What? We Were Lied To?

 

Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19

I only excerpted this from WaPO because many readers can’t read the article (without subscription0mAns we all should know how badly we were lied to. The man who continued to minimize the dangers of Covid and who I hold personally responsible for much of the anti-vaxx hysteria surrounding the Covid vaccine was profoundly ill, but had access to medical care and drugs us mortals couldn’t have gotten. Even so, he continued playing down this pandemic plague, endangering the lives of those gullible enough to believe him. What I posted is just a part of an article in todays WaPo.   

His illness was more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time. Advisers thought it would alter his response to the pandemic. They were wrong.

Begin WaPo text:  Two days after that, he flew to Cleveland for the first presidential debate against his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Trump was erratic that whole evening, and he seemed to deteriorate as the night went on. The pundits’ verdicts were brutal.“

Almost 48 hours later, Trump became terribly ill. Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward. His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen in an effort to stabilize him.

The doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDA’s sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.

Typically, doctors space out treatments to measure a patient’s response. Some drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, are most effective if they’re administered early in the course of an infection. Others, such as remdesivir, are most effective when they’re given later, after a patient has become critically ill. But Trump’s doctors threw everything they could at the virus all at once. His condition appeared to stabilize somewhat as the day wore on, but his doctors, still fearing he might need to go on a ventilator, decided to move him to the hospital. It was too risky at that point to stay at the White House.

Many White House officials and even his closest aides were kept in the dark about his condition. But after they woke up to the news — many of them were asleep when Trump tweeted at nearly 1 a.m. on Friday that he had the virus — Cabinet officials and aides lined up at the White House to get tested. A large number had met with him the previous week to brief him about various issues or had traveled with him to the debate.

Trump’s condition worsened early Saturday. His blood oxygen level dropped to 93 percent, and he was given the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which is usually administered if someone is extremely ill (the normal blood oxygen level is between 95 and 100 percent). The drug was believed to improve survival in coronavirus patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The president was on a dizzying array of emergency medicines by now — all at once.

At least two of those who were briefed on Trump’s medical condition that weekend said he was gravely ill and feared that he wouldn’t make it out of Walter Reed. People close to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he was consumed with fear that Trump might die.

It was unclear if one of the medications, or their combination, helped, but by Saturday afternoon Trump’s condition began improving. One of the people familiar with Trump’s medical information was convinced the monoclonal antibodies were responsible for the president’s quick recovery.

Throughout the day Saturday, Oct. 3, the restless Trump made a series of phone calls to gauge how his hospitalization was being received by the public. In all likelihood, the steroid he was taking had given him a burst of energy, though no one knew how long it would last. Perhaps buoyed by that, Trump continued to post on Twitter from the hospital, anxious to convey that he was upright and busy. At one point Trump even called Fauci to discuss his condition and share his personal assessment of the monoclonal antibodies he had received. He said it was miraculous how quickly they made him feel much better.”

Jumping to the last two paragraphs:

“But Trump didn’t waver. Facing the cameras from the balcony, he used his right hand to unhook the mask loop from his right ear, then raised his left hand to pull the mask off his face. He was heavily made up, his face more orange tinted than in the photos from the hospital. The helicopter’s rotors were still spinning. He put the mask into his right pocket, as if he was discarding it once and for all, then raised both hands in a thumbs-up. He was still probably contagious, standing there for all the world to see. He made a military salute as the helicopter departed the South Lawn, and then strode into the White House, passing staffers on his way and failing to protect them from the virus particles emitted from his nose and mouth.

Right then, Redfield (a senior staffer) knew it was over. Trump showed in that moment that he hadn’t changed at all. The pandemic response wasn’t going to change, either.”

