Tag Archives: CDC pandemic response team

May 17, 2020 · 02:56

The Danger of an Unrestrained President and a Short History of His Coronavirus Lies, Using His Words

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

i have been working on this article for a couple of days. Sadly, there is so much available on it, especially the words of the President and his closest allies and advisors are so numerous, contradictory, malleable, and misleading that they would fill a book. I have done what I can for a online article.

President James Madison wrote:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Tonight as the novel Coronavirus 19 raged across the country, President Trump blames everyone but himself for his administration’s incompetence and failure to act, most of the reasons for go back to him, he gave yet another pep rally as he announced new members of a vaccine task force; rage tweeted conspiracy theories and false information, and then tonight firing yet another of his administration’s Inspectors General, this time that of the State Department. This is the fourth of these officials, whose job is to provide overwatch of their agencies have been fired by the President during the last few months.

Over the same time the President has all over the map in his response to the pandemic is to but his most frequent to deny the reality, deflect from the issue, make unsubstantiated claims about miraculous drugs, make promises about testing, the amount of testing, and disparage testing, order people around him to wear face masks but refuse to do so himself, contradict his own experts advice about the virus, and encourage protests and uprisings against the very governors that he gave the freedom to deal with the virus in their states, or blame blame political opponents, the media, other countries, and anyone but him for his actions, indecisiveness, and incompetence during the greatest crisis to face the country in over a century.

His words since January have shown that he neither comprehends the danger or really cares about the American people so long as he can keep his hold on power. One January 22nd he told CNBC:

“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

On February 10th he told a campaign rally in New Hampshire:

“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” He couldn’t have been more wrong. In April the United States lost more people to COVID 19 than it did in the Vietnam War.

On February 24th he tweeted: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

February 26th President Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence would head up a new National Coronavirus Task Force, at the same Press conference the President said:

“We’re testing everybody that we need to test. And we’re finding very little problem.…It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.” He says the number of cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Unfortunately, that is not how vaccines, even for the the flu are developed, and certainly not how they stop a virus.

The next day he doubled down on his claim, he told a news conference on February 27th “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

On March 2nd Trump met with pharmaceutical CEOs and later claimed that the drug companies are  “going to have vaccines I think relatively soon. And they’re going to have something that makes you better, and that’s going to actually take place we think even sooner.” Dr. Anthony Fauci said directly contradicted him saying  “a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go.”

In a Fox News Interview on March 4th he asserted “I think the 3.4 percent [fatality rate] is really a false number.”  The same day he told a group of airline CEOs “Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.”

He touched on testing on March 6th speaking at the CDC saying “Anybody that wants a test can get a test. … The tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect, right?”  However, the testing capability was not there, and his words would again be exposed as a fantasy, but people believed it until they didn’t.

On March 8th he tweeted at Trump National Golf Course  “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus….The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!” But these was no such plan, everything was being done on the fly, and even Mike Pence noted on March 5th   “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.” 

On March 9th he attacked the news media and Democratic Party on Twitter:

“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power … to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.”

The very next day on March 10th he told Republican Senators: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” Of course, despite two months of warnings we were not prepared. We lacked testing kits, and health care workers lacked critical PPE in order to protect themselves, and enough ventilators to treat  COVID 19 infected patients.

On the 12th the President bragged that everyone coming in to the United States was being tested for the virus, despite numerous accounts to the contrary by travelers entering the United States, including  people I actually know. The President claimed with no justification:

“We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested and if they are positive and if they’re able to get through because frankly if they are not, we are not putting them on planes if it shows positive….Frankly, the testing has been going very smooth. If you go to the right agency, if you go to the right area, you get the test.”

On March 13th he declared a national emergency but then said:

“We have 40 people right now. Forty. Compare that with other countries that have many, many times that amount. And one of the reasons we have 40 and others have — and, again, that number is going up, just so you understand. And a number of cases, which are very small, relatively speaking — it’s going up. But we’ve done a great job because we acted quickly. We acted early. And there’s nothing we could have done that was better than closing our borders to highly infected areas.”

