Posts Made By: James Lacey

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

You need a mental exam because your vitriol and your hatred of this President is driving you batty.  I'd suggest a good game of "get a life" might help you out.  

The man who routinely posts 3,000-word screeds calling the Democratic Party the spawn of Satan is hardly in a position to judge who is batty and who is not. You, and apparently Darian too, can hardly stand the fact that Democrats live and breathe on the same planet, and according to Darian anyway, would gladly snap your fingers like Thane and crush them all under your foot only to scrape them off like so much dog-shit. Excuse me if I don't take your uneducated, uninformed and non-clinical conclusion that I am batty when you have been living in the belfry your entire life here on Astromart. It's certainly worth pointing out too that no one on this forum even comes close to your prolific posting. You have to have us all beat by a factor of ten, at least. I mean, I would make a joke about your life, but you already beat us to it.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Nothing you've ever belched up here has been vindicated.

The Red Dawn emails obtained by the NYT under the FOIA contain my vindication.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6879-2020-covid-19-red-dawn-rising/66f590d5cd41e11bea0f/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

Tom Bossert was the director of Homeland Security under Trump in 2016 and 2017. On March 11, 2020, he wrote:
Can anyone justify the European travel restriction, scientifically? Seriously, is there any benefit? I don't see it, but I'm hoping there is something I don' t know.

In response came these replies (this is only a sample; there are many more).

Gerald Parker Jr., a professor at TAMU on March 11, said:
I do not see it. No use now. I saw it for China. But not now.

James Lawler, an infectious disease expert on March 12, said:
Fuck no. This is the absolute wrong move.

Richard Hatchett, an epidemic preparedness professional on March 12, said:
No justification that I can see, unless we were to put up similar geographic cordons in the US- there is plenty of disease already in the US to cause spread domestically.

Carter Mercher, on March 12, said:
There is no value to these travel restrictions. A waste of time and energy. The lesson from Mann Gulch was to drop those things that are not essential. That lesson was not heeded. I wouldn't waste a moment of time on travel restrictions or travels screening. We have nearly as much disease here in the US as the countries in Europe.

Originally Posted by James Brown

James:

I did not watch the press briefing yesterday, but the summary I read makes it sound like Trump has been properly reminded of the limitations of his office.  It is certainly embarrassing that he spouted off in an authoritarian fashion the other day, but this is a great example of what I just mentioned to Greg.  The system has soft checks and balances, like the staffers who informed DJT that reopening the states was not his sole prerogative, and of course the system has hard checks, like the courts that have stricken down unconstitutional executive orders issued by BO or DT.

Jim

It's not just embarrassing. It shows how little Trump has learned about the job even after more than three years on the job. As I've said, I'm not worried about Trump going full despot. There are plenty of people who will keep that from happening.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Like I posted yesterday in the charts and data thread, I think my Governor has a good reopening plan.  No idea about yours!

Jim

Our Governor announced some sensible relaxations today. I rarely agree with him on politics, but he is a decent man, and a functioning adult, so I'm pretty sure we can depend on him to do his job adequately. Schools will remain closed for the academic year, doctors and nurses can go back to work for non-essential services, and retail can re-open in a safe social-distancing way. He made it clear that we are not flipping a switch, and may have to take steps back to go forward.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/malaria-drug-virginia-coronavirus-study-198590

Has anyone else noticed how Trump has altogether quit talking about it too?

I finished a book about the flu epidemic of 1918 last night. The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how history repeats itself. Our politicians have learned nothing over the decades since regarding the proper way to respond to a global health crisis. Politicians back then were as incompetent or even more so than today. Even back then, politicians were peddling snake-oil and encouraging the use of typhoid vaccines, and even quinine of all things! Their reasoning seemed to be if it worked on one disease, then it might just work on this one. Then they would convince themselves it worked regardless of results. Just incredible how our politicians have learned nothing.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi James:

Good to see your post.  Since you and Rich went dark at about the same time I was worried that maybe you and he were simply two personalities of the same patient pounding away at the keyboard in a psych ward somewhere! 

Just kidding.  

Seriously.

J

  

I'm not psycho, but maybe it's a shorter trip than I would care to admit. 

I guess I missed the post that Rich was apologizing for, and it must have been really over the top to make him go dark.

