Colin Powell on Leadership
Monthly Archives: April 2020
Cartoon – Cockeyed Optimism
Trump sparks debate over merits of voting by mail
President Trump is taking a hard stand against expanding alternatives to in-person voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that mail-in voting risks “tremendous potential for fraud” and hands an advantage to Democrats.
While voting rights and elections experts say there may be some truth to Trump’s claim that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud, they note that electoral fraud of any form is exceedingly rare. And they say there are security measures that can mitigate those risks.
At the same time, experts argued that policymakers should be wary of restricting an already-existing alternative to in-person voting that has the potential to expand the electorate and limit the spread of the coronavirus.
“Perhaps there’s more potential for fraud than in in-person voting, but both can be done safely and securely,” said George Hornedo, the former deputy political director and national delegate director for former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. “Election fraud in all instances is extremely rare.”
Hornedo suggested several measures to cut down on the risks of fraud in mail voting, including ballot tracking, pre-paid postage and setting up ballot drop boxes that would “eliminate the need for voters to hand over ballots to third parties.”
Vote-by-mail programs are already extremely common and have been in use for years.
Five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington — now conduct their elections almost entirely by mail. And in about two-thirds of states, voters can request a mail-in ballot without providing an “excuse” for not being able to vote in person on Election Day.
Trump acknowledged at a press briefing this week that he voted by mail in Florida’s presidential primary last month, though he said that he was “allowed to” because he lived out of state and wasn’t able to vote in person. In other instances, he said, mail-in voting “is a terrible, terrible thing.”
“There’s a lot of dishonesty going on with mail-in voting, mail-in ballots,” he said at a media briefing.
Myrna Pérez, the director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, said that the idea that mail-in voting is some “brand new thing” is “not consistent with the real world.”
“We are in the middle of an emergency situation, and the appropriate thing to be doing right now is to be looking at all things we know and figuring out how to make those things work for us in this crisis,” she said.
Pérez said that policymakers should look at the experiences of states with robust vote-by-mail programs and use them to guide efforts to expand those programs in other states.
“The challenge our country has to figure out is how to get this up to scale,” Pérez said. “That’s something that’s going to require thinking and resources, but we should not be starting from the premise that this is a brand new untested thing.”
Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, said there are still risks involved with mail-in voting. Fraud, for instance, becomes harder to detect when people don’t have to show up to vote in person, she said.
“If you show up the polls and you say you’re John Doe and you’re 25, and that John Doe is 50, you know there’s a problem,” Atkeson said. “Those kinds of catches are possible.”
“Where we see fraud, we tend to see it in absentee voting,” she added, pointing to the 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, when a contractor working for Republican candidate Mark Harris was charged with election fraud in connection to an absentee ballot collections scheme.
State officials eventually overturned the results of that race and called a special election for the House seat.
Experts also warn that external threats, such as foreign adversaries, could also pose a greater threat with absentee, or remote voting.
“The manipulation campaigns, Russia, China, Iran, and maybe some unscrupulous domestic operatives could seize this opportunity to actually promote downloads of bogus, basically absentee ballots and direct people’s votes to the wrong place,” said Theresa Payton, CEO of Fortalice Solutions and author of the forthcoming book “Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth.”
Payton recommended holding mock elections as a means of working out any potential risk and pitfalls in the process.
“Let’s pretend, we got these ballots in the mail. Let’s scan them. How long does it take to scan a ballot? What is our error defect rate?” Payton said. “How we will audit an all absentee ballot, or maybe as high as 40 percent absentee ballot election because they’re not used to that yet.”
Democrats and election rights advocates are some of the most vocal voices pushing for expanded vote by mail. Democratic lawmakers, led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), are calling on the federal government to send at least $1.6 billion to states as part of the next coronavirus spending package and that Congress impose requirements to ensure states permit vote-by-mail.
However, Republicans have continued to voice skepticism about vote-by-mail measures.
“I don’t think the Republicans are going to embrace any of the language that we’ve seen Senators Klobuchar and Wyden put forward to make the election universally accessible for every American,” said Matt Liebman, of the left-leaning group the Voter Protection Project.
“Republicans are going to take advantage of the situation to suppress voter turnout, and not only try to use that to hold the presidency, the United States Senate, but, you know, some of these critical state legislative races across the country,” he continued.
Trump and Republicans have also pushed the argument that expanding the use of mail-in ballots lends a partisan advantage to Democrats. That line of reasoning hinges on the notion that such programs increase the number of people who cast ballots and that high-turnout elections tend to favor Democrats.
