Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

I was promised a recession.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The revolution will be supervised.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / War Of Words

War Of Words

by | 155 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I’ve got an article in National Interest.

At the moment, North Korea seems to be in control of the narrative: Claiming no cases of COVID-19, continuing missile tests, building roads at a launch control center and verbally attacking Trump and Pompeo. But, given what is happening in the U.S. military and that a Russian nuclear submarine is now quarantined, it is hard to believe that North Korea does not have similar problems.

The US and North Korea have been competing to control the narrative on their relationship. Now COVID-19 is totally outside their control.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    At the moment, North Korea seems to be in control of the narrative: Claiming no cases of COVID-19

    Seems credible…

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    Jim, Foolish Literalist put this up near the end of the Biden thread:  Whoa.  And I want to see that letter.  Is he being relieved because he sought help for his sailors??

    Per Nicole Wallace: The commander of the Theodore Roosevelt being fired

    Reuters @Reuters
    · 42m
    EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Navy is expected to relieve commander of coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier after a letter was leaked

    I thought it would take longer, a week or two

  4. 4.

    Baud

    Cheryl Rofer is a chemist writing on national security issues, nature, science, and women’s issues. She writes at Nuclear Diner and Balloon Juice.

    I … can’t believe you disclosed that.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    Why is it implausible that North Korea has few/no cases of COVID-19?  They can impose the most draconian testing/tracing/quarantining scheme on the planet (to say nothing of just outright ‘disposing’ of the sick if they wished)?

    Think China on steroids, rather than Italy Light.  Not hard to imagine.

  6. 6.

    mrmoshpotato

    Maybe Dump can write his lover a luxurious, classy, tremendous bigly, beautiful letter telling him to stop it.

    (Haha, I kid!  Dump can’t write prose!)

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    Here’s the “scathing letter” the TRoosevelt’s commander sent.

    Here’s NPR story.
    Top Navy Brass Defend Response To Virus-Stricken Carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt

    Top U.S. Navy officials on Wednesday defended their response to a coronavirus outbreak aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, a day after a scathing letter from the warship’s commander that became public, sharply questioned how the health emergency was being handled.

    “I recognize that there’ve been a lot of questions about the Teddy Roosevelt, particularly over the last 24 hours,” Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said at a Pentagon news conference. “We have accelerated testing and are deep cleaning all the spaces on the ship. We are providing the commanding officer what he has requested and we are doing our best to accelerate the pace wherever we can.”

    In his letter, commanding officer Capt. Brett Crozier had asked that all but 10% of his crew of 4,865 sailors be removed from the aircraft carrier to be quarantined in Guam, where the Roosevelt is now at port.

    So, the fuckers are firing the whistleblower?  The commander who sought to protect his sailors?

    I sometimes think Trump and McConnell etc. will do their worst in these coming weeks, because we can’t gather in numbers in public to protest.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Note that there is an Acting Secretary of the Navy.

    I wonder if Trump forced the Acting Secretary to fire the commander.

  10. 10.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    I’m afraid the North Korean missile tests are being done to cover the noise made while digging mass graves by hand. This can’t possibly go well.

  11. 11.

    Archon

    @Jeffro:

    China is a well run authoritarian state with massive resources. North Korea is dysfunctional hermit state. There is no comparison between China and North Korea, none.

    There is a zero percent chance North Korea has no cases.

  12. 12.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Elizabelle: There is an acting secretary of the Navy because Trump fired the previous, Senate-confirmed secretary because he wouldn’t go along with some illegal thing Trump wanted him to do. I think it had to do with Trump’s pardoning war criminals, but it gets hard to recall every illegal and immoral thing Trump does.

  13. 13.

    VOR

    @Elizabelle: The Captain invalidated the narrative that only Blue states, with permissive sanctuary policies, are responsible for the spread of COVID-19. This embarrassed the Great Leader.

    I suspect the Captain’s career has come to a screeching halt. I wonder if he was ready to retire.

  14. 14.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    At the moment, North Korea seems to be in control of the narrative: Claiming no cases of COVID-19,

    Let me guess, “all suspect Virus cases were taken out and shot”? It’s impossible to tell was it starvation and associated illness or the virus that killed the patient? There is no such thing as “unexpected deaths” in North Korea?

  16. 16.

    bemused

    @Elizabelle:

    I read about this and had to read it again. He is being relieved due to loss of “trust and confidence” in him? What was he supposed to do, keep his mouth shut and end up with a ship floating around with everyone on board infected and sick? Isn’t there a duty to for him to care about the health of the crew? Just wow.