Some of the other things I learned about the 1918 pandemic are, many of the people in charge were political appointees. They had no real experience for the job and were utterly incompetent. Capitalists and business-owners all down-played the severity of the outbreak and said it was no worse than seasonal flu because they wanted workers back on the job. Nationalist actors fomented terror and blamed Germany and anyone else that was convenient as long as it furthered their aims and agendas. And so forth and so on. If it didn't sound all too familiar, I wouldn't believe it.

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Some of the other things I learned about the 1918 pandemic are,...

Here is the most terrible story I came across.

In Alaska, the Eskimos were close to extinction from the virus. The governor of Alaska managed to raise $100,000 to mount relief expeditions for the Eskimos. The navy provided the USS Brutus to carry the team to Juneau, where they fanned out in smaller boats to visit villages. They found terrible things. Entire communities wiped out, and many averaged 85% or higher death rates. Many villages had no sign of life left other than the packs of half-starved semiwild dogs that were the villagers' working animals. The starving dogs devoured the dead and left only bones and clothing to tell the tale. This same story played out over and over at every village they visited.

Then there was Okak. Two-hundred and sixty people lived there, and the virus stuck so fast, people could not care for themselves or the dogs. First, the dogs devoured each other, then they smashed through dwellings and fed on dead or dying people. Only fifty-nine people survived. One of them was the Reverend Andrew Asboe. With his rifle beside him, he killed over one hundred dogs while ill and waiting for rescue or relief. The rescuers dug a mass grave 32 feet long, 10 feet wide, and eight feet deep. It took them two weeks to do it because the ground was frozen.

Originally Posted by James Brown

The NYT has run several opinion pieces along this line recently.  I wonder how much this position is motivated  by the fact that many of these writers live in New York City?  The death toll there is so much worse than elsewhere in the states, there really is no comparing the risk in the City to the risk out here.  Here is a chart with this morning's data comparing New York to a few of the forum home states.  Canada is at 50 deaths/M by the way.

I suppose the question is Jim, do you think NYC is an anomaly or is it a cautionary tale? Given the transmissibility of the virus, wouldn't any place eventually become another NYC given enough time? What may have made NYC unique is its density and its highly prevalent use of mass transit? Don't misunderstand. I'm all for returning to "normal" as soon as possible. There is a lot of real pain out there. For example, my employer will be furloughing 1/3 of its 10,000+ global workforce starting tomorrow, and that could include me. It will certainly include some of my friends and colleagues. So, I understand all too well what is at stake.

Originally Posted by Darian Rachal

Greg, you've accurately described the Democrat Party and the American MSM.

What is hilarious is that somehow you are utterly blind to the politicization Trump is engaging in himself. Last Friday, Trump was tweeting about liberating several states, and this week he's undercutting Governor Kemp in GA and saying he told the Governor he thinks it's too soon to reopen. Which is it, Mr. President? Liberate or not? Never mind that the governors of Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia are all Democratic and that they are all in battleground states in the upcoming November election and that Kemp is a Republican in a solid red-state. Seriously Darian, do you think Trump is not politicizing this to shape the view of the electorate in those battleground states? Of course, he is, and it is painfully evident, given his flip-flopping and hypocrisy.

Besides that, though, what honestly infuriates me about Trump is that it is clear he has no strategy. One day he says we don't need broad-scale testing to reopen; the next day, he's screaming on Twitter that the states have to step up their testing. He has schizophrenia and just reacts and lashes out like a spoiled child at these press briefings. He's just trying to survive the news cycle. From what I can tell, the feds have given up and are just looking to the governors to figure it out. The other day he was accusing Democratic governors of not using all the tests he created to make him look bad. This behavior is paranoid and nonsensical. Especially given that Governor Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, had to go to South Korea to get 500,000 tests for his state. I mean seriously, how can anyone watch this man and think, "Gee! I'm glad he's in charge!"

Originally Posted by Darian Rachal

James, I just listened to Trump address this matter. I don't think he's undercutting Kemp at all. I actually respect Trump for acquiescing to the desires of the governor even though, as he stated, he disagrees with him. 

All I can say is you have reached peak Trump apologist if you cannot see that he's undercutting yet yielding to Kemp because GA is a definite win for him, whereas the other states are not. Ask yourself one simple question. Why is Trump calling for the liberation of Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia, but not any other non-battleground states?