Who needs disease control?
Senator Jon Ossoff streamrolls Donald Trump’s slimy OMB Director Russell Vought after he tries to shift blame to Joe Biden during a hearing: “I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration! You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”
Finally, someone shut down the MAGA blame game…
“You guys are making mistakes and I want to focus on the mistakes that you’re making at the CDC. Have you visited the CDC Mr. Vought by chance?” asked Ossoff.
“I have not,” admitted Vought, who was testifying on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget about Donald Trump’s disastrous proposed cuts to federal funding.
“It is the flagship epidemiological and public health agency for the country and is indeed for the world, as you know,” said the senator.
“That even the Biden administration felt the need to reform,” interjected Vought, eager to hit his talking points for Trump.
“You have now fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of their workforce, correct?” asked Ossoff.
“Senator are you suggesting the CDC performed well in the last pandemic?” asked Vought.
The suggestion that possible shortcomings on the part of the CDC during the coronavirus outbreak justify slashing its funding is absurd. All that such cuts would accomplish is ensuring that the next pandemic is even worse.
“I asked you whether you have fired or tried to fire a quarter of the CDC workforce,” said Ossoff.
“I can’t answer the question because I don’t have the facts in front of me. That’s the CDC Director’s information to give you,” said Vought.
“Well, you have,” said Ossoff. “You have fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of the CDC workforce and your budget request for FY26 would cut the CDC budget in more than half, correct?”
“The Center for Disease Control was in—”
“No, answer the question!” said Ossoff.
“They were incompetent last pandemic,” said Vought.
“Answer the question Mr. Vought,” pressed the senator. “Does your budget request seek to cut by more than half the CDC budget?”
“We certainly seek to cut and reduce the CDC,” said Vought. “The extent to which—”
“Listen Mr. Vought, you need to come to Georgia and visit the CDC,” said Ossoff.
“Happy to.”
“Good. We’ll make that happen because you are destroying this institution and whatever criticism you have about their past performance, they are essential to public health and epidemiological defense in the United States,” said Ossoff.
“You’re crushing morale. You’re crushing capability,” he continued. “And you’re destroying my constituents’ lives and I am grateful for the commitment you’ve made to come to Georgia and visit the CDC and sit down with those employees. Thank you.”
“The Biden administration proposed reforms—” began Vought.
“I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration!” Ossoff shot back. “You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”
To that, Vought had no response.
Posts like this one always serve to remind me that we are not out of the Middle Ages yet.
We’re not out of the stupid. Clearly we never will be.
Remind me, please, who was the president of the USA in 2019, when a boost in funding might have enabled the CDC to prepare for the potential calamity of a pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease? Who was the president of the USA in 2020, when executive support for the safety measures suggested by experts in disease control would have made a massive difference to the outcome? Who was the president who pushed quackery instead of isolation pending vaccination? Beats me.
We never will be out of the Middle Ages (which weren’t totally benighted – read Aquinas, Dante, Chaucer or Dafydd ap Gwilym or any number of other writers), or out of the evolutionary history and history in its ordinary sense that have made us what we are. I think wisdom consists in recognising this, and in not assuming that human beings necessarily improve morally as time goes on, or that the arc of history bends towards justice. We don’t, and it doesn’t.
Tim:
Maybe. But power relationships between sectors, classes, national minorities and the geographically-separated nations do, giving the basis for what we call historical progress. The example of black history in the USA is as good as any. Not even the most reactionary ‘conservative’ in America or anywhere else campaigns for a regression to black slavery, or even (to my knowledge) for a return to Jim Crow, segregation on buses and in schools, etc.
Elites have been historically reluctant to give concessions, because they know that they are so hard to win back; even when times change in their favour.
The Middle Ages were progressive, and a bridge from the Dark Age after the fall of the Roman Empire to modernity; true enough, despite the witch hunts, public burnings of heretics and those accused of witchcraft, which enabled some entitled groups to get rid of rising but less-entitled competitors.
And yet a great many people continue to treat women as irrelevant weaklings at best and dangerous sluts at worst. Trans ideology is very much a reversal of feminism, and the Ummah just plain hates women.
OB: A lot of Arabs and Muslims happen to live around Mawson, here in Canberra, nearby to where I live. A (dwindling) number of the older and middle-aged women wear balck tents and veils, but the younger ones just wear the normal dress for the Aussie women around here, and do not walk 3 paces behind their male partners, husbands, or whatever. So I would say that Islam is changing around here in that regard.
Must be drivimg the local imam berserk, though he apparently has no trans cultists in his local ummah flock. (They probably cop a fatwah in any case. ;-)
Omar, I see the same thing in Adelaide, although I no longer live there. I also recall my high school days when my suburb was a melting pot of (mostly) European immigrants. They walked on the road, not the path. The widows never wore anything but black. They kept goats. GOATS! And they played soccer.
All that changed in just a few generations. Two of my grandchildren bear a Greek surname because my daughter married the son of the son of one of those 1950s Greek immigrants. But neither Ben nor his father, George considers themselves Greek; they are Australians with Greek ancestry. But JFC, like the many Greeks I have known, George throws a bloody good party.
The same happened with the later influx from Vietnam, with the children and grandchildren rapidly adapting to new ways of living, and although it is a little too soon, I believe in another generation we will see the same with the Africans who were the most recent arrivals.
People can and do change and adapt, which is why humans have been so successful. The key is to be welcoming and sharing, which is why I think that the stupidity of banning trade and cultural exchanges with countries we don’t like, eg North Korea, is counterproductive.