CBS' David Martin reports a Pentagon spokesman says 34 U.S. troops in Iraqi base attacks have been treated for TBI/concussion symptoms. Half have returned to active duty, half are still receiving treatment.
In Davos, the president dismissed concerns.https://t.co/bInfXyVGwW
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) January 24, 2020
David Roth, in the New Republic, “The Windbag of War”:
In the two weeks since Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, it’s both true enough and obviously, howlingly inaccurate to say that things have returned to “normal.” That just cannot possibly be the right word for the government’s ongoing state of clammy resting breakdown—and yet, as the situation seems to have stepped back from the briefly imminent prospect of an actual hot war, Trump has seemed more and more like himself. A day after the drone strike, when House pedant Dan Crenshaw insisted that Trump had a strategy and was following it, Trump wasted little time in contradicting the Texas congressman. On Twitter, naturally, he framed the conflict he’d created as A Hitting Contest that he could not be seen to lose. Trump continued to perform a series of panicky pivots from one unconvincing justification to another; various advisers and factotums gamely mirrored his erratic choreography, in the vein of Katy Perry’s Left Shark Super Bowl dancing companion—a beat late and reliably a bit off…
Because everything about Trump operates from the opening position that he has never been wrong, changed his mind, or contradicted himself; and because he is always wrong and never really knows what he’s saying and is constantly trying to wrench past stridencies into line with his befuddled present, this created a lot of work for everyone. There was a brief effort to spin the assassination of Soleimani as an act of diplomacy through kinetic operations—“an attempt to empower the country’s moderate voices,” as “several administration officials” told The Wall Street Journal. The ungainly human megaphone that exists to amplify and protect the president seemed happiest and most comfortable when claiming that Democrats loved Soleimani and in fact cried when he died because they wanted to hug and kiss him—both because that type of retro smear is a more natural movement for the megaphone operators and because it didn’t require any frantic trips to the memory hole. None of it was very convincing.
Trump really only regained his footing when he decided that the war he had nearly started was now over and won. Various discordant facts about what happened before, during, and after the assassination continued to emerge over time. The Journal reported that Trump pulled the trigger at least in part to appease senators whose loyalty he would need in his impeachment trial; 11 American soldiers were being treated for what Defense One termed “traumatic brain injuries” after the Iranian counterstrike that supposedly left U.S. troops unscathed; in place of the talk about imminent threat(s), Trump now told supporters that Soleimani had been “saying bad things about our country” and so the U.S. president used his maximal geopolitical power to decide “How much of this shit do we have to listen to?” …
2/ Status of service members:
8 service members were flown to the US from Germany for treatment;
9 are still being treated in Germany;
16 have been treated in Iraq and have returned to duty;
1 was treated in Kuwait and has returned to duty in Iraq.— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 24, 2020
Specifically in an attack where soldiers lacked any sort of missile defense protection such as a Patriot battery. Even as such units are sent to Saudi Arabia because the President says they paid a billion dollars to an account nobody else in government seems to know about. https://t.co/4Y8cf4AYbp
— YYZedd (@Zeddary) January 22, 2020
Oh, and the attack was in retaliation for a brazen escalation he authorized on a whim, and bragged would help in his impeachment trial.
— YYZedd (@Zeddary) January 22, 2020
Trump provoked a conflict with Iran, then concealed and diminished the injuries our troops suffered as a result. It's appalling. I worked in the Senate to improve treatment of traumatic brain injuries—and as president I'll end the wars that cause them. https://t.co/cAeaV3ZmcI
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 25, 2020
clay
Pshaw! Since when have Republicans ever thought that lying about an attack on American personnel in a Middle Eastern country was a big deal?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump is flashing back to the who Concussion Brain Damage Denial controversy in the NFL. He really is a twat stuck in the past. Not to mention the racists and class subtext to that Football player thing.
WereBear
Now that we know concussion and brain injuries are always a BFD, we get the highest office in the land belittling the challenges as a “headache.”
