This is like when the boss asks me to text him info and he replies "k".
Thanks anyway.
No you wrote a whole lot explaining it's OK to mention the previous guy. I edited it.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(03-04-2020, 02:25 PM)GMDino Wrote: We have reached the "it's Obama's fault" part of Trump's response to the virus.
REPORTER: What was this Obama-era rule that you are blaming for the coronavirus testing problems?
PENCE: "The last administration asserted FDA jurisdiction over testing, and the development of tests like this. The president changed that on Saturday." pic.twitter.com/S3EOycBS6B
We are at the "Go on FOX to defend how great you are and lie" portion of the week.
In this clip, Trump: 1. Denies WHO's coronavirus death rate based on “hunch" 2. Calls coronavirus "corona flu" 3. Suggests it's fine for people w/ Covid-19 to go to work 4. Compares coronavirus to "the regular flu," indicating he doesn't get the difference pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31
Quote:Nearly 700 vacancies at CDC because of Trump administration’s hiring freeze
Nearly 700 positions are vacant at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of a continuing freeze on hiring that officials and researchers say affects programs supporting local and state public health emergency readiness, infectious disease control and chronic disease prevention.
The same restriction remains in place throughout the Health and Human Services Department despite the lifting of a government-wide hiring freeze last month. At the National Institutes of Health, staff say clinical work, patient care and recruitment are suffering.
Like HHS, the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have maintained the freeze as a way of reducing their workforces and reshaping organizational structures after a directive last month from the Office of Management and Budget that said all federal agencies must submit a plan by June 30 to shrink their civilian workforces. HHS, State and EPA also face significant cuts in the Trump administration’s budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The administration, which unveiled a “skinny budget” for fiscal 2018 in March, is scheduled to release its full budget next week.
A senior CDC official said unfilled positions include dozens of budget analysts and public health policy analysts, scientists and advisers who provide key administrative support. Their duties include tracking federal contracts awarded to state and local health departments and ensuring that lab scientists have the equipment they need. Though HHS has exempted many positions from the freeze, including physicians and personnel who respond to cybersecurity and public health emergencies, many support personnel who often play critical roles have been affected.
“It’s all the operational details,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because CDC staff are not permitted to comment publicly without approval from HHS. The situation has been made worse, the official said, because the agency has been operating without a permanent director since Tom Frieden stepped down in January. That job is considered one of the most crucial public health positions in the government given the CDC's role in tracking and stopping infectious disease outbreaks in the United States and worldwide.
When HHS Secretary Tom Price visited the Atlanta-based agency in April, the former Georgia lawmaker called CDC “an absolute jewel to our nation,” adding that its location in his home town “makes it extra special.” In a meeting with senior leaders, Price promised to name a director within the month.
But at least 125 job categories have been blocked from being filled, according to a recently released CDC document. Each covers multiple people. The document was released through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club and reviewed by The Washington Post. Many of the unfilled jobs are high-level positions, at least GS-12 and above, according to the document.
Several positions are in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, which regulates some of the world's most dangerous bacteria and viruses and manages the nation's stockpile of emergency medical countermeasures. Others include positions in the director's office, infectious disease offices and the office for noncommunicable diseases, injury and environmental health.
The hiring freeze, imposed by an executive order that President Trump signed Jan. 22, covers currently open positions, prevents new positions from being created and blocks lateral transfers, officials said.
The Sierra Club's public health policy director, Liz Perera, said the administration’s “thoughtless freeze on hiring public servants prevented the CDC from filling critical roles at programs essential to preventing chronic and infectious diseases, advancing immunization and safeguarding environmental health.”
An HHS spokeswoman referred questions about the freeze to a May 2 speech by Price, who asked managers to review the efficiency of operations and draft plans to reduce staff. The budget process should be viewed as a way to “reimagine how we can do the work that we do and how we can do it better,” he told employees.
“We’re not looking to achieve an arbitrary financial goal or workforce numbers,” Price said. “We’re certainly not gunning for specific programs or agencies.”
It’s unclear how many positions have been affected across HHS. At NIH, hiring is permitted for “essential patient care staff vacancies,” but reassignments are not allowed and contractors cannot be used for full-time duties, according to an internal NIH memo last month.
Some support positions, such as program assistants and laboratory assistants, remain vacant. Many of those personnel log in or handle patient specimens and issue reports, jobs that directly affect patient care, said a senior physician at the National Cancer Institute who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of funding retaliation.
One such assistant who worked for the physician left late last year, but the institute has been unable to replace her because the human resources department “was overwhelmed by the demand and could not process recruiting actions,” the clinician said.
Recruitment for a senior laboratory position also has been held up “since it's complicated to get exceptions granted,” the doctor said. Read more: Obamacare repeal guts crucial public health funds
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(03-02-2020, 10:50 AM)michaelsean Wrote: On that link for some reason I get the headline, but no story. Are they comparing apples to apples or are they doing something like using China's mortality rate for coronavirus to US mortality rate of flu?