  18. 18.

    r€nato

    am I a bad person for hoping that every single one of the rona-denying social-distancing-resisting Trump cultists gets it and fucking dies to own the libs?

    If so, then I won’t hope that this happens, I would hate to get owned that hard.

    Really.

  22. 22.

    Kent

    @Archon:

    @Jeffro:

    China is a well run authoritarian state with massive resources. North Korea is dysfunctional hermit state. There is no comparison between China and North Korea, none.

    There is a zero percent chance North Korea has no cases.

    Apparently the border between China and North Korea is somewhat porous with lots of smuggling back and forth.  Part of it is deliberate laxness on the part of the North Koreans to evade UN sanctions.  So yes, if it is in China then it is most certainly crossing the border with the smuggling:  https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/chinese-north-korean-smugglers-04082019140154.html

  24. 24.

    r€nato

    @Another Scott: a hearty Fuck You to every single serviceperson who still stands behind the rancid POS occupying the WH. His refusal to take this seriously and his Crime Family using this as another business opportunity to be exploited for profit is literally killing your comrades.

    Two thumbs up for The Purge.

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cheryl Rofer: that’s my recollection, he refused to cooperate with the Gallagher pardon– quick google suggests that’s the case, Esper fired Richard Spencer over Gallagher

    Prediction for today’s five o’clock follies: “I don’t know anything about it, you’d have to ask Mike. But I can tell you we’ve heard from people, many people, navy families, who say they’ve never been treated so well, so much concern and health, like they’ve never seen. Tippy top.”

    Oh, and he’ll be lying.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    If you read the letter, Crozier noted that several sailors tested negative and then developed the disease 1 to 3 days later.  I have great doubts as to how effective those screening tests are.

    Maybe it’s Chief of Naval Operations Kilday striking back at perceived insubordination.  From the NPR story:

    … chief of naval operations, Navy Adm. Michael Gilday, told reporters. “We have people ashore that are isolated and have tested positive, we have others [ashore] that are quarantined or isolated, because they’re considered to have been in close contact. And so over that 14-day restricted movement period, as they become clean, they haven’t shown any symptoms, they get tested and then they’re brought back on the ship.”

    Gilday said the Navy is working with government officials in Guam to locate additional housing — in particular, hotel rooms — for sailors coming off the aircraft carrier.

    Asked whether the letter from the ship’s commander, first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle, had spurred the Navy to take action, Gilday said there had “potentially” been a breakdown in communications with Capt. Crozier.

    “Kind of the eye-opener for us was the fact that he wanted to move at a greater speed to get people off the ship, right?” Gilday said. “The misunderstanding, perhaps, was the requirement at speed to get people off the ship. We had been identifying spaces and getting people off the ship. We are now moving people at speed to get them off the ship.

  28. 28.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Elizabelle: I sometimes think Trump and McConnell etc. will do their worst in these coming weeks, because we can’t gather in numbers in public to protest.

    Test everyone and make two separate crowds, one positive and one negative.  Put them outside Mitch McConnell’s window and marvel as he bends to the will of the American public.

    The positive crowd ought not to cough in the general direction of his office.  I wouldn’t blame them, but they shouldn’t.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: When he made the letter public, he knew that he would be relieved of command.  He also knew that he was throwing away whatever chance he had of getting a star.

  30. 30.

    Kent

    @bemused: Anyone who has ever been on a Navy ship knows that any sort of social distancing and quarantine is utterly impossible.  I’m not sure about an aircraft carrier, but on the smaller ships I’ve been on there few officers below the captain and exec who even have private quarters.  And the crew quarters?   Sheesh.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    Captain Crozier also brought up a study of the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama Harbor in February.  It’s thought that, since they were able to quarantine more effectively in private cabins, the passengers escaped 79% of the infections the Navy could expect with a battleship, with close quarters and shared bathrooms, mess halls, etc.

  32. 32.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks for the specifics! That sounds right.

    There’s a Navy presser in progress right now about firing the Theodore Roosevelt captain. Doesn’t seem to be going well from my pov. We’ll see if that spills over onto Trump. “Modly? Never met the guy.”

  33. 33.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @mrmoshpotato: Maybe Dump can write his lover a luxurious, classy, tremendous bigly, beautiful letter telling him to stop it.

    Maybe he should learn to speak English first. Dump, I mean.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    NK is in control of their own virus narrative, but that amounts to a paragraph on page A23. If no one’s paying attention, their large-scale policy is failing.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Crozier may not have wanted to earn that star on the dead backs of several of his sailors.

