The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Just do it.

    By Flavius on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:31am |

    We need 300 million masks and ,say, 5 million Ventilators. Fine.  order them   made. Next week,

    Or OK ,the next week. Whatever.

    The Post Office can distribute them To the best available list. They'd know how to do that.

    Meanwhile  commission the three most competent  suppliers to design the best  replacement  masks or ventilators that can go into production afterwards, To replace the ones that need it. 

    Instead of  prospecting for remote hill tops or valleys where he could   foster the first sprouts of the resumption of a full economy,Trump should  deal  with Coronavirus .Now.

    Or let Pence do it.

    Or Elizabeth Warren.

     

     

     

    Comments

    Hey I am soooo glad to see your name. That is all.

    P.S. Okay--I'll add this on topic: Flavius would be a good one to put in charge, too.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 7:03am

    The National Guard is very good at logistics.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 7:49am

    Lead, follow ,or get out of the way.


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:00am

    The Governors are doing the job that Trump refuses to do. Unfortunately, that means states are in direct competition with each other.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:22am

    "Refuses?" Or "unable "?


    by Flavius on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 2:39pm

    Still making excuses for Trump! 'Unable' ... baloney.

    He had the opportunity in January but he called it a hoax, said it was under control and would disappear. 

    As president he has more means and power available than anyone on earth.

    As a flim flam man and con artist he does lack the skills for anything but lying, self praise and refusing to even admit he has any accountability for his disastrous cynical leadership.

    He is such a delusional narcissist he has fired or driven out all with the necessary skills to meet this crisis, and replaced them with incompetent toadies, grifters and sycophants.

    He is ABLE to step aside and let competent people take over 'the job', but REFUSES to shut up and do so.


    by NCD on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 4:32pm

    It is both.

    He refuses because his messaging betted on it being a false alarm and going full FDR now would be to admit he was wrong. If he ever has done the latter, please remind me when it happened.

    He is unable because he was hired to play a president on TV and he does not have the skill set to break decisions down by priorities in order to marshal the resources at his command. He is a real estate dealer who makes money or loses money on deals. None of that sort of analysis experience is relevant to 90% of his present job. But he insists that it is.

    So, in view of his his limitations, the inability is the refusal


     


    by moat on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:30pm

    illustrating your comment:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 6:40pm

    the opinion of the two principles of Lawfare (Quinta Jurecic & Ben Wittes) published March 24 @ The Atlantic:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 8:54pm

    The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2020

     

    Plainly meant to insult the media, Trump instead revealed his total self-absorption. No one can honestly believe he makes decisions based on the health and well-being of the American people. The coronavirus, the economy and the media coverage about are, in his mind, all about him.  J Rubin


    by NCD on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 11:04am

    Liz is implying priority should be given to the testing as a lot of other issues will sort themselves out via that:

    Restarting our economy will require one thing above all else – testing. Testing to show who's currently infected. Testing to show who's had the virus and is immune. Social distancing won't end because it's Easter. It'll end when we have sufficient testing. Here’s how we do it.

    — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 26, 2020

    (Click on the tweet to get her whole thread.)


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 4:17pm

    Testing is the key.
    Nationalize that.


    by moat on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:07pm

    noting milestone:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:01pm

    Except China is lying.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 2:37pm

    This is simply amazing to me. I knew of Fauci only from the AIDS crisis, didn't follow his career much after that, and from that I got the impression of a cold hard epidemiologist type--almost a Mr. Spock type-- able to totally shut off feelings and make hard logical and sometimes even cruel choices of necessity, shut off hopes, all that kind of stuff.

    It seems like over the years, working with many presidents as well as many desperately ill activists, he's learned quite are few right brain skills as well, empathy-wise, politics-wise, manipulation-wise. I think it's  also called finessing a situation?

    All the more reason to treasure wisdom of age a bit, eh, Flav?


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:14pm

    We had a student thief in college. One of the priests- it was a Catholic college -had a solution: a power sprinkled on clothes which  were then left untouched until  by the thief and his hands turned blue.He was a football player. Well liked in general and in particular because he played so well against type. An 170 pound right tackle.

    Dunno  the legal aftermath but he was allowed to go back to his room to pick up his things. Surely with a guard but apart from him one of his room mates happened to be there. Paul tried  to apologize but  the room mate- not a football  hero shouted . " Just shut up and go".

    Reminds me of a  short story from 70 years ago.Probably read it then. Seems a propose.

    Lindberg was preparing to try to fly to Paris as others had tried and failed , sometimes  fatally.

    But was beaten to it by A.Nother Pilot. 

    A.N.P. was greeted at Orly (or where ever) by the Ambassador and  unwillingly whisked to the Embassy . Despite has protests that he would rather be dropped off at one of the particularly enticing doorways en,  route.

    At day break an intercontinental  fly path was cobbled together and ANP was its passenger to  the Chrysler Bldg.

    In his room he was welcomed by the Secretaries of State,the Army  etc, including of the Navy  who had once been the wrestling champion at Princeton. And J. Edgar.

    And with an incoming call from the Parisian businessman who had international. contest. . 

    "Hi," said ANP  " and how soon do I get the money" And to the Premier who shared the call he  said " Sorry about your guys who ended in mid Atlantic but I told them they never make it in the Peugeot toy".

    Since the line went dead somehow ANP was left to his devices  centered on the attractive  woman below on the 79th floor. Having gotten get her to open her window he shouted that it was her great opportunity to go into feathers with the most famous man in the world. Leaning  out over the Secretary of Navy. to make this invitation more alluring

    Oh dear" said the Secretary of State. " he's fallen"

    "Pity you weren't near enough to grab him" lied  J. Edgar Hoover  to, the Secretary of Navy. 

     

     

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 2:23am

    In his inaugural address, Trump saw "carnage" across America.  That he was uniquely qualified to "fix."

    Now Americans are facing real carnage unlike anything in our experience.  When asked what his role is in this crisis, Trump said "I don't take responsibility at all."


    by NCD on Fri, 03/27/2020 - 11:03am

    as to your demands, there's this hostage situation videotape, I ran across because Maggie Haberman retweeted and I follow her:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 12:41am

    Every organization has its complement of subordinates  who  disagree with a substantial % of the policies of the boss

    but remain because what they  do is important and if they left  it would be done less well. And the country would

    be  seriously worse off as a result.

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 6:23am

    Just do something (Note the 18,000+ retweets and 200,000+ likes)

    Yesterday, my neighbour left me some homeade soup to pick up from outside; while I am recovering from a mild case of COVID. When I got there, I found not only a big container of piping hot soup, but two huge bags of shopping. I almost burst into tears. She barely knows me.

    — Dr Matt Prescott (@mattprescott) March 29, 2020

    I've scoffed some of the soup and the delicious nibbles sadly didn't make it to this photo... This food parcel is better (and healthier) than I would normally buy for myself... Even a bog roll... What a neighbour! pic.twitter.com/t2GxATg2vY

    — Dr Matt Prescott (@mattprescott) March 29, 2020

     


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 8:26pm