Another Assault on Minimum Wage

 

        Today’s op-ed in our decidedly right leaning newspaper was Jackie Cushman taking yet another shot at the $15 minimum wage. She quotes Art Laffer (supply side/Laffer curve) as stating that some American workers aren’t “worth” $15 an hour. Back when Laffer was 16, in 1956, the minimum wage was $1.00 hourly. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in December of that same year was 30. The CPI at the end of 2020 was 260.47. Adjusted for inflation from when Professor Laffer would have been a minimum wage earner (assuming he ever worked such a job and can even identify with that situation), the minimum wage should be just $8.68. One assumes it is calculations like this which Laffer uses when denigrating the $15 /hr.

        However, consider that Laffer, a child of privilege and a professor by 1970, having earned a Yale BS and MBA, followed by a Stanford PhD, probably never worked a minimum wage job. Ever.  The fallacy here is the assumption that $1.00 was a living wage in 1956. A 40 hr./wk., 50 wks./yr. earner would have grossed only $2000 annually and that was a hair over the poverty level at the time. Adjusting for inflation, that is $8.68 which is still higher than the current (and still in effect) $7.25 hourly.

        So, having established that the current mandated federal minimum is inadequate to maintain a single earner household, even without children in the mix, let’s look at the number of such earners in today’s workplace. In 2017, the last year for which complete data is available, 80.4 million workers ages 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, this represented 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 542,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.3 million had wages below the federal minimum. Note that! More workers were paid less than legally required than were paid the exact minimum! Together these 1.8 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up just 2.3 percent of all hourly paid workers. Why mention this? Because in 1979 when this data was first collected, that percentage was 13.45.  In simplest terms, fewer and fewer workers are working at or below the minimum wage level.

         This, in essence, means that we have an increasingly small minority of workers who continue being either underpaid or earning the bare legal minimum. It seems easier to denigrate these folks as their numbers decrease, doesn’t it? At least it does to those like Jackie Cushman or Art Laffer who, with no personal basis for comparison, ignore or minimize the impact on the lives of those who, with no skill training, must work two minimum wage jobs to maintain a bare poverty level household.     

        Ms. Cushman then continues with an account of being in two different fast food “places” and of the widely different service she experienced in each. Without the gory details, service was prompt and courteous in one, while in the other, she and other customers were forced to wait, and service seemed disinterested and lackluster. She then made the incredible leap of illogic of citing the second experience as "proof" that a $15 minimum wage is unjustified.

        It was at about this point that my own personal experience in management at several levels kicked in as I called bullshit! I have “managed” the seaman gang on a submarine, over 100 high level senior instructors in a challenging Naval Nuclear Power School curriculum, and six classes per day of high school students, and oddly enough, they all required the same skill set to a significant degree.

         I would wager that a look behind the scenes at the fast-food place which disappointed Ms. Cushman might well reveal conditions with which she is unacquainted or more likely unconcerned. Short staffing comes to mind at first. Another and far more significant issue, however, is the management skill set and, as important or even more so, the leadership ability of the supervisors of these folks. A great team of minimum wage folks can suffer under poor supervision by someone who is being compensated much higher for the job they are “supposed” to do.

        The father of the US Navy’s nuclear power program, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, had a saying which has remained with me since first I read it. “You get what you inspect, not what you expect.”  This does not necessarily mean micro-management, but rather engagement, presence and guidance, where necessary, as a prime component of leadership. Managers provide materials, schedules and orders. Leaders encourage their personnel to want to meet those expectations and, yes, provide the management component by making sure the team sees itself as one and feels empowered to make suggestions to supervisors as appropriate. Yeah, listening is a significant component of leadership, too!

        We see this in all levels of the workplace. Management frequently seems concerned only with the end result or product. Leaders are concerned with the process as well.

        A well-managed, encouraged, and “led by example” staff of fast-food workers will meet expectations with a smile and be worth every bit of $15 /hr. Those that need help meeting expectations should be coached and encouraged, those who won’t, should be terminated, not tolerated. That means leaders and manager need to make encouragement, guidance and, where required, correction, key parts of their job. Additionally, they need to do realistic evaluation and provide feedback.

        And, in simple humanity, those who are privileged and/or well off, for whatever reason should stop devaluing the humanity of those who, whatever the job, do it to the best of their ability.     

