Tag Archives: U.S. politics

the “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents”

Obama left INSTRUCTIONS for dealing with this exact situation. There almost have to be competent people in the federal government who were familiar with these instructions and did their best to implement them, but were stymied by incompetent managers or political cronies. There’s an alphabet soup of acronyms that is a little hard to decipher for the uninitiated, but a couple things stand out to me:

  • Early on in a significant outbreak outside the United States, the plan is to provide significant financial support, material support, expertise, and manpower support to both the World Health Organization and directly to the foreign country. This is a nice humanitarian thing to do, but is also the best defense against the outbreak reaching the U.S. and wreaking havoc.
  • Domestically, the federal government is responsible for figuring out how to screen, and quarantine if necessary, travelers arriving from foreign locations, whether those travelers are U.S. citizens or not (reminder: we are all the same species of semi-hairless virus-prone monkey).
  • The federal stockpile plays a key role, as does research and development on potential diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. These things are supposed to kick into high gear at the first sign of trouble. Again, sending materials and equipment abroad is supposed to be considered early on because that may be the best way to keep the outbreak from getting out of control.
  • The federal government is just generally supposed to provide crystal clear guidelines, communications, funding, materials and equipment and coordination to state and local governments and to the public throughout a crisis like this.

There was a plan, and at least some of these steps must already have been in motion and been shut down.

As you know, I try to avoid political statements on this blog, sticking closely to facts and consideration of potential implications of various policies and lessons learned for the future.

FAIL FAIL FAIL Trump you stupid asshole, you have the blood of 85,000 Americans on your hands as I write this and of course it’s not over. Obama for King 2020!

Joint Task Force – National Capital Region

The Joint Task Force – National Capital Region is the unified military command responsible for Washington, D.C. and surrounding regions if they become a “battlefield”. In other words, if there is an armed attack, or if all hell breaks loose for whatever reason, and civilian government functions break down. According to Newsweek, it has been activated.

JTF-NCR is responsible for what the military calls “homeland defense”: what to do in the face of an armed attack on the United States, everything from guarding Washington’s skies to preparing for the civil unrest that could occur if a nuclear weapon were detonated in the capital. But most immediate, JTF-NCR is charged with facilitating continuity of government, particularly moving civil and military leaders to secret locations were the order given to evacuate the city.

Newsweek

You would assume that the commander in chief has command over the commander of this unit, which would be comforting in even remotely normal times. But the commander of this unit does have the authority to take whatever steps he or she (it’s a he) deems necessary if there is no civilian oversight available.

It seems unlikely there are any missiles inbound. It seems entirely likely that the Covid/election season could be the time a foreign enemy could try a cyberattack or attack critical infrastructure like the electric grid – kick your enemy while they are down. Hopefully we are ready for that.

Newsweek was the first “main stream media” source of news I paid attention to when I became aware of current events sometime in middle school. I don’t know if it is still the credible source of information I considered it back then (or if I was right back then.) One questionable claim did catch my eye – “Federal officials in the nation’s capital expect a New York-like epidemic in the District, Maryland and Virginia, one that could potentially cripple the government.” Taking a look at that claim on the University of Washington modeling site, it doesn’t hold up. The entire Boston-to-DC corridor is in fact hard hit, but the death rate and hospital utilization rates in DC are peaking right about now (I’m writing on Saturday April 18, the Newsweek article is from Thursday April 16) and both are projected to start falling. Hospitals in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia are busy but not expected to be overrun like they were in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. So it’s not clear what evidence the “federal officials” cited above would lead to a projected “New York-like epidemic…that could potentially cripple the government”. Perhaps some of these officials are used to working from home anyway, like in a white house for example.

private equity and surprise medical billing

This article from Center for Economic and Policy Research (I admit I don’t know much about this organization) claims that private equity firms have bought up medical practices and intentionally insert out-of-network doctors into teams treating you at your in-network hospital. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to curb this, but the financial lobby has been too powerful to beat.

