What Did Kushner Mean? The Federal Stockpile

The media is still buzzing about what Jared Kushner said the other day at the daily corona virus briefing at the White House.  Kushner was asked about the federal strategic stockpile.  Here's what he said:

“You have instances where, in cities, they’re running out, but the state still has a stockpile.   And the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile; it’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.

“You have to take inventory in your own state and you have to show that there’s a real need.”

The media has been going crazy since Kushner said this because they portray his remarks as claiming the stockpile as only to be used for the federal government.  To hear the media, Kushner is saying that the states can no longer get items from the stockpile.

That's nonsense.  At the briefing the next day, the media was in full feeding frenzy over the remark.  It was explained there that the federal government wants to keep some items like ventilators in reserve in the federal stockpile rather than distributing them all to states.  This is so that when crisis situations occurs in the next two weeks, the feds will have some ventilators left that they can send where they are actually needed.  If the whole stockpile had been sent to New York, for example, there would be none left to help New Orleans or Detroit or wherever the next hot spot occurs.  That's all.  No one said that the feds were going to keep the ventilators away from the states.

Remember this:  up until today, there have been no reported cases of someone in New York needing a ventilator where none were available.  That means that the request by the governor a few weeks back for 40,000 ventilators was an overly large request.  It's a good thing that the federal government didn't send all that Cuomo requested.  Indeed, it forced Coumo to use state resources to gather up ventilators in parts of New York that are relatively unaffected to get them to places that need them.  ALL state resources have to be marshalled.  It's not enough to just rely on the feds because the feds just do not have the resources to handle all supply needs and the system is not set up to work that way.

So far this morning, I've seen articles in the NY Post in which the general who handled the response to Katrina denouncing Kushner for what he supposedly said (but actually denouncing the phony spin that the media put on those remarks.)  I've also heard a panel on MSNBC lamenting that people are dying because the White House if following this policy of denying the federal stockpile to states -- again a blatant lie on two counts:  no one in the USA has been denied a ventilator, and the federal stockpile has gone in great part to the states with the remainder being held so that crisis areas can get quick help.  The actual facts don't seem to matter.

I am getting more and more angry at the blatant lies being pushed by the media.  It doesn't help the country to dredge up panic through lies.

The End of One Scourge

Jeremy Corbyn is no longer the leader of the British Labour Party.  That terrorist-loving, anti-Semitic, all around disgusting bigot is finally off the stage in British politics.  The new leader of that party is Keir Starmer who won a vote among the party members by a wide margin.  One of his first moves was to apologize to the British Jewish community for the anti-Semitism that has been rampant in Labour and to state that it would no longer be tolerated.

At the moment, Labout has such a small minority in Parliament, that Starmer is unlikely to have much say, if any, in the British response to the current pandemic.  Indeed, Starmer is going to spend years in the minority barring some totally unexpected problem in the UK that brings down the government.  Still, it's a great day for all Brits to know that Corbyn is gone.  Congratulations!

Now I've Seen Everything

CNN seems to know no shame when it comes to telling lies.  There's a report today on CNN by someone named Samantha Vinograd which says that President Trump made the USA too reliant on China for the medicines and medical equipment that we need to fight the corona virus.  It's as if the last 20 years never happened.

For at least the last 20 years, American foreign policy as well as European foreign policy was to bring China into the world economy.  That would reduce tensions and make China more like Western democracies, or so it was believed.  China was admitted to the World Trade Organization and globalization was off and running.  More and more American factories and American jobs were moved to China and around the world.  When the USA recovered from the financial crisis of 2009, the main industrial beneficiary was China and not the US.  Obama presided over the loss of tens of thousands of factories.

Trump ran to counter this.  His big point has been to bring manufacturing of all sorts back to the USA.  Obama actually said that Trump would need a magic wand to do that, but Trump, in fact, did just that.  He has been pushing for the last three years all sorts of programs to get manufacturing out of China and back to the USA. 

So for CNN to blame Trump for our dependence on China is beyond stupid.  Anyone who knows the facts -- as CNN surely does -- knows the opposite is true.

So why does CNN print reports that run directly counter to the facts?  Why does CNN lie?  In the midst of a pandemic, why does CNN spread misinformation?

Are They Kidding?

