnight oil”
but that’s why im a small business guy and not a fatcat hospital admin. my sort of paranoid mentality which imagines that bad things will happen never earned me any fans outside those narrowly tasked with one sort of risk management or another. and even they have called me a “doomsayer.” maybe this is a true critique.
but my gosh, if the hospitals in a 100 mile radius of outside and surrounding Chicago are financially stressed, one would not know it from how many new buildings they’ve erected the past decade. in my view they charge too much and provide too little. the bloated middle of bureaucracy sucks up all the extra oxygen.
meanwhile, the line workers, gp doctors, and patients get what they get and dont throw a fit.
I’d love to see an inventory handling analysis for 2019 and see how much the average hospital was keeping on hand, for masks gloves and gowns. i bet they were darn near all operating JIT style inventory management. squeezing the pennies till they squeaked, with no fear of epidemic to be found in evidence.
see masks and gowns just collect dust if they’re not being consumed in one month’s time or so. they prefer to do other stuff with their budgets like buy fancy new machines or build buildings. or maybe add more cute but cheap young coders to help grease the payment skids.
a bunch of bean counters runs America. sometimes during normal circumstances, that’s efficient. other times, it’s a mess.
“book, there may be some truth in what you say.”
Kurtz, your agreeability to almost everything cancels out any meaning that might exist
Allan i am sure you don’t like my style. Thanks for your opinion. They’re trolling you and you fall for it too often. .
Anyhow here is an article i found from 2015 that talked about JIT management of inventory in hospitals to maximize profits, and the cassandras who warned against it.
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospitals-turn-just-time-buying-control-supply-chain-costs
these JIT advocates are the same managerial wonks who moved all our industry offshore the past 30 years. in short, people driven by finance and not by wisdom nor patriotism.
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospitals-turn-just-time-buying-control-supply-chain-costs
“As hospitals and other healthcare facilities face tighter profit margins tied to care costs and cuts in reimbursement rates, more organizations are turning to just-in-time inventory management to keep supplies lean and costs low. But the approach comes with risks.
Cardinal Health is exploring just-in-time inventory management routines and processes to maximize reimbursement, especially since reimbursement pressures have them moving towards bundled payments over traditional fee-for-service.
“Many of our customers are realizing that their current methods are becoming irrelevant in the ‘new’ era,” said Rebecca Hellmann, vice president of services marketing for the Dublin, Ohio organization. “While change is difficult and painful, they’re not alone; many of their peers have already moved away from those dated methods and are examples of improved performance with lower costs.”
Just-in-time purchasing benefits the industry by lowering the carrying cost of inventory, said Don Spence, vice president of Corporate Development for GHX, a supply chain management vendor based in Louisville, Colorado. “If you buy bulk product and it sits there for a long period, you assume the carrying cost of inventory,” he said. At the same time, the system ensures consumption levels coincide stay in line with the uses for each supply, which helps minimize or eliminate obsolete stock, which can be costly, said Spence.
[Also: Finance staff plays bigger role in purchasing]
Just-in-time isn’t without financial risk, however. The biggest — and the reason it took this type of inventory management a while to catch on in healthcare — is the potential lack of availability of a product under the system, said Spence. “Hospitals take financial risks everyday, but the one they don’t want to incur is a patient event becoming a negative event.” For example, occasionally, situations arise where a patient procedure must be rescheduled because an implant, due to arrive the night before, is unavailable, said Spence. Then the surgery must be moved, which costs the facility more money.
“If you carry inventories under JIT that are so low that the product’s unavailable because of one incidence, that can be hugely adverse in the hospital sector,” he said.
Quincy Stanley, supply chain manager at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, said the savings associated with just-in-time purchasing can really add up.
“As supply chain professionals, it’s our job to make sure clinicians have what they need when they need it, but we must also make sure we don’t have too many dollars tied up in inventory,” he said. Mercy saw a 50 percent drop in on-hand inventory least year. “The data tells you which direction to go. Obviously, there are items you must have in a hospital, but you should know what they are, and whether you need to keep extras (in case of an emergency.)”….”