But experts said there’s little evidence that one party or another benefits more from the widespread use of mail-in ballots.
“I have not seen any conclusive data on that and I cannot understand how anyone can pretend to know that,” Pérez said.
However, not all Republicans are opposed to the measures. Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the state’s June 2 primary to be vote-by-mail.
“If one is in a pandemic, and you sit and you say, we’re not going to allow you to keep safe, and vote by mail and exercise your right to vote, that’s outrageous,” said Page Gardner, the founder of the Voter Participation Center.” “It’s a weakening of our democracy. It’s a weakening of our democratic institutions.”
Fauci: US could have ‘saved lives’ if social-distancing restrictions were enforced earlier
Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said Sunday that the U.S. would have saved lives had the country enforced firm social-distancing requirements as early as February, but noted that those recommendations were met with pushback at the time.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of The Union,” Fauci addressed a New York Times report that said he and other health experts concluded on Feb. 21 that the Trump administration would need to issue aggressive mitigation measures in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“As I have said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint,” Fauci said. “We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes, it’s not. It is what it is. We are where we are right now.”
Fauci added that “you could logically say, that if you had a process that was ongoing, and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives.”
“Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated,” he said. “I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
The National Security Council reportedly received intelligence reports in January warning that the COVID-19 outbreak would spread to the U.S. By the third week of February, Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), convened a meeting on whether officials should lock down the country to prevent an outbreak. The group determined that mitigation measures such as school and business closures were necessary despite the devastating economic implications, The Times noted.
The White House issued social-distancing guidelines, including recommendations against gatherings of more than 10 people, in mid-March. President Trump later that month extended those guidelines through the end of April.
The U.S. has reported more than 530,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and roughly 20,600 deaths caused by it as of Sunday morning, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
Asked whether the statistics were a direct cause of the late start on mitigation measures, Fauci said that “it isn’t as simple as that.” While earlier mitigation efforts would have had an impact, Fauci noted that “where we are right now is the result of a number of factors,” including the size of the country and the heterogeneity of the country.
“I think it’s a little bit unfair to compare us to South Korea, where they had an outbreak in Daegu, and they had the capability of immediately, essentially, shutting it off completely in a way that we may not have been able to do in this country,” he said. “So, obviously it would have been nice if we had a better head start, but I don’t think you could say that we are where we are right now because of one factor.”
The Trump administration has faced continued scrutiny over its handling of the outbreak, as state and federal officials raise alarms over testing and medical equipment shortages.
The president on Feb. 28 predicted that the disease would disappear like a “miracle.” Asked about those comments last week, Trump said that “the cases really didn’t build up for a while” and that he was trying to avoid stirring panic.
The US just became the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-just-became-first-country-092209704.html
- The US is the first country to report more than 2,000 deaths from the coronavirus in a single day.
- 2,108 people lost their lives on Friday, according to data collated by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
- However, US officials have signaled that the outbreak is slowing, and that the easing number of new cases per day is encouraging.
The US has become the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day.
2,108 people lost their lives on Friday, according to data collated by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
The US also surpassed half a million infections at the end of what has been a devastating week.
More Americans died between Monday and Saturday (8,800) than died from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
The US death toll, 18,693, as of Saturday morning, is expected to surpass that in Italy, 18,849, by Sunday, but the overall picture indicates that while deaths continue to rise, the speed of the outbreak looks to be slowing.
“We’re starting to see the leveling off and the coming down,”Dr Anthony Fauci, the US top epidemiologist advising the White House, said on Friday.
But other officials were keen to play down any thoughts of an end to the crisis.
“As encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak,” Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response director, said of the easing of new cases on Friday.
While the US as a whole may look better, New York state is still in a dire situation, and remains the country’s worst affected region. 777 new fatalities were reported on Friday, according to The Associated Press.
Trump Administration Tells Employers Not To Worry About Recording COVID-19 Cases
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/osha-labor-department-coronavirus-cases-at-work-155001164.html
The Trump administration announced Friday afternoon that employers outside of the health care industry generally won’t be required to record coronavirus cases among their workers, a decision that left some workplace safety advocates incredulous.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is classified as a recordable illness, meaning employers would have to notify the Occupational Safety and Health Administration when an employee gets sick from an exposure at work. But the nation’s top workplace safety agency now says the majority of U.S. employers won’t have to try to determine whether employees’ infections happened in the workplace unless it’s obvious.
“OSHA is kidding, right?” tweeted David Michaels, who helmed OSHA throughout the presidency of Barack Obama.
It is not a joke. OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, released an enforcement memo Friday spelling out the recording rules.