For the last week, Nancy Pelosi has been running from show to show to denounce the President for not acting soon enough on the corona virus.  As Pelosi puts it, "he fiddled and people died."  This line of attack against Trump has been repeated now over and over again on Democrat National TV (MSNBC) and the other mainstream media outlets. 

The sad thing, though, is that this is total BS.  The truth is something quite different.

Here are a few facts:

1.  As of January 15, the World Health Organization was announcing that there was no evidence that the corona virus could be transmitted from person to person through the air.  The outbreak was hidden by China at least until that time.

2.  On January 20, the first case of corona virus infection in the USA was confirmed in Washington state in a man who had returned from China a few days earlier.

3.  Over the next week, it became apparent that the outbreak in China was severe and that there obviously was human to human transmission through the air.  At that point, President Trump established the Corona Virus Task Force headed by Vice President Pence to coordinate the US response.  Within a week of the realization that this could be a true emergency, Trump set up the system to make sure that the federal government did as much as possible to fight the virus.

4.  By January 31, on the recommendation of the Task Force, Trump declared a national public health emergency and instituted a ban on travel into the USA from China except for US citizens returning home.  This kept thousands each day of Chinese and others who may have been carrying the virus from entering the USA.  This was the first major corona virus travel ban in the world.  It was issued on the recommendation of the public health officials and over the opposition of the economic and diplomatic officials and many other people. 

3.  Democrats like Joe Biden denounced Trump's ban on China as racist an unnecessary.  Pelosi also called the ban racist.  Many Democrats and much of the media denounced the ban as nothing more than the President trying to take attention away from the impeachment trial that was then underway in Washington.  While Trump was working on dealing with the virus, the Dems were busy wasting time on their silly impeachment charade.

4.  As the end of January, the view of the public health officials was that the corona virus was much less of a problem than the seasonal flu.  Dr. Fauci went on TV and said just that.  The President echoed the sentiments of the public health officials in his statements of the time.  In other words, Trump listened to his scientific/medial advisors and repeated the advice they were giving him.

5.  By early February, members of Congress received briefings regarding the potential impact of the corona virus.  Much has been made of the sale by senator Burr of North Carolina of a big chunk of his stock holdings.  Others also sold including Nancy Pelosi.  Despite acting on this news, Pelosi went ahead and encouraged people to come to the big Chinese New Year celebration in her district.  That parade/celebration was extremely crowded and it included people from China who had come to the USA just prior to the imposition of the travel ban.  Similar advice was given in New York City by both Mayor DeBlasio and the City Health Commission.

6.  By the end of February, the public realized just how serious the virus pandemic could be.  After that, it was clearly all hands on deck to fight the virus.  Even so, when it came time to pass the stimulus package to try to keep people getting their pay checks while social distancing, the Democrats blocked passage of that bill on three separate occasions.  Meanwhile, Pelosi was busy proposing an alternative package that dealt with climate change, voting rights, composition of corporate boards, support for union leaders and a barrel so filled with pork that pigs everywhere would become and endangered species were it to pass.  Finally, the Dems relented and the bill was passed unanimously.

Putting all this together, we have a picture of President Trump acting to fight the virus when the threat emerged while Democrats and the media criticized his actions as either racist or designed to take attention from the impeachment nonsense.  Then the Dems proceeded to slow and even undermine the American response to the virus.  Simply put, the Dems latest attack on the President is totally untrue.

So how do the Dems respond to this?  Almost in unison, they and their media allies say, "But, but, but.... what about the slow increase in testing?  If Trump had gotten the testing in place immediately, we wouldn't have had this problem."  So let's take a look at the testing.  Here are those facts:

1.  The tests that were used in China and South Korea early in the pandemic were not very reliable.  Estimates from WHO are that there were as many as 20% false positives and negatives.  That means that one person in five who was tested got the wrong results.  For the Chinese, it didn't matter that much since they put entire cities on strict lock down, a quarantine much more severe than those we currently have in the USA.  By the time South Korea got underway with their testing program, the tests were slightly better but still had big problems.  The Koreans however used a different methodology in which they tested everyone who had symptoms and everyone who had been in contact with  those who were infected.  All of these people were then locked down.

2.  In the USA, our testing procedures had been designed for the sort of outbreak we had seen with SARS and MERS.  Tests were taken but processing was done by the CDC or state labs.  The processing procedures were so cumbersome that we could only process hundreds of tests while in South Korea, for example, they could process tens of thousands of tests per day.  It was quickly clear that new testing procedures and new tests were needed immediately. 