Gasoline Economics 101

 

Gasoline Economics 101

         So, right off the bat, as the daily news reports, correctly, I assume, that the price of gasoline has risen to over $3.00/gallon, I wonder how many readers threw the paper down, blaming President Biden. I am absolutely sure that some moron used the words “Keystone Pipeline” in a diatribe, although that “pipe dream” (see what I did there?) was years from any meaningful impact on gas prices.   

        As I have (too) often had to remind the uninformed and/or Economics challenged, the federal impact on fuel pricing has actually diminished since the federal gas tax was set at 18.4 cents/gallon in 1993. Since it was not indexed to inflation, it has remained at that figure even though with the US Consumer Price Index increases from 1993 to 2020, it should be 1.79 times higher than it is, just to match inflation. For the math challenged let me simplify. Just to keep pace with inflation the federal gas tax should be over 33 cents/gallon.

        For those too young (or too old) to remember, gasoline prices have fluctuated over time for various reasons from OPEC production squeezes to off-line refineries, to hurricanes. Etc. Let’s deal with the non-market fluctuations first, in other words State fuel taxes.  The below graphic shows the unchanging federal tax and the federal tax for each state.

  If you’re angry about fuel taxes, I suggest you contact your state representatives. Clearly, the Fed isn’t the primary taxing entity nationwide as far as fuel prices are concerned. Moreover, note the variation from California (where 23%) of gas tax is federal to Alaska, where 54% is federal.

        But, enough already, with the tax aspect of gas prices. Why are prices up right now? Adam Smith explained it all in “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), waaay before the gasoline engine was even invented. Gasoline is a commodity and, as such is subject to the basic laws of supply and demand. Since there is also limited storage capacity relative to the huge volumes of gasoline we consume, automobile fuel is very susceptible to price fluctuations as demand lags or surges, causing either surplus or shortage.  

        For most of 2020, many of us were in varying degrees isolation and reduced driving with that extending, but diminishing, into mid 2021 (today). Nationally and, in fact, world-wide, gasoline consumption has been well below historical averages. For 2020 the US as a nation consumed more than 10% less gasoline than the 5-year previous average. Accordingly, producers/importers limited production to match demand and prices remained relatively stable. However, now with vaccines and the subsequent resumption of more and more normal lives, especially including travel, the demand for gasoline has escalated. Demand now exceeds supply and will for a short while. Predictably, prices rise due to shortages. What does government at any level have to do with that? Not a damned thing.

        And as an inserted political commentary, if Congress had any real balls at all, they’d increase federal gasoline/diesel tax to the level it would/should be if it were CPI indexed, and the infrastructure issue would be eased by the influx of around $25.5 billion in increased revenue! (average annual fuel usage of gas and diesel at an extra 15 cents per gallon)

        Now is probably a good time to also lay some responsibility on retailers. When they have supply tanks half full and supply lags, leading to a wholesale price increase, they raise their price at the pump in anticipation of what it will cost to refill them, realizing the consumer is probably unaware of the wholesale cost fluctuations. Even if the fuel in their half full tanks was wholesaled to them at $1.20 per gallon, and they are retailing it at (as a hypothetical) $1.85, with a profit of perhaps 15 cents a gallon (national average for net profit), the moment the retailer realizes his cost to refill those tanks is going to increase, he us likely to raise the price on that remaining gas to meet the wholesale price increase. But after he has refilled at the higher price, he will continue selling at that price even if the wholesale price drops, until he can refill at a lower cost. Welcome to retail. But, before you fire-bomb your local station, consider that, at a volume of 4,000 gallons/day their net profit is around a paltry $100 daily.

        The other reality many Americans fail to consider is that there was a world-wide “oil glut” from mid-1985 to 1999, with accompanying low oil prices. The Iraq war, the great Recession, Arab Spring and accompanying world events drove oil supplies down and, accordingly, prices for refined gas up between 2003 and 2014. 2015 saw a rebound in crude oil supplies and price at the pump eased back down. The 2020 global pandemic was simply another event causing supply and demand to get out of synch, with the usual effects on price. This, too, shall pass.  

