February 2020 Current Events Thread: Warren 2020: WITNESSED

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > February 2020 Current Events Thread: Warren 2020: WITNESSED

«‹›94 »

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

Do they have dummies at ranged distances and compete to see who can spot the hosed up mustache at the longest distance?

Genuinely surprised this has not been a Terminal Lance comic yet.

# ? Feb 26, 2020 23:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 9, 2024 03:25

CRUSTY MINGE: Mar 30, 2011; Peggy Hill
Foot Connoisseur

Due time, probably. I'm almost certain someone else has made the observation before.

# ? Feb 26, 2020 23:33

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Working on my painters brush.

# ? Feb 26, 2020 23:38

Vasudus: May 30, 2003

I have a full beard that's borderline Garabaldi.

# ? Feb 26, 2020 23:45

Internet Wizard: Aug 9, 2009; BANDAIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

If it�s any consolation that specific sgtmaj is in jail

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:16

CRUSTY MINGE: Mar 30, 2011; Peggy Hill
Foot Connoisseur

It is. A small part of my facial hair feels safer with him behind bars, for what was it, kiddie diddling?

Oh hey, it's mass shooting time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-critical-incident-millercoors-campus-milwaukee-n1143666

Sounds like 7 dead plus the gunman make 8.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:18

colachute: Mar 15, 2015

Vasudus posted:

I have a full beard that's borderline Garabaldi.

I'm getting there. I need to trim my neck up a bit though.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:24

Flying_Crab: Apr 12, 2002

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

It is. A small part of my facial hair feels safer with him behind bars, for what was it, kiddie diddling?

Oh hey, it's mass shooting time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-critical-incident-millercoors-campus-milwaukee-n1143666

Sounds like 7 dead plus the gunman make 8.

not that far from my office :smith:

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:34

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

I'm mildly worried turmp is going to find some coronavirus carriers and pay them to attend Bernie rallies. Or the turmpGOPers are going to intentionally catch it and infect every "stupid lib" they can between now and election day.

But that poo poo is mostly killing the olds, and it'd be nice to see trumpublicans get what their ignorance wants.

They won't, because becoming patient zero right now and having the hospital all to yourself, before everyone else crowds the hallway, would be a smart thing to do.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:43

sharknado slashfic: Jun 24, 2011

Good news everyone, Trump just said he's putting Pence in charge of dealing with the coronavirus so now we have our very own death cult leader handling it. Take that South Korea.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:48

facialimpediment: Feb 11, 2005; as the world turns

Hahahah it's all going to turn to poo poo and Pence is going to get replaced on the ticket.

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1232815005386575874

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:50

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

sharknado slashfic posted:

Good news everyone, Trump just said he's putting Pence in charge of dealing with the coronavirus so now we have our very own death cult leader handling it. Take that South Korea.

lmao the dude that caused an increase in HIV in his state is running coronavirus poo poo.

Where's this reported btw?

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:50

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Hail the Mother, may his passing cleanse this dumb earth

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:51

CRUSTY MINGE: Mar 30, 2011; Peggy Hill
Foot Connoisseur

That Works, pretty sure the orange one just dropped it in his market/virus presser that's probably still running.

shame on an IGA posted:

They won't, because becoming patient zero right now and having the hospital all to yourself, before everyone else crowds the hallway, would be a smart thing to do.

Largely depends on who catches it. Seems some people have no problem dipping out on self quarantines.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:53

Handsome Ralph: Sep 3, 2004; Oh boy, posting!
That's where I'm a Viking!

Vasudus posted:

I have a full beard that's borderline Garabaldi.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 00:53

BigDave: Jul 14, 2009; Taste the High Country

sharknado slashfic posted:

Good news everyone, Trump just said he's putting Pence in charge of dealing with the coronavirus so now we have our very own death cult leader handling it. Take that South Korea.

Putting Vice Presidents in charge of a policy usually results in the opposite of what you want.

Re: HW Bush and the War on Drugs, Cheany and Iraq, Biden and... whatever he was in charge of.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:11

Spun Dog: Sep 21, 2004; Smellrose

BigDave posted:

Putting Vice Presidents in charge of a policy usually results in the opposite of what you want.