It really doesn't matter. Cancer kills more people then heart disease every year, but no one is going around saying heat diseases shouldn't be taken seriously or downplaying it because of this.
He squashed the Biden market bump with this (which knowing him may have been his goal after seeing what Bidens super Tuesday wins did for the market).
It's apples to oranges. Only thing they care about is protecting any criticism of Trump. Comparing the mortality rate of two different viruses even if they have some of the similar symptoms to downplay the one that you fear makes you look bad is the worst part of Trumps personality and Republicans all out willingness to cover for him.
Besides he even blew it from the Flu standpoint. You shouldn't go to work with the Flu either.
Quote:"Success doesn’t mean every single move they make is good" ~ Anonymous "Let not the dumb have to educate" ~ jj22
While Trump was on Fox "news" doing a PR tour to try and spin away everything the US is still not testing at a level we probably need to be testing.
Kudos to one of my favorite people @KristenhCNN, who’s doing a public service here forcing a CDC official on the record to answer for why the US has failed to test more than a few thousand people, while South Korea is testing *10k* per day for coronavirus. https://t.co/MlsvyQG8fB
I get people defend him because he puts conservative judges in and deregulates, but can we admit that having someone this incompetent in office is harmful in situations like this?
Calling it the "Corona flu", asking why a "solid flu vaccine" won't work, wanting a 2 month window for vaccines, telling people to go to work with it, saying he thinks the WHO is lying about numbers. All of this after he was repeatedly briefed on the facts.
(03-06-2020, 10:41 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I get people defend him because he puts conservative judges in and deregulates, but can we admit that having someone this incompetent in office is harmful in situations like this?
"we" can but 40% of voters cannot.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
One Track Trump is on the "Closing borders" Train and he ain't jumping rails!
It’s Friday. That means @realDonaldTrump is lying, again. @POTUS has not stopped the #CoronavirusOutbreak. It has now grown & spread to 21 states with over 225 cases in the US. And we can’t contain it because we still don’t have enough test kits to know where the virus is. https://t.co/RDOqZQR7Ip
Quote:President Trump's official Friday schedule omitted a planned visit to CDC headquarters in Atlanta amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, though the trip was later put back on his itinerary — but not before the White House and the president offered contradictory explanations for its initial cancellation.
The state of play: The White House issued a statement on Friday morning that Trump did not "want to interfere with the CDC’s mission," while the president later told reporters that somebody at the CDC was suspected to have the virus but had ultimately tested negative.
What the White House said: "The CDC has been proactive and prepared since the very beginning and the president does not want to interfere with the CDC’s mission to protect the health and welfare of their people and the agency."
What Trump said: "They thought there was a problem with CDC with somebody who had the virus. It turned out negative, so we’re seeing if we can do it. ... So I may be going. We’re going to see if they can turn it around."
The big picture: The visit is planned to take place between Trump's stops in Nashville, Tenn., where he will tour tornado damage and visit victims, and Florida, where he'll spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago.
DJT is an infamous germaphobe so his ducking out on it would not be surprsing.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
Speaking withFox News’Laura Ingraham on Monday night, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “Look how much politics they want to play.The dirty little secret.We have the coronavirus. We need to fund this. You know what Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, did? She withheld the bill last week. You know why? So the DCCC could run ads against seven Republicans.”
Ingraham asked, “How many people ran ads on the coronavirus, fundraising appeals?”
“I don’t know how many ran, but they actually took the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, spent money, went into these seven Republican seats to campaign against them about the coronavirus when she’s the Speaker of the House. Instead of putting America first, she put her politics first and kept the bill from coming to the floor,” McCarthy explained.
Sadly the coronavirus is just a tragedy worth exploiting to liberal and progressive lawmakers.
At a press conference on Wednesday McCarthy said:
Last week, we had an opportunity to bring forth the Supplemental, the needed funds for public health and others to deal with this item. We are not the majority. We cannot determine the floor, so Speaker Pelosi left, and had us leave Congress. This week, we hope we’re going to be able to bring it up.
The one concerning issue that I have, not as just the leader of the Republicans, but really as an American. Why didn’t we vote on it last week? And why now is the Democratic arm of the DCCC running ads against seven Republicans? On something they could not vote on, because they could not control it. Are they playing politics and holding the money up so their political arm can attack Republicans on this issue? Can they, for one time put people before politics? I think they owe the American people an apology. I think the Speaker needs to apologize. Cheri Bustos needs to take those ads down and stop playing politics with this.
America is nervous. We’ve been preparing for years in advance. We’ve got to make sure we have all the needed resources there.
So bring the bill to the floor.
That's a great question. What's the hold up?!
Earlier in the conference, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), spoke and said that Democrats were trying to include HR3 (Elijah Cummings’ Lower Drug Costs Now Act) with the bill for coronavirus funding. HR3 is a very controversial bill which will require some debate. Walden basically said, let’s keep this separate, because the funds to fight the coronavirus crisis are needed now.
And there it is - Democrats would rather let people die than do the right thing.
Volson is meh, but I like him, and he has far exceeded my expectations
Coronavirus
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