Private equity-owned physician staffing firms grow by buying up many small specialty practices and “rolling them up” into umbrella organizations that serve health care systems across the United States. KKR-owned Envision Healthcare with 69,300 employees, and Blackstone-owned TeamHealth with 20,000 employees, dominate the market for outsourced doctors’ practices. A team of Yale University health economists examined what happened when private equity-owned companies EmCare (part of Envision Healthcare) and TeamHealth took over hospital emergency departments.5 They found that when EmCare took over the management of emergency departments, it nearly doubled its charges for caring for patients compared to the charges billed by previous physician groups. The researchers also found that TeamHealth took a somewhat different tack. It used the threat of sending high out-of-network surprise bills for ER doctors’ services to an insurance company’s covered patients in order to gain high fees from insurance companies as in-network doctors.6 This avoids the situation where a patient gets stuck with a large, surprise medical bill, but it raises premium costs for everyone. In both cases, healthcare costs increase when outsourced emergency rooms and other physician services are owned by private equity firms.

My take: Campaign finance reform and Medicare for All, baby!

what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas

Axios has some interesting stats comparing the demographics of Nevada today to the projected future of the U.S. as a whole.

  • The U.S. is on track to become minority white by 2045. Nevada is one of just 4 states that are already there.
  • Hispanic people are expected to make up 25% of the American population by 2045. They’re 29% of Nevada’s population today.
  • Immigration will likely be the backbone of the U.S.’ future population growth, and will likely hit record levels by 2045. Today, immigrants’ share of the Nevada population is the 5th largest of any state.
  • The vast majority of Nevadans live in urban areas, just as 89% of Americans are projected to by 2050, according to UN data.
  • At 10% of the population, Nevada’s black voting bloc is also significant. The U.S. will be 13% black in 2045.

the stats on Bernie Sanders’s health risks

Slate has an interesting article on health risks for someone Bernie Sanders’s age with Bernie Sanders’s known health condition. The author points out that these estimates can be done for Bernie because he has released a fair amount of health information (although still not everything the author would like), while the other older candidates have not.

  • His 12-month risk of a heart attack, stroke, or death is about 6%.
  • His risk of being hospitalized for any reason between now and November is about 30-35%.
  • His odds of surviving a first presidential term are about 65%, and his odds of surviving a second about 40%.

January 2020 in Review

Most frightening and/or depressing story:
  • Open cyberwarfare became a thing in the 2010s. We read the individual headlines but didn’t connect the dots. When you do connect the dots, it’s a little shocking what’s going on.
Most hopeful story:
  • Democratic socialism actually does produce a high quality of life for citizens in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, the hard evidence shows that the United States is slipping behind its peer group in many measures of economic vibrancy and quality of life. The response of our leaders is to tell us we are great again because that is what we want to hear, but not do anything that would help us to actually be great again or even keep up with the middle of the pack. This is in the hopeful category because solutions exist and we can choose to pursue them.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

election 2020!

I’m going to try not to get too carried away with election 2020 posts. For one thing, a lot of people know a lot more than me about election 2020. Nate Silver for example. In 2012 I made a little spreadsheet electoral college model that helped me understand the election that year. By 2016, that sort of thing was so easy to find on the internet and so much more sophisticated than anything I could hope to come up with that it wasn’t really worth the trouble. For another thing, it can be fun to forecast the outcomes of certain events, sports for instance, and come back later to see how you did. Sports are fun because you pretend to care about them, but you know deep down that they don’t matter. Politics is not like that – they matter and I care, so it is just not that fun to be wrong.

Okay, with that rambling preamble, and before the first voting starts in the Iowa caucus (I’m writing on Sunday, January 26), I’m going to give my predictions. But before I give my predictions, let me be open and honest about what I want to happen. I want Bernie Sanders to be elected President, and I want him to serve alongside a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. This would give the United States a chance to tackle the systemic corruption problem that is dragging our nation down, and put us on a path to future success. Elizabeth Warren would have a chance of doing this too, and I actually prefer her policy positions overall, but I think Bernie Sanders is the stronger leader and the leader we need right now.