YEAH I AM SO SURE THESE BEAN COUNTERS & PENNY PINCHERS WERE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT EMERGENCIES. LETS PUT SOME BLAME ON THE LESSER BUREAUCRATS WHO ACTUALLY FAILED IN THIS DANGEROUS “MANAGERIAL” TREND
in old days they called geniuses like “Quincy Stanley” penny wise and pound foolish.
With a name like Quincy Stanley you can just imagine the face. And probably in retirement now, safely avoiding blame, saying it was all Trump’s fault. Guys like that, they need to have some of their fat bonuses clawed back, just maybe?
“Allan i am sure you don’t like my style. ”
No. I don’t judge your style but for one that reads a good amount of what you say with a lot of agreement I have to wonder if there is really agreement or you have covered all the bases. It makes it difficult to get into a deeper discussion of agreement when the position is so agreeable to all sides.
“They’re trolling you and you fall for it too often. .”
Of course they are trolling me. It is only by luck that one of those characters gets things right. I like to watch them squirm not because I am sadistic but because their type of logic leaves the entire country squirming and vulnerable to all sorts of bad things. Lies need to be corrected before repetition makes them appear true.
Kurtz, there are a lot of things about the healthcare sector that are dirty. The care in this country is good. The doctors and nurses are good. In general the technology is good and we have some of the best outcomes in the world.
There are too many rent seekers, politicians and too many people stealing along with too much intervention that has put the money in the wrong places and taken money away from hard working people.
Kurtz, just-in-time practices, including on assembly lines is now old and accepted procedure which has benefited us all with cheaper prices and a larger world economy. You might as well rail against the assembly line or the wheel.
The problem isn’t that we don’t have a planned economy based on declaring stupid stuff like n95 masks as high security – they aren’t, or if they are there is no end to what else is – but that we – the feds – failed to adequately plan for a pandemic. That is much easier, cheaper, and beneficial to our economy and the world’s then the batten down the hatches planning you are calling for.
We are not at war with China, though we are in competition, and we still continue to share technology and information with them and other countries for our mutual benefit. The more we are interlocked, the better, and the more isolated, the more heightened is the risk for real war, and or a stagnant economy leading to recessions and depression.
You are living with a 1930s mind set which is not recognizing modern realities. Those modern realities are much better than those from the 1930s and are obvious if you think about it. Cooperation – not survival of the fittest – is what has furthered human welfare and the history of the last 75 years proves that in spades.
I suggest 2 big thinkers currently active who disagree on whether we should be optimists or pessimists, but both of whom agree that the last almost century of human existence demonstrates our ability to change for the better. It doesn’t guarantee it.
Stephen Pinker is a Harvard prof who most recently made a splash with a book called “Enlightenment Now” which runs over the various ways since the Western Enlightenment that we have flourished as a species.
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian who recently wrote “Sapiens” which tracks our history from about 70,000 years ago to the present and shows how our ability to form larger and larger groups in ways other animals besides insects never have has made us so successful. Unlike chimps, we don’t have to physically know all the members of our tribe. We belong and organize based on abstract ideas like distant kinship, religion, and large groups like nations.
Maybe you’ve heard of these guys. Here is a discussion between the 2 of them about the future which you might find interesting.
Anon – if you do not think we are at war with the Chinese, you are fooling yourself.
well paul apparently the NIH didn’t think so which is why it was funding dangerous bat coronavirus research at the bsl 4 lab in wuhan.
i posted the links about it three times now, tired of this scheiss
I tell you what. If you trust the gubmint so durn much book tell me what the explanation of the NIH funding bat coronavirus experiments at the Wuhan bsl 4 lab. Was this a smart idea?
JIT inventory is great for stuff like tires or mufflers. Not so great for critical safety equipment
time to reorganize the supply chain — and quit farming stuff out to china.