    The 4,000 under his command are presumably not in the perceived highest risk groups for death, but cytokine storm (the body destroying its own organs in attempting to fight an infection) is a possibility.

    I wonder if Crozier made the sacrifice to get people to take the virus more seriously.

    And that Trump shit show with disgraced and convicted Seal Gallagher has likely appalled the officer ranks.

  36. 36.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes. I haven’t seen anyone else saying this, but the captain of the Theodore Roosevelt knew he would be fired when he wrote that letter. Which underlines how strongly he felt about it. If he’s not the one who leaked it, someone else feels strongly about it too. We can’t send our military into this kind of danger. And if all you worry about is readiness and not the humans involved, it’s not good for that either.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle:

    If you read the letter, Crozier noted that several sailors tested negative and then developed the disease 1 to 3 days later. I have great doubts as to how effective those screening tests are.

    Rebecca Ballhaus @rebeccaballhaus 6h
    Health experts say they now believe nearly one in three patients who are infected are getting a negative test result.

    WSJ reporter, so the article is pay-walled, but if it’s true I’m sure the story will get picked up

  38. 38.

    joel hanes

    @bemused:

    What was he supposed to do, keep his mouth shut and end up with a ship floating around with everyone on board infected and sick?

    Never been in the military, eh?

    Yes, that’s exactly what he was supposed to do.  He ran it up the chain of command, they told him the answer was “suck it up, and that’s an order”, and so he was supposed to suck it up even if it killed him and half his subordinates.

    The very worst sin you can commit in the military is to make your superiors look bad in public, especially if they are bad.

    See Catch-22 for explication of how all this works.

  39. 39.

    joel hanes

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    the captain of the Theodore Roosevelt knew he would be fired when he wrote that letter

    This.   He has actual integrity, and is a hero.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    Welp… my job has officially ordered furloughs for non-essential lab personnel. Lab orders/revenue are down 40%. And they are losing money so they have issued a “voluntary” furlough for now. Which is leave w/o pay for about 6 maybe 8 weeks. But they are agreeing to pay the half for insurance, but employees still have to pay their portions of the health care premium.

    This allows them to collect unemployment insurance and the additional $600 from the COVID stimulus

    Microbiology, is considered essential. So no furlough for my department. Micro isn’t automated. Ya still need techs to read cultures. Ya may be able to use automation for setting up specimens, but ya still need techs to read stains and cultures??‍♀️

    Most of the Core Lab stuff are automated. you just need a tech for troubleshooting and loafing the machine and in some cases the techs don’t even load the machine, a lab asst does ??‍♀️

  42. 42.

    bemused

    @Kent:

    I can’t even imagine spending more than an hour in those conditions. I can’t live without windows to look out of. The cramped space would drive me bonkers too.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    I think this is going to be a turning point.

    I’d love to hear what Navy sailors think about this.  And their parents, spouses, families …

  45. 45.

    Martin

    @Elizabelle: Leaking to the press is not whistleblowing. The military have mechanisms to whistleblow. Maybe he tried those and they failed, but leaking to the media is definitely fireable.

    Martin has been a whistleblower.

    [Edit] I’ll add, I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea for the Navy to do this, given the circumstances, but the commander had to know this was coming.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: Well, no shit.  I am saying that he made a knowing decision to kill his career by going public.  He obviously decided that the welfare of the men and women under his command took precedence over anything else.  That is what he was supposed to do.

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    @Miss Bianca:   I am going to look for that WSJ article Jim/Ballhaus referred to.

    It’s not surprising.  Look at different church lady’s experience.  She never tested positive, but may have had the virus.  (Morning thread.)

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    the right-leaning Peter Baker drops the view-from-nowhere for a minute

    Peter [email protected]
    34m
    More than 100,000 Americans are expected to die after a slow initial government response to the coronavirus pandemic and the first person to be fired is … the aircraft carrier captain who pleaded for help for his stricken crew.

  54. 54.

    Kent

    @bemused:

    @Kent:

    I can’t even imagine spending more than an hour in those conditions. I can’t live without windows to look out of. The cramped space would drive me bonkers too.

    I spend 3 years of my life working at sea (for NOAA, not the Navy).  It wasn’t the close quarters and lack of windows that made me crazy.  It was the total loss of connection to the outside world.  This was 1990-92 before the internet.  I was mostly working at sea in Alaska in 3-month tours with sometimes only one or two port calls in between.  When I hit port I’d usually grab an Anchorage Daily News or Newsweek and try to find a cafe showing CNN to get caught back up. But you utterly lose track.  I remember buying  Newsweek one day in port with the portrait of a black women on the cover with the headline “Was she Telling the Truth?”   It took me a LOT of reading to figure out who Anita Hill was and what she was telling the truth about or not.  I just couldn’t stand being out of touch like that.  Made me crazy.  I tried bringing a shortwave radio on board but that never worked well.