But this was a lie, he had dithered, denied and delayed and those numbers would grow exponentially over the coming weeks and months. He also claimed that nothing that had happened under his watch, his actions and inactions, to minimize, deny, deflect, and delay telling the truth regarding the virus, the testing, or the severity of the pandemic. His words From then are still haunting to remember “I don’t take responsibility at all…”

He finally began to acknowledge the severity of the crisis when in a March 16th news conference he acknowledged “We have an invisible enemy.” This was true and it appeared that he and the administration might finally be on the verge of responding to it. He followed that up with “We’re using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”  That was a hopeful sign, but as we have discovered since, there was little truth  in it. Experts were not being listened to and little was being done to coordinate a response at the Federal level.

The following day, March 15th at another news conference he acknowledged truth about the virus while spinning a lie in with it. He said, “This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.”  His statement was contradictory, one does not have “tremendous control” over a virus that there is no vaccine.

On March 17th, again speaking at a news conference he told a whopper of a lie based on all of his early statements about it “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” Truthfully, when I heard that I had to throw the bullshit flag.

The next day he took to his medium of choice, Twitter, and said whipped out another doozy, “I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China – against the wishes of almost all.” Once again there was a bit of truth in this, many in business and Congress opposed it, but that being said, after the so called “travel ban” went into effect, another 40,000 travelers from China entered the United States by commercial air.

On the 19th he claimed, despite indisputable evidence that American intelligence agencies had warned of it going back to December 2019. He claimed at a press conference  “It’s something that surprised the whole world. If people could’ve known about it, it could’ve been stopped in place.”  In fact for years people have been warning of a new pandemic for decades, including people in the administration. According to Politico, the administration was briefed on the 69-page National Security Council playbook, titled “Playbook for early response to high consequence emerging infectious disease threats and biological incidents,” back in 2017. It was never fully staffed by the National Security Council and never became policy.

But then as states and cities began to enact stay at home orders and shutting down businesses, restaurants, sports, entertainment venues and churches to minimize contact and try to stop the spread of the virus he turned to the only thing that matters to him, the economy. Knowing that only the good economy could get him re-elected he tried to pivot to economic concerns, he began his pivot   At a March 19th news conference:

“We took the best economy we’ve ever had and we said ‘Stop. You can’t work. You have to stay home.’ … Here’s a case we’re paying a lot of money to stop things because we don’t want people to be together so that this virus doesn’t continue onward.”

But by the 23rd it was becoming evident that he was beginning to panic about the economy as the stock markets hit their lowest point since the second week of his presidency. At a press conference that day he stated “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” and then went on into his cloud cuckoo land of delusional think that no responsible economist, immunologist, virologist, or public health official could ever back. He claimed “America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. … We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” The next morning on Fox News he engaged in more hopeful fantasy saying “I’d love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”

On March 25th he revealed his true feelings about the factual reporting being done on the virus in a very angry Tweet “The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP.  We will be stronger than ever before!”

In the mean time the Congress worked on a stimulus package and the markets began to look up a bit.   As this was going on the President adopted wartime language to describe the battle against the virus. At his March 19th news conference he described himself as a wartime President. However, when it came to the weapons need to win this war and save lives he attacked the medical experts and the governors who were critically short of ventilators for the the COVID 19 packed ICUs:

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes they’ll have two ventilators, and now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

Returning to the language of war on the 28th on Twitter he boasted “WE WILL WIN THIS WAR. When we achieve this victory, we will emerge stronger and more united than ever before!” His language was almost Churchillian, but like everything he says his future actions would undermine his words. At a press conference on the 29th he seemed to continue that “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.” And his next news conference on the 30th he ““We’re going to have a great victory.” When Anthony Fauci warned that 100,000 to 200,000 could die the President said that the county would be doing good if it “can hold…the number of deaths below 100,000. 

On March 30th he backed off of his Easter restart and extended his social distancing measures until April 1st but predicted that by June things would be roar

“The “The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end. Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread. … We can expect that, by June 1st, we will be well on our way to recovery. We think, by June 1st, a lot of great things will be happening.” 

April the April 1st news conference the President made another unsubstantiated and unscientific claim  “In a month or so, I think once this passes, we’re not going to have to be hopefully worried too much about the virus.” 

On April 3rd he went back to his initial claims stating at a White House briefing “I said it was going away – and it is going away.”