Re: HW Bush and the War on Drugs, Cheany and Iraq, Biden and... whatever he was in charge of.

Not smelling teenage hair

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:15

facialimpediment: Feb 11, 2005; as the world turns

Biden was the stimulus / American Reinvestment and Recovery Act guy. Made a lot of sense to put him there and the stimulus thing was legitimately a good policy and administered quite well.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:17

sharknado slashfic: Jun 24, 2011

That Works posted:

lmao the dude that caused an increase in HIV in his state is running coronavirus poo poo.

Where's this reported btw?

He said it during his press conference, I don't have a link

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:23

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

sharknado slashfic posted:

He said it during his press conference, I don't have a link

I understand. Seen it popping up since. Thanks for mentioning it.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:32

pantslesswithwolves: Oct 28, 2008

Clive Cussler is dead.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/us/clive-cussler-dead-trnd/index.html

Not ashamed to say I read a bunch of his goofy rear end but fun books when I was in middle/high school. Dude knew how to write some really fun novels.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:44

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

pantslesswithwolves posted:

Clive Cussler is dead.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/us/clive-cussler-dead-trnd/index.html

Not ashamed to say I read a bunch of his goofy rear end but fun books when I was in middle/high school. Dude knew how to write some really fun novels.

Same, loved his stuff when I was a teenager. Goofy fun poo poo.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 01:50

Alaan: May 24, 2005

I think I tipped over a threshold of mental health because I've been mentally screaming MIKE loving PENCE for the last hour

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:00

BigDave: Jul 14, 2009; Taste the High Country

Alaan posted:

I think I tipped over a threshold of mental health because I've been mentally screaming MIKE loving PENCE for the last hour

Are you implying that Mike Pence fucks?

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:03

facialimpediment: Feb 11, 2005; as the world turns

Alaan posted:

I think I tipped over a threshold of mental health because I've been mentally screaming MIKE loving PENCE for the last hour

Not just you. Even Wall Street doesn't believe in Donnie's Happy Horseshit Funtime Hour schtick anymore.

https://twitter.com/business/status/1232827883581853702

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1232833112343793670

Microsoft even said their earnings were going to get dinged.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:04

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

JESUS' SPECIAL LITTLE FRIEND IS GOING TO SAVE US FROM THE FAKE NEWS VIRUS.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:09

ded: Oct 27, 2005; Kooler than Jesus

BigDave posted:

Are you implying that Mike Pence fucks?

only through a hole in a sheet missionary style when he is trying to help god make a baby

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:19

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

Way back from 2018. I remember getting pissed off about this then.

https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1010676412510920704?s=09

Deeper look into it. Author of this is a badass science writer on infectious disease as well.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:26

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

facialimpediment posted:

Not just you. Even Wall Street doesn't believe in Donnie's Happy Horseshit Funtime Hour schtick anymore.

https://twitter.com/business/status/1232827883581853702

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1232833112343793670

Microsoft even said their earnings were going to get dinged.

Minutes after lmao

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:26

SimonCat: Aug 12, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo; College Slice

Footage of the next White House press conference regarding the virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTYNwwPQH4k&t=18s

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:31

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

SimonCat posted:

Footage of the next White House press conference regarding the virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTYNwwPQH4k&t=18s

I really enjoyed that movie.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 02:36

orange juche: Mar 14, 2012

That Works posted:

Way back from 2018. I remember getting pissed off about this then.

https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1010676412510920704?s=09

Deeper look into it. Author of this is a badass science writer on infectious disease as well.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

FP Article for people who don't have a subscription to FP.com posted:

When Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared the Wuhan coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday, he praised China for taking �unprecedented� steps to control the deadly virus. �I have never seen for myself this kind of mobilization,� he noted. �China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.�

The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China�including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days� time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment�are indeed gargantuan. It�s impossible to watch them without wondering, �What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?�

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government�s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is

If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is

�not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies, none of which were speaking to one another. Basically, the U.S. pandemic infrastructure was an enormous orchestra full of talented, egotistical players, each jockeying for solos and fame, refusing to rehearse, and demanding higher salaries�all without a conductor. To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of �epidemic czar� inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States. The orchestra may have still had its off-key instruments, but it played the same tune.