    What made it worse was that I was pretty much the only one who was even interested in the outside world.  For most of the other guys, porn and old movies was enough to keep them going.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: That’s taking things too far!  I just meant be nicer to the new folks.  There are things a person shouldn’t compromise about, and pants on BJ probably falls in that category. :-)

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    Acting says he has had no pressure from White House or Esper.

    Did talk to Esper yesterday to let him know he was leaning toward firing.

    “It’s created doubt about the ship’s ability to go to war …”  no shit, Sherlock.  Says Crozier exhibited “poor judgment.”

    Crozier pointed out in his letter that the US is not at war at present.

  58. 58.

    r€nato

    shot:

    “Katherine Vincent-Crowson, a 35-year-old self-defense instructor from Slidell, Louisiana, has watched in horror this month as businesses around her city were forced to close by state decree. A devotee of Ayn Rand, Vincent-Crowson told me Louisiana’s shelter-in-place order was a frightening example of government overreach. “It feels very militaristic,” she said. “I’m just like, ‘What the hell, is this 1940s Germany?’”

     

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/social-distancing-culture/609019/


    chaser:

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/health/louisiana-coronavirus-spike/index.html

    goddamn I am owned

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:Rebecca Ballhaus @rebeccaballhaus 6h
    Health experts say they now believe nearly one in three patients who are infected are getting a negative test result.

    My wife was tested 2 days ago after coming down with a 24 hour flu.  She tested negative, thankfully.  But she is still supposed to provide a secondary phlegm sample for some sort of backup testing.  This is Kaiser Permanente in Portland metro.  I’m not sure if that is something they are doing for everyone or just medical providers that they want to be extra sure about.

  61. 61.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: It depends on who leaked it, doesn’t it?

    From the Chronicle story:

    The unusual plea from Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, came in a letter obtained exclusively by The Chronicle and confirmed by a senior officer on board the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been docked in Guam following a COVID-19 outbreak among the crew of more than 4,000 less than a week ago.

    The Captain may have written it and leaked it directly, or someone who saw it may have leaked it (with or without his knowledge). We don’t know at this point.

    Just writing the letter itself should not have gotten him canned. The military is supposed to be willing to listen to inconvenient truths (because, among other things, they always come out sooner or later).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    If he was ordered to (1) do nothing and (2) shut up about the entire affair, that can be construed as putting his crew and the ship’s mission directly in dire jeopardy and thus an illegal order when on a peacetime deployment, no?

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Trying to do right by your people.  We can’t have that!  I say good for him for telling the truth.  All the people in positions of responsibility who aren’t willing to do that don’t deserve this positions.

    There is no word for appalling everything is.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    Wiki:  bio for the Acting SecNavy Thomas B. Modly.

    Modly is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Georgetown University, and Harvard Business School. He served on active duty in the United States Navy as a helicopter pilot and spent seven years as a U.S. Navy officer.[2] He has held various leadership positions at Iconixx, Oxford Associates, and UNC Inc.,[3] and taught political science at the United States Air Force Academy.[4]

    Modly served as the managing director of the PricewaterhouseCoopers global government and public services sector and as the firm’s global government defense network leader. He has served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Financial Management and as the first executive director of the Defense Business Board.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought that was understood. The test doesn’t detect asymptomatic people, and it doesn’t work before symptoms develop. So people that are positive and spreading the disease will likely test negative.

    The blood test will probably be more accurate in that regard. But during the exponential growth phase of this, there will always be some multiples of people that are positive that the test won’t catch. My guess is the test will catch 10%-20% of active cases. That’ll improve as the reproduction rate drops and you have fewer asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic people running around.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    Comment in moderation.  It’s wiki bio of Acting Secretary Modly.  Not sure why.

  70. 70.

    CaseyL

    I had an odd thought while making a sammie and muttering to myself about it’s being “lovingly hand-crafted.”

    It made me think how much I dislike seeing that expression, “hand-crafted,” applied to things like beer, pastries, and other things which are edibles/drinkables.  Using the expression for food and drink always conjured up images of an unwashed peasant stomping wine grapes, or someone mixing barley, hops and malt with their bare hands.  My reaction was always, “Ugh!”

    Well.