Just keep digging, Donny. We want to completely lose sight of you.
NotMax
“They had concussion when they arrived to be admitted? Pre-existing condition. DoD not obligated to pay.”
Leto
I know it’s not possible to hate someone to death, but I’m going to keep trying. Nobody likes a quitter.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: he’s flashing back to the early Afghan/Iraq IED TBI days. Even within the service, the amount of, “Oh yeah, head injury” was disgusting. Of course a lot of it came from people who were never in harms way, would never be in harms way (FOBBITs).
JPL
@Leto: Mentioned to a friend that I was having bad thoughts and she said don’t waste your time, but instead think of something happy . My response was a simple, that would make me happy.
JPL
No one respects the troops like I do said the person who calls generals dopes and babies, and brushes off traumatic brain injuries.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Is that an actual fucking quote from Dump?
mrmoshpotato
@Leto:
I can think of an entire side of the aisle that I’d like to see up and quit! :)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mrmoshpotato:
I know! Trump and this whole administration are so horrible that it’s hard to tell what’s a joke and what’s real.
Immanentize
Ok. You do not get flown to Germany for a concussion. Germany is the serious trauma center. That is where we send people who have life threatening open wound trauma. It is primarily the emergency room for in-country injuries. People get stabilized, them airlifted to Germany for surgery. If people are being kept in Germany, that means their injuries are too severe and that they cannot be moved yet to the States.
There is really nothing in Germany treatment-wise that would be any better for a concussion (just some headaches) than what is available in Iraq or Kuwait. The guy who went to Kuwait and returned to duty (somewhere). That sounds like a bad concussion maybe.
But perhaps concussion protocols have changed in the last two years in Iraq, etc.
japa21
I am flashing back to the days after the missile attack. First it was reported that the US was aware of the pending attack several hours prior to the attack. Later it was reported that al asad base was not alerted until just minutes prior to the missiles hitting. Now we hear first of minor injuries and then of more traumatic injuries.
If the first two items are true (and I haven’t seen any reporting to say they aren’t, the question arises as to why al asad wasn’t not given more notice.
Being of a devious bent of mind, and believing that Trump really wanted to escalate even further but knew it would require a really bad action by Iran to create support among Americans, I wonder if he was hoping for more severe casualties, including deaths.
And because he is primarily a chicken, when that level didn’t happen, he had to minimize the actual injury amount so that there wouldn’t be an uproar demanding another escalation.
I am, of course, willing to be convinced my theorizing is totally off base.
Leto
@Immanentize: They haven’t. If they’re being flown to Germany, like you said, it’s more serious than they’re telling us.
sdhays
@Immanentize: Maybe they’ve simply redefined the meaning of “concussion” just like they’ve redefined the meaning of “243 lbs.” to be “President Dump’s weight”.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Snark alluding to this woebegone administration’s leanings. Had it been an actual DOLT 45 quote it most likely would having ended with “BIG SAVINGS!”
sdhays
@japa21: Occam’s Razor says that a simple fuckup is more likely since that’s the SOP of the Dump Administration in general.
Another Scott
@Immanentize:
According to Military.com at least some of them were sent to Landstuhl, Germany – apparently here:
FWIW.
I’m not surprised that Donnie’s people didn’t know how many were injured, where they went, and so forth, for days – Donnie’s people are incompetent. The press should stop being so credulous – maybe they’ll eventually learn…
But Congress needs to get to the bottom of it at the Pentagon and find out the details. The lying and mis-statements need to be called out.
Cheers,
Scott.
dww44
Just accidentally landed on an article at The Hill.com to read about the Pompeo/Kelly of NPR blowup and there was an article by Jonathan Turley titled “Why Neither Side is Really Trying” it has over 750 comments and over 800 shares. There’s also a piece by someone named Liz Peek titled “Impeachment has been a dud for Democrats”. So, I looked her up and confirmed my bias;she is a biased conservative.