        American consumers would be wise to take a look at the nations of Europe and their gasoline prices.     

  The EU requires that all member nations levy at least an equivalent of $1.61 US per gallon. Most tax more than that minimum. The UK, for example, charges $2.60 /gallon (.65-euro equivalent/liter). This seems astronomical to us, but I point this out to show that even if US fuel tax was only half that of Europe’s minimum (80 cents per gallon in round figures) the revenues generated for much needed infrastructure would be largely paid for by users.  If mandatorily aimed at and limited to infrastructure, this would generate another $136 billion annually, off budget, adding nothing to the national debt. Oh well, what do I know?

An Uncomfortable Truth?

                      

             An Uncomfortable Truth?

There will, undoubtedly be some who will disagree with my premise. So be it. We are sometimes bombarded with events and decisions which inspire self-contradictory feelings because they are at odds with each other.

        Example: Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, proudly signed, late last week, a bill aimed at restructuring Florida’s education standards. One key provision is the mandated teaching of The Holocaust. On the off chance that any public-school history teacher worth their paycheck would not do so unless ordered to, I guess this is OK. It was certainly a major world event and a genocidal horror which demands remembrance. The bill goes on to mandate teaching not only the Holocaust, but the (sic) “history of systematic anti-Semitism aimed at the Jewish people throughout history.” Again, as teacher of World and United States History, genocide of any nature was a subject for my classroom…. but: The bill also bans the teaching of critical race theory and “dumps” Common Core. So? So, an essential part of Common Core is the teaching and inculcation of critical thinking skills.

        Stay with me here. Critical thinkers might well ask. “Why are we mandated to teach one horrific series of world events aimed at a specific ethnic group and banned from teaching about similar efforts aimed at others?”  Why are the horrors inflicted upon one group (Hebrews) more worthy of critical analysis than the systematic and at times genocidal efforts aimed at Native Americans by the US, Caribbean natives by the Spanish, Armenians in Turkey, the Irish by the English, and African Americans in Africa by European colonialists and here in the US?  

        The correct answer is a better “Lobby.”  First however let me establish one salient fact: Being opposed in principle to Zionism is not anti-Semitic and, in fact there are several significant anti-Israel Jewish organizations in the US. By “anti- Israel”, these groups mean that they are calling for what, traditionally, Jews have sought all along – the right to live equally and participate peaceably in society wherever they may live. Where they differ is in the nature of what Israelis have done to indigenous Arabs in the process.  To a great extent, the denial of this basic human right has, historically, previously been driven by Christians. Jews have suffered thus. To those Evangelical ravings that Christians haven't killed in the name of their religion consider the following:

Bosnia: During the Bosnian War, at least 97,207 people were killed. The vast majority were Bosnian Muslims, the victims of religiously motivated "ethnic cleansing" at the hands of both Croatian Catholics and Yugoslav Orthodox.

Crusades: Christian military excursions against the Muslim Conquests killed at a lower estimate, 1.7 million. Although styled as Holy War, and preached as one by the Pope, it was even worse, as it rapidly degenerated into empire building in the name of "Christian kingdoms" in the eastern Mediterranean. 

 

 

French Wars of Religion: In France, during the last half of the 16th century wars between French Catholics and (Protestant) Huguenots caused the death of 2.8 million souls, again in the name of the same god (different uniform).

The Thirty Years' War:  Fought between parts of Germany and other outside forces pitted Protestant against Catholic again, both convinced God was on their side, as Protestant princes rebelled against the Holy Roman Empire. During the first half of the 17th century at least 5.9 million died in the name of one or the other version of Christianity.