    Now that we’re using antiseptic wipes on everything that has been anywhere near a human being before we let it into our house, I wonder if “hand-crafted” will be retired as a marketing slogan.

    Everything old is new again:  there was a time (around the turn of the last century, I think) when people in general, society in general, were so germophobic that it was a selling point to describe items as having been made “without being touched by human hands.”

    Maybe we’ll see that again in marketing.

  74. 74.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: Part of the reason people in leadership positions get paid so well is that they will with some regularity have to fall on their sword to do what’s right. It’s kind of baked into the system.

    We shouldn’t really be viewing this as the commander being wronged, the commander was doing what he felt was necessary and he’ll accept the cost of doing that. We should be more concerned with why so many of our other leaders are unable to do this.

  76. 76.

    dr. bloor

    @lamh36:

    Welp… my job has officially ordered furloughs for non-essential lab personnel. Lab orders/revenue are down 40%. And they are losing money so they have issued a “voluntary” furlough for now. Which is leave w/o pay for about 6 maybe 8 weeks. But they are agreeing to pay the half for insurance, but employees still have to pay their portions of the health care premium.

    Ugh. Sorry to hear about your coworkers’ bad fortune. I’m immediately reminded of that statistic about a ginormous number of Americans who aren’t in a position to absorb an unexpected hit of what, $400?  Even if the Goddess sends us a cure tomorrow, this is going to get very ugly, very quickly.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @Cheryl Rofer:   tweet says Crozier “did not handle the immense pressure appropriately”

    but relieving him of his command is an overreaction.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: The formal process is only as slow as the process chooses to be. I’ve raised issues and had them addressed in a matter of hours. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the Inspector General (or equivalent) calling up the leadership and saying ‘we hear there are a people falling sick on this ship with no authorized action to address the problem’. The investigation can come later, they just want the action to happen now.

  85. 85.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    More than 100,000 Americans are expected to die after a slow initial government response to the coronavirus pandemic and the first person to be fired is … the aircraft carrier captain who pleaded for help for his stricken crew.

    Isn’t that usually the way when leadership is fucking up? The first to go are the ones who call out the fuck ups.  The ones actually responsible for fucking up won’t be held accountable until someone in charge somewhere acknowledges a fuck up happened.  At which point they’ll fire an underling who was undoubtedly less responsible for any fuck up than the one doing the firing.

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    I wonder if the Navy was told to slow walk getting the sailors off the ship to save money on hotel rooms, etc.

    CNO Admiral Kilday says the issue was speed.

    There’s also disagreement on how many sailors it takes to run the TRoosevelt.  Presumably the captain would know that — he said 10% of staff.  Brass disagreed.

  89. 89.

    Martin

    @Elizabelle: Not sure about carriers, but my dad said that was the plan for submarines. They don’t have an abundance of extra space, and they don’t know when they can surface to offload to a surface ship.

    In the case of a carrier, they don’t operate alone. They’ll at least have a supply and logistics ship in the group, so they’d offload to those vessels who can rotate back to a port. Not sure how they’d handle something contagious, though. Seems like you’d just infect more ships doing that.

  92. 92.

    scav

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    My guess is that they shoot anyone who coughs. That would keep the active case count down.

    Do you mean the US Navy or the South Koreans? In this thread, it’s getting hard to distinguish the two.

  95. 95.

    Cheryl Rofer

  101. 101.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    We shouldn’t really be viewing this as the commander being wronged, the commander was doing what he felt was necessary and he’ll accept the cost of doing that. We should be more concerned with why so many of our other leaders are unable to do this.

    Why can’t we see it as both?

    If/when Biden is elected President, I wonder if Crozier can be reinstated, as in given another command?

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    @Martin:   Will look at that later.  The Atlantic will have a paywall for it; only get 4 or 5 non-coronavirus articles per month.  Thank you, though.  (July 2019.  I’ll just cruise through that when the libraries open again … although will see if I can get access to The Atlantic through my library card …)

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    Cheryl’s blogpost title is so appropos for the TRoosevelt issue.

    It is a war of words.  Captain Crozier put out four pages of carefully considered words.  And the CNO initially had his back.  But then …

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    I guess we are all going to be making ourselves masks this weekend.

    Banner headline on the FTF NY Times now:

    U.S. Expected to Advise Everyone to Wear Cloth Masks in Public

    Got your needles threaded?  I kinda want to be an outlaw in a bandana.  Got a few from my late doggos …

  108. 108.

    r€nato

    @bemused: I fail to see the problem here, libertarians are more than welcome to die to my endless amusement if that is the sacrifice their demented god demands. Hey you can only watch “Tiger King” so many times, right?