Serious question: Is The Hill considered to be a neutral observer of the Congress and Washington politics? If they are, then I well understand now exactly why the Impeachment Trial will result in Trump’s acquittal. It would take some truly courageous Republicans to vote to remove this President based on the testimony they’ve seen. But then, it’s reported they did their best to not see or listen to that evidence.
This country needs saving, GOP. Are you up to the task?
jeffreyw
@dww44: The Hill is run by a good friend of Trump’s.
OzarkHillbilly
Mr Tapper is in need of some remedial math.
Another Scott
@jeffreyw: TheHill certainly has a RWNJ slant in its OpEds and the like (OpEds that it deliberately scatters among the news stories). But they have important national political news very quickly. Dunno if they’re quicker than Politico, but I refuse to regularly read Politico.
I don’t think I’ve knowingly read a Solomon story at TheHill.
As always, one has to use a critical reader’s skills…
Cheers,
Scott.
Quaker in a Basement
When one’s own brain is defective, damage to others’ brains seems trivial.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Another Scott: You refuse Politico but read The Hill? Weird. They’re both pretty bad, but The Hill seems way worse imho.
Another Scott
@dww44: Turley was interviewed with Margaret Taylor (a prof at The GWU) by Marco Werman on PRI’s The World (8:54) yesterday.
I was not at all impressed with Turley’s opinions and “analysis”. It’s easy to see why the House lawyer didn’t have many questions for him during his testimony…
Cheers,
Scott.
Duane
@jeffreyw: Listening to C-SPAN radio taking calls and defenders of Trumpov cite John Solomon, Judicial Watch, Glen Beck etc… as sources that prove he’s innocent. Still burning from the intense stupidity.
Another Scott
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I mainly just skim the headlines.
Yeah, I may have a stupid bias, but I thought I would mention it.
RollCall seems much more balanced and reasonable than TheHill (but does far too much ‘human interest’ stories on MoC and Senators for my taste), but it seems to only be updated twice a week or something. It’s a shame.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
H.E.Wolf
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
If one must use a gendered slur, why insult women’s genitalia?
Call him a glans or something.
germy
@Another Scott: I used to see someone named “Humdinger” (not really her name but it sounded like it) on PBS all the time, representing “Real Clear News”
I’ve been told Real Clear News is neutral, but I suspect otherwise.
Jay
germy
Alexis Simendinger is her name.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: 1) humdinger is a great and underused word and I am going to try to work it into day to day conversation
2) Alexis Humdinger? I tried to google and it doesn’t autofill but that name does ring a bell
3) I take RCP to be a right-leaning outlet. Wasn’t it revealed a few weeks back that RCP’s parent company is the answer to “Who funds The Federalist?”
Jay
@germy:
Real Clear Politics?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealClearPolitics
Jay
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Jay:
Yes, and Alexis Simendinger is always on PBS. I don’t know much about her. She’s subtle when she slants… more subtle than Mara Liasson
germy
hum·ding·er
/ˌhəmˈdiNGɡər/
noun
INFORMAL
a remarkable or outstanding person or thing of its kind.
(to me, it sounds like slang for a blowjob, but this is just proof that my mind is in the gutter)
jeffreyw
@germy: You’re thinking of a ding hummer. Easy mistake to make!
germy
@jeffreyw: LOL
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: You had everything that is now in the blockquote as part of your nym, so it went into moderation.
I tried to discern your intent, and then freed you. Apologies if I got it wrong!
Jay
Jay
@jeffreyw:
nope, hung drummer,…..
germy
Bill Arnold
Liz Dye’s treatment of the Mike Pompeo / Mary Louise Kelly(NPR) story is good:
Pompeo Attempts To Stick Up Reporter, Winds Up Shooting Himself In The D*ck (Liz Dye, January 25, 2020)
Pompeo has been behaving startlingly unprofessionally.
Gin & Tonic
I wonder if Marsha will take him up on this offer?
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
upthread, posted that State has Pompeo’s back and is calling the reporter a liar.
it was a bright shining city for a bit there,…..