INCLUDING NIH RESEARCH GRANTS ON CORONAVIRUS
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211257/Wuhan-lab-performing-experiments-bats-coronavirus-caves.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline&__twitter_impression=true
btw i would like to see what administration approved this grant. $10 says it was obama’s
oh, maybe it has nothing to do with this event. but i suspect it does.
oh yes back to this. the 2015 lab research funded by Obama admin that invented a novel coronavirus, then they “paused” these experiments because too dangerous.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/
then in 2017 RIGHT BEFORE TRUMP TOOK OFFICE they fired them back up again. why is that?
find out who signed off on that and HANG THEM
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/12/feds-lift-gain-function-research-pause-offer-guidance
“Tight framework centers on 8 criteria
The framework, condensed into a 6-page document, spells out a multidisciplinary review process that involved the funding agency and a department-level review group that considers the merits and possible research benefits and the potential to create, transfer, or use an enhanced potential pandemic pathogen (PPP). In January in the final days of the Obama administration, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released guidance the departments can use to follow through with the reviews.”
IN THE FINAL DAYS OF THE OBAMA ADMIN, THEY GREEN LIGHTED THIS CRAZY GAIN OF FUNCTION CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH AGAIN
OR MAYBE THIS JUST HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK?
keep on moving folks, nothing to see here!
Kurtz, the purpose of ‘gain-of-function” research is to understand and develop defenses against possible future pandemics. Some researchers think it is too dangerous but all think it should be done under extreme care and there are ratings for labs based on their level of care.
While there is a possibility that the covid-19 strain escaped from a lab in Wuhan that we had been aiding, the evidence is that it was not “designed” as some suspect or claim:
“In a recent podcast episode, Racaniello discussed with two other researchers a fascinating preprint paper (that’s currently under peer review, according to the authors) about the virus origin. The key finding: that SARS-CoV-2 is “not a laboratory construct nor a purposefully manipulated virus.”
The paper, which was uploaded onto Virological.org in February, is written by several leading microbiologists who closely examined the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
Specifically, they found the unusual biochemical features of the virus could only have come about two ways after the virus jumped from animal to humans, or what’s called zoonotic transfer. The ways, they write, are: “1) natural selection in a non-human animal host prior to zoonotic transfer, and 2) natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer.”
In other words, nature came up with these weird characteristics in the genome, either in an intermediary animal between bats and people or in humans after the virus infected one. As Racaniello put it on his podcast: “Humans could never have dreamed this up.”
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21156607/how-did-the-coronavirus-get-started-china-wuhan-lab
Further, if it was somehow chosen as a bio-weapon, it’s a bad one because it’s not particularly deadly except to old people.
it is hard to tell who is more crazy on this site: a guy peddling conspiracy theories on China Wuhan virus or a lackey referencing ….VOX
VOX!
Bwahahahahaah
Oh my…..Vox!🤣🤣🤣
book i understand you are a man of the enlightenment. you understand that my thinking is from the 1930s. indeed it is. the only enlightenment im a part of if any is the socalled “dark enlightenment”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/04/andrew-sullivan-why-the-reactionary-right-must-be-taken-seriously.html
Now about sharing tech. According to my thinking, the US institutions and universities and agencies like NIH should not have been doing “gain of function” lab research on coronaviruses in the first place, during Obama admin, Obama was right to cease them,– because they were too dangerous— then inexplicably in his last few days in office, they not only re-approved them in january 2017 right before he left office, but green lighted bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan bsl 4 lab. This is just inexplicable.
“sharing technology” with the PRC like how to lab-manipulate coronaviruses into having GOF features just supposedly for tame “epidemiological research” is the kind of Frankenstein tech that we shouldnt be cooking up in the first place let alone sharing with the CCP
call me a reactionary or a fascist but that’s how i see it
Let Trump just get the truth on this thing, was it related to the covid-19 disease emergence, or not if that can be definitively established, because I rather don’t trust these mad dr frankenstein geeks anymore,
I am really entertaining again now that the PRC AND WASHINGTON together are both lying to all of us.
Kurtz, try the video I linked. You should find it at least interesting, and if you aren’t already aware of them, these are probably the 2 most prominent, controversial, and prolific intellectuals of our time. They are not boring and if you agree much or not, they will probably introduce you to some new concepts of interest
Kurtz, I’m part way through the Andrew Sullivan link you posted – it’s a long one and will finish sometime today or this evening. Long as it is I may ask what people or parts most catch your imagination.
i read a book nearly 20 years ago called Nobilitas by Alexander Jacob and decided there were other legitimate social alternatives to liberal democracy.
