“A Public Health Triumph”: Republicans Call Ebola A Federal Government Failure. It’s Exactly The Opposite
If you live in a state with a competitive Senate race, chances are you’ve seen an ad recently that told you to vote Republican because of Ebola. According to the media tracking firm CMAG (reported here by Bloomberg), there has been a significant increase in Ebola-themed ads in the race’s final days.
These ads are meant to stoke a general sense is that the world is spinning out of control, and only a Republican Senate can save us. As conservatives like Charles Krauthammer have argued: “Ebola has crystallized the collapse of trust in state authorities,” showing us that the Obama administration is too incompetent to handle the dangers confronting us.
But what if Ebola demonstrates exactly the opposite?
Imagine that a year ago, I told you that a few months hence, west Africa would see the largest Ebola outbreak in history. Then I explained that despite regular travel in and out of the affected countries by health professionals and ordinary people, there would be a grand total of two — not two hundred, or two thousand, but two — Americans who contracted the disease here, and both of them would be nurses who had treated a dying patient who had contracted the disease in Liberia. And I told you that both of them would be treated, and would survive and be healthy. If I had told you that a year ago, would you have said, “Wow, that sounds like a gigantic federal government failure”?
Of course not. You’d say that sounds like a public health triumph.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that there have been no mistakes. In the early days, the CDC didn’t offer clear enough guidance on prevention measures for health care professionals, which is what made it possible for those two nurses to become infected. But if you actually look at the facts, the disease has been completely prevented and contained here in the United States. It makes you wonder what the administration’s critics are talking about when they cry that the government has failed.
And right now, while the federal government is proceeding in a methodical, sober fashion to keep the disease contained, it’s state governments that are acting like fools. Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie first announced that health care workers returning from the affected countries would be quarantined for 21 days, and Christie essentially imprisoned one nurse at Newark airport. Then, when they came under withering criticism from people who actually have some expertise in this subject, they changed the policy to request that those workers quarantine themselves in their homes.
The nurse held in New Jersey, Kaci Hickox — who has no Ebola symptoms, shows no sign of being infected, and poses no danger to anyone — returned to her home in Maine and is now fighting with Paul LePage, perhaps America’s most buffoonish governor, over whether she should be confined to her home against her will. You wouldn’t trust LePage to help your third-grader with his math homework, but he professes to know something about this disease that actual public health specialists don’t.
I have little doubt that the GOP fear-mongering on Ebola will be effective in these elections, at least to some degree. People are easily frightened, and it’s always easier to get them to vote on their fears than on the facts. But if you look objectively, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion but that the federal government has done quite a good job protecting the public from Ebola.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect; The Plum Line, The Washington Post, October 31, 2014
“Christie’s Questionable Judgment”: The Curious Case Of Kaci Hickox’s Quarantine
On Friday, Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders nurse, arrived back in the United States after helping treat patients in West Africa. It was not a happy return: after arriving at an airport in New Jersey, officials put her in quarantine.
Hickox’s isolation is the result of a new policy endorsed last week by Govs. Chris Christie (R) of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo (D) of New York, who announced new guidelines requiring 21-day quarantines for those arriving from West Africa – whether they’re showing symptoms or not.
The result is a scenario that seems hard to believe: New Jersey has effectively detained a nurse in a tent with no shower, not because she’s showing symptoms of the Ebola virus, but because officials fear she might at some point show symptoms of the Ebola virus.
Christie defended the mandatory quarantine, saying the nurse was “obviously ill.” This was apparently obvious only to the governor – who has no background in medicine or public health – and was clearly not obvious to Hickox herself.
Christie boasted on one of the Sunday shows yesterday, “I absolutely have no second thoughts about it,” adding that he expects his policy to soon become “a national policy.” A few hours later, however, second thoughts emerged.
Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday night that medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa but did not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income. […]
After Mr. Cuomo’s announcement, Mr. Christie issued a statement saying that, under protocols announced on Wednesday, New Jersey residents not displaying symptoms would also be allowed to quarantine in their homes.
The shifts came on the heels of White House pressure on Cuomo and Christie, urging them to adopt policies more in line with science. It’s unclear whether the revised approach will allow Hickox to leave her state-mandated tent.
There are a few angles to this to keep in mind, not the least of which the dubious legality of New Jersey imposing a mandatory quarantine on a woman who’s reportedly asymptomatic. Forcing medical professionals to remain in their homes for 21 days is marginally better, at least with regards to their personal convenience, but remains problematic. Indeed, by the same reasoning, states would have to impose similar penalties on doctors and nurses treating an Ebola patient in the United States.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top Ebola expert at the National Institutes of Health, warned on “Meet the Press” yesterday of “unintended consequences” – the more we discourage public-health workers from treating Ebola patients, the worse the threat becomes.
This isn’t complicated. The best way to deal with Ebola is to treat the problem at the source: West Africa. There are American medical professionals who are willing to make an enormous sacrifice by traveling abroad to address this crisis, but if the United States discourages them, they’ll help fewer patients, the virus will spread, and the threat will become more severe.