Duane
It’s understandable the soldier’s head injuries seem minor to someone who suffered bone spurs during the Vietnam War.
sdhays
@Bill Arnold: I was only somewhat familiar with his record in the House and I’m startled that he has a “professional” setting at all.
Sab
My RWNJ brother thought the world of Pompeo, back when I was speculating about how arrogant are you if you think you can work for Trump and emerge with your reputation intact.
I guess I won that one.
NPR v State Dept. I don’t contribute to State, or listen to it on my commute every day.
Jay
So, the Maine Waffle confirms the truth by denying it:
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Warren needs to use plain language like “lied and covered-up” instead of “concealed and diminished”
Jay
dww44
@jeffreyw: Explains everything. I think it’s about time we had more employee owned media in this country.
Bill Arnold
LOL.
Context:
Exclusive: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained – sources (Joseph Menn, Jan 21 (2020?))
Sab
@Jay: I love that name. Of course I am not from Maine, so have no idea if it will resonate.
Can you work on something against Rob Portman in Ohio?
ETA he is up in 2024.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
See the wonkette piece. Gen Michael Hayden vouches for her, on twitter. :-)
RobNYNY
All he had to do was to recite some platitudes: “I’m sure they are bearing up well despite the injuries that represent a sacrifice to protect our country. With the excellent care that our military and the Veterans Administration provides, they will soon be fully recovered.”
Why can’t he even feign empathy? Is he so defective?
Jay
@Sab:
on it,….
dww44
@Bill Arnold: I’ve believed for quite some time that Pompeo is suffering from cognitive dissonance. He is unable to reconcile his own religious view of himself and his motivations with how he must behave to work for Donald Trump. If he doesn’t reconcile those warring factions soon, he’s gonna blow.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
The kicker is that they had plenty of warning (hours) of a missile strike, and then a warning when the launches happened. (As reported at least.)
Soldiers should not have been needlessly exposed to such a high probability of TBI. (IMO, and I am very much not a military person.)
Sab
Wow. Time flies when you are old. When I was 12, I thought I would be too old to enjoy the millenium ( I did think it was kind of boring.) Now, the election two years from now will be a quarter through the century. Yikes!
Sab
@Jay: Thank you.
H.E.Wolf
@WaterGirl:
Thank you! I could see the error I’d made, and I appreciate that you fixed it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I spent most of the day so far finishing the draft of a short story. What did I miss?
Bill Arnold
@dww44:
Do you think he has a core of
goodnot-bad? I haven’t spotted it yet in word or deed. (But Haven’t seriously been tracking him so could be completely wrong.)Sab
@Sab: And I always disliked Mary Louise, because she is sort of a right winger, which you have to be to do the security beat. Pompeo just tried to off one of his troops. What a nitwit.
jeffreyw
@Jay: If wishes were fishes, drummers would have frozen sticks, breaded, with lemons.
Aleta
@Bill Arnold:
Statement from Pompeo:
In other words, Mary Louise Kelly pointed to Ukraine on the unlabeled map, and Pompeo and staff believe that is Bangladesh.
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
there is no good in the man. He is as venal as the day is long.
Jay
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>John Solomon’s lawyers should’ve advised him to *not* say this. <a href=”https://t.co/klF1l1b2QE”>https://t.co/klF1l1b2QE</a></p>— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) <a href=”https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1220758835851296771?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>January 24, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
and,……
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Have had Pompeo’s people call my boss to try and embarrass me and kill my stories while he was CIA Director, have heard others about him throwing things in anger etc. Shocking he’d do this to <a href=”https://twitter.com/NPRKelly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@NPRKelly</a> and think it was a good idea or it would teach her a lesson. It’s a pattern. <a href=”https://t.co/p2vi6cECxs”>https://t.co/p2vi6cECxs</a></p>— Jenna McLaughlin (@JennaMC_Laugh) <a href=”https://twitter.com/JennaMC_Laugh/status/1220846140402425861?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>January 24, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
dww44
@Bill Arnold: His education and life experiences, plus his evangelical beliefs and practices, if sincere, would have to put him at war with himself while serving in the Trump Administration.