3.  Trump made the decision to junk the old test and the cumbersome processing method that had been put in place by the Obama administration.  Instead, he brought in private companies, particularly labs like Quest and Labcorp to be involved in processing the tests across the country.  Very quickly new tests were developed and that work continues even until today.  Right now, the USA can process about 125,000 tests per day.  That figure should increase substantially over the next few weeks as the new 15 minute point of treatment tests ramp up.  Once they are widespread, testing capacity should rise to 500,000 per day (although hopefully, that will not be needed.)

4.  There is no question that the USA was not ready for testing when the pandemic hit.  As is often the case in war, the generals were prepared to once again fight the last war.  Here, the public health officials were prepared to test as was needed to fight SARS and MERS.  Sadly, the corona virus was quite different from those two earlier viruses.  What is important though is that Trump had the testing issue being handled by the task force in late January at a time when Democrats like Pelosi, DeBlasio, Biden and Cuomo were downplaying the threat from the virus.  Trump was not out warning of a potential disaster, but behind the scenes, he was preparing for one, just in case it materialized.

The bottom line regarding testing is that the President and his task force started moving immediately to get the problem solved.  Just imagine what would have happened on that front if Hillary or Joe Biden had been president instead.

Why Not Try To Improve Things?

I'm getting annoyed at the new attack plan from the Democrats and the media regarding the corona virus.  What we're getting in the last two days is that the government response is "disorganized" and "confused" and that this is all the "fault" of President Trump.  It's truly disgusting.

I just saw a group on MSNBC denouncing the feds because small businesses can't apply for loans at some banks because the final guidelines for these government supported loans weren't issued until Thursday.  One panelist was actually screaming, "they promised the loans today!  People are dying!"  These people need to take a breath.  The law allowing these loans to be made was finally passed a week ago today after being held up by Democrats in the Senate for almost a week.  The Treasury Department had to set up rules to allow the loans to be made as quickly as possible, and they did it in one week.  If the folks at MSNBC had bothered to listen to the daily briefings from the White House, they would know that when proposed rules were passed by the banks, there were many suggestions for simplifying the process so that the loans could go out more quickly.  Those changes were incorporated by Treasury officials who literally worked around the clock to get the job done.  They promised today as the day when loans would be available, and at some banks, they are.  The delay about which MSNBC is apoplectic at some banks is because those banks can't act quickly enough to make loans until Monday.  I've watched Washington for many decades.  This is the fastest major response from our government I've ever seen except for military action.

Then there's senator Chuck Schumer of New York.  He sent a letter to the President claiming a disorganized response regarding personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses.  He told the President to invoke the law and take over the entire national production of these items.  He also told Trump to appoint a "czar" to control this, and strongly recommended a military man for the post.  Schumer, of course, then released his letter to the media and the usual suspects spread it across the media while denouncing Trump for the "failures" Schumer pointed out.  In his usual fashion, Trump responded.  I won't go into all the details, but basically he told Schumer that he had already invoked the law allowing federal control of some portions of the supply chain as Schumer well knows.  He also told Schumer that the man heading the logistics is indeed a military man, an admiral to be precise, which Schumer also well knows.  Trump then encouraged Schumer to work with governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio to try to help New York City and state rather than grandstanding.  Today, Schumer says he is appalled that Trump would be so petty at a time like this when people are dying.  So Schumer lies and makes false charges and when he gets called on it, he claims to be shocked by the inappropriate response.

Then there's the hospital ship in New York Harbor.  The first day it was at anchor, it had only three patients brought on board.  Why?  Are the New York authorities not gathering patients from the other hospitals to be taken to the ship?  Yes, but that's not the only reason.  The rules put out by the Navy regarding who can be treated on the ship list a whole host of kinds of cases that cannot be handled.  This has limited the number who can be brought on board.  Remember, these ships are designed mainly to handled combat wounds, so there may be areas for which they are not prepared.  Still, my prediction is that these limitations will be greatly pared down once the matter is considered higher up the chain of command.  Indeed, by a few hours later, another 24 patients were on board.  Still, the first day problems of the hospital ship are hardly a "failure" by the President.  They are being worked out.