On April 9th he went back to testing, trying to blame the failure on the Obama Administration. He claimed that “Initially speaking, the tests were old, obsolete, and not really prepared.”  However, the virus was a new virus and since it was unknown during the Obama presidency the statement was yet another attempt to deflect responsibility. Continuing on testing on April 9th Trump claimed in a press conference that the United States had the best  testing program in the world. He said  “We have the best — right now, the best testing system in the world.” That wasn’t true then or now. When he said it the United States had yet to test 1% of the American population. Over a month later we still have not even gotten to five percent.

Then on April 13th the most troubling statement to date was uttered by the President. It concerned his disputes with the State Governors who have the Constitutional authority to enforce the law in their states and who Trump had abdicated the responsibility for managing the pandemic response in their states. The President said “When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be.” However, that is not true according the Article II of the Constitution. However, two days later he began to backtrack a bit saying “We have the right to do whatever we want. But we wouldn’t do that.” On the 16th he announced that the reopening of states could begin as early as May 1st, but was  “dependent on what the governor wants to do.”

But the very next day the President tweeted:  “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” then “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” His Tweets would lead to action by Second Amendment extremists, White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, so-called Militia groups, and other anti-government groups, many fueled by conspiracy theorists. However, the authority he gave to the governors was about stay at home and business closures, not the Second Amendment. His tweet was tantamount to an attack on the State governments.

The next day at a Press Conference he said  “You must remember that the governors wanted to have total control over the opening of their states, but now they want to have us, the federal government, do the testing.  And again, testing is local.  You can’t have it both ways.”  But that also was untrue, during a pandemic testing is not local, and the President early on abdicated his responsibility to the governors who he was now attacking.

On April 21st the Director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield said “There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through.”  Trump claimed that Redfield was misquoted and Redfield denied that.

But the absurdities that have continued to flow out of the White House and the mouth of the President continue unabated, getting more strident, absurd, accusatory, and irresponsible by the day. On May 9th the President while visiting a plant making N-95 respirators the President was asked about reopening parts of the country. He replied:  “I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected, yes, will some people be affected badly—yes, but we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.”

The fact that his administration predicted that the numbers of dead could double by June didn’t seem to register to him. Instead of saying that people could become seriously ill, or die, he used the euphemism “be affected.” Honestly that sounds much better than get seriously ill and die, but euphemisms are the way that those responsible for mass murder, or even genocide speak of what they do when committing murder on a mass scale. Truthfully, I find little difference between the words, euphemisms and policies of regimes that have committed mass murder and genocide. This time instead of active measures like mass shootings, gassings, death marches, and working people to death, this administration is simply allowing people to die from a viral pandemic because they don’t care for they die, especially the elderly, the chronically ill, the mentally ill, racial or religious minorities, the poor, needy, the addicted, or those with congenital illnesses and deformities which require substantial amounts of money to give a modicum of decent human care  And compassion to keep alive, means that to use the words of the Eugenicists of the 1920s and 1930s Which were put into use by the Nazis beginning in September 1939, such people are considered life unworthy of life.

I could keep going. I have left so much out simply because it was repetitive or because I have been working on this article for over two days and am tired. So I won’t say more about those comments today. That being said I have to mention this, because it matters a lot.

Over the same period of the coronavirus pandemic, the Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr, has been doing all he can to subvert the Article One authorities of the Congress, aided and abetted by the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell. 

For me this was something I could never imagine until Trump announced his candidacy, conducted his campaign, and has dealt with the responsibilities of the office of the President. Instead of upholding his oath of office, he has systematically tried to ensure the loyalty of the most powerful Federal Agencies and Departments protected him and carried out his personal agenda and those of his political allies. Attorney General Bob Barr is little different than Trump, and probably much worse, because he should know better, yet he has only assisted in the President’s dismantling of the Congress, the Courts, and undermining the Federal Agencies entrusted with maintaining the guardrails of the American Experiment, those guardrails which maintained by apolitical career civil servants help maintain the continuity and competence of government.