While his political policy positions are cruel and reactionary, he has always priotized his religious beliefs. Wikipedia notes that he’s a believer in the “Rapture”.
Actually, I’ve long believed that too much religion does more harm than too little of it. That’s partly why I’ve come to believe that he’s a powder keg about to blow. That and the fact that, physically, he looks tightly wound.
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta:
He’s not wrong, though.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Gotta like a dipshit that brings his own shovel to his funeral.
Wonder what the service is going to be like? Do you think that balloons and noise makers are appropriate?
Jay
Matt McIrvin
@dww44: The Hill is a right-wing outfit. I thought that was generally understood.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Real Clear News is also a right-wing outfit.
Jay
@dww44
dww44
@Matt McIrvin: I sorta think I knew that, but I almost never go there and today’s visit raised my suspicions. Thanks for confirming that.
Sab
Tried to check into my social security account today. Finally got help. She didn’t even recognize my 20 year old browser. Not the friendlist site for olds to check in to. So of course it makes sense for them all to sign up on line.
Ruckus
@Bill Arnold:
There is nothing startlingly unusual about Pompeo’s behavior, he was appointed by trump, that means he’s quite likely a prick or a dumbshit. Or both. My money is on both. BTW being a dumbshit doesn’t mean he lacks the ability to think, he just comes to the stupidest or most asinine conclusions possible.
Raven Onthill
Parnas attorney just released the entire recording of that dinner party where Trump said that something must be done about Yovanovitch. Wow. Wow.
Washington lawyer Susan Simpson listens to it, so you don’t have to: https://twitter.com/TheViewFromLL2/status/1221169013654478850
Also, over at Daily Kos, David Neiwert on the primacy of racism over economic considerations in voter behavior: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/25/1913829/-Why-Sanders-insistence-on-seeking-an-economic-solution-to-racism-is-built-on-hollow-mythology
My own piece on the same subject, drawing somewhat different conclusions and with discouraging prognostication: “I think we are in a time similar to the end of the Reconstruction.” – https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2020/01/fascism-poverty-racism-economics.html
My take on Sanders and racism: Sanders does speak of racism, but obliquely, in the context of 1930s Germany, where economics was a factor. The only candidate to have spoken of racism directly was Hillary Clinton, in her “Two Baskets” speech, and she was blasted for it. I do not think it is possible for a national candidate to address racism directly without a severe cost. While racism was preexisting, the massive economic losses of the crash of 2008 were used to help raise the demon, but I do not believe that ameliorating them will lay it. One cannot unsow the wind.
Martin
@dww44: Republicans fit their religion to match their politics. Because of that, there’s always a way to square the circle. It may be hard, but they always get there. Religion doesn’t serve to inform their politics, it serves to justify it.
Ruckus
@Duane:
Are you saying that his bone spurs were all in his head rather than where he claimed? Because that would make some sense, that trump has bone spurs on the brain. Because I think it’s obvious that they have pierced whatever actual brain matter that’s left in that disaster of a melon.
Ruckus
@dww44:
Do you really think he’s going to be any better if he does reconcile those fractions in his head?
Jay
Ruckus
@Sab:
I can not use the my social security site. Literally, it doesn’t work for me at all. I’ve been to a SSA office and had them reset my account which it worked once, then it won’t allow me access and will not allow me to reset it at all or respond at all. I don’t bother with it any longer.
germy
Martin
@Jay: I’ll note that ‘take out’ doesn’t necessarily mean violence.
I had a colleague who was fired for mounting a smear campaign against an employee of theirs. She could have fired her at any time, but I think didn’t want the scrutiny behind the firing, so worked to get the employee to quit instead. Several of us called out the behavior and demanded the supervisor be investigated for a hostile workplace.
