Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed

By artappraiser on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 2:13am |

A nice filet. https://t.co/WkwbFC6tkV
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) April 3, 2020

URL:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/jared-kushner-coronavirus.html

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The point that stood out for me was:

Disaster response requires discipline and adherence to a clear chain of command, not the move-fast-and-break-things approach of start-up culture. Even if Kushner “were the most competent person in the world, which he clearly isn’t, introducing these kind of competing power centers into a crisis response structure is a guaranteed problem,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former U.S.A.I.D. official who helped manage the response to the Ebola crisis during Barack Obama’s administration, told me. “So you could have Trump and Kushner and Pence and the governors all be the smartest people in the room, but if there are multiple competing power centers trying to drive this response, it’s still going to be chaos.”

This point goes toward the virus "czar" idea to utilize the Defense Production Act to stop the fight over scarce resources. Now the President says he has appointed such an office with Rear Adm. John Polowczyk in charge. Now the Admiral says the following is holding him back from fulfilling that role:

"They want me to do all the buying, all the distributing, and all the allocation," he says.

But the nation's medical supply chain consists of six or seven major distributors with 600–700 distribution nodes around the country.

"I'm not going to re-create that," he said. "I'm looking to break down barriers ... to help them feed product where it needs to go."

That makes sense, as far as it goes, but in the context of Konyndyk's observation, it only conceives of the job as a position inside of FEMA by somebody with a good credit card. It still leaves the governors pitted against one another until FEMA builds the capacity to do the job.

Something else is needed to have more control of this allocation process, even if the infrastructure is not immediately replaceable by executive fiat.

by moat on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 2:19pm

In regards to the use of DPA and the kerfuffle with Schumer:

Trump fired back with his own letter that evening, stating that Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, currently serving as the leader of FEMA's supply chain task force, was in charge of “purchasing, distributing, etc.”

“The Defense Production Act (DPA) has been consistently used by my team and me for the purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, medical supplies, ventilators, and other related items,” he wrote. “It has been powerful leverage, so powerful that companies generally do whatever we are asking, without even a formal notice.”

But if the government is going to take more control—which many health and government leaders have urged it to do—it should be transparent about its actions, said Dr. Atul Grover, executive vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He said medical leaders have been whiplashed by their orders for protective gear falling through and speculated that they lost out to federal agencies.

Some institutions “fully expected to be able to purchase [personal protective equipment] from contractors who then turned around and said, ‘No, we’re going with another buyer instead,’” he said.

When asked about this phenomenon during Thursday’s national briefing, Trump said the governments could work it out.

“If you think there is bidding between federal government and state, let us know and we’ll drop out immediately,” Trump said. “There are 151 countries that have this problem, and they’re ordering, too. It’s really a mess.”

Dr Grover is on point that leaders need to be transparent about their actions. In this and similar reporting, however, it is not clear exactly who these leaders are. Admiral Polowczyk said he wasn't using DPA yet to directly procure. Is that true? And if it is, who else is buying?

And note how Trump throws out the assurance that "we" will drop out immediately of any bidding war. So, he admits "we" are purchasing stuff but acts like it is happening on another world where all of that stuff is not a bidding war by default.

I am going to the backyard now to break things.

by moat on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 4:03pm

hmmm:

Trump definitely aggravated by follow up queries today on what Jared Kushner said Thursday about federal stockpile. Trump said one woman reporter asked a question with a 'very nasty tone.'
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) April 3, 2020

by artappraiser on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 6:33pm

That sort of thing.
None of it adds up to anything you can hold with your mind.

by moat on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 6:38pm

Yeah, we are all looking for any tea leaves that can possibly be read. And when we find a possible tea leaf, it would still only be tea leaf reading.

by artappraiser on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 6:50pm

How very dare you. https://t.co/itnZhO6ArF
— Randy Rainbow (@RandyRainbow) April 3, 2020

by artappraiser on Sat, 04/04/2020 - 1:29am

Still looking for Harmony and humor - def not Randy's product.

by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 04/04/2020 - 7:11am

I got you covered

by moat on Sat, 04/04/2020 - 12:11pm

Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed

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