Mom of Theodore Roosevelt sailor ‘devastated’ by firing of Crozier

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,, Uncategorized2 Comments

“Right after I after heard from [him], I said I was so thankful for this being my son’s captain, that he had such a wonderful person,” she said. “I don’t blame him for letting them off in Vietnam. He had no clue. None of us thought it was that bad.”

The mother of the Roosevelt sailor said she was “really proud” that Crozier “risked his own livelihood. That is so hard to do. Not a lot of men, not a lot of women, not a lot of people out there who would do that for others.”

…“My mom updated me,” she said. “As soon as she heard that he got fired, she called. I am devastated. This is so terrible. Because he was finally looking out for the little guys, you know? There’s not a lot of people like that in the world.”

Sailors aboard the Roosevelt should have been in quarantine sooner, said the sailor’s mother, who comes from a military family. Her dad was in the Air Force. Her grandfather was in the Marines and her ex-husband was in the Navy.

Mom of Theodore Roosevelt sailor ‘devastated’ by firing of Crozier

n/t

USS Theodore Roosevelt: Sailors cheer for aircraft carrier commander who was removed after issuing coronavirus warning

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,Leave a comment

Sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier cheered for Capt. Brett Crozier as he disembarked the ship for the last time, an overwhelming show of support for their leader who was relieved of his command after issuing a stark warning about a coronavirus outbreak onboard.

New video obtained by CNN shows a large crowd gathered to give Crozier a warm and loud send off, clapping and chanting his name as he left the ship. It was a clear expression of appreciation for their former commander.

…”He cares about the health and welfare of his Sailors first and foremost, Snodgrass said. “A commanding officer would easily conclude that if his or her actions resulted in an accelerated response to what was judged to be a rapidly deteriorating situation, then the relief from command was easily worth it.”

USS Theodore Roosevelt: Sailors cheer for aircraft carrier commander who was removed after issuing coronavirus warning – CNNPolitics

n/t

Democrats want answers to Navy’s abrupt firing of Capt. Brett Crozier

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Democrats want answers to Navy’s abrupt firing of Capt. Brett Crozier – Business Insider

Seth Moulton is a self-righteous, unjustifiably arrogant asshat who ambition is only exceeded by his inability to execute strategy. Clinging to the limelight and tooting his own horn is so fucking inappropriate under the circumstances. Find a way to do your job without being suck a blatantly self-serving asswipe, Seth.

Navy Fires Captain for Calling Attention to Navy Inaction

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,Leave a comment

If the Navy’s senior leadership was doing everything it could before the letter leaked, why does it seem that they suddenly shifted into a more urgent mode once it did?

I’m sellable on the notion that getting most of the crew off an aircraft carrier in rapid fashion is challenging when it’s thousands of miles from home port. But why were they suddenly able to make that happen once the letter leaked?

…Time and thorough investigations will tell, but the most logical explanation is that he HAD done all these things but that the Chain of Command wasn’t acting.

…Bottom line for me: Crozier did what he thought was right for the safety and health of his crew, he determined that losing command was worth the risk of saving lives, and he let it ride.

…Crozier’s action got the attention he sought, good things are happening, and the crew is being taken care of. It cost him his command, but as I said, I suspect he knew it would.

Navy Fires Captain for Calling Attention to Navy Inaction

yup.

The Coronavirus’s Unique Threat to the South

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Gulf Coast Region,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Kaiser’s at-risk group includes all people over 60 years old and all adults younger than 60 who also have heart disease, cancer, lung disease, or diabetes. In each state, older people are the majority of the people considered to be at risk of complications. But the Deep South and mid-South form a solid bloc of states where younger adults are much more at risk. In Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi, relatively young people make up more than a quarter of the vulnerable population. Compare that with the coronavirus’s beachhead in Washington State, where younger adults make up only about 19 percent of the risk group.

…Southerners are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases than other Americans—even as Americans are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases than citizens of other countries with comparable wealth. According to Neuman, these estimates don’t include people with cancer or who are immunocompromised—groups that are also at high risk for serious illness from COVID-19. And cancer mortality rates are highest in southern states.

…These differences are not innate to southerners; they are the result of policy. Health disparities tend to track both race and poverty, and the states in the old domain of Jim Crow have pursued policies that ensure those disparities endure. The South is the poorest region in the country. The poor, black, Latino, or rural residents who make up large shares of southern populations tend to lack access to high-quality doctors and care. According to the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana all spend less than $25 per person on public health a year, compared with $84 per person in New York. Nine of the 14 states that have refused to expand Medicaid to poor residents under the Affordable Care Act are in the South.

…Advocates have drawn attention to the extreme vulnerability of people in prison to the coronavirus—and the South incarcerates a larger proportion of its population than anywhere else in the United States.  …Southern states have some of the lowest ratios of active physicians to patients in the country.

The Coronavirus’s Unique Threat to the South – The Atlantic

Sigh…

Dr. Anthony Fauci: ‘I don’t understand why’ every state hasn’t issued stay-at-home orders

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

“You know, the tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into,” he said. “But if you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci: ‘I don’t understand why’ every state hasn’t issued stay-at-home orders – CNNPolitics

really, Doctor? don’t you though?

In the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Construction Is Set to Resume on the Keystone Pipeline

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

So here’s the situation: in the middle of a pandemic, construction workers will move into isolated rural communities with already strained hospital resources. The “man camps” where many such workers in the industry live are associated with violence against women and other crimes, even in the best of times. Now, with the pandemic, many of the Native communities that live along the pipeline route fear for the worst. “This causes eerie memories for us with the infected smallpox blankets that were distributed to tribes intentionally,” Faith Spotted Eagle, a leader of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, said. (The coronavirus is already wreaking havoc on isolated reservations in other parts of the country, and the chronically underfunded Indian Health Service is struggling to meet the crisis.)