One of the key components of this are the inspectors general of the various departments of the Federal Government. Most are long time civil servants which legal and ethics training who are apolitical and have served under numerous presidential administrations. They are the ethical and legal watchdogs without which the government could not function without becoming a literal den of thieves. Since the outbreak of COVID 19 the President has fired five of these watchdogs. Intelligence Community IG Michael Atkinson, Acting Department of Defense IG Glen Fine, Acting Department of Health and Human Services IG Christi Grimm, and finally State Department IG Steve Linick. All of these men and women had weighed in about Administration policies and decisions during the crisis or were investigating high ranking members of the administration.

Combined with all the President’s lies and distortions, these actions suggest that he is is moving towards doing all he can to remain in power even by extra constitutional means. With a compliant and activist Attorney General like Bob Barr, and a subservient Senate majority, House minority, and the many allies he has appointed to the Federal judiciary, and the numerous existing Executive Orders, and the certain provisions of the Patriot Act, and the armed thugs who call themselves militia, as well as many Sheriffs, the President is not far from being able to take full authoritarian power, and use the Coronavirus 19 pandemic, that he did so much to make worse, as cover to do it. Snyder wrote:

“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of political parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. DO NOT FALL FOR IT.”

It would not be the first time that a democratically elected ruler would do something like this. On a side note, yesterday  the United States topped 90,000 deaths and a million and a half total infections. Within the next week, probably less we will have surpassed 100,000 deaths. And so it goes…

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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May 10, 2020 · 22:34

What Kind of People Are We in the COVID19 Pandemic: Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, or People of Courage

trump-flames-iran-protests

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

One of my favorite World War II movies is Downfall, which is the account of the last months of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Tonight I imagine the coming Götterdämmerung that awaits the United States under President Trump. I do not know when it is coming or exactly how it will happen. But I believe that unless something happens to curb his power, which at the present time is unrestrained by his political party, I expect that the rule of law and the rights enumerated in the Constitution will end, unless something interrupts that process before it can reach its fulfillment.

If the worst happens the President and his allies in his propaganda services, which include the right wing media, and church pastors, the country will plunge into wars without allies that it cannot win, unless winning is defined by obliterating enemies in a nuclear holocaust. If that happens there are no winners, and the only thing named after him will be a pile of rubble.

Somehow when the final cataclysm occurs I expect that the President and his most devoted followers will in the midst of the flames consuming them, will blame the very people who helped them to power for the downfall. And they do so without any feeling or remorse because they are sociopaths who really do not care about the lives of others, so long as they either gain and hold absolute power, or destroy everything they pretend to want to make or keep great.

When the Red Army was entering Berlin, SS General Wilhelm Mohnke who was in charge of the defense of the area around the Reich Chancellory begged Josef Goebbels to convince Hitler to surrender Berlin in order to allow the people of the city to live, Goebbels responded:

“I feel no sympathy. I repeat, I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don’t fool yourself. We didn’t force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!”

Neither the President, the Vice President, nor their propagandists have any sense of compassion or empathy. In the days before he killed himself Hitler ranted to those who supposedly betrayed him in his bunker to an audience that including Albert Speer, who wrote of it:

“Everyone has lied to me, everyone has deceived me, non[sic] one has told me the truth. The armed forces have lied to me and now the SS have left me in the lurch. The German people has not fought heroically, it deserves to perish. It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people.”

Believe me, however the Trump administration meets its end, it will not be good as Trump trusts no one, even his family, or closest associates. I don’t know how the end of the Trump era will happen. I don’t know if it will be it a war that he stumbles into during the midst of the COVID19 Pandemic, maybe one that he wants to use to distract from the pandemic and his incompetence in dealing with it. It could a direct result of the massive number of lives lost to it and his incompetence in dealing with it, as well as the economic depression that will very likely near his name and his subsequent rejection at the ballot box in November. Either of those options could bring about chaos and draw Trump’s heavily armed supporters into the street.

Or of course through their staggering arrogance and lack of taking any social distancing precautions Trump and Vice President Pence could themselves fall victim to the virus, leaving Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as President. Admittedly the last is unlikely, but at least remotely possible, especially since during the past three White House Staff members, one President Trump’s Navy valet’s, Katie Miller, wife of senior Trump Aide Stephen Miller, who is Vice President Pence’s Press Secretary, and Ivanka Trump’s Personal Assistant have tested positive for the virus. Although Trump and Pence were test for the virus and announced that they were negative, it is possible that they still might be infected, if not through contact with the people diagnosed, but through others who had contact with them who have not been tested and may be asymptotic.