I wish the media and some (not all) Democrats would stop trying to use the virus as a weapons against Trump.  It would be better if these folks would use their efforts to try to make things better in this crisis.  Helping the effort is a lot better than just sitting on the sidelines criticizing.  It's much harder to do, but much better for the American people.

The Cluelessness of the Media Left

The New Yorker published an article this morning by John Cassidy entitled "Is It Too Late To Prevent Mass Unemployment Owing To the Corona Virus?"  It is so clueless that I actually found it funny.

It's important to point out that the number of new unemployment claims last week was six million plus.  Last week that number was 3.3 million new claims.  The average per week for the six months prior to that was about 220,000 claims per week.  So suddenly, due to the virus, we have just under ten million more people unemployed.  That's enough to raise the unemployment rate to more than 10% and the layoffs from closed businesses continued all through this present week as well.  In other words, we already have mass unemployment owing to the corona virus.  So that makes the New Yorker article remarkably idiotic. 

Cassidy could have shortened his article to one word.  NO.

The real issue is not whether we will have major unemployment.  The question is whether or not we will be able to bring back all the jobs quickly once the pandemic ends.  Maybe someone should tell Cassidy and The New Yorker.

Trump's Infrastructure Proposal Makes A Great Deal Of Sense

The other day, President Trump said that Congress should pass a $2 trillion package of infrastructure work in order to help get the economy back on track after the virus shutdown.  The President said that with interest rates at historic lows, the country should borrow the money needed and do the construction work at relatively low cost.  Doing two trillion dollars worth of construction work over 2 or 3 years will provide a substantial boost to the economy at a point when it will be sorely needed.

This proposal has brought out the usual suspects to oppose it.  Even some others have cast a jaundiced eye at the call for the construction work.  Most of the criticism, however, misses the point.  Here are some of those complaints.

1.  We can't do infrastructure work now because most people are stuck at home under the social distancing rules.  I heard Rush Limbaugh make this point on his show today, for example.  This complaint, however, is based upon a misunderstanding of how construction works.  These people think the President is going back to the old lie of the Obama stimulus package which was that money would be used for what were called "shovel ready" jobs.  Those jobs were supposedly ready to go but just awaiting cash which the government provided.  Of course, there were very few shovel ready jobs, so much of the Obama stimulus was used for ordinary maintenance done by cities and towns.  Very little additional work was commenced, but the cash that otherwise would have been used by the towns/cities/states was shifted to other uses.  The Obama stimulus was a way to shovel cash to the local governments.

Trump, however, understands construction and how it is done most likely better than any president in American history.  Trump is talking about "big and bold" infrastructure work.  For example, a new rail tunnel is needed between New York City and New Jersey.  This new stimulus bill could provide money for such a project.  Of course, the actual construction wouldn't be done immediately while people are stuck in quarantine at home.  First, there would need to be project selection and then design work.  All the roadblocks of local approvals could be reduced by Congress passing special rules to govern these stimulus infrastructure projects.It might take many months before these projects would commence actual construction.  Once everyone gets back to work, the projects could start hitting the market.  More and more workers could be hired to carry out these projects.  These are the sorts of jobs that might last for one, two or even three years.  It would be a major boost to the economy.

2.  A second complaint is that we don't have enough jobs for this to make a material difference in the economy.  That's just silly.  If Congress were to authorize states to compile a "wish list" of these sorts of projects, I doubt that there would be even a single state that couldn't compile a list long enough to use up the available funds.

3.  A third complaint is that the President wants to shovel cash to places that will help him politically but not to places that will be likely to oppose him in November.  This is truly stupid.  it would be easy enough for Congress to award something like 80% of the funds to the states based upon population and 20% based upon specific infrastructure needs (like for airports or bridges, etc.)  It would be extremely easy to assure that no real favoritism would come out of the construction package.

4.  Perhaps the funniest complaint that I've heard from some Democrats is that infrastructure construction never works to help the economy.  This is funny because the whole idea of using infrastructure construction to get the economy moving was begun by Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats during the Depression of the 1930s.  There are countless public buildings and structures that were built for just this reason.  The Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam are examples of major items built in the 1930 for this purpose.  Then Obama and the Democrats claimed to be doing the same thing in 2009 (although they didn't actually build much as discussed above.)

The truth is that in a carefully thought-out program of infrastructure construction designed so that the projects would be new ones needed across the nation, Congress could provide a huge boost of the economy that would get us moving back to full employment and prosperity.