Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

That is likened to Trump offering the National Guard to the capital prior to January 6 while 'which' Pelosi makes the decision not to deploy their us and to use it instead for her own political gain!   After it is all said and done, she fires the seargent at arms and has him replaced. She has just as much knowledge as Trump before the "insurrection" and does nothing to circumvent it - but hope something bad happens!

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Criminal Donald was in charge to call the National Guard. He refused for several hours. That's why he was impeached.

Pelosi and the rest of Congress was under attack from Trump's domestic terrorists.

Once again, these right wingers blame everybody else except their orange messiah.     

Truly pathetic.

[Rick Plant]

One month in, how Biden has changed disaster management and the US COVID-19 response




After one month in office, the Biden administration has fundamentally changed how the federal government responds to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In direct contrast to his predecessor, President Joe Biden is treating this as a national-scale crisis requiring a comprehensive national strategy and federal resources. If that sounds familiar, it should: It's a return to a traditional – and in many ways proven – approach to disaster management.

The Trump administration deviated dramatically from established emergency management practices. It politicized public health and related decision-making processes and overrode the disaster response roles of federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Among other things, the Trump administration established an entirely new coordination structure headed by a White House task force, then changed the lead federal agency from Health and Human Services to FEMA. Those moves, combined with a disjointed array of other operational task forces, made it difficult to create an integrated response. Even basic data collection from hospitals for tracking the coronavirus's spread was thrown into disarray by changes.

The Biden administration is now reempowering key federal agencies to return to the roles and responsibilities they were designed for within a planned national disaster management structure.

Our own work in hazards management, with both governments and nongovernmental organizations, has shown us that fidelity to proper process and respect for expertise is essential to effective disaster management. The Biden administration's approach to the pandemic so far suggests this is the model it will follow.


What federal emergency response was designed to do

By design, the U.S. federal system for managing disasters is decentralized and tiered.

The system is structured so that local governments take the lead in managing hazards and responding to local emergencies. But when an emergency becomes a disaster-scale problem, state and federal governments should be prepared to provide financial assistance and other support, particularly logistical support.

FEMA, established in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, has a crucial role as a national emergency management coordinator. Just getting all levels of government to work together effectively, along with private and nonprofit organizations, represents a massive challenge. Major crises over the years, including the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, have helped refine federal strategies and processes and improve preparedness for future disasters – including pandemics.


One of Joe Biden's first moves as president was to issue a national strategy for responding to the pandemic


Pandemic preparedness has been a part of U.S. emergency management planning since at least 2003. The H1N1 bird flu crisis in 2009 triggered the passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Authorization Act in 2013. That law established Health and Human Services as the lead federal agency, and the statute specifically addresses the development of medical surge capacity, pandemic vaccine and drug development and more.

Managing a pandemic is more challenging than other types of disasters. Unlike a wildfire or tornado, which strikes a specific place for a limited period of time, a global pandemic is all-encompassing, affecting all jurisdictions and every economic sector. It requires focused coordination between public health and emergency response bureaucracies within government and with other key partners such as hospitals.

Given the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government normally would have taken the lead in coordinating the response and assistance. Instead, the Trump administration devolved primary responsibility for the pandemic response to state and local governments, despite their limited capacity.

This approach was doomed to fail. It muddled use of the National Response Framework and created a competitive environment for state and local governments as they scrambled for supplies. It sidelined the agencies involved in pandemic preparedness, such as the CDC and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and it ignored specific plans for a pandemic response. It also politicized resource allocation choices and undermined, through misinformation, the importance of public health behaviors such as wearing masks.


Biden's return to established practices

Against this backdrop, the Biden administration's early efforts to return to established disaster management practice underscore the importance of leadership of complex systems used to address complex problems.

The list of changes in the month since Biden took office is extensive. The administration issued a comprehensive national strategy for pandemic response. It increased the involvement of FEMA and the Department of Defense to support vaccination distribution, expanded COVID-19 testing for underserved populations and rejoined the World Health Organization, which Trump had pulled out of. Biden also invoked the Defense Production Act to mobilize private industry to ramp up production of test kits, vaccines and personal protective equipment. The administration is now advocating for a national COVID-19 relief package in Congress.

The Biden administration's rapid, strategic reorientation of the federal government to manage the pandemic has parallels for other complex challenges, including developing a national strategy for addressing climate change. Continuing to refine these processes, including proper management of the federal bureaucracy, and public investments aimed at reducing risk should be priorities for the administration.

https://www.rawstory.com/one-month-in-how-biden-has-changed-disaster-management-and-the-us-19-response/

[Colin Crow]

Does Old Joe have a plan to help those folks who are freezing to death in Texas?  Imagine if Trump or Bush were president and a large section of the country was experiencing such a disaster and being ignored.  It would be headlines.   But Old Joe is busy assisting illegal aliens.

