I enjoy Maher’s show often enough, but he is far from being a good, consistent interviewer. Sure, he has his moments, but more often than not, he gives his guests far too long a “leash.” Bill should stick with comedy, in my opinion, or take better control of his program. He can be extremely frustrating.
We know felines may be susceptible to the virus, but how are dogs coping...this is not an Onion article. Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force Aram Roston, Marisa Taylor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared. “We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this,” Azar said. “We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site.” While coronavirus in Wuhan, China, was “potentially serious,” Azar assured viewers in America, it “was one for which we have a playbook.” Azar’s initial comments misfired on two fronts. Like many U.S. officials, from President Donald Trump on down, he underestimated the pandemic’s severity. He also overestimated his agency’s preparedness. As is now widely known, two agencies Azar oversaw as HHS secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, wouldn’t come up with viable tests for five and half weeks, even as other countries and the World Health Organization had already prepared their own. Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.” Azar’s optimistic public pronouncement and choice of an inexperienced manager are emblematic of his agency’s oft-troubled response to the crisis. His HHS is a behemoth department, overseeing almost every federal public health agency in the country, with a $1.3 trillion budget that exceeds the gross national product of most countries. Azar and his top deputies oversaw health agencies that were slow to alert the public to the magnitude of the crisis, to produce a test to tell patients if they were sick, and to provide protective masks to hospitals even as physicians pleaded for them. The first test created by the CDC, meant to be used by other labs, was plagued by a glitch that rendered it useless and wasn’t fixed for weeks. It wasn’t until March that tests by other labs went into production. The lack of tests “limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff,” the HHS Inspector General said in a report this month. The equipment shortage “put staff and patients at risk.” A promised virus surveillance program failed to take root, despite assurances Azar gave to Congress. Rather than share information, three current and three former government officials told Reuters, Azar and top staff sidelined key agencies that could have played a higher-profile role in addressing the pandemic. “It was a mess,” said a White House official who worked with HHS. Officials across the government, from President Trump on down, have been blasted for America’s halting response to the pandemic. Critics inside and outside the administration say a meaningful share of the responsibility lies with HHS and Trump appointee Azar. “You have to blame the problem on the virus, but it’s Azar’s operation,” said Lynn Goldman, the dean of the public health school at George Washington University, who has served on advisory boards of the FDA and CDC. “And the buck stops there.” HHS declined to make Azar available for an interview. Michael Caputo, the new chief HHS spokesman, declined to answer Reuters questions about Azar’s stewardship, saying in a statement: “We are communicating to the American public during a deadly pandemic.” DALLAS LABRADOODLES Azar is a Republican lawyer who once clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and counts current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a friend. Under George W. Bush, Azar worked for HHS as general counsel and deputy secretary. During the Obama years, he cycled through the private sector as a pharmaceutical company lobbyist and executive for Eli Lilly. After Trump’s first HHS secretary was forced out in a travel corruption scandal, Azar stepped in, in January 2018. Two years later, at the dawn of the coronavirus crisis, Azar appointed his most trusted aide and chief of staff, Harrison, as HHS’s main coordinator for the government’s response to the virus. Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company. Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles. The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sale price was $225,000. At HHS, Harrison was initially deputy chief of staff before being promoted, in the summer of 2019, to replace Azar’s first chief of staff, Peter Urbanowicz, an experienced hospital executive with decades of experience in public health. This January, Harrison became a key manager of the HHS virus response. “Everyone had to report up through him,” said one HHS official. One questionable decision, three sources say, came that month, after the White House announced it was convening a coronavirus task force. The HHS role was to muster resources from key public health agencies: the CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Office of Global Affairs and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. Harrison decided, the sources say, to exclude FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from the task force. “He said he didn’t need to be included,” said one official with knowledge of the matter. When task force members