So Dump has nominated a reasonably well qualified, non-insane person to be the new CDC Director. According to CNN, this was because people around the Dumpster concluded that appointing another lunatic would be politically disadvantageous. However, public health experts (count me in) are not convinced:
“She’s a good and well-qualified nominee, and would be in any administration. However, the issue is not her qualifications — it’s the environment that she’s being asked to work in,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “If this is supposed to be some kind of pivot away from what’s been going on for the last year, it will all be window dressing if RFK Jr. is still in place.”
What got Dr. Erica Schwartz over the line to get the appointment may have been the drubbing Robert "Brainworm" Kennedy recently took from Democrats in a congressional oversight hearing. That was not a good look with the midterm election coming. It probably didn't help that it has recently been revealed that he once cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon.
“I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,” Kennedy wrote in [his] journal. He added: “My kids waited patiently in the car.”
I keep having to remind myself that I'm not hallucinating or dreaming, this demented lunatic really is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Oh wait: that's a requirement to be a cabinet secretary.
2 comments:
Well, DUH! You can't work for a demented lunatic unless you are one, too. Or at least, if you can act like one.
https://youtube.com/shorts/BBbq2ttYnHQ?si=R942u2-wA-CZvUMi
How did we let our nation get turned into an asylum? ... Run by some of the inmates?
The only things that stood out to me have been -
- Attempts to be evenhanded and nonpartisan, even when confronted with obviously crazy ideas.
- Fear of offending anyone with wealth or power - or even a suit and a good haircut.
That second item stands out in my mind. Even the opposition pussy foots around. They finally acknowledged the oath that all public servants, both civilian and military, take that includes the promise to not follow illegal orders. In some forms of the oath I believe they promise to disobey illegal orders. Fine and dandy. But I've never heard anyone explain what constitutes an illegal order, except in vague Constitutional terms. Even then it's ambiguous, "that might be an illegal order". How about some examples that are clearly illegal in almost all circumstances, and ones that are definitely illegal in specific cases, and what those cases are. Disobeying an order is hugely risky and only makes sense if you're virtually certain that it is illegal.
I don't remember much of Judgement at Nuremberg, but I do remember that "I was just following orders" didn't cut it as a defense. This while judging actions taken under a far different environment; one that did not have that Constitutional protection, and which was much more authoritarian and less tolerant of disobedience. I'm sure somebody brought this up, but I haven't seen it watching left leaning "fake" news channels. It would certainly help folks having to decide whether to obey an order that there could also be a huge legal risk to obeying that order. (That is, if the Supremes still recognize the powerful precedents set by these trials.)
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