He could simply suggest that Texas becomes part of an integrated power grid and not an independant one. Suggest the various power providers install protection against cold snaps. Like the one that occurred in 2011 with similar effect. Perhaps the people of Texas need more Democratic representatives that will do something to help them rather than go on vacation to warmer places. Ya think?

[Martin Weidmann]

He could simply suggest that Texas becomes part of an integrated power grid and not an independant one. Suggest the various power providers install protection against cold snaps. Like the one that occurred in 2011 with similar effect. Perhaps the people of Texas need more Democratic representatives that will do something to help them rather than go on vacation to warmer places. Ya think?

Indeed. Cruz claims to have returned earlier as planned from the Mexico trip because it didn't feel right. I don't believe it for a second. He came back early because he got caught by people on the plane. And as if that's not bad enough, Cruz tells us he and Governor Abbott were briefed days ahead that this double storm was coming and just how severe it would be. Yet neither he or Abbott did anything. They didn't warn the energy providers or the the people! Instead, Abbott blames windmills and the Green Deal.... Go figure

[Rick Plant]

Fauci unloads on Trump: 'He did things that were terrible' when I contradicted him

Dr. Anthony Fauci unloaded on former President Donald Trump in an interview with the UK newspaper The Telegraph.

Throughout the interview, Fauci recounted how his former boss would routinely take bad advice on how to handle of the novel coronavirus pandemic and would act out whenever anyone with expertise contradicted him.

"When it became clear that in order to maintain my integrity and to get the right message [across] I had to publicly disagree with him, he did things -- or allowed things to happen -- that were terrible," Fauci told the paper. "Like he allowed Peter Navarro [Trump's trade adviser] to write an editorial in USA Today saying that almost everything I've ever said was wrong."

Fauci also blamed the president's regular criticism of him for the threats he and his family face to their safety.

"To this day I have to have armed federal agents guarding me all the time," Fauci said.

Fauci also told The Telegraph that Trump completely lost any remaining interest he had in containing the pandemic after he lost the 2020 election, thus leaving it up to public health experts to try to contain the damage.

"We were trying, but we were acting almost alone, in the sense of without any direction," he said. "When President Biden walked into the White House we were having 300,000 to 400,000 cases per day, 4,000 deaths per day, and our hospitals were on the brink of being overrun."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fauci/

[Rick Plant]

'American hero' leaks Heidi Cruz text messages on Cancun trip to the NYT

Text messages reportedly sent by Heidi Cruz as she planned a Cancun getaway with her husband, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) were leaked to The New York Times.

"Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was 'FREEZING,' as Ms. Cruz put it — and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed "many times," noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts," the newspaper reported.

Cruz is a managing director at Goldman Sachs.

"For more than 12 hours after the airport departure photos first emerged, Mr. Cruz's office declined to comment on his whereabouts. The Houston police confirmed that the senator's office had sought their assistance for his airport trip on Wednesday, and eventually Mr. Cruz was spotted wheeling his suitcase in Mexico on Thursday as he returned to the state he represents in the Senate," the newspaper noted. "As the Cruzes were away, millions of Texans were still without electricity, many had no running water and the icy air that swept into the state was so severe that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been activated to send supplies, including generators."

New York Magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi described the source of the text messages as an American hero.

https://www.rawstory.com/ted-cruz-cancun-2650616534/

[Rick Plant]

New text messages unravel Ted Cruz's explanation for his family Cancún trip while Texas is freezing
https://www.businessinsider.com/heidi-cruz-text-messages-planning-mexico-trip-ted-cruz-2021-2

Leaked texts reveal Ted Cruz’s wife invited neighbors to Cancun amid ‘FREEZING’ weather
https://nypost.com/2021/02/19/heidi-cruz-reportedly-invited-neighbors-to-cancun/

Ted Cruz ripped by former GOP official: 'It should be the end of his career'
https://www.rawstory.com/ted-cruz-vacation-during-blackout/

'Insult to our intelligence': CNN panel buries Ted Cruz for blaming his kids in 'weak damage control'
https://www.rawstory.com/ted-cruz-cancun-2650621145/

Yes, Texas is in bad shape -- here's why it's only going to get worse
https://www.rawstory.com/texas-storm-2650619986/

GOP darling Ron DeSantis busted for egregious distortion of COVID-19 data
https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-falsifies-pediatric-data/

'I wouldn’t be complaining.’ Gov. DeSantis threatens to pull coronavirus vaccine from communities that criticize distribution
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-ron-desantis-vaccine-politics-20210217-cgew27q23fhknh7rpr3h4sf5dy-story.html

Florida Governor Accused Of 'Playing Politics' With COVID-19 Vaccine
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/02/17/968714946/florida-governor-accused-of-playing-politics-with-covid-vaccine