So, even when a supervisors has firing authority, sometimes they choose to not use it. Not for valid reasons, but to cover their own motives. If Trump truly believed that Yovanovich was undermining US foreign policy, he’d have easily been able to order Pompeo to fire her, but he didn’t because they’re smart enough to realize that nobody would believe that she was doing that. She had a stellar foreign service record going back decades. So, they go for the smear campaign – creating opposition to her either internally in Ukraine so that Ukrainian leadership openly demand her ouster, or in the media so they write critical pieces of her, and then the administration has cover to get rid of her.
I read ‘get rid of her’ to mean ‘make is so she can’t serve in that job any longer’. That’s better than ‘kill her’ but still pretty fucking wrong.
Jay
Duane
@Ruckus: You may be right, but I’m saying Trumpov is an insufferable SOB who doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about the soldiers.
BR
I’m a little surprised at how little discussion about the coronavirus there is — the spread rate is higher than the flu so far, and it’s also several times more deadly. We could be looking at global Spanish Flu level impacts if it’s not contained in the next couple weeks. Yeah, I know, alarming / alarmist, but that’s really what’s mathematically possible with something that spreads through the air at rates like this.
Seems to me everyone needs to start planning for — in a month or two from now — working from home if you can, canceling unnecessary travel, etc.
germy
@BR: It’s frightening, I agree. I wonder if it’s human nature to look away.
I remember a documentary about the Spanish Flu, and when the epidemic was over, it seemed to be almost erased from history.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy:
My sense of it comes from the Katherine Anne Porter short story “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.”
On another note, I’m reading the varied political news of the day and find it all disturbing. I feel like I’m living in some dystopic version of the US. WTF, Republicans?
Jay
@Martin:
None of these guys were State or Government.
None of these guys had any pull with the Government of Ukraine,
Their only “connections” in Ukraine were disgraced former Officials and mobsters.
They were not in a position to “get her fired” in any way shape or form.
When they tell you exactly who they are, believe them.
NotMax
@Sab
Netscape?
;)
Seriously, if you;’re using a browser of that vintage you may as well paint a “Please Infect My Computer With Nasties” sign on your back.
Jay
Martin
@BR: It’s been a topic pretty much daily.
It’s hard because China is not terribly trustworthy on giving accurate information, a lot of social media accounts are being blocked, and the measures China is able to take look fairly foreign and draconian to us.
But yeah, my sense is that things are quite a bit worse than what’s been reported and that the efforts to contain it are going to be VERY challenging since it appears to be transmittable prior to showing symptoms. So screening isn’t terribly effective.
We’re fucked if it starts to spread inside the US. No way Trumps idiots respond to this properly. No way we shut down airports. No way we limit travel. No way we move resources disproportionately to places of need. People really need to ping their state health agencies to see if they are prepared, because they’re going to be on their own.
Ninedragonspot
@BR: I agree with you.
I am very concerned for Taiwan, which ranks #2 in novel Coronavirus infections, suspected cases, and quarantined. Taiwan is currently frozen out of the WHO, just to appease the country whose own rickety public health infrastructure and lack of transparency has put everyone at risk. Want to help 23 million souls? Write your representatives asking that Taiwan be integrated into the so-called World Health Organization.
japa21
@Martin: Well, there is a patient in the hospital 3 miles away from me. Part of the problem is that the virus incubates for 2 weeks before symptoms show up.
debbie
@Martin:
You’re giving Trump’s thought process a whole lot of credit. He meant it how he always means it: like the mob boss he has always seen himself as.
Bill Arnold
@Martin:
Not nearly enough is known about it:
Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China (January 24, 2020, pdf, the lancet)
For now, handwashing and the usual are indicated. Also no eye touching – it has been documented to spread via eye touching.
James E Powell
Two ideas we all ought to give up on:
Martin
@Jay: Remember, the Russians didn’t put a hit on Clinton in 2016, but they worked damn hard to defeat her in a non-violent manner. And it worked.
