In a closed-door briefing to members of Congress about government surveillance, a senior Justice Department official was asked a surprising question.We had better get the answer to this question, and soon.
The question came when intelligence and national security officials gathered earlier this week to brief members of the House Intelligence Committee on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law with some authorities that will expire in several weeks. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, prefaced her question by saying it was a bit off-topic. According to two sources with knowledge of the briefing, Speier then asked John Demers, the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division at the Justice Department, whether Jeffrey Epstein had ever worked as an undercover FBI asset. Then she pressed him on whether he had any personal knowledge of Epstein—a convicted pedophile who died in jail last August, awaiting trial—working with the FBI.
Demers responded that he worked for the Justice Department, not the FBI, and that he had no knowledge of Epstein doing such work. The question raised eyebrows, as it appeared to be based on a theory that law enforcement officials may have turned a blind eye to the serial rapist because he helped them gather information.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Speier did not provide on-record comment.
The New York Times editorial board doesn't always get my endorsement, as is well known, but this is a well-researched and properly thoughtful essay. (Since it's the first of the month, presumably you can read it.)
As I have said, the SARS 2 coronavirus is far from the worst emerging infectious disease we can imagine. But there will very likely be a worse one at some point. The increasing human population density, international travel and migration, warming temperatures, and human-wild interface mean we will inevitably experience new infectious diseases that will spread rapidly around the globe. Right now it's hard to know exactly what's going on with this one because it seems to have a long incubation period, and produce many covert infections that are nevertheless transmissible. That's good news in that many people will not get sick, but bad news in that it makes controlling the spread of the pathogen extremely difficult, in fact pretty much impossible. SARS 1 was controllable in part because infected people were obvious -- they got very sick. It also appears to have been less transmissible than this one.
The takeaways are, first, that even a pathogen that causes severe disease in only a small minority of cases causes massive disruption and economic damage if it becomes widespread, as is happening here. It points to the urgent necessity of international cooperation. It can't be stopped at the border, the problem can't be addressed by each nation separately. The current administration's dismantling of the infrastructure for global public health engagement was a crime against humanity, and we're paying for it now. The appointment of the unqualified and incompetent Vice President to take charge or the national response was irresponsible, but it turns out his job is really to control the messaging coming from the federal government, not to do anything about the epidemic.
And that messaging is guided by magical thinking. Pretend it isn't real, and it will go away. As confirmed cases start to emerge on the west coast, it is obvious that there are many undetected infections, and we'll be seeing more and more in the days and weeks ahead. There is no reason to think it won't eventually be very widespread in the U.S., and we're going to be hearing very little about anything else for a while now.
Also, I sure hope the Pope really does have a cold.
12 comments:
I have two comments:
1) You mentioned that increasing population density will be a contributing factor to the spread of this and other diseases to come. Yet this is exactly what many of the climate change activists have been pushing for. They advocate for highly dense population centers.
2)COVID-19 virus was first reported to WHO described as several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan. The virus was unknown. Jan 7 China informed WHO that they had isolated the cause as this new Corona strain. The US president declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States on Jan 31, less than 30 days after the viral cause was identified and setting quarantines of Americans who have recently been to certain parts of China.
Compare that to the government response to the H1N1 virus pandemic of 2009. In late April 2009, WHO declared its first ever "public health emergency of international concern," and in June, the WHO and the U.S. CDC stopped counting cases and declared the outbreak a pandemic. President Obama did not declare this a national health emergency until Oct 26, six months after the virus was isolated and after 1,000 people in the US had already died from the disease.
"Powerful" men ... it's enough to make me vomit. So often, it means, "Wealthy, or those appearing to be wealthy, usually male, generally Caucasian, and living out twisted dreams of hegemony because they're insecure and living in reaction to internal issues of not-okay-as-they-are" ... these behaviors usually include womanizing, rape, lying, disrespectful behavior toward other humans, racism, insecurity that manifests in "competitiveness", and--in general--actions that compensate for their belief that they are inferior and have to "prove" something.
The whole western world could sure use a collective course in NVC, the whole world period. There's infinitely too much projection going on, coming from people who don't know what makes themselves "tick," and who are living in reaction to their internal struggles instead of being who they could be as individuals. These people have no idea what it means to take responsibility for their actions. They think life is a competition, and that "the one who dies with the most toys [profit, conquests, scams, 'victories'] wins."
It's past time for the neocortex to catch up to Gautama, Yehoshua, Mahatma, and Martin. Time to put a stake in the heart of the belief of Caucasian superiority. How's that working out for the us?
PS: HOW do we surmount our limitations and learn to live in respect and harmony?
1) “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
--Jalaluddin Rumi [The "doorsill" is the eye. See next quote.]
2) “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
--Albert Einstein
Peckerhead -- that's the global population density, not the local population density, that's at issue. The population is sufficiently dense even in the suburbs for infectious disease transmission.