This was some years before the “dark enlightenment” became a “thing.”
Jacob connects the aristocratic tradition to the critique of democracy elaborated in Plato’s Republic and then draws the line down among European regimes that you might call “authoritarian” into the 20th century.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Nobilitas.html?id=xmMwAAAAYAAJ&source=kp_book_description
To skip to the present, I am interested in learning more about Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and Carl Schmitt’s politics– but as those things relate to us now, here, not as they related to their situation in the 1920s a century ago. I am a broken record on these guys. But I have learned that these other people mentioned in the Atlantic article are interestged in them too. Whenever you see someone reference Leo Strauss, you may actually be headed in the direction of his rival and peer, Carl Schmitt.
Carl Schmitt is relevant as ever, what with governors and the POTUS issuing dictatorial edicts, however legitimate they may be, these are precisely the sort of thing that Schmitt discussed in “Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy”
now about that video. I watched it. I have heard Yuval Harari before, and he is worth listening to, I like his approach. . The forward thinking about AI and the social changes which relate to that would be what I’m interested in. I realize he is a critic of populism and nationalism, When it comes to the question of how to contain emergent AGI well then he has quite a good point about the difficulties involved in one nation seeking to contain it. IE this will not be possible. It’s not clear how this will be resolved. There is insufficient attention being given to where that is heading if only from a technical perspective. Let alone policy. If you are interested in that check out Nick Bostrom. So the subject of AGI and bioengineering are very difficult and Harari explores it well. Anther great series on AI is Lex Fridman’s. Anyhow i dont say that I agree with Harari but he talks about things that Im interested in, in a very smart way.
The Pinker guy, I would be interested in hearing from him about subjects in evolutionary psychology, and that’s about it. Not a laundry list of policy matters which are not really in his wheelhouse. He’s doesn’t really resonate with me very deeply. Actually I find him annoying. This guy sort of reminds me of Dawkins except more boring.
🤣 you two aren’t the Hawvid bahrneys Will Hunting and crew enjoyed scrapping with, are you?
Kurtz, I used to read Andrew Sullivan even though I had a lot of disagreements with him but then he went crazy and though smart he lost his value as another opinion for me. He is very smart and a good writer. The article is too long but I always like to review things I have seen in the past. Any particular portion of his article that you deem especially worthy?
Allan you seem to be what some folks would call a “classic liberal” which is a product of the Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers and their Deist, Newtonian viewpoint. Individualism, capitalism, liberty, reason, etc. These things are valued parts of our constitutional heritage and I accept them as norms which go into my job as a lawyer, but I don’t personally agree with John Locke’s view of the world anymore. So i have a lot of intellectual disagreements with things like the Declaration of Independence.
Anyhow, Wiki says they’re a collection of neoreactionaries and cryptofascists. Maybe unfair or maybe not. Maybe that’s what I already was deep down, before these guys started a thing with this brand name on it. I don’t know. I don’t worry about the names people call me, I try and take issues which seem important as they arise, and handle them with my own syncretic approach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
“So i have a lot of intellectual disagreements with things like the Declaration of Independence.”
Kurtz, there are a lot of things that aren’t fair and aren’t good. That isn’t the issue. Perfection is the evil of good so if we compare what we have to the dreams that will never be realized we find that the unfairness is more preferrable with our DOI and Constitution than without. Change can occur and has occurred over the years this country has been in existence. We can change violently as seen in the Civil War or change legally through Constitutional amendment and adherence to an imperfect anchor that has helped to make this country the freest and greatest in the world.
When you talk about intellectual disagreements you have to recognize that there are many ways to skin a cat and thus make things a lot fairer. Going the way of the Anon’s or Paint Chips Peter doesn’t make things better. Classical Liberals like Hayek recognized certain things could be accomplished even though many might not believe certain words were spoken by Hayek.
I would love to have such intellectual discussions on problems faced under our system of justice but don’t tell us they are not solveable under the DOI and the Constitution but can be successfully solved (without causing greater harm) by giving up on these two documents.