  109. 109.

    hitchhiker

    This is OT, sorry.

    Just played the NYT Daily podcast interview with Fauci, in which he blandly claims that trump understood the significance of the virus right from the start — that he has his own “style,” but that doesn’t mean he’s not getting it.

    Very disgusted by the interviewer who let that kind of comment slide, as if actively downplaying the risk  right into the first week of March and making absurd comments daily since isn’t clear evidence that trump is NOT getting it.

    The stupid parlor game of trying to decode what Fauci is/isn’t saying and why has become one of the most demoralizing aspects of this mess. Why should I have to wonder if the chief scientist on the White House team is trying to color inside the lines when it comes to public communication? Why to I have to be gaslighted even by him?

    It’s maddening.

  112. 112.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @r€nato: “am I a bad person for hoping that every single one of the rona-denying social-distancing-resisting Trump cultists gets it and fucking dies to own the libs?”

    Nope, I’m right there with ya. We live among some really nasty conservatives who are blaming everyone but Dear Leader for the situation we are in, or flat out denying that this is worse than the flu and claiming this is a plot to take out their Dear Leader. People are going to die because of the lack of leadership from Republicans so I want the monsters who are enabling them to be hit and hit hard.

    A neighbor of ours has a flagpole that flies the American flag and a Trump 2020 flag below it, both flying 24/7/365. Something humorous about it is that when it rains the American flag keeps flying and the Trump flag gets soaked and wraps itself around the flag pole.

    Something nice for us on a rainy day…lol!

  114. 114.

    Martin

    Someone before was looking for some kind of baseline to compare the US against, to assess the quality of our response.

    We don’t really need that – the US and South Korea had their first positive cases on the same day. We had the same information from WHO. We have greater capacity to develop and process tests than SK. We could have had the same response as SK.

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    We have greater capacity to develop and process tests than SK. We could have had the same response as SK.

    Oh but something something they’re a smaller country drivel drivel

  117. 117.

    The Pale Scot

    @Elizabelle: You can’t go outside the chain of command. You especially can’t allow anyone else to know you’re going outside the chain of command

  118. 118.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Elizabelle: he’s being relieved because the letter he wrote to his superiors went public and that embarrassed the Navy and made it look like they don’t care about their people.  Which would apparently be the truth. He knew it would affect his career but he did it because you are responsible for the people who serve under you and for what happens to them. He likely knew when he sent the letter to his boss that it was the end of his career.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    From earlier Military.Com article.  And they really did not get how big this virus would be, and how easily it travels.  That surprises me.  Related articles say recruiters are warning the services to hold off beginning classes for their newest recruits,  because their shared living quarters would spread the virus.  Also, several Navy vessels with virus aboard.
    ‘Sailors Do Not Need to Die’: Carrier Captain Pleads for Help as Virus Cases Surge

    … Defense Secretary Mark Esper directed the military to stop publicizing how many COVID-19 cases there are on each ship or in specific units or squadrons, citing operational security.

    The Navy’s top leaders said last week that all members of the carrier Roosevelt’s crew would be tested for COVID-19. The first cases emerged after the ship made a port call in Vietnam in early March, despite warnings that the virus was likely to sweep through the Asia-Pacific region.

    Sailors left the ship for receptions, sports competitions and other events.

    When asked why leaders approved that move, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said there were only 16 reported cases in Vietnam at the time.

    “Those were well to the north and all isolated in Hanoi,” Gilday told reporters recently. “This was a very risk-informed decision, actually by the [head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Phil] Davidson, on whether or not we proceeded with that port visit.”

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @Elizabelle: It might not have been the CNO’s call to say no.

    Stripes.com:

    By WYATT OLSON | STARS AND STRIPES
    Published: March 4, 2020

    The USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived Thursday in Vietnam, becoming only the second U.S. aircraft carrier to make a port call there since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

    The carrier, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill, steamed into Danang, where they were met by Vietnamese and U.S. government and military officials, according to a 7th Fleet news release. Waiting to greet the vessels were Adm. John C. Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink.

    The port call by the Roosevelt and its strike group, a total of 6,500 military personnel, marks 25 years since the two former foes normalized their diplomatic relations.

    Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, announced Tuesday that the Roosevelt would stop in Vietnam.

    “It’s true. We do have TR pulling into Danang this week,” he said in response to a reporter’s question during 2020 West, a naval conference in San Diego.