I don’t think that is what is going to happen. Of the three (President Bernie Sanders, Democratic House, Democratic Senate), the Democratic Senate is particularly unlikely. Let’s look at PredictIt – gamblers there are giving about a 70/30 chance of the Senate remaining in Republican hands. Those are not awful odds for Democrats, but in a straight-up betting situation you would not take those odds. And keep in mind, a super-majority of 60 in the Senate is required to pass major legislation, not just a majority of 51. So even if Sanders or Warren gets in as President, and assuming the House stays Democratic as seems likely, it will be close to impossible to get major progressive legislation through on issues like campaign finance, health care, childcare or education. A Republican Senate will also block any efforts to reengage with the United Nations or ratify treaties on things such as climate change or human rights. A Democratic President will be stuck trying to fine-tune rules and regulations across the executive branch, rebuild the State Department and shape foreign policy to the extent possible through the executive branch.

Let’s start with general election polls out as of right now. People say these don’t mean anything. But I recall looking at Clinton vs. Trump in these polls, before we knew that either of them would be the nominee in 2016, and being surprised that people thought Trump would beat her. The same polls showed Bernie Sanders beating Trump. So let’s look at these wildly inaccurate, not very useful polls on RealClearPolitics as of Sunday, January 26.

  • Biden vs. Trump: Biden leads by 4.3% nationally, an average of 6 polls taken between December 4 and January 23. Of these 6, 1 shows Trump leading and 1 shows a tie, while the others show Biden leading by 2-9%.
  • Sanders vs. Trump: Sanders leads by 3.2% nationally, an average of 6 polls taken between December 4 and January 23. Of these 6, 1 shows Trump leading , while the others show Sanders leading by 1-8%.
  • Warren vs. Trump: Warren leads by 1.4% nationally, an average of 6 polls taken between December 4 and January 23. Of these 6, 2 show Trump leading and 1 shows a tie, while the others show Warren leading by 5-7%.
  • Incidentally, today PredictIt gives the eventual Republican nominee a 52% chance of beating the eventual Democratic nominee, which doesn’t exactly gel with the numbers above.

The first thing that occurs to me is that these polls (not counting PredictIt) show any of the three most likely Democratic nominees winning the popular vote, whereas they showed Hillary losing it at a similar point in 2016 (based on my memory, I don’t know how to get the historical poll data). Democrats have reasons to be confident, but they are under-confident for obvious reasons. They are probably about as under-confident right now as they were over-confident as of Hillary Clinton’s victory party-like last rally in Philadelphia on election-eve 2016.

The second thing that occurs to me is that the Warren thing is just too close for comfort. I like Warren, but she seems like a risky nominee when Bernie Sanders is so similar in his policy views, and is the stronger potential leader in my view. Similar to Obama, people have this weird reaction to her as an elitist egghead. I personally am comforted when I feel like the people leading the country have a better grasp of subjects like economics and history than I do, but it does not seem as most of my fellow humans share these feelings.

Which leaves us with Sanders and Biden. Let’s go back to Nate Silver and his Monte Carlo models which are so much better than anything I could come up with. His model suggests a 58% chance that no Democratic candidate wins a majority of delegates. Biden has a 42% chance, Sanders a 22% chance, and there is a 15% chance that nobody gets a majority. Nate points out that in the event nobody gets a majority, but somebody gets a clear plurality, one thing that could happen is that the delegates cast votes for their pledged candidate in the first round of voting, but the candidates and delegates arrange in advance for the plurality candidate to get the majority of votes in the second round. I think you have to say that the two most likely outcomes as of today are that Biden gets a majority of delegates on the first vote, or Biden gets a clear plurality of delegates and gets a majority vote on a second ballot as a pre-determined outcome. Put those two together and this is the likely outcome – the Biden vs. Sanders showdown goes to Biden, the Biden vs. Trump showdown goes to Biden, and we have President Biden.