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, FL – APRIL 17: People crowded the beaches in its first open hour on April 17, 2020 in Jacksonville Beach, Fl. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry opened the beaches to residents for limited activities for the first time in weeks since closing them to the public due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Jacksonville Beach became the first beach in the country to reopen. (Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Because of possible exposure the head of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, all members of the Coronavirus Task Force are under self-quarantine and teleworking for the next 14 days. Even though the White House sent others home and is attempting to contract trace the sources of the infections, while claiming that social distancing was being observed, it is clear that there it is not. On Saturday the President hosted over 20 GOP Senators and Representatives, at the White House in which no one was wearing masks, and no social distancing was evident while the event was taking place. Earlier today Vice President Pence said that he was going to self-quarantine due to possible expulsion from Katie Miller, and later in the evening said that he would be back at work Monday. The virus has the potential of decapitating the Executive Branch and at least part of the Legislative Branch.

Katie Miller answering Reporters Questions Outside Nursing Home on 7 May

When Trump was informed of the infection of his valet he reportedly became “Lava Level mad” and blamed his staff for not protecting him.”  I find that ironic because so many who have been infected, suffered, and died from COVID 19 or has lost their employment, perhaps for months or years he is finally having to deal with actual reality, and not the conjured fantasies of his dark and uncaring soul. With Coronavirus now inside his White House fortress, he has discovered that he is not immune, and his fear shows in his actions and tweets. This crisis within the crisis has exposed his innate cowardice and lack of responsibility during a pandemic he could have done much to mitigate.

It’s the same thought that the graduate of a high school military academy realized just as he understood that military service in Vietnam could get him killed or wounded. Thus he used his family, business, and political connections to get multiple deferments from the draft, including one that he used a conjured medical excuse of having bone spurs even as he played college level baseball and was being scouted by major league teams. A coward will writhe in fear about the same danger they allow others to face, without the lack of protections afforded to them. By the way those are my words, not lifted or attributed to someone else. Everyone fears something, but only cowards force others to die for conditions that they help foment. As Stephen King said: “A coward judges all he sees by what he is.” 

In every previous crisis, the President, his political, media, and religious sycophants were be quite similar to Goebbels and Hitler in the Final days. The crisis is everyone else’s fault, including those who believed in them, and faithfully supported their policies, and followed them into the abyss.

But, even then some of the closest and longest loyal supporters of Hitler including Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler abandoned their Fuhrer in order to save themselves, not because they are brave or heroes. but because they decided to face the reality of Germany’s defeat, in order to save themselves, because they were cowards who were so morally blind that did not understand their complicity in Hitler’s rule, the war, or their own personal responsibility in it. Hitler found out about their disloyalty, excommunicated them from the Nazi Party and condemned them to death. Himmler only lived until he was discovered by the British while masquerading as an ordinary soldier, and then committed suicided. Goering surrendered before Hitler’s loyalists could catch him. He was convicted on all four counts at the Major War Criminal Trials at Nuremberg, sentenced to death, but killed himself prior to his execution.

President Trump and his inner circle are not Nazis. Trump is not another Hitler, but he and his loyalists demonstrate the same lack of concern and empathy for the people who followed them into the abyss that they created, as did the the Nazis. Right now, we are not technically at war, though Trump could easily lead us into one simply because he needs a diversion that will somehow aid in keeping him in power. However, the crisis he and his cultists have brought upon us, is a crisis greater danger than any war or crisis the nation has faced since the World Wars, the Great Influenza, and the Great Depression. Sadly, they are incapable of mastering it, and I sincerely doubt that anything but a massive electoral loss in November will change anything.

I do pray that I am wrong but I cannot see how this will end in anything less than a disaster, even with a loss in the November election. These people are apocalyptic in their ideology and would rather destroy everything than to allow any opponent to take power, even if it means them bringing on the Boogaloo, their code name for civil war and the extermination of their opponents.