“stupid stuff like n95 masks as high security – they aren’t”
The comment seems a bit dumb during a pandemic where patients are dying along with physicians that are treating them. One can overload a healthcare system by not having enough doctors and nurses to treat patients along with the fact that without apppropriate masks the physician can transmit disease to the patient.
Now you can tell us how an uncle of yours worked with Albert Schweitzer.
Did anyone yet locate the video the President showed to the press to document the history of the virus and the response.? That is worth seeing and is early on in the press conference.
Allan says: April 14, 2020 at 11:32 AM
“Did anyone yet locate the video the President showed to the press…”
Yes. And it took just a couple of minutes, if that.
Now you can prove yourself by posting the site of that short video.
“Now you can” gfy…
As I thought, you didn’t have the goods. You tried to boost your ego and you failed. Failure seems to lead you to foul language that better belongs in a sewer than on a legal blog.
Oh, I ‘have the goods’…, but I’m not your Google monkey and have no interest in doing something that should be able to do for yourself.
If you could find it, you’d post it, but I guess you’re just not up to it. Gee, what a surprise. Maybe one of your little blog ‘friends’ will come to the rescue and post it for you.
” but I’m not your Google monkey”
I don’t want you as my monkey. It’s bad enough having you as the blog monkey. Now I have insulted the monkey population of the world as they are both smarter and more productive than you.
You couldn’t produce the video. You failed and now you are demonstrating your failure once again. Don’t bother posting it or its address as It is no longer needed.
Too bad. Allan couldn’t find it himself. Those who know him aren’t surprised.
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/04/14/no-president-trump-does-not-have-total-power-over-the-states/comment-page-2/#comment-1940936
It was quite easy to find at a later time than I looked, but our blog monkey Anonymous the Stupid didn’t have it at the time. It’s too late now for you to prove yourself one way or the other. Your ego will have to remain in the dumps. You lost your chance for your claim to fame.
Yep — it’s Allan-Jethro Bodine:
Here is an example of Anonymous the Stupid repeating himself. Next he will start a conversation with himself. What an idiot.
‘Failure’ by Allan @ 11:32 a.m.
Such an easy video to find, but little Allan just wasn’t up to the task. So he has to ask someone else to locate it for him.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-airs-video-montage-disputing-criticism-of-coronavirus-response-during-press-conference
It’s the second one at this site. I looked a bit too early.
Anonymous the Stupid couldn’t find it.
This video sets the record straight.
I give you Allan-Jethro Bodine:
I see Anonymous the Stupid is back to posting the same things over and over again. He has no brains in his head. If he did he would come up with new material and wouldn’t have to copy what others said.
I await the Brainless Wonder and Fido all joining in your head so we can complete the picture of an absolute idiot that frequently talks to himself.
Allan still doesn’t have the answer, but I’m not a bit surprised. That ‘Giant Brain’ of his doesn’t work very well.
I’ll repeat what I just said. Dummy, I posted it twice under from two different sources.
You earned your name Anonymous the Stupid.
Allan,
Your question was posed around 11:30 yesterday (4/14). The ‘Examiner’ article that you finally located was published the night before on 4/13. Maybe your search criteria didn’t cut it.
But finally locating an article — much later than it was published — isn’t the best solution to the problem that you were unable to solve in a timely fashion.
Put that Allan-Jethro ‘Giant Brain’ to work. I doubt that you’ll figure it out, but keep trying, little guy.
Wow Brainless Wonder. You spent all that time researching when the article was written but do you know when it was published on the net? Who cares? I didn’t find it and I wasn’t afraid of asking if anyone else had seen it. Since then it has been in multiple places and the searches bring it up quicker as more people search for it.
Anonymous the Stupid you apparently don’t know how search engines work. They build from experience.
Now Anonymous the Stupid and the Brainless Wonder can have that thought rattle around their head. Two half brains put together do not increase the brain power.
LOL. Allan still doesn’t have the answer.
Dummy, I posted it twice under from two different sources.
Poor old Allan. He still doesn’t get it.