In other words, a policy intended to keep Americans safe will likely put Americans at greater risk.
As for the politics, about a week ago, Christie seemed eager to be one of the more sensible voices in his party, warning of unnecessary “hysteria” surrounding Ebola. To be sure, the governor hasn’t devolved into Rand Paul-esque nuttiness, but Christie unilaterally locking up a healthy nurse for three weeks raises credible questions about his judgment.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 27, 2014
“The Real Chris Christie”: A Power-Hungry Demagogue Indifferent To Truth
Cgovernor’s behavior even more despicable is the way Christie’s response to his critics revealed that, for him, the relevant criteria have precious little to do with public health. In a circumstance like this, during which the public’s degree of knowledge about a threat is paltry when compared to its capacity to freak out, a politician interested in displaying real leadership — the one attribute the very serious among us have decided is most vital, and one Christie has implicitly claimed for himself on multiple occasions — would work to educate the people and maintain calm and order. Perhaps mindful of the way that this undramatic style will lead to vapid, narcissistic criticism from a press corps hungry for a flashy headline, the ever media savvy Christie has decided to go in the opposite direction.
“My first and foremost obligation is to protect the public health and safety of the people of New Jersey,” Christie said, defending his grandstanding and obscuring the fact that his actions were contrary to those recommended by experts in the field of public health. “So I’m sorry if in any way [Hickox] was inconvenienced, but the inconvenience that could occur from having folks who are symptomatic and ill out and amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine.” As if to make sure everyone could hear the subtext of these remarks — that Hickox was somehow acting fecklessly, despite the fact that she followed normal procedure and determined she was not an Ebola carrier — Christie added, citing no evidence whatsoever, that Hickox was “obviously ill.”
To her credit, Hickox fired back and reminded CNN viewers that Christie is not a doctor, had “never laid eyes on her,” and that she’d been asymptomatic since she arrived back in the States. And if Christie were taking his job as governor seriously, you’d figure her comments might make a dent. But as has been obvious since at least year two of his first term, Chris Christie’s overriding priority has little to do with running New Jersey and everything to do with getting himself elected as president of the United States. Keenly aware, as he no doubt is, that this will be a tall order so long as the GOP’s Tea Party base holds him in contempt, Christie is treating the Ebola, which the GOP base fears disproportionately, as an excuse to differentiate himself from someone Tea Partyers hate even more: President Obama, whose response to Ebola hysteria has, from the start, been a model of responsibility.
By that standard, Christie’s been an overwhelming success. The national discourse on Ebola is dumber, more hysterical and more politicized today than it was just 72 hours ago; and it’s primarily Christie (with an assist from the aforementioned Cuomo) whom the Tea Party should thank, and the rest of us should blame. In the pursuit of winning over a chunk of voters he’ll need to accrue further power, Gov. Christie has stoked irrational fear, demonized a member of a politically unpopular group (Ebola-fighting doctors and nurses) and added heft to some of the most rabid conspiracy theories of a Democratic president lying about a lethal threat for short-term electoral gain. This supposedly brave speaker of truth is reaching out to some of the worst forces in American politics, and he’s telling them malicious nonsense. Why? Because he knows that’s exactly what they want to hear.
By: Elias Isquith, Salon, October 27, 2014
“Down Goes Perry!”: The GOP’s “Deep Bench” Just Completely Fell Apart
There was a time, long ago, when the Beltway media had a comforting narrative for Republicans, as they faced the loss of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in 2012. And it was: Unlike the Democrats, who were relying on flawed hero Hillary Clinton, the GOP had a “deep bench” of candidates for 2016, one that was especially thick with pragmatic governors.
But that bench has been splintering for a while, and now it’s a small pile of wood shavings that might be used as tinder for a fire that could ignite in 2020 or later – or not. Actually, it’s probably not even that useful.
We’ve seen New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at least partly sidelined by his various scandals. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seems to have survived two damaging John Doe investigations, only to wind up tied with political newcomer Mary Burke in his November re-election race. Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell – oh, never mind, everyone crossed him off that list at least a year ago.
Now, shockingly, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted for his role in a state scandal, on Friday night. The charges center on Perry’s decision to veto funding for the office of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, charged with investigating public corruption – her office’s work indicted former Texas congressman Tom DeLay in 2005 – after she was arrested for drunk driving.
Back when Perry vetoed the funding, Lehmberg was investigating the state’s Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, after multiple allegations of corruption under Perry, including the indictment of one official for mishandling a multimillion-dollar grant.
“The governor has a legitimate statutory role in the legislative process,” Texans for Public Justice director Craig McDonald, who originally filed the complaint, told the New York Times. “In the case of the Travis County district attorney, the governor had no authority over the district attorney’s job — a district attorney who was elected by Travis County voters and serves exclusively at their will.”
Talking to MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, longtime Texas journalist Jim Moore said it looked like “Perry is trying to circumvent being investigated by anyone.” He noted that Lehmberg served 45 days in jail for her drunk driving conviction, even though there is “a long record in this state of forgiving people and electing them to office” after such crimes. That might sound like a lame liberal excuse, but Moore didn’t even mention the most famous Texas DWI arrest, that of future governor and president George W. Bush.