Employers in health care, emergency response and corrections would have to inform the agency when they become aware of a COVID-19 case that probably resulted from work. But other entities would not have to do so unless there was “objective evidence” that the transmission was work-related, or there was evidence “reasonably available to the employer” ― for example, if a whole slew of people who work right next to each other got sick.
The rationale: Those employers outside of health care “may have difficulty making determinations about whether workers who contracted COVID-19 did so due to exposures at work,” the memo stated.
But if employers don’t have to try to figure out whether a transmission happened in the workplace, it could leave both them and the government in the dark about emerging hotspots in places like retail stores or meatpacking plants.
“So all you infected bus drivers, grocery store clerks, poultry processors ― you didn’t get it at work,” tweeted Jordan Barab, a former OSHA official now with the House Committee on Education and Labor.
The announcement is part of an ongoing fight between the Trump administration and occupational safety experts who say OSHA is failing to fulfill its obligations under the president. Employer record keeping has been a key issue in that spat. Early in his presidency, Donald Trump loosened the recording requirements employers must follow, a move critics said would make it easier for companies to fudge their data and hide their injuries.
Safety advocates say recording injuries and illnesses like COVID-19 helps officials discover growing hazards and shape sound public policy to address them. The Labor Department, under Trump and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, has portrayed those kinds of employer obligations as burdensome red tape.
In its memo on COVID-19 recording, OSHA said that by not enforcing the requirement on most employers, the agency would “help employers focus their response efforts on implementing good hygiene practices in their workplaces, and otherwise mitigating COVID-19’s effects, rather than on making difficult [work-related] decisions in circumstances where there is community transmission.”
The Labor Department and OSHA in particular have drawn a lot of heat for their response to the coronavirus pandemic. Labor unions have been asking Scalia to issue an emergency standard for infectious disease, which would would give health care facilities clear, enforceable standards to protect their workers during the pandemic.
Scalia hasn’t done that. Instead, OSHA has created a new poster for employers with tips on preventing infections, and tweaked the rules around respirators to help employers deal with a shortage.
A Labor Department spokesperson defended the agency’s work responding to the outbreak, saying in an email to HuffPost Friday that it had taken “swift and direct action to protect America’s workers.”
Trump suggests doctors complain about lack of coronavirus equipment in order to get on TV
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-suggests-doctors-complain-lack-141500695.html
Donald Trump has implied doctors and elected officials say they do not have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and other materials to get on television amid the coronavirus crisis.
The US president had a row with Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, over the shortage of PPE, which includes essential gear such as hand sanitiser, gloves, aprons, and face masks, during his coronavirus press briefing.
Acosta said: “We hear from a lot of people who see these briefings as sort of ‘happy talk’ briefings. And some of the officials don’t paint as rosy a picture of what is happening around the country. If you look at some of these questions – do we have enough masks? No. Do we have enough tests? No. Do we have enough PPE? No.”
Mr Trump interjected: “Why would you say that? The answer is yes. I think the answer is yes.”
Acosta referred to doctors and other medical officials who have vented their frustrations about the dearth of essential equipment on CNN.
The president hit back: “A lot of it is fake news.”
Acosta said: “Doctors and medical officers come on our air and say ‘we don’t have enough tests, we don’t have enough masks’.”
Mr Trump chipped in: “Well yeah, depending on your air they are always going to say that because otherwise, you are not going to put them on.”
The spat comes as doctors and healthcare workers across America are battling against a shortage of face masks which safeguard them against coronavirus – sparking fears doctors will not be able to provide life-saving care if they fall ill.
America has become the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 people dying from coronavirus in one day alone, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.
People who contract coronavirus in the US are at greater risk than those in the UK or Canada due to America not having a national health service.
Americans are at risk of running up bills for coronavirus treatment which force them to fork out tens of thousands of dollars. The situation is exacerbated by the fact many have lost their healthcare insurance due to job losses linked to the pandemic.
When the coronavirus lockdowns end, we will live in a shrunken world
https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-lockdowns-end-live-shrunken-122800321.html
- A projection from the Department of Homeland Security, published by the New York Times, shows coronavirus cases spiking again at the end of summer.
- It’s a stark reminder that American life after lockdown will still be one of limited human interaction. And that means we’ll have to live with a smaller economy too.
- The economy will be packed with uncertainty given the possibility of another shelter-in-place order.
- Until we can all hang out again with confidence, the US economy is going to be a shell of its former self.
When the US emerges from its various shades of shelter-in-place orders, it will emerge to a shrunken global economy. One that will not easily be inflated living within parameters the coronavirus demands.