Building on the Ebola experience, the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)�both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department.

On the domestic front, the real business of assuring public health and safety is a local matter, executed by state, county, and city departments that operate under a mosaic of laws and regulations that vary jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Some massive cities, such as New York City or Boston, have large budgets, clear regulations, and epidemic experiences that have left deep benches of medical and public health talent. But much of the United States is less fortunate on the local level, struggling with underfunded agencies, understaffing, and no genuine epidemic experience. Large and small, America�s localities rely in times of public health crisis on the federal government.

Bureaucracy matters. Without it, there�s nothing to coherently manage an alphabet soup of agencies housed in departments ranging from Defense to Commerce, Homeland Security to Health and Human Services (HHS).

But that�s all gone now.

In the spring of 2018, the White House pushed Congress to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Under fire from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the government�s $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.

In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC�s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer�s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.

Klain has been warning for two years that the United States was in grave danger should a pandemic emerge. In 2017 and 2018, the philanthropist billionaire Bill Gates met repeatedly with Bolton and his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, warning that ongoing cuts to the global health disease infrastructure would render the United States vulnerable to, as he put it, the �significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.� And an independent, bipartisan panel formed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that lack of preparedness was so acute in the Trump administration that the �United States must either pay now and gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much greater price in human and economic costs.�

The next epidemic is now here; we�ll soon know the costs imposed by the Trump administration�s early negligence and present panic. On Jan. 29, Trump announced the creation of the President�s Coronavirus Task Force, an all-male group of a dozen advisors, five from the White House staff. Chaired by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, the task force includes men from the CDC, State Department, DHS, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Transportation Department. It�s not clear how this task force will function or when it will even convene.

In the absence of a formal structure, the government has resorted to improvisation. In practical terms, the U.S. government�s public health effort is led by Daniel Jernigan, the incident commander for the Wuhan coronavirus response at the CDC. Jernigan is responsible for convening meetings of the nation�s state health commissioners and briefing CDC Director Robert Redfield and his boss, Azar. Meanwhile, state-level health leaders told me that they have been sharing information with one another and deciding how best to prepare their medical and public health workers without waiting for instructions from federal leadership. The most important federal program for local medical worker and hospital epidemic training, however, will run out of money in May, as Congress has failed to vote on its funding. The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is the bulwark between hospitals and health departments versus pandemic threats; last year HHS requested $2.58 billion, but Congress did not act.

On Thursday, the CDC confirmed the first human-to-human spread of the Wuhan coronavirus inside the United States, between a husband and wife in Chicago. While the wife acquired her infection traveling in China, she passed the virus to her husband on return to the United States. Though only six Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the United States, with no deaths, Nancy Messonnier of the CDC told reporters on Thursday: �Moving forward, we can expect to see more cases, and more cases mean the potential for more person-to-person spread.�

Surveying the largest drug store chains in New York City on Wednesday, I found that all were sold out of medical face masks and latex gloves, as is Amazon. Searching online for protective masks reveals that dozens of products intended for use to block dust and particles far larger than viruses are garnering brisk sales�and none available that can actually prevent viral exposure. The surge in mask and glove sales to worried citizens all over the world needs refereeing. Bona fide anti-viral masks should be prioritized to front-line medical and public health staff, and the populace shouldn�t be misled into purchasing and wearing products that offer no genuine protection.

Countering misinformation, conspiracy theories, rumormongering, and discriminatory behavior against people believed to be disease spreaders requires thoughtful communication from leadership at the highest levels of government. None is in evidence. Instead, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on Fox Business on Thursday to fan the flames of fear for the sake of hypothetical business opportunities. �It does give businesses yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain,� Ross said. �It�s another risk factor that people need to take into account. So, I think it will help accelerate the return of jobs to North America, some to the U.S., probably some to Mexico as well.� Meanwhile, Trump, asked at the recent World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland how he intended to respond to the epidemic, said the situation was under control and a world away from the United States.

