Posts from — April 2020

Modly resigns as acting Navy chief after firing warship skipper and calling him stupid.:

Five days after firing the commander of a coronavirus-crippled U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, and a day after apologizing for calling that skipper naive and stupid in heated remarks to that warship’s crew, acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has called it quits. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has accepted his resignation.

Modly’s trip to Guam, which led to his resignation, cost almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Sailor from USS Teddy Roosevelt found unconscious, transferred to intensive care:

As of Wednesday, 97% of the Theodore Roosevelt’s crew have been tested for the virus and 416 sailors have tested positive, according to the Navy, representing more than 20% of all coronavirus cases within the entire US military.

“We’ve tested almost the whole crew now. We still have about 1,000 tests to report out. But 3,170 tested negative, 416 tested positive, 187 of those were symptomatic, 229 were asymptomatic. We still have 1,164 pending results,” the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Note that over half of those who tested positive have no symptoms, which shows that limiting testing to only people with symptoms and known contact with someone who was known to have the disease may be missing the majority of cases and allowing the disease to spread. General Hyten doesn’t say that Captain Crozier was correct in raising the alarm, but he doesn’t say it rather loudly and pointedly to anyone listening.

Sundown today marks the beginning of Pesach [Passover]. The story is found in the Book of Exodus. Rather more relevant this year during a pandemic.

This is a time of Matzah [unleavened bread], Marror [bitter herbs], wine and the retelling of the story of founding of Israel.

You can, of course, just pop in a DVD of The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille’s version.

At its core this is a story of immigration and anyone claiming to be a Christian or Jew should pay attention – it’s on the FINAL EXAM.

The US has a so-called leader who spends his days watching television and his nights tweeting about it. This is a man with no medical training and no proof he even passed high school biology or chemistry courses pushing an unproven drug on the masses.

Contrast this with the Prime Minister of New Zealand: Three reasons why Jacinda Ardern’s coronavirus response has been a masterclass in crisis leadership. Go to the link and watch her press briefing.

In addition to her organized actions Prime Minister Ardern takes to the time to tell the children of New Zealand that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are essential workers. She put up an Easter egg on her web site for children to download and color and asked children to send her copies of their Easter egg drawings.

She has a plan. People can look at the plan and know what is going to happen. She wants to stop the virus, not just slow it down. She doesn’t hog the microphone and she answers questions from the press. She also has a sign language interpreter on the stage.

Florida finally went into state-wide lock down, but Ron DeSantis,[plays Florida’s governor on TV] left the resolution of two cruise ships wanting to land passengers to Broward County because Ron might make a decision that Trump wouldn’t like. Broward County officials noted that they weren’t really set up to talk to representatives of foreign countries but someone had to do it as the State Department, Federal government, and state government refused. In the time of Trump local elections are more important than normal.

If you want even more proof of Trump’s failure read the BBC’s Covid-19: What makes a good leader during a crisis?.

This ad puts Trump’s incompetence on display with his own words. That’s why his campaign lawyers are threatening to sue anyone who airs it.

Military laboratories are ready to process COVID-19 tests, but the process to send them samples has not been created. The military is capable of all kinds of things not related to blowing things up, but they need an established chain of command and a process for working with civilian organizations.

Coronavirus: Toilet roll alternatives blocking sewers. The people hoarding toilet paper should be tracked down and sentenced to clearing sewers of the alternatives that people have been using after they run out.

Via Comrade Misfit, a site with graphic COVID-19 Projections nation-wide and by states.

The final word.

This is how Trump appointees treat the military.

Coronavirus: US Navy captain pleads for help over outbreak –

Scores of people on board the Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for the infection. The carrier is currently docked in Guam.

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” Captain Brett Crozier wrote in a letter to the Pentagon.

US Sailors Disembark in Guam –

Guam, a US territory, is facing its own coronavirus emergency.

The island has only 250 staffed hospital beds and has among the most cases in the Pacific with 77 confirmed infections and three deaths.

Captain Crozier is fired –

Washington (CNN)The commander of a US aircraft carrier that has been hit by a major outbreak of coronavirus has been relieved of command days after writing a memo warning Navy leadership that decisive action was needed to save the lives of the ship’s crew, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced on Thursday.

“Today at my direction the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Captain Brett Crozier, was relieved of command by carrier strike group commander Rear Admiral Stewart Baker,” Modly said during a Pentagon press briefing.

Modly is the “acting” Secretary of the Navy because Trump intervened in the court martial of disgraced former SEAL Eddie Gallagher which resulted in the Secretary of Defense cooking up a bogus reason to demand former Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer’s resignation. Spencer’s resignation letter makes it clear that he viewed Trump’s actions in the case to be “detrimental to good order and discipline”.

Modly didn’t want to be asked to resign for the bad PR when Captain Crozier’s “memo” was released to the media by “person or persons unknown.” Trump never says “You’re fired” in real life because he is a coward and bully. As Michael Cohen noted it is all done “with a nod and a wink.”

The BBC’s Spaghetti Harvest is still the top of the list for pranks.