And these guys included John Solomon at the Hill. It’s Rudy on Fox News every day. They’ve got a lot of experience at this sort of thing. There’s a broad sea of ratfucking before you land on the shore of assassination. Maybe others aren’t paying attention to how many career professionals have been forced out of government – many of whom are civil service employees and effectively not fireable without cause. How many members of Congress have been forced out because they can’t fight the smear machine that they know is coming?
This is who they are – propagandists that use the media to ruin individuals. Yovanovich was to be ruined. And even after the guys got out, the machine they started up is still working, still going after her, and Vindman, and Lisa Page, and all the others. We see it every. single. day.
debbie
@Sab:
She can be smug and self-important, but she doesn’t lie. I think gender is an issue for Pompeo.
Martin
@japa21: Yeah, this is looking a lot like the worst case scenario – relatively long incubation, transmission before symptoms, slow to kill the host, easy transmission.
Ebola is scary but it’s a bad pathogen – it kills people before they can spread it too far. It’s self-destructive. This virus is less fatal, but way, way easier to spread. By the time you realize you have a problem, you’re probably fucked.
I have a LOT of chinese nationals where I work and a lot of coworkers that go to China regularly. Every day we have people returning from there, and I have a lot of experience with weird foreign illnesses infecting my staff and constantly pushing them to get vaccine boosters and the like. I’m working from home a LOT right now. If I don’t need to be there, no point adding another transmission vector.
Another Scott
@BR: The CDC has a decent summary of the disease and what they’re doing about it.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@debbie: Yeah, I don’t deny that. Trump fixates on outcomes and cares fuck-all about process. If someone murdered her, he’d worry about the consequences to him personally, but otherwise wouldn’t give a shit. He wanted her out and left it to the imagination of the flunkies to accomplish that. The dipshit from Connecticut seemed to the one eager to land on the assassination shore, to the concern (but not exactly alarm) of Parnas.
BR
@Another Scott:
Yeah. The main thing that I think makes this so challenging is that the current estimates (from two studies, I believe) is that 2.5 people on average are infected by each person with the virus. That’s a rapid, exponential spread, one that is hard to contain without widespread cooperation / action by the public. Even if the mortality rate is lower than other viruses like SARS, it’s still a really big deal, and I’m confused by all the news stories saying “there is no risk to the U.S.” or things like that which I assume comes from the CDC or similar official sources.
WaterGirl
@debbie:
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: My very thought.
J R in WV
@debbie:
Gender, more specifically misogyny, is a problem with all the Christianist Evangelical RWNJs. Women are not allowed to teach men, to work with men if the women are ranked above any men, never allowed to judge or manage men.
Not really allowed to ask probing questions of high-ranking men, like Pompeo, in the sense of being interviewed by a reporter who might imply by their questioning that they doubted the accuracy or honesty of the man’s answers. In a class women are expected to accept the words of their masculine teacher totally and without questioning.
Women cannot be ministers in church above teaching a Sunday School class to very young children. These people are perverted in every way so far as gender interaction goes. And people not raised in the cult have a lot of trouble interacting with people subject to the cult because the fundamental precepts of America, like equality, are not accepted within the cult.
Martin
@J R in WV:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell:
I don’t doubt that trump has a higher percentage of true believers in the military than in the civilian world– a lot of Southern/White Fundies in the military, and the sort of people with ‘pro-military’ magnets on their cars are probably hardcore and unshakeable and have no problem with “dopes and babies”, but trump’s overall approval rating was at 42/50 in a recent Military Times poll.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
So the gist is that these are un-American institutions
And the current shithead in chief is using them to enhance his un-American ideals and practices.
Ruviana
@H.E.Wolf: Thank you!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It would be a shame if trump lost support of the military over this.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
As I understand it he’s already lost over half of the military. Add in the vets who aren’t hard core republicans and racists and he’s already not doing so good.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I know, but I want him to lose the other half!