Spanish Inquisition:  Once again, Roman Catholics killed those who did not believe as they did. between 1493 and about 1530, burnings killed at least 1,000, but the real tragedy was the belief that God had, via the Pope, granted all of the Americas to Spain, ergo, if native persons did not follow God's will (give up the gold and be slaves) they could be killed, and essentially all Arawaks and Caribs in the Caribbean basin eventually were.   

Worthy of special mention is the fact that Germany considered itself a Christian nation as it pursued the "final solution". Of course, this was not the first time Jews in Germany had been persecuted, since Teutonic Knights on their way to the holy land burned synagogues with the congregations locked inside. This, then is just a partial listing of the real story about the clean hands of Christianity.

But I digress, as I sometimes do. So/ what do anti-Zionists including a significant number if US Jews dislike about it. It is simply this. Israel’s current rulers are treating indigenous Arab peoples in much the same manner as they themselves have been treated historically.

In defense of this colonialist attitude (which is what it is) David Harris, head of the American Jewish Committee, says “To deny the Jewish people, of all the peoples on earth, the right to self-determination surely is discriminatory.”  All the peoples on earth? The Kurds don’t have their own state. Neither do the Basques, Catalans, Scots, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Abkhazians, Ossetians, Lombards, Igbo, Oromo, Uyghurs, Tamils and Québécois, nor dozens of other peoples who have created nationalist movements to seek self-determination but failed to achieve it. 

States based on ethnic nationalism – states created to represent and protect one particular ethnic group – are not the only legitimate way to ensure public order and individual freedom, and certainly the USA is exemplary in its (generally) inclusionary policy. One might think Israel’s leaders would understand this, because many of the same Jewish leaders who call national self-determination a universal right are quite comfortable denying it to Palestinians. Israel contains close to 5 million non-citizens, that is, Palestinians who live under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza (yes, Israel still controls Gaza) without basic rights in the state that dominates their lives. In (too) many ways, Palestinians are subjected to the same sort of “Apartheid” rules which South African Blacks were forced to endure under apartheid. When the Knesset decides to approve the establishment of more and more Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, no Palestinians are consulted or are their opinions valid.

Israel’s “nation state law” (formally known as Basic Law: Israel - The Nation State of the Jewish People), which came into force in 2018, defines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, constitutionally entrenching inequality and discrimination against non-Jews. The law grants the right to self-determination exclusively to Jews, establishes that immigration leading to automatic citizenship is exclusive to Jews and promotes the building of Jewish settlements. It essentially establishes a theocracy (you know, like that of Iran?) and since Israel collects income taxes from every Palestinian employed in Israel and the occupied territories sets up a situation much like America’s colonies who ass one might recall protested and went to war over “No taxation without representation.”

        Israel as a state is simply another colonial attempt, following a war, one of whose aims was to end colonialism, as stipulated in both the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations. Whether one thinks it justified or not, that's all it is. Israel is Plymouth Plantation, and its Arab neighbors are Native Americans, pushed off their land and told where they may live, as long as they behave. 

Imagine, some Jewish Americans think Israelis are hypocritical. So do I.

For a detailed (and too long for this gram) historical analysis of the evolution of the region from Abrahamic fantasy to the present read this monograph in my blog:

https://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-mid-east-history-you-dont-often-hear.html

The Truth About Cyber Security

 

 The Truth About Cyber Security

    

A recent op-ed (scratch that, it isn’t “ed” it’s just an attack cartoon) portrays President Biden as a Barney Fife caricature dunce over the title “Biden Fife Cyber-security.”  This is obviously an effort to divert attention from three actual realities.

        The first is that the May 6^th Colonial Pipeline hacker attack happened in the arena of Trump era lax/unenforced  cyber security protocols, especially those requiring coordinated inter agency efforts and data sharing.  Over a span of four years in office, Trump failed to hold adversaries including Russia accountable for hacking U.S. targets, removed experienced cyber-defenders from their posts for petty reasons and undermined much of the good work being done on cybersecurity within federal agencies, according to 71 percent of respondents to a Washington Post poll of data security experts (in and outside the Trump administration). The poll queried a panel of more than 100 cybersecurity experts who participate in an ongoing informal survey.