were announced January 29, neither Hahn nor the FDA were included. Hahn wasn’t put on the task force until Vice President Mike Pence took over in February. Two of Hahn’s high-profile counterparts were on it from the start: CDC director Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The HHS denied it was Harrison’s decision to leave out Hahn and the FDA, but declined to say who made the call. The agency lauded Harrison’s work on the task force. In a statement, Hahn said the FDA was focused on the coronavirus epidemic, “not on when we were added to the task force,” and that the agency was not “excluded.” Fauci, who has become a public face of the Trump Administration’s COVID-19 effort, said he wasn’t sure including the FDA was necessary at the start. Initially, the Chinese government was saying the virus spread through animals, not human to human, he said. “You would include the FDA when you want to expedite drugs or devices,” Fauci said. Others said the lack of a strong FDA role early on had direct consequences. Two sources familiar with events say the White House wasn’t getting information from the FDA about the state of the testing effort, a crucial element of the coronavirus response. Reached by phone, Harrison declined to answer Reuters’ questions. In a later statement, he did not address questions about the task force but said he was proud of his work history. “Americans would be well served by having more government officials who have started and worked in small family businesses and fewer trying to use that experience to attack them and distort the record,” he wrote. In a statement to Reuters, Azar said Harrison has been an asset. “From day one, Brian has demonstrated remarkable leadership and managerial talents,” Azar wrote. (read the rest at the link in headline)
Clearly, in the poll “trust” in the governor of Texas counted as the trust of the people of just one state among 50, and wasn’t weighted according to population. We have been saddled with a governor who’s one redeeming quality is that as bad as he is, Abbott is still better than trump. In my opinion. When I think of Abbott, I have a picture in my mind of all those partying young people at the coast during Spring Break going home, many infected that didn’t have to be, and spreading the virus both within and outside of our state. It wouldn’t have happened had Abbott simply done his job. His responsibility. He badly failed a test of leadership. Watching trump give his near daily “press briefings” to the country, one and a half to two hours of trump unfiltered, I wondered how long it would take for his dishonesty and bizarre behavior to filter down through the body politic. Giving them a clearer picture of just what he is, now that millions are at home instead of at work, and can watch these things. Watch them, and then see the public’s response to watching them reflected in the polls. I think we are beginning to see that impact now. I just read the post above, @NewRoxFan. Our 75 lb female Labradoodle didn’t come from Harrison’s Dallas Labradoodles, thank goodness! They are fantastic dogs, in my experience. Very expensive today. They can run from $1500 to upwards of $3000 bucks. I bought my first from the pound in Houston for $10 in late 1971, a male that still remains the smartest dog I’ve ever had. The Labradoodle we have now, 6 years old, is a wonder, but can’t touch the Wonder Dog. He didn’t shed, and didn’t have the odor most dogs have. Those are common characteristics of a well bred Labradoodle. What amuses me is that back then the word “labradoodle” hadn’t been invented. Sorry for the derail!
I've often thought over the last four years that most of them know that President Trump is only out for himself. They know he's wholly unqualified for his position, indulgent in his ignorance and recklessly impulsive. It's what makes them so contemptible in this deal with the devil. They publicly cheer him, acquit him of high crimes and say he's "learned his lesson" while, reportedly, admitting privately that they know how awful he is. GOP officials know he will never "have their back." He will always throw them under the bus at a moment's notice. But they have to accept it and thank him for his troubles because 30% of this country (and damn near 90% of their primary base) is in thrall to this carnival barker.
How low can trump go? He just assumes that people will believe anything he says. The guy is certifiable. I watched this on TV as it happened. It was incredible.
If you talk with a racist, he or she will always let something slip, unblinking. My dad is a quality human being in many ways but when it comes to race, the small-town Iowa boy comes out. If MLK Jr comes up? "King was a racist." Maybe it's unintended projection, but I know others have had a similar experience. "King is a racist." Hate to know what they think of Malcolm X. Or maybe they're all lumped together.
Here's a pretty sober assessment of the disaster-in-chief... Jeffrey Sachs on the Catastrophic American Response to the Coronavirus
He wants that same light that causes melanoma to be exposed in the lungs? And how? Antman? But not That Woman, the wasp.
I'm still trying to figure out how Trump said we are doing good when we had almost 32,000 more cases today and over 2,300 more deaths. That's a horrific number.