Matt McIrvin
@BR: I’m wondering if there are a lot of carriers with mild, cold-like symptoms who are going entirely undetected (mixed with the regular background of cold and flu viruses that spread every season). That would tend to cause the lethality of the virus to be overestimated, but also its spreading potential to be underestimated.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bunch of hippies.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: The thing about veterans is that so many of them are Vietnam-era–the median age of veterans is 65. Which means that they’re going to skew right for purely generational reasons if nothing else.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@WaterGirl:
Notwithstanding current approval ratings, I am skeptical that the military vote will go against Trump. My sense is that their anti-Democrat feelings are much stronger than anything else.
TS (the original)
@Martin:
I would suggest that at the moment the US administration is not terribly trustworthy. Knowing how it was demanded President Obama solve the ebola crisis, trump & co simply refuse to accept that coronavirus is an issue outside of China.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: I was about to say that it will be interesting to see which way that comes out. But of course if things don’t go our way in November, I will be so despondent that I won’t care.
evodevo
@Ruckus: Me either…I have tried several times over the last two weeks to access it with no luck. I still get paper a couple times a year, so I don’t really care…
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I’d say older than 65.
I’m 70 and was one of the older guys in boot camp and I enlisted in 1969 when I was 20. The draft ended in 73 and draw down started then as well. So I’d bet the median age is closer to 70 now. The largest age group at the VA is 65-74.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Josh Marshall is having some fun. I didn’t even know they had a press conference. This, like Pompeo’s tantrum when asked about Ukraine, is an example of hit dogs hollering
Ruckus
@evodevo:
The website is useful for when you need something, but you always get in writing what they need to tell you. So it isn’t all that critical that it works, it’s just easier to look it up than find that piece of paper even though I have all mine in one place, in folders, you know sort anal.
Barb 2
@J R in WV:
exactly! The end of time cults of evangelicals train girls from birth that they are less than boys. These cults are hate groups. Children in cages – that’s god ‘s judgement. These are Trump supporters. The cult members blindly follow their male leaders. Authoritarian religious cults are extremely dangerous.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: I think of the United States as mired in endless wars for most of my life, but the sheer number of Americans involved in Vietnam just dwarfs the number who were in any subsequent conflict.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Leto: I am not surprised on the IED thing, but this is Trump. Trump’s ideas of war comes from sports and movies.
Ruckus
John tweeted a link to the Beaverton which seems to be the Canadian version of the Onion.
Give it a look.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
It was a big war in a small country. Of course it was actually a war between the USSR and the US. We spent a lot of money to prove….
What the hell it was for is beyond me, the north asked us for help first and we sneered at them and drove them to the USSR, creating the war to continue all wars. And then 30 yrs later the republicans, playing the members of Our Gang did it all over again for shits and giggles. Except that they screwed up Vietnam so bad they couldn’t use the draft to turn it into another Vietnam. When they screwed it up, once again so badly that it’s still going, we have military members with 4 and 5 tours, and illnesses that have no cures, just possibly learning to live with it. Which we don’t really know how to do because how do you actually live with years of constant war, only to return and see morons walking around play acting war and guns designed to kill soldiers are openly carried in many parts of the country. It’s like you never left the war zone.
Martin
@James E Powell: Most enlisted military are minorities. They aren’t voting for Trump. Officers, on the other hand…
dww44
@Ruckus:
Sorry to be so late responding. Left for a dinner with friends. I really think he’s so at war within himself that he’s liable to have a serious meltdown. He’s actually probably closer to that than Trump cause Trump vents all the time. Pompeo internalizes it until he no longer can.
After returning home from dinner MSNBC was actually having a night of live programming which they don’t normally do on Saturdays. There was a panel of historians/pundits on with Ali Velshi and the discussion was about Trumps circle of advisors. One of them mentioned that Mulvaney and Pompeo were the two highest ones who are destined to encounter problems down the road. “Pompeo has really gotten himself in a corner which likely explains why he blew up at the NPR reporter, paraphrasing one of the pundit/historian guests.