Again I pray that I am wrong, but my study of history and human nature shows that I tend to be more right than I want to be in my analysis to be. That being said Hannah Arendt wrote:

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” 

Yes there are people who will commit evil even against their followers, they are perpetrators. Likewise, there will be others that never say a word or lift a hand against what their heart, soul, faith, ethics, morality say is wrong. To preserve themselves they remain silent, they are bystanders, then there are the victims. Human nature is the one constant in human history, and to understand the reactions of world leaders, and especially our own, as well as ordinary people in times of crisis. Yehuda Bauer wrote:

“The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn’t. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.”

Bauer also wrote: “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

Those words are more important now than they have been since the crimes and genocide of the Nazis against the Jews. This time it is all of humanity that is at risk, and even then the penchant for people to insist on their own freedom, prosperity, and social irresponsibility, even if it means the needless sacrifice of others is incomprehensible.

So I have to ask what role each of us will play in a global pandemic that has infected over four million people, killed close to 300,000, including more than 80,000 Americans. Will we be perpetrators who through our actions and words are responsible for the deaths of others? Will we be victims, devoured by the disease and the actions of government leaders and fellow citizens that do little to stop it, or actually encourage it’s spread? Or will we be bystanders who turn our backs and look away as the perpetrators commit their crimes and more victims die?

That is the question that all of us have to ask ourselves. But there is one more choice. We can decide to rise above the fear for our own lives, sacrifice certain liberties, and give our lives to help alleviate the suffering and death of others. Likewise we can protest the inhuman and fetid policies that allow people to suffer and die when there were earlier options that could have mitigated this, or which even now, late in the game could help stop the rampage of the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic. Of course we could also confront those who are using displays of force to try to coerce officials to abandon policies that save lives so they don’t have to be inconvenienced.

The German Pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp in April 1945 on the direct order of Adolf Hitler wrote:

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

He also wrote: “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Those are our choices. We can be perpetrators, victims, or bystanders, but we can also speak out, protest, and resist in order to save lives. That is the harder and more dangerous choice, especially when heavily armed and lawless men under no authority threaten those who do so, be they government officials, medical personnel, or citizens actual practicing social distancing and masking. Online and personal intimidation and threats are growing, and being encouraged by the President, and members of the Right Wing Media.

This requires courage which General William Tecumseh Sherman defined: “Courage – a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.”  We also have to be able to face down our fears. As Nelson Mandela wrote: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” 

If we are to stand a chance against the dual threats of the novel Coronavirus 19 and the incredibly stupid people who care nothing but their own convenience and nothing for the lives of others, we must overcome our fears and display moral, spiritual, and physical courage in the face of a deadly virus and violent people who live by apocalyptic ideologies, are motivated by conspiracy theories, despise experts of any kind, and will do what the man they idolize like a god will tell them to do. When that man is the President, who has a long history of inciting his followers to violence there is no telling how far they will go.

Until tomorrow, please be safe,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 24, 2020 · 01:13

Playing With Fire in a House Filled With Gas: Trump Places Stock Markets and Profits above People

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Bottom Line Up Front: As of this moment there have been 381,699 cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with a total of 16,558 deaths. 262,657 of the cases are still active, of the closed cases 102,489 have recovered and as mentioned 16,558 have died for a 14% death rate.

I know that I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but the response of the Trump Administration to it has been abysmal, despite the warnings of U.S. Intelligence Agencies that the pandemic was coming, the administration did nothing. The President made light of it, said that it would have little impact, and played the part of Denier in Chief for two months, but then the stock markets crashed, and all of a sudden the President decided it was no longer fake news and ordered Vice President Pence to head up the effort to contain the virus and its effects. To his credit Pence did. try, and some policy changes began to occur, but to tell the truth, it was too little too late. The Virus had been spreading in the United States for weeks before Pence even received the mission. As a result the virus spread to tens of thousands of people, many who didn’t or don’t know that they are even infected, who in turn spread the virus without realizing they are doing so.

Because I have worked in ICUs and ERs in major civilian and military hospitals in two past pandemics; AIDS during its most deadly period the early to mid-1990s before effective drugs were developed to help infected people live somewhat normal lives. The in 2009 I was in a different Medical Center dealing with H1N1. As such I have been following the COVID-19 infection numbers and death rates with interest since it first came on the scene, but much more so when the first case appeared in Washington in mid-January. Now for the last month I have been watching the progress of the virus by following the data supplied by the CDC, Johns Hopkins, WHO, and this website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ .  It tends to be updated more frequently than the other sites, mostly because it is relying on updates as they are released by countries, and in the case of the United States, the states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Territories.  It is one of the sites mentioned in DOD and Navy message traffic to use in getting solid data and updates about COVID 19.