    The BBC’s Vietnamese language online news site reported that the Roosevelt would stay in port five days. The strike group crew is expected to take part in community service projects, sports competitions and other events, according to 7th Fleet.

    “This visit will not only serve to strengthen our bilateral defense relationship, but also help further advance our cultural and professional ties,” said Capt. Brett Crozier, the Roosevelt’s commanding officer, according to the 7th Fleet.

    […]

    The strike group also includes the guided-missile destroyers USS Russell, USS Paul Hamilton, USS Pinckney, USS Kidd and USS Rafael Peralta.

    The carrier USS Carl Vinson made the first historic visit to Danang in March 2018.

    Davidson remarked Tuesday on the growing importance of Vietnam’s support of U.S. efforts to push back on China’s broad but disputed claims of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, which also borders Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

    Vietnam has been “quite vocal and supportive” of U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea, Davidson said. The Navy sails ships close to islands claimed by China in a subtle show of force during those operations.

    Vietnam is also chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, thus taking the lead on negotiating a code of conduct with China for defined “rules of the road” for international air and sea traffic in the South China Sea, he said.

    The U.S. has a growing interest in deepening military ties with Vietnam, a country that America was at war with in the 1960s and early 1970s.

    Vietnam’s importance as a regional partner became even more relevant last month after Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte moved to terminate his country’s visiting forces agreement with the United States.

    If Duterte follows through with that termination, “U.S. access to ports in Vietnam on a regular basis will become all the more urgent to support U.S. naval presence patrols in the South China Sea,” Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, wrote Tuesday in a background brief for Thayer Consultancy.

    The U.S. tried and failed last year to convince Vietnam to approve U.S. aircraft carrier visits on an annual basis, Thayer said. “This proposal was part of a larger U.S. diplomatic initiative to raise bilateral relations to a strategic partnership,” he said.

    “It is likely that China’s intrusion into Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone in waters near Vanguard Bank for several months last year proved to be a tipping point.”

    The Roosevelt’s visit is a signal by the U.S. that it “intends to remain the pre-eminent naval power in the Western Pacific and South China Sea,” Thayer said.

    By granting the port call, Vietnam is indicating it supports the U.S. Navy in nearby waters “as long as it contributes to peace and stability,” he said.

    It’s wasn’t just a social call – there was a lot of important political symbolism in doing the call then, and with such a large force.

    It’s very unfortunate that the captain had to lose his career to get sufficient attention to his ship’s plight.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  A commander in chief should not be interfering in O-6 level assignments. Also, if he is the one who leaked the letter, he went outside the chain of command. You and I think he did so for good reason, but he still did so. It is an action that has consequences.

    Here is the thing. Officers, especially senior officers, get a shit load of privileges. They get good pay, people call them sir or ma’am, their uniforms are prettier than enlisted ones, and so on. They get all of that because when push comes to shove they will be asked to make decisions that affect people’s lives. It is the job.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    So @SecNav explains that it was unnecessary to go outside the chain of command because the Navy was already addressing the crisis with the alacrity, skill, honesty, and clarity that has characterized the federal government’s entire response to the pandemic.

    — MaybeQuicklyButMaybeSlowlyHat (@Popehat) April 2, 2020

    Ooof.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:  That’s true.  And it highlights how our services report to a “commander in chief” who is not fit for office and, so far, cannot be removed.  Who would never think of making an actual sacrifice for anyone.

    The standard is so much higher for military members, and CEOs of public companies who report to a Board, and all manner of professions.

    But not for POTUS.  He can go as venal and low as he likes and  …. crickets.

    {This is all painful to watch, but I think it will help ensure a blue wave  this fall.)

  126. 126.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks for the explanation, Omnes. I see what you mean. I just wish Trump and his cronies and worshipers didn’t get the satisfaction

  127. 127.

    Fair Economist

    @Kent:One superspreading event like the one at the church choir in Washington could infect the entire ship after one more round of infection. They might end up needing 100 ventilators, and where would they get them? The national store that’s all broken because Trump didn’t bother to have serviced?

  128. 128.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle: Would it be wrong to wear my Anthrax (band) bandana?

    What about my Rush – Roll The Bones one with skulls and femurs on it?

  129. 129.

    r€nato

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: if that was my ‘hood, it would be very tempting to set that fucking thing on fire.

    True story: my mother and her husband – both deep into the Trump cult – sent a pic of him (the husband) wrapped in a Trump flag and wearing a MAGA hat to her Trump-hating brother.

    Brother wrote her back, “why did you send me this? You know how much I can’t stand him!” That’s it, that’s all he said. Her response was to block and unfriend him on FB!!!