…I don’t know if corporations can be evil—I don’t think so, even if the Supreme Court insists on describing them as people. But this is capitalism at its most naked, willing to endanger people in the covid-19 crisis and to heat the earth in the climate crisis, all in search of a bit more profit. In a world running right now on bravery and love, it’s hard to imagine anything much darker.

In the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Construction Is Set to Resume on the Keystone Pipeline | The New Yorker

hmmmmm

Navy fires Theodore Roosevelt skipper following leaked letter pleading for COVID-19 assistance

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,Leave a comment

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” he wrote. “If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

Crozier proposed that the ship be evacuated, save for 10 percent of the crew who would remain onboard to operate critical systems. The remainder would move into isolated quarantine in Guam.

“Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure,” Crozier wrote. “This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”

 

…Crozier’s hasty dismissal prompted immediate backlash from lawmakers in the House Armed Services committee who accused Modly of acting irrationally.

“What’s more, we are very concerned about the chilling effect this dismissal will have on commanders throughout the Department of Defense. Dismissing a commanding officer for speaking out on issues critical to the safety of those under their command discourages others from raising similar concerns.”

Navy fires Theodore Roosevelt skipper following leaked letter pleading for COVID-19 assistance

Modly is a traitor to the men and women of the armed forces.

Navy says it will quarantine ship-board deployed sailors with flu-like symptoms

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Lt. Cmdr. Julie Holland, a Navy spokeswoman assigned to the Roosevelt, said in an email that the health and well-being of the ship’s sailors is the Navy’s “top priority.”

Navy says it will quarantine ship-board deployed sailors with flu-like symptoms – The San Diego Union-Tribune

The Navy’s priority is the health and well-being of its sailors, my ass. Tell that to the sailors whose commander was relived of his duties for trying to protect them.

 

Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

This is dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy. 

…Again and again, she said, people who’d dealt with Kushner told her that whatever he did, he “believed he could do it better than anybody else, and he had supreme confidence in his own abilities and his own judgment even when he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which this confidence is unearned.

…“Mr. Kushner’s early involvement with dealing with the virus was in advising the president that the media’s coverage exaggerated the threat,” reported The Times. It was apparently at Kushner’s urging that Trump announced, falsely, that Google was about to launch a website that would link Americans with coronavirus testing.

…Nor does his operation appear to be internally coherent. “Projects are so decentralized that one team often has little idea what others are doing — outside of that they all report up to Kushner,” reported Politico.

Opinion | Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed – The New York Times

The little prick is going to get us all killed.

Report: Men with guns cut down tree, block driveway to forcably quarantine Vinalhaven residents because they went to the store

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Local Interest,Leave a comment

Report: Men with guns cut down tree, block driveway to quarantine Vinalhaven residents — Midcoast — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine

The local Rep described the victims as having been described as, “arrogant,” when first confronted by the gun-wielding  crazies. “Arrogant.” Makes one wonder what the ethnicity of everyone involved was.

Kushner Firm Built Coronavirus Website Trump Promised – The Atlantic

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On March 13, President Donald Trump promised Americans they would soon be able to access a new website that would ask them about their symptoms and direct them to nearby coronavirus testing sites. He said Google was helping.

That wasn’t true. But in the following days, Oscar Health—a health-insurance company closely connected to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—developed a government website with the features the president had described. A team of Oscar engineers, project managers, and executives spent about five days building a stand-alone website at the government’s request, an Oscar spokesperson told The Atlantic. The company even dispatched two employees from New York to meet in person with federal officials in Washington, D.C., the spokesperson said. Then the website was suddenly and mysteriously scrapped.

…Trump [had said] that Google had 1,700 engineers working on the project. Google, it was quickly revealed, didn’t have any such plans.

Google’s parent company is a major investor in Oscar. And Oscar, which has roughly 1,500 employees, did build a site like the one Trump described.

…Oscar’s website would have asked users if they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, and surveyed them about other risk factors, including their age and preexisting conditions. It also would have listed a limited number of testing locations nationwide, including some of the drive-through sites that Trump promised. It was designed to look like a government-developed product, provided freely by the Department of Health and Human Services to the American public.

…When viewed earlier today, the URL coronavirustesting.gov offered an Amazon Web Services error, suggesting that someone with access to the .gov domain had registered the website.

The Department of Health and Human Services declined to produce paperwork authorizing Oscar’s donation of the website work.

…The partnership between the administration and the firm [strongly] suggests that Kushner may have mingled his family’s business interests with his political interests and his role in the administration’s coronavirus response. Kushner’s younger brother Joshua is a co-founder and major investor in Oscar, and Jared Kushner partially owned or controlled Oscar before he joined the White House. The company’s work on the coronavirus website [most likely does] violate federal ethics laws, several experts said.

… First, companies are generally not supposed to work for the federal government for free, though some exceptions can be made in a national emergency. “The concern, when you have some free services, is that it makes the government beholden to the company.” 

…Any Kushner involvement [violates] the “impartiality rule,” which requires federal employees to refrain from making decisions when they even appear to involve a conflict of interest. The rule also prohibits federal employees from making a decision in which close relatives may have a financial stake.

Kushner Firm Built Coronavirus Website Trump Promised – The Atlantic

Are we through the looking glass? Pretty sure the White House is peopled by comic book villains.