The 2009 H1N1 pandemic was a hoax. It actually turned out to be a milder than usual flu season and the number of deaths in the U.S. was well below the average number of influenza deaths.
Nope, I think they mean local population density. This would be a nightmare in a pandemic.
For your review:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/city-plans-for-urban-density-should-address-affordable-housing
Cities around the country are considering the climate benefits of increasing urban density. Packing people closer together in smaller, more-energy-efficient housing while adding bike lanes, light rail, and other mass transit, the thinking goes, gets cars off the road, reduces lawns, lawnmowers, strip malls, and other environmental challenges that stem from urban sprawl. Urban infill and densification, studies show, is the cornerstone of reducing the carbon footprint of cities.
Man you are a world class star at missing the point. Yes, many environmentalists argue for reining in urban sprawl and encouraging denser development. They do promote local density. What I said is that it is global population density that raises the threat of pandemics. As you may have noticed, the outbreak pattern around the world does not favor denser urbanizations. This happened to start in the city of Wuhan but emerging diseases often appear first in rural areas where people interact with farm animals. They don't spread as readily in rural areas but they do just fine in smaller towns and suburbs. Urban density is actually something of an advantage in managing epidemics because it's easier to isolate small areas, to trace contacts, to administer vaccines, etc. Greater urban density won't make global pandemics any worse, that's completely beside the point.
The WHO declared the 2009 flu "pandemic" to be a public health emergency of international concern on April 25. The United States declared a public health emergency on April 26. At that time there were a total of 4 confirmed infections in the United States and no deaths. You can read all about it here. On April 28 the FDA approved a CDC test for the infection and the CDC offered interim guidance on closing schools.
I recommend getting your information from reliable sources, which does not include Fox News.
Ah, I see you actually got this from PJ media. Here's the Snopes fact check. As usual, they are lying. Excerpt:
There are several factual inaccuracies in this excerpt alone. For instance, PJ media writes that H1N1 became a pandemic in April 2009. But that’s not the case. The disease emerged in April but wasn’t declared a pandemic until June.
The excerpt also claims that Obama “declared a public health emergency on what was already a pandemic” in October 2009. But this is also wrong. Obama declared a national emergency, not a public health emergency, in October 2009. The Obama administration declared a public health emergency in April, months before swine flu was declared a pandemic. At the time that the Obama administration declared a public health emergency, only 20 confirmed cases (not over a million) of H1N1 existed in the United States.
The New York Times reported on April 26, 2009:
Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.
[…] The emergency declaration in the United States lets the government free more money for antiviral drugs and give some previously unapproved tests and drugs to children. One-quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million courses of antiflu drugs will be released.
PJ Media also inaccurately presented a video in the article as if it showed Obama addressing the swine flu after it had “already become a pandemic.” Again, that simply isn’t the case. When Obama addressed the nation about swine flu, or H1N1, in April 2009, the disease was just starting to spread. It wouldn’t be until June 2009 that the swine flu would be declared a pandemic.
So, what makes the h1n1 a hoax and who perpetrated that hoax?
How does one tell if this Corona scare is a hoax?
I think that the WHO originally was appropriately alarmed because the flu strain was one that hadn't circulated for about 45 year or so IIRC, and they were afraid that the population would not have immunity to it. So they ginned up a lot of concern about it. Meanwhile Roche convinced governments to stockpile oseltamivir, and antiviral drug, and they were making billions. As the strain turned out not to be unusually virulent, it was very hard for people to back down. WHO actually had to change the definition of pandemic flu in order to justify the pandemic declaration, such that flu would be pandemic in every year, because in fact nothing unusual was happening. In subsequent years they quietly ignored the change.
There is discussion of this in BMJ here.
As for the current coronavirus, we aren't yet sure how damaging it will be. The long incubation period in particular makes it difficult to understand what is happening. Actually the WHO has been cautious about declaring a pandemic and so far has not done so. However there is legitimate concern because it seems to be easily transmissible and, while most people do not have severe symptoms, the case fatality rate does appear to be substantially higher than seasonal influenza. I do personally feel, however, that there is a good deal of overreaction to this which is doing more harm than good. But most public health leaders are trying to approach this in a balanced way.
Thanks.
It appears that the H1N1 "hoax" was not that intentional. And if Corona dissipates or becomes a non-problem, someone will also call it a hoax.
All of this just goes to show you that you can't trust CDC or WHO. Those who worship government will always be disappointed.
Somebody might say that but in this case I don't think it would be fair. This is a matter of legitimate concern but they have been pretty balanced in how they talk about. WHO still hasn't officially proclaimed a pandemic, as a matter of fact. Most likely this will become endemic and be with us pretty much for the foreseeable future, although how big of a problem it will be in the global context remains to be seen. There has been a lot of overreaction, but not on the part of WHO so far, I would say.
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