Indicted by a county grand jury, it’s still possible Perry will beat the charges. It’s also worth noting that Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces investigation for comparable allegations of interfering with an agency charged with investigating political wrongdoing by allies. If Clinton wasn’t in the 2016 wings, Cuomo’s troubles would be bigger national news. Now that Perry’s been making aggressive moves right, making it pretty obvious he wants to run in 2016, this is generating big headlines even on a big-news weekend.
Imagine being a billionaire Republican donor: What would you do, surveying the GOP field, if you wanted to avoid the extremism of Sen. Ted Cruz and the eccentric, occasionally libertarian stylings of Sen. Rand Paul, two relative electoral neophytes. You’d likely be crossing Rick Perry off your list tonight, even if you sympathize with his political troubles. “Indicted, but not convicted” isn’t the best slogan for a presidential candidate. There are better slogans for Republicans; Dave Weigel jokingly suggests “Romney 2016: Still not indicted.” I’m not sure that’s the winner, either, but Romney is more likely to be nominated than Rick Perry right now.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, August 16, 2014
“Aggressive, Progressive Governance”: The New Populism Begins At The Local And State Level
As Republican obstruction keeps anything from moving in Washington (except, of course, the package of corporate tax dodges known as “extenders” that are likely to glide through with bipartisan support), populist movements and leaders are moving at the local and state level, from New York City to Seattle, Maine to Minnesota.
“Fate loves the fearless.” Quoting the fierce 19th-century abolitionist James Russell Lowell, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio summarized his first 100 days in office in a speech last week at New York’s historic Cooper Union. Embattled but unbowed, the mayor detailed what he’d been able to move of the populist agenda that he ran on.
De Blasio, no one’s fool, began with the good news on the nuts and bolts vital to running any city: Crime is down, pedestrian deaths are down, potholes are being filled faster and the winter’s record snowfalls got cleaned up.
He then announced success in gaining the most state funding in history for his pledge of universal pre-K. De Blasio’s previous call to pay for this by raising taxes on those making over $500,000 a year was sabotaged by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, a stalwart of the Wall Street wing of the party, but de Blasio still got much of the money he sought. Beyond this success, after-school programs are being made available to ever more students. The mayor announced a move away from high-stakes testing, with educators empowered to make more comprehensive assessments as to a child’s progress. Paid sick leave has been extended to half a million more New Yorkers. More affordable housing is being built, as the city made it a requirement for luxury developers.
Unfortunately for New Yorkers, Cuomo swatted away de Blasio’s effort to get authority to raise the city’s minimum wage. But across the country, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is championing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with a commission set up to work out the details. Murray, considered a moderate in a city that just elected a socialist city councilperson, quotes Franklin Roosevelt on the need for “bold, persistent experimentation.” In addition to pay, he is pushing on public housing, renewable energy and universal pre-K.
San Francisco now has a minimum wage of $10.55, indexed to Bay Area inflation, and a working families tax credit to supplement the federal one. The city requires employers to provide paid sick leave, and has a Healthy San Francisco plan, that essentially offers universal health care with a public option to city residents.
And while Republicans refuse even to allow a vote on raising the minimum wage in Congress, Minnesota, Maryland and Connecticut have all recently passed minimum wage increases, with more states likely to follow.
Congress has blocked any major effort to capture a lead in the green industrial revolution, but cities are filling the gap. Seattle, blessed by plentiful dams, is carbon neutral. Portland gets half of its energy from renewable sources. Austin aims to be carbon neutral by 2020 and has devoted 10 percent of the city’s land to parks.
While national leaders continue to bolster the banks at the same time as they abandon underwater homeowners, in Richmond, Calif., a Green Party mayor is pushing to use eminent domain to take over underwater mortgages, refinance them at current value and allow families to keep their homes. The city has fined banks for not maintaining the homes that they’ve foreclosed on. Wall Street has retaliated, essentially boycotting the city’s last bond offering.
While efforts to shut down the offshore tax dodges used by multinationals have been blocked in Washington, Oregon just enacted a bill to tax the state’s share of profits stashed in 39 countries and territories; Maine’s state legislature just approved similar legislation and several other states are considering the same.
In his Cooper Union speech, De Blasio noted the “resistance from some powerful interests . . . people who have a stake in the status quo and don’t want to see these changes.” But he noted, “This administration is a product of movement politics. . . . A movement of people who share a vision . . . We believe we are at our best when everyone gets a shot at fulfilling their dreams.”
And the only vehicle for that is aggressive, progressive governance. De Blasio closed by quoting one of his heroes, Robert F. Kennedy, “Everything that makes our lives worthwhile — family, work, education, a place to raise one’s children and a place to rest one’s head — all this depends on the decisions of government. Therefore, our essential humanity can be protected and preserved only where government must answer — not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion or a particular race, but to all its people.”
The new populism is just beginning to form. In cities and states across the country, people are beginning to be heard and beginning to find leaders who will stand with them. And that offers some promise for the future.
By: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, April 15, 2014
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