Thoughts on the current situation upon waking up at home today

I've been thinking . . .

1) One of the things that has been the most surprising to me in this latest crisis is the demand (and willingness) to cede all personal, local and state sovereignty to the federal government—by liberals, conservatives and even some libertarians and thousands of know-nothings who don't even vote.

2) What hasn’t been as surprising is It’s been exacerbated by the raging horror and hate for the president where everything he says, comments on or jokes about becomes front page news and taken out of context. I’ve briefly skimmed some of the federal guidelines established after the Swine flu epidemic of 2009-10 built on other disaster plans. I see no evidence that Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump were expected to be knowledgeable about virology, epidemics, public health or supply and storage of medical products. They were expected to be managers of a disaster and appoint knowledgeable people.

3) Third, it is shocking to see that local communities and hospitals have not taken care of having their own people protected with proper equipment. Did they think everything bad happens only in LA or New York City? These are guidelines for states and local agencies to follow! Yes, there are some warehouses scattered around the country in case of bioterrorism, but those supplies (and extremely secret locations) are not necessarily suitable for a virus. The make-up of committees or task forces is not in concrete, nor are the budgets. The opportunity for political machinations and pork are spectacular, and the bidding process probably follows long established murky procedures and regulations developed the last 50 years for another war—the War on Poverty, many of which are being swept aside in the scramble to defeat this virus. There are minority set asides, exceptions for LGBTQ groups, demands for female appointments, environmental protection regulations, disability protections, climate change models, etc. all of which have protective, special interest groups which run to the media and claim they are being ignored or abused. That’s how abortion pork got into Pelosi’s wish list about Covid-19—she is politically supported by Planned Parenthood. If the CDC seems sluggish or bloated, it's because increasingly it's been expected to achieve social change goals, not medical.

4) 25 year old reporters who don’t even remember 9/11 are getting their opinions published and faces on the evening news; the rumor mill is grinding away; people are panicked by every suggestion, some as wild as Trump has killed someone who drank fish tank cleaner in hopes of obtaining a cure. 80 year old bloggers or Facebookers of my generation are making false assumptions based on their own immunity built up during their lifetimes, bringing with it their political gripes.

5) I’d rather have various companies within the supply chain—from McDonald’s to Microsoft to Meier’s-- doing their best to serve, keep their people employed and make a profit, than to listen to a party hack like Pelosi that is pushing for socialism so we’d all be on the same page and under the same umbrella leading us to failure and disaster. Let’s at least go down fighting that system.