TWO ROMAN EMPERORS AND A GOVERNOR WALK INTO A BAR

OR, FRIENDS ROMANS AND COUNTRYMEN

It was Caligula that attempted to install his horse as his council.  So what do we do in this century? Install Mr. Ed as the stable genius as our Autocrat?  The analogy to Caligula fits when you consider his family and friends, without any experience, might just as well be another herd of horses.  He also acts like Nero by putting the whole virus thing on the back burner for 6 weeks, so he could fiddle and call it a hoax and not encourage any real action. Oops… then the market crashed after the fires of the pandemic roared through the countryside.  What does he do?  He acts like the famous governor Pontius Pilate, offloads any responsibility, relinquishes leadership over to the states and washes his hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water. So what is the Joke?  I’m thinking of the song “I am I said” by Neil Diamond “and no one is there”.

PS- As autocrats go, Venezuela has gone from the richest country in South America to the poorest in only 10 years how long will it take us?

A STERN MESSAGE

Howard Stern made a statement to his audience recently, in which he said, “THE ODDITY IN ALL OF THIS IS THE PEOPLE TRUMP DESPISES MOST, LOVE HIM MOST.  GO LOOK AT MAR-A-LAGO, SEE IF THERE’S ANY PEOPLE THAT LOOK LIKE YOU.  I’M TALKING TO YOU IN THE AUDIENCE, THE TRUMP VOTERS WHO, YOU KNOW, IDOLIZES THE GUY, HE DESPISES YOU.  I DON’T HATE DONALD. DONALD IS DOING HIS THING!  I HATE YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM, FOR NOT HAVING AN INTELLIGENCE, FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE CORONAVIRUS, NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE WHAT THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS DOING.  I HATE YOU. I DON’T WANT YOU HERE.  Howard said this to his fans many of whom are Trump supporters.  Stern is always up front and tells it like he sees it.  Trump will use lies and innuendoes and Howard will be brutally honest, so let the fireworks begin.  This could ignite a whole laser light show with fireworks and set to music I can see it now!

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

The testing that the Trump administration is touting is a novel approach never proven to be effective.  It involves manipulating DNA to produce the vaccine with gene modifications.  This is the same approach that has been attempted with HIV/AIDS, with no success after 40 years of trying.  This makes it ideal for Trump to project success, and assure that by the end of the year it will be available…after the election of course.  A vaccine will magically appear and everything will be roses, lollypops and rainbows and Trump rides off in the sunset on a silver stallion.

The following are years to develop and test a vaccine thru human test protocols

Chicken Pox vaccine     30 years to develop

Flu Mist                           30 years

Human Papilloma 15 years

Rotavirus 15 years

HIV/AIDS     in process 40 years with no vaccine widely available and still in trials

Mumps    4  years  The shortest ever time frame for a vaccine from start to

                   Completion of human testing.

Note: medical professionals all agree the only way to shorten the timeframe for a drug to go from pharma to public, is decrease the human test regimen. This protocol requires the most time and produces the safety and reliability levels that are required to give the public any confidence.  Without this confidence, the Anti-Vaxers will point to its potential effects that were not caught in human testing.

Trump is so confident the drug will work, that he is making the vaccine in mass quantities prior to having the testing regimens complete.  This will make the unverified and untested vaccine a talking point he can point to as a great success.  This is relying on wishful thinking and it also makes it a temptation to issue the vaccine without complete analysis of the long-term effects.  Thalidomide a drug issued in the 60’s comes to mind.  This was an effective drug until it was found to cause deformities in fetal development after it was widely used.  Rush a drug to consumers without fully testing and what do you get?  I am not as confident based on history.  Trump’s path relies on wishful thinking and, if successful by design, we will not know until after he is elected, and oops…the billions spent for the 330 million doses is now all now medical waste that will be looking for a landfill?  I am hopeful, but skeptical of his motivation to skip the most important step in the development of the vaccine.  Could his motivation for the announcement his election wishes?

HHS Secretary Alex Azar walked back the Trump proclamation and stated that the vaccine timeline given by Trump is only a “goal”.  Azar quoted Wayne Gretzky by saying, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.  What he did not quote was that Gretsky also said, “you should skate where the puck is going”  What does history have to do with facts?  Is it a phobia of expertise or a political expedience?

It’s a shame that elected officials will disregard science and medicine they actually believe in, to the detriment to the general public, to pander to a leader that believes only in himself.

Trump’s rush to open is a rush to a second wave of the virus.  The CDC, once the backbone of public health, has been put on the sidelines for politics, to the detriment of the general public.  Once the CDC gave guidance and financial support for the states, but now has morphed into a political tool for Trump’s re-election.  The 68 page detailed guidance scrapped by the politicians was the needed detailed guidance, that would give a cohesive 50 state approach to safely opening, in lieu of a 6 page summary with no mandatory requirements.  This puts the onus on the states to provide or not to provide additional detail guidance and creating a 50 state solution, which could contribute to the second surge of the virus in the fall. I hope the administration is preparing for the inevitable.  This was put in the hands of the states, so Trump can use the pandemic as an election political tool to divide and rile up his base.

The more interaction with the opening of the economy, the greater is the opportunity for the virus to spread.  This may subside with the summer heat and UV rays; however this will only stoke the deniers to not continue with social distance and masks.   Will all this lead to a second virus wave that is uncontrollable and will overwhelm our medical system? I can only hope not.

OTHER NEWS

Steve Linck is the State Department Inspector General, who was fired last night by Trump. Trump’s lame excuse was he no longer has his confidence.  He had investigated the allegations that Pompeo, his wife and staff were all engaged in political activities strictly prohibited by statute. Mr. Linck had also testified about the role Rudolph Giuliani had in the Mueller investigation. 

A deputy HHS inspector general was also fired.  He had testified truthfully about the hospital and EMS shortages in PPE and ventilators contrary to Trump‘s assertions otherwise.  Of course, the deputy was relying on information provided from the hospitals and EMS workers, and Trump pulls his information from the services of his strategic election campaign of dis-information and economic forced recovery.

After his impeachment Susan Collins said, “he learned his lesion” was the reason she did not vote to impeach, and he would not behave like that again.  The actual lesson he did learn is that he can do anything and the Senate will cower and acquiesce to any step over any boundary of common sense and decency.  He thinks he has unfettered authority and is exempt from any subpoena.  There is no accountability or any check or balance. What could go wrong when there is absolute power in someone with autocratic tendencies?

Trump said that when we develop a vaccine we will keep it for ourselves. Note: this is unverified and was a comment from Macron about Trump and what he would do? He wouldn’t want to be the one that killed millions of foreigners?  Would he? (Note: I might just as well get started with a hearsay tidbit.  What would Trump do if this were about Biden?) He wouldn’t do that would he?

The firework show has begun.  Trump when asked about the comments Obama had made during the Commencements speech, he said about Obama (with projection in mind) “he was grossly incompetent”.  Obama had said, “the pandemic has shown that people in charge don’t know what they are doing”… “some of them don’t even pretend to be in charge” Obama may have been talking about China? Do you think? Not Trump?

Enough for today I’ve got more for tomorrow including invoking, tribalism, expertise and, Darwinism.

Biden’s potential slogans:  ADAPT MASA

A Different American Path Together, (ADAPT)

Make America Safe Again  (MASA)