Now let me tell you why my purely subjective, purely anecdotal experience suggests that a President Sanders is a real possibility. It could be that I am rationalizing what I want to happen, of course, which would make me a human being, but nonetheless here it is. I am originally from Martinsville, Virginia, a former Appalachian manufacturing powerhouse that has fallen on very hard times, and this is an understatement. My grandparents’ generation moved from rural subsistence lifestyles to urban factory worker lifestyles. My parents generation worked in those factories when they were young, then got laid off when the factories moved to Mexico and eventually China. I remember friends and relatives railing against Bill Clinton and NAFTA because they thought this took their jobs and the quality of life of their families away. Now, in my personal view, NAFTA was just the final nail in the coffin created by decades of policies meant initially to prop up Cold War allies, which then proved a convenient narrative for multinational corporations, and turned out to be straightforward to represent in abstract mathematical models by academic economists.

Barrack Obama made Martinsville, Virginia one of his early campaign stops, and I know for a fact that some of my hillbilly friends and relatives you would never expect to vote for him bought into his “hopey changey” vision and voted for him in 2008 and 2012. When 8 years of Obama didn’t noticeably improve their lives, and the Democrat running in 2016 had the last name “Clinton”, these same friends and relatives voted for Trump in 2016. I think people who self-identify as America’s lost industrial base in Pennsylvania (where I now live), Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin did the same. To state the obvious, 2020 is not 2016, there is no candidate named Clinton, and Bernie Sanders won the 2016 primaries in some of these states. At least some of these “working class” Trump voters are going to love Bernie Sanders. Combine this with the coin toss in Florida which went Trump’s way in 2016, an outside chance of Texas flipping Democratic in 2020, and uncertainty about the economy, and Bernie has a good chance. Like I said, Democrats are under-confident.

So let’s be clear: I think the odds favor Biden, a Democratic House, and a Republican Senate. I think Sanders, a Democratic House, and a Republican Senate is the second most likely outcome. Trump, a Democratic House, and a Republic Senate is probably the third most likely outcome. Nobody knows what is going to happen with the economy or geopolitical events, but in the next 11 months something is probably going to happen. Sanders, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate is not a high probability, but as Nate Silver might point out, a sports metaphor might help us realize that the odds are not that different from perhaps an underdog like the Philadelphia Eagles winning the 2018 Superbowl (which they did). It’s likely enough to be worth fighting for.

a “decade of liberal failure”?

According to Alex Pareene at The New Republic, the 2010s were a “decade of liberal failure”. He cites the escalation of the Afghanistan war, so carefully considered by Nobel prize-winning Obama, devolving into an quagmire with no obvious point and no obvious way out. He believes that the stimulus package and Affordable Care Act basically worked, but the Obama administration purposely designed them to work behind the scenes. They actually benefited people, but people don’t give the administration any credit for those benefits, and Republicans are able to successfully play on this misconception.

undeclared U.S.-Russia war?

I’m not familiar with this blog yasha.substack.com, but it makes a somewhat convincing argument that the U.S. and Russia are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine, and that is a theme running throughout the impeachment proceedings.

If you read the impeachment literature, including the articles of impeachment, you’ll find the notion that we are at war with Russia underlies a major part of the case against Trump. Aside from the charges of self-dealing and corruption and attempts to influence an election, Trump’s other overarching crime is he “compromised American national security” and “injured national security” by slightly delaying the nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. The argument is that he will “remain a threat to national security” if he remains president and so must be removed. This line of thinking is expressed even more clearly in the House Judiciary Committee report on impeachment.

yasha.substack.com

a “decade of disillusion”?

According to Vice magazine, the 2010s were a “decade of disillusion”. The first article in the series covers how the world went from cautious optimism to something approaching giving up on climate change. Other articles cover how the decade “broke American politics”, the worsening inequality situation, and the opioid crisis.