In a statement released this week, Pompeo sought to calm Americans, saying, �People should know that there are enormous efforts underway by the United States government to make sure that we do everything we can to protect the American people and to reduce the risk all around the globe.� But late Thursday night, the secretary�in clear defiance of WHO�s admonishment against restricting travel to and from China�issued an advisory saying, �Those currently in China should consider departing.�

In recent days, a handful of policy leaders have been shifted from government positions focused on weapons of mass destruction and bioterrorism to the slowly emerging epidemic response infrastructure, such as Matthew Pottinger, Philip Ferro, and David Wade on the NSC and the bioterrorism expert Anthony Ruggiero. It�s not at all clear how they would handle an explosion of coronavirus cases, were such a dreadful thing to occur in the United States. �The full weight of the US Government is working on this,� a senior administration official told CNN on Tuesday. �As with any interagency effort of this scale, the National Security Council works closely with the whole of government to ensure a coordinated and unified effort.�

The last time the U.S. government and its many local and state counterparts faced an explosive pandemic on American soil was 2009, with the spread of H1N1, or swine flu. The then-new Obama administration was still filling key positions across the executive branch when the epidemic emerged that spring, and it struggled to set the proper tone in reaction to what turned out to be an exceptionally contagious, but not unusually virulent, form of influenza. The challenge revealed enormous gaps in America�s ability to swiftly manufacture vaccines, stock-outs of face masks and vital hospital supplies, and serious difficulty in keeping ahead of outright lies, conspiracy theories, and rumormongering on cable TV and social media. The much more deadly pandemic test came in 1981, with the arrival of HIV: It did not go well, as history has well established, because homophobia was so pervasive in the country and within government that gay men, rather than the virus killing them, were treated as a national scourge.

Since the great influenza pandemic of 1918, the United States has been spared terrifying epidemics. Americans now are epidemic voyeurs. They watch YouTube videos of China�s struggles. They see the government attack its epidemic by building a 1,000-bed quarantine hospital in a single week, lock down cities larger than New York or Los Angeles, ramp up 24/7 manufacture of face masks and protective gear, deploy its armed forces medical corps to treat ailing citizens, send enormous convoys of food and supplies to anxious citizens of Wuhan, and release terrifying, growing tallies daily of its swelling patient populations. They look in horror at panicked lines of masked people waiting to learn if their fevers are caused by the deadly disease, at bodies lying on cold floors in overcrowded hospitals, and at people crying out from behind their masks for help. And they ask, �What would the United States do? What would the White House do?� The answers are not reassuring.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:20

Nick Soapdish: Apr 27, 2008

https://twitter.com/PFTompkins/status/1232831842903965696?s=20

:perfect:

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:33

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

https://twitter.com/yayitsrob/status/1232829263587561474?s=20

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:36

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

Hahaha

BigDave posted:

Are you implying that Mike Pence fucks?

He can go gently caress himself

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:45

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

BigDave posted:

Are you implying that Mike Pence fucks?

Three times, allegedly.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:50

A Bad Poster: Sep 25, 2006; Seriously, shut the fuck up.

That Works posted:

Way back from 2018. I remember getting pissed off about this then.

https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1010676412510920704?s=09

Deeper look into it. Author of this is a badass science writer on infectious disease as well.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

Starve the beast!

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:56

Terrifying Effigies: Oct 22, 2008; Problems look mighty small from 150 miles up.

Only when mother allows it.

# ? Feb 27, 2020 03:58

BigDave: Jul 14, 2009; Taste the High Country

Casimir Radon posted:

Three times, allegedly.

Just because he has three children?

Hardly conclusive evidence. :colbert:

# ? Feb 27, 2020 04:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 9, 2024 03:25

PookBear: Nov 1, 2008

Bored As gently caress posted:

Where's that gently caress been lately?

Wait, nevermind, I'd rather him just die in obscurity.

Paul Ryan got the gently caress out of politics because he knows that he's young enough that he has to come out of this poo poo unscathed in order to have a future career in politics

# ? Feb 27, 2020 04:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > February 2020 Current Events Thread: Warren 2020: WITNESSED

«‹›94 »