In the United States  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ there have 46,145 total reported infections with deaths. Currently 40,185 of these cases are active. 670 cases are closed and of that number 295 have recovered and been discharged, but 582 have died, giving us a 72% mortality rate. The biggest issue has been the delay in testing and unavailability of test kits. Likewise we are now facing an acute shortage of ICU beds and ventilators, as well as severe shortages of PPE for health workers and first responders, which would include police, fire, and EMS. Likewise there is a critical shortage regular hospital beds and places to put them because our system of managed care does not deem surge capacity important.

These numbers change multiple times a day depending on when countries, or in the case of the U.S. our states and territories report their daily data. The disturbing item to me is that with the exception of China, South Korea, and Japan and a few other Asian countries that instituted draconian measures to flatten the infection curve, the virus is showing exponential growth in the United States and western Europe. The reason it hasn’t exploded in many underdeveloped Second and Third World countries is that it was most likely late getting there because they are out of the way and do not get the kind of visitor, tourist, and business traffic that Western Europe and the United States have. Likewise they do not have the test kits or adequate medical care to document the spread. However, once it takes hold it will become a killing machine, wiping out millions in those unfortunate countries, and probably leading to more refugees, infections, and deaths.

Two weeks (March 8th)  ago the United States reported 541 infections and 22 deaths. By March 18th there were 9,259 cases and 150 deaths. Four days later we are at 46,182 cases and 582 deaths, a death rate of 66%, well over the worldwide percentage. But expect this to fall to somewhat  closer to the world average. However, that being said, statistics at the beginning of a season do not necessarily reflect those at the end of the season.

Since the virus is often spread through people who are asymptomatic, and many people refuse to self-isolate or in public violate the six foot buffer zone, I recommend that any person who reads this article practices an abundance of caution for two reason; first two protect themselves, and then, just in case they are infected but are asymptotic, protect themselves and others from getting the virus. This should be the case anytime they leave their homes to do necessary shopping, or go to a medical appointment. Anyone who goes out should not only observe the measures issued by the CDC, but go further. Personnel and their families should wear some kind of surgical, or other mask to reduce the possibility of transmission protecting them, and in case they are asymptomatic anyone they come in contact. These can be hard to find but there are a number of groups or individuals making relatively effective face masks, which though not to the N-95 standard would give them a modicum of protection. Some of the designs and patterns are online. Likewise I recommend that when leaving home that personnel wear vinyl disposable gloves, carry some kind of hand sanitizer (if you can get it) , wash your hands after every physical contact with a probably contaminated surface, and care antiseptic wipes in your car to wipe down the steering wheel, door handles, and gas pumps.

Call this an abundance of caution on my part, but the virus knows no borders, races, religions, rank or status.

However, yesterday and today, after occasionally acting the part of a real President, Trump went back to his baseline. He blamed everyone but himself, and 8 days into a 15 day campaign to try to stop the virus by social distancing and shutting down businesses, he threatened to revere a key public health decision because the “economic costs might be higher than the virus itself.”  In his news conference comments he tried to make his threat sound a little more humane by suggesting that isolated people were more prone to suicide, would outnumber the people infected and killed by the virus. While I know that social isolation can be a killer, its effects can be mitigated by people that care. However, if people go back to work, stores and restaurants are opened just as the virus is hitting stride the infection and death rate will make those of the past few days look like peanuts. Millions will be infected, and many of them will die, and the the economy will collapse like a house of cards. Not just because of the effects of the virus, but because the business leaders, stock holders, and even his cult followers will abandon him because they will finally realize that they mean nothing to him.

So, because I am tired I wish you a good night.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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March 16, 2020 · 02:01

“I Don’t Take Responsibility at All: Trump Tells the Unsettling Truth about Himself

 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

President Abraham Lincoln noted:

“In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”

I was able to watch both of President Trump’s speeches on Coronavirus 19 this week. Both were uninspiring to say the least, and he quite obviously understands nothing of being a leader, or even more so, the Commander in Chief.