        In 2016, Trump, in the flurry of undoing Obama Executive Orders, overrode an Obama directive, written in 2012 which was a framework for a protocol for responding to cyber warfare. It met with mixed response because it constrained the various agencies involved to coordinate with one another prior reacting to threats. What concept, huh? Inter-agency cooperation

        In point of fact, the survey was conducted prior to the revelation of the most significant data security breach of the Trump administration — a hack linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, that infected at least five federal agencies — the Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security and State departments as well as the NIH as well as foreign governments and companies across the globe.

        The second is that most of the “ransom” paid by the operators of the Colonial Pipeline (The headline in yesterday’s CNN news read "U.S. recovers $2.3 million in bitcoin paid in the Colonial Pipeline ransom") was recovered by experts who were able to “hack” the bitcoin “wallet” of one of the hackers and retrieve the credits. (Note, this is an obvious shortcoming of crypto currencies, which exist only as electronic impulses).

        The third event ignored by the cartoonist (a well know and constant critic of anything nor Far Right) is the fact that assuming Biden would simply take the oath and would (or could, facing Congressional stalling) immediately fix all the myriad Trump Administration shortcomings is disingenuous at best.

         In fact, like any good leader, Biden gathered input from those who actually know things, rather than shoot from the hip claiming that he “knows more than anyone about… you name it," and then, using that expert input, formulated a coherent policy, Executive Order, and on May 12, six days after the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack, issued the Order, entitled Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.   Make sure you get this point: Trump, having been made aware of Russian hackers and their efforts over four years, (see John Bolton’s insider book!) did essentially nothing to thwart those efforts or encourage or even allow development of a strategy for coping with such threats.

By contrast, the Biden Order, far too long to include here but available here:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/  is very specific in both scope and timelines for action.

The general tone of the directive is embodied in this summary paragraph of the introductory portion. “It is the policy of my Administration that the prevention, detection, assessment, and remediation of cyber incidents is a top priority and essential to national and economic security.  The Federal Government must lead by example.  All Federal Information Systems should meet or exceed the standards and requirements for cybersecurity set forth in and issued pursuant to this order.”

        In the interest of brevity, I will simply list several key areas of concern headings:

Sec. 2.  Removing Barriers to Sharing Threat Information. (Remember FBI and CIA pissing contests over 9/11 concerns?)

Sec. 3.  Modernizing Federal Government Cybersecurity. (This includes directives and timelines for moving to a “Zero Trust Architecture” for federal data systems.)

Sections 4 is administrative and software supply chain oriented.

Sec. 5.  Establishing a Cyber Safety Review Board. (self-explanatory, yep, there were provisions for one, but Trump failed to push the actual formation or agenda of it.

Sec. 6.  Standardizing the Federal Government’s Playbook for Responding to Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Incidents. (Yes, there was no Federal departmental standard “What the fuck do we do now?" plan even after Trump era Russian hacks were discovered)

The remainder is pretty much “Make it happen” and reemphasizes timelines and responsibilities.

        This represents more and more specific action in the realm of cyber security after less than 4 months than the entire Trump 4 years. Does this sound much like Barney Fife to you? Me Neither.

Even More Things Which Make me go "Huh?"

 

And Even More Things That Make Me Go, “Huh?”

        Amidst indignant screams from the far Right that stimulus checks (only the Biden ones, mind you) have enabled shiftless Americans to rely on unemployment and remain idle rather than go back to work, we find this AP news item: “US Jobless claims drop to 385,000 - A low for the pandemic” the article goes on to point out that this is actually the FIFTH STRAIGHT WEEK that such claims have dropped. What, you ask, could Republicans have been lying to us? Bet on it.