    We really cannot share a country with these people. If we can’t have a civil war, then bring on The Purge. #MakeFascistsDeadAgain

  130. 130.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @r€nato: that idiot woman from Slidell can fuck right off. My favorite niece lives in south Louisiana and has really awful asthma.  This virus would kill her.

  131. 131.

    Jeffro

    @Archon: Um, North Korea is, for its purposes, ‘well run’.  Not in any good way, but I strongly suspect the trains get there on time.

    They also have the resources to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.  Are you saying they don’t have the capability to a) take every citizen’s temperature and b) quarantine anyone over 98.6 degrees for two weeks?

    This is not a high-tech-solution-requiring problem, especially not in a dictatorship like theirs.

  133. 133.

    Jeffro

    @Kent: Thanks.  I don’t think anyone suggested that North Korea’s 0% report was true, just that it was likely not to be a big issue there.

  134. 134.

    Jeffro

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Do you see any evidence – actual reporting – that COVID-19 is still out of control in Wuhan or China generally?

    Personally, I have little doubt that they have it under control right now.  I also have little doubt that they lied about how bad it was a month or two ago, to include how many people died.  Both things can be true.

  135. 135.

    evodevo

    @r€nato: Getting the same thing from wingers here in Ky – one of whom was a mail route customer of mine who wrote a letter to the editor of the local rag stating much the same viewpoint as the woman in the Atlantic article.  There are a LOT of libertarians/MAGAts who think along similar lines.  Like I say, it won’t hit home for them till one of their family/relatives whatever dies, and even then they’ll find a way to blame the Dem governor, and not their Dear Leader…

  136. 136.

    Mike in NC

    Maybe if CAPT Crozier personally thanked Fat Bastard — with tears in his eyes, of course — he’d still be in command of his carrier. The mob boss in the White House demands absolute fealty.

  138. 138.

    Bill Arnold

    @The Pale Scot:

    Kenneth Copeland destroys COVID-19 through prayer.

    Fuck those frauds.[1] They are (literally) play-acting magic spells wrapped in “religion”.
    They should be praying for a breakthrough in a viable treatment (and extremely rapid vaccine trials), for non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. masks) to reduce R0, and for competent national level leadership. (and better leadership in some states local governments.) All of these are at least viable possibilities.

    [1] Religious people might have choicer words, just saying.

  140. 140.

    The Pale Scot

    @Martin:

    We have greater capacity to develop and process tests than SK

    I put 4 quatloos on SK having way more capacity to actually fabricate the test items

  141. 141.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    Maybe if CAPT Crozier personally thanked Fat Bastard — with tears in his eyes, of course 

    Captain Crozier had damn well be a strong, burly fellow.

  143. 143.

    Calouste

    Historically, quite a few revolutions started because the military felt they got personally screwed over by the powers that be. Somehow soldiers and sailors don’t like the idea of dying for no reason.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle: I have a Dave Hause t-shirt with trumpov’s ugly mug on it with the all-caps title “Dirty F***er” on it (per one of Dave’s songs)

    somehow it doesn’t seem adequate, unless maybe if I add a ? over trumpov’s face or something

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Something humorous about it is that when it rains the American flag keeps flying and the Trump flag gets soaked and wraps itself around the flag pole.

    How is it the most jingo types are the ones who don’t treat the flag according to the rules?

  149. 149.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro:   I just remembered:  I bought a medium large button at the March for our Lives (gun control):  it’s pu$$y hat pink and says FUCK TRUMP.

    I am pinning that to the front of my mask/bandana.

    We could all say stuff, even while our mouths are hidden.  Use some masking tape.  Write something short and (maybe not) sweet.  Or something nice …

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    bio for the Acting SecNavy Thomas B. Modly.

    I note that after some searching, I can’t tell what rank Mr. Modly had after 7 years in the Navy, and graduating from the Naval Academy.

    That leads me to suspect he did as well as Sec State Pompeo, who left the Army after he graduated from West Point. So didn’t do well at all, left before being dropped out. And now he is allowed to throw out a real Captain in command of a real ship.

    For Shame, US Navy, for shame~!!!~

  155. 155.

    terry chay

    @Jeffro: Because it is a myth that authoritarian regimes are better than non-authoritarian ones at dealing with COVID-19. What they seem to be very good at is under-reporting their cases (China, Indonesia, Iran, Russia…) and that downplaying is correlated strongly with the spread of the virus.

    tThere are thousands of North Korean defectors patriated in South Korea (not to mention countless ones in Norther China). They are not as good at controlling their populace as you think.

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