However, in his Friday Afternoon the President, who is a man whose lies, evasions, of the truth, blame of others, and failure to stand on any principle,  finally spoke one truth. In the midst of other lies and evasions of responsibility, false claims about the availability testing kits, a website run by Google which has denied it would be running by the time the President said it would be, the availability of drive through testing, and the fawning praise of big business leaders, and members of the administration, he spoke the truth.

To NBC reporter Kristen Welker, who asked what responsibility he took for the delays and problems in rolling our the test kits. He replied:

“Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all, because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about.”

In a follow up question asked  NPR reporter Yamiche Alcindor, who nailed him with a question of his responsibility for eliminating the CDC Pandemic Response team and removing a member of it from the National Security Council. Her question was direct and to the point:

“You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the White House pandemic office. The officials that worked in that office said the White House lost valuable time because that office was disbanded.”

The President, having been caught twice responded and passed the blame. It was hardly a Harry Truman “the buck stops here,” moment. Nor was it a humiliated John F Kennedy, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. He took sole responsibility for it, stating, “because I’m the responsible officer of the government…” time of honesty. Instead the President lashed back, attacking her, and blaming everyone but himself.

“I just think it’s a nasty question. When you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people, I could ask, perhaps my administration.” Turning to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, who has been the most consistently honest official during this crisis; “Perhaps I could ask Tony about that? Because I don’t know anything about that. Perhaps they do that to people,” he said to Alcindor, a former New York Times who left it for PBS. “You used to work at another newspaper. Things like that happen.”

The President often states how he is the Commander in Chief, and his sycophants claim is therefor above the law, however he has never taken responsibility for anything, unless he is claiming success for that of others. The list of his evasions of responsibility for anything, including the deaths of soldiers that he sent into battle, defies the final responsibility of a true commander, at any level. A commanding officer in our military is responsibility is responsible for everything his unit, base, or ship is assigned to do. If he or she fails, there is no evading responsibility by blaming it on others. Numerous commanders in every branch of the military are relieved of their commands, and sometimes face trial at Court Martial, regardless, most are never promoted again, and find that their careers are over. Sir Winston Churchill, a man of legendary success, and failure noted: “The price of greatness is responsibility.”  President Trump, who has a bust of Churchill in his office should heed those words.

Another British military officer, whose life is shrouded in mystery and controversy, Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, did write truth in these words:

“A successful leader of men must have character, ability and be prepared to take unlimited responsibility. Responsibility can only be learned by taking responsibility; you cannot learn the piano without playing on one. Leadership is the practical application of character. It implies the ability to command and to make obedience proud and free.”

Admiral James Stockdale, who spent years in a North Vietnamese Prison, enduring constant torture, later noted:

“Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear… What we need for leaders are men of heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers.” 

President Trump has demonstrated none of this, except as Admiral Stockdale said, “posturing and… pandering to the mob,” and has shown his unwillingness to learn, unwillingness to listen to experts, and unwillingness to accept responsibility as President. That is a problem, especially in a time like this, General and later President Dwight Eisenhower said:

“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

On Sunday afternoon the President opened an update on the COVID-19 pandemic stating the most obvious lie imaginable, that the virus “was completely under control,” only to be undercut by Anthony Fauci, who said that it would get much worse.

Trump is failing as President. His denial of the virus for months, his actions to delay any response, and his prior action in 2018 to disband a key component of our National Security Team, the CDC Pandemic Response Unit, created by President Barack Obama and his Administration was irresponsible and has made the situation worse, not better.

Our disease increase curve is similar to that of Italy. Within a few weeks we are going to see tens of thousands of infections and thousands of deaths. The measures taken by the administration were too little, too late. The current measures may help mitigate the effects, but COVID 19 is going to wreak havoc on our society, economy, and way of life.

If Trump was a real leader he would inspire us as Winston Churchill did the British in 1940, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.” Or those of Franklin Roosevelt who said at the opening of his first inaugural address:

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

My friends, that is leadership, that is command, that is the mantle of supreme command that our President has never understood, before or after he became President.

I could write more, but I have been playing with this article for two days.

So, until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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