Financial transactions are a form of human interaction, and even after strict orders to stay at home are lifted, Americans will need to limit human interaction to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. One projection from the Department of Homeland Security, first reported by the New York Times, imagines a world where schools remain closed, 25% of Americans work from home, and social distancing remains in place through the summer.
And people will still be scared. They will know that there is an deadly virus infecting people who interact with other people.
In this scenario, back to work doesn’t mean back to growth because people won’t be spending money the way they did before. Back to work simply means finding a more sane, stable way to maintain society until we get a vaccine. There will be no V-shaped recovery. This is a marathon, and if we’re lucky, we will limp across the finish line.
As incomplete as it is, China is the best picture we have for understanding what a life after lockdown looks like, and it doesn’t look like a booming economy. 460,000 businesses closed permanently in China during the first quarter.
One Chinese county has gone back into lockdown already. In Beijing — where state media says epidemic prevention and control will “probably” become “long-term normal” — restaurants have been ordered to maintain social distance by cutting seating in half and limiting tables to three people. Customers have been slow to come back anyway.
All of this is to say that even if we’re out of lockdown, this saga isn’t remotely over.
Deflation strikes back
What China’s economy is telling us is that once this weird supply funk brought on by everyone staying home is over, and some people are able to go back to work, we’ll still have a demand crisis. Even though the virus has been contained analysts at Oxford Economics told clients it expects to see “basically no growth” in China this year. With other global economies weakened it will sell fewer exports.
Zhu Jun, director of the international department of the People’s Bank of China, said that there’s a small chance the world risks another Great Depression. Cheery, I know, but until there’s a vaccine, optimism will be in short supply.
Here in the US, just as in China, people will be broke and businesses will be broken. Money will be scarce. Demand will be depressed not just because of a lack of funds, but because people will have changed their behavior to avoid getting sick.
Wall Street it seems, hasn’t processed this bad news yet. It’s taking this pandemic day-by-day, not looking at life after lockdown. This week the market rallied on news that all over the US, even New York City, the curve is flattening. It was a silly rally.
It’s silly for the market to declare victory before we’ve even seen how much damage has been done (that will take months at least). It’s silly to expect any kind of stability until we know what kind of demand a post-shelter-in-place, pre-vaccine American economy will have.
Finally, we don’t know how long Washington will be in a giving mood. So far the Federal Reserve has pulled out all the stops, and Congress has approved trillions in aid. But will Washington keep sending checks to unemployed Americans until we have a vaccine?
We thought we knew uncertainty
I think back to all the times I’ve heard CEOs and Wall Street types talk about uncertainty around regulations, or elections, or literally anything else that has happened in my life time, and I have to laugh. All of it seems silly compared to the uncertainty before us right now.
It is quite possible that sometime this summer scientists will develop a treatment for COVID-19 that makes the symptoms much more mild — something more like a standard, week-long flu. That discovery could make things a lot easier, and really bolster confidence enough to bring the economy back until we have a vaccine. But government officials obviously can’t plan with that in mind. Neither can businesses.
And so, those charged with imagining the worst case scenario must imagine a world where Americans are again forced to shelter-in-place to flatten the curve. Homeland Security’s projections put a resurgence of the virus somewhere around the end of summer to the beginning of fall. It’s not unreasonable to think certain populations may have to go back into shelter-in-place then.
Singapore has a robust system of testing for and tracking the coronavirus and its citizens went back into shelter-in-place this week. Here in the US we don’t have such a system. Last week the White House ended federal funding for its drive-thru testing site program.
On Friday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo urged the President to invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of antibody tests that can show who has been infected with the coronavirus and built up immunity. That would allow people to go back to work, but the federal government will only be able to produce 2,000 a day in the next two weeks.
As a nation, we need to be doing everything we can to ensure that when this lockdown is over, those who can go out can do so with as much confidence as possible. We need to inject as much certainty into this situation as possible Without testing, that’s not happening.
In an interview with CNBC, Bill Gates — the Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist who has dedicated a significant chunk of his charitable efforts to studying pandemics — said the federal government simply doesn’t seem interested in a unified testing system. This is one of the few variables in this pandemic the government can control, and it’s blowing it.
Testing is one of the only things that will make our beleaguered, shrunken coronavirus economy a little bit bigger. It’s one of the only ways we can impact the ugly twist of this economic downturn, behavior.
Even then, though, the possibility of an outbreak in a workplace, city, or state will change the way our economy works in ways that will make money scarce. We need to be ready for that.
Cartoon – Reality Check
Cartoon – Coronavirus Symptoms
HENRY KOTULA 