        Closer to home, but reflective of the same GOP venality, we have this tidbit from the same (Friday, June 4) daily rag: I shall reorganize for clarity. The governor of Florida miserably failed in most areas related to dealing with of Covid and is responsible for the South Florida spike because, like his idol, Donald Trump, he minimized the severity of Covid until so many Floridians began dying that he could no longer ignore it. Ron DeSantis whose nose gets hurt every time Trump stops abruptly, has now decided that CDC recommendations aimed at allowing cruise lines to resume operations are “too restrictive”. This is just one more case of a politician deciding that the health care professionals at the nation’s highest level are dunces.

        The CDC has already allowed cruising to restart on the Alaska /Northwest route but has laid out reasonable precautions to avoid another “plague ship” fiasco. These precautions include: The conditional sail order requires ships to make arrangements with ports for medical services in the event of a coronavirus outbreak as well as enact a long list of COVID-19 protections on board. The industry did not receive guidance on how to move forward to prove out ships’ safety protocols until May, and the CDC has adjusted its guidance on a near-weekly basis since then. That includes simulated sailings unless a ship sails with mostly vaccinated crew and passengers.

        These precautions are apparently too restrictive for the Gov, who has had his Attorney General/consigliere, Ashley Moody, file suit claiming that the CDC, by exercising/requiring reasonable precautions to allow the cruise industry to resume operations, has “overstepped its authority”. If the Florida suit gains traction in the federal courts, it could overturn the current Alaska restart or enable a rebirth of Covid because of relaxation of vaccination requirements, which is the real target of this suit.

        One thing we can count on with DeSantis; commerce and profit will always trump common sense and public safety. Claims of Florida having “done well” in the face of Covid are specious at best. In truth Florida had a higher death rate per 100,000 than California, largely due to a cavalier attitude exhibited at the top regarding beaches and masks. Even with a far larger undocumented population which was discouraged from seeking vaccination or treatment, California fared better than Florida.  The death rates in most of Florida’s major population centers resemble that of Los Angeles: Miami-Dade, the largest, has a rate of 210 deaths per 100,000, Palm Beach 173, Pinellas County (St. Petersburg) 156. If Disney and other tourist meccas had not issued mandatory mask requirements and, in some cases, shut down, ignoring DeSantis’ urgings to be open for business as usual, imagine what “super spreaders” they could have become!

        Finally, the supremely partisan and ignorant Stacey Dash, in an op-ed, claims that the Biden administration is “hurting Black families” by attempting to remove the current provision of the Hyde amendment the Hyde Amendment (a legislative provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.) The Hyde Amendment isn’t actually federal statute; the policy is not a permanent law, but rather has been attached as a temporary “rider” to the Congressional appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services and has been renewed annually by Congress.

        Thwarted in attempts to enact a national abortion ban, legislators opted, instead to enact a discriminatory bar. Discriminatory because in America, despite the news that unintended pregnancy and abortion rates have fallen in the general population, abortions have becoming increasingly concentrated among poor women and black women. Women of color are more likely than white women to be insured by Medicaid and have higher rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. In 2014, 75% of abortions were among low-income patients, and 64% were among black or Latina women.  Young adults and teens, who are less likely to have a steady source of income, make up the majority (72%) of abortion patients.

        Clearly, Ms. Dash has a stunted logic lobe in her brain, if she thinks the Hyde Amendment “protects” any sentient being. In fact, 16 states already allow state Medicare/Medicaid funds to pay for abortion. Understand that persons of means are relatively unaffected by the Hyde Amendment since they can afford to pay the cost of a procedure. Is essence, the Hyde Amendments’ provisions and prohibitions discriminate only against minorities and the poor in direct contravention of her claims.

        The fact is that Stacey Dash is opposed to abortion, as is her right. While I diametrically disagree, and, having no uterus, would never be directly affected, it is certainly her right to refuse to have a termination. It is, however an intensely personal and emotional issue from which the government would be better advised to remain aloof, and Ms. Dash’s opinion is valid only for her. Attempting to spin Biden’s efforts to lose the Hyde Amendment as “aimed at disadvantaging minorities” is rather more worthy of professional career liars such as Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson.