Month: February 2020

During Trump’s press conference he said a vaccine would be developed “fairly rapidly”
Then Dr. Anthony Fauci went to the podium and said we are moving fast, but it will still take a year to a year and a half for a working vaccine.

I watched Trump’s eyes narrow as he figured out that Dr. Fauci had just contradicted him.  It doesn’t matter that Dr. Fauci is one of the country’s leading experts on viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. What mattered to Trump was it looked like he wasn’t in control.

With this White House it’s not about trying to figure out best how to stop the spread of the virus. It’s about how to stop the spread of “disloyalty” among people who work for Trump. 

The next day in the New York Times we see how Trump punishes disloyalty, he told Pence to control the scientists and the message about the virus.

Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials.

“Dr. Fauci has told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.”

Watch this video where Trump says the vaccine is coming along well and that it’s being developed very rapidly.  Dr. Fauci explained that although the vaccine development is faster than ever before at the NIH, for them the term ‘rapidly’ means a year to a year and a half.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUULtEj4gGQ&w=560&h=315]

When I saw Trump’s reaction and the move made by Pence the next day to muzzle Dr. Fauci I instantly thought of my favorite scene from HBO’s Chernobyl. In it a scientist goes to a bureaucrat to warn him of the seriousness of the disaster and urges him to have the city evacuated.

Scientist: If you don’t immediately issue iodine tablets and then evacuate this city, hundreds of thousands of people are going to get cancer, and God knows how many more will die.

Bureaucrat: I’ve been assured there is no problem.

Scientist: I’m telling you that there is.

Bureaucrat: I prefer my opinion to yours.

Scientist: I’m a nuclear physicist. Before you were Deputy Secretary, you worked in a shoe factory.

Bureaucrat Yes, I worked in a shoe factory.  And now I’m in charge. [raises glass in a toast] “To the workers of the world.”

Dr. Fauci is one of the country’s leading experts on viruses. He told the truth that we all need to hear. But he’s not talking because Trump retaliates against people who contradict him.

I just saw Dr. Fauci on Hardball, but according to Rep. John Garamendi, Dr. Fauci was told to cancel five Sunday talk show appearances.

Pence takes over #coronavirus messaging from health officials. Dr. Fauci was, told to cancel five Sunday talk show appearances, according to Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat who represents the district in California where the first “community spread” is believed to have happened.

— Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) February 28, 2020

 

If you haven’t seen the Chernobyl miniseries yet I highly recommend it.  You should also listen to the podcast with the author Craig Mazin. In the podcast he talks about the central theme of the show, the cost of lies.  Mazin says we can get away with a lie for a very long time, but the truth just doesn’t care.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpXU040Sk74&w=560&h=315]

The show documents the technical reasons for the Chernobyl disaster. But it also shows how lying and covering up the truth cost lives.

At the beginning of the disaster there was a lack of accurate information. But when the information was finally available people were afraid to communicate the truth. They downplayed the size and scope of the disaster. Because of this the response was delayed. Appropriate protective gear wasn’t available for workers. (Just like the HHS workers who processed the coronavirus evacuees )

The stories of the various workers who went in to stop a larger disaster and clean up the radioactive debris are heroic. The ones who knew it was a death sentence and went in anyway because they knew they were saving lives were especially heart breaking. But others got cancer and died because officials muzzled the people who knew the truth.

The last part of the clip from Chernobyl also struck me. The scientist is told by the bureaucrat that he’s not going to do anything. She leaves his office but before she goes she tells the secretary about the disaster, tells her to leave the city and to take the iodine pills she gives her. The message is, “Your boss is an incompetent idiot, so we’ll have to work around him to save lives.”

How many will die until Trump and his protectors in the GOP are forced out?

John Amato at C&L caught this tense exchange this morning between Congressman Ted Lieu and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo is the surliest, most obstreperous “diplomat” in world history. His skills are better suited to the WWE than the State Department:

Earlier in the day Trump’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney claimed the media is focusing on the coronavirus just to bring down Donald Trump and he also told Americans (not making this up) to ignore what was happening.

“The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president,” Mulvaney concluded. “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”

During his questioning of Mike Pompeo, Rep. Lieu asked if he agreed with Mulvaney’s assessment that the coronavirus was the “hoax of the day?”

Instead of answering the question directly Pompeo said the State Department was doing everything it could to protect American citizens.

Rep. Lieu, once again asked him if he believed the coronavirus was a hoax of the day and Pompeo continued to refuse to answer.

Then the California Congressman directly asked him, “Do you believe the coronavirus is a hoax?”

“You can’t even answer that question?” he said.

Pompeo hesitated and Rep. Lieu said it’s not even a gotcha question.

Pompeo replied it’s “a gotcha moment.”

I don’t understand how directly saying the coronavirus is not a hoax is a gotcha moment, but Trump surrogates have a completely different set of priorities than “public safety.”

“Is the coronavirus a hoax? Can you just answer that question,” Rep. Lieu continued.

Pompeo replied “we’re taking it seriously.”

Then the California congressman changed directions and asked Secretary Pompeo if he was speaking at CPAC today at 12:15.

Rep. Lieu, “Are you speaking at CPAC today?”

Pompeo replied, “Yes, I am.”

Rep. Lieu said, “Right, so you could only give two hours to this bipartisan group of members of Congress, and instead of answering questions on life and death issues — you’re going to go talk to a special interest group?

“Yes,” Pompeo replied.

Rep. Lieu said, “You sir represent all Americans, not a special interest group. It’s shameful you can’t even answer basic questions.”

He also got very angry because he said he’s only agreed to come before congress and talk about Iran. We know how ticked off he gets about that.

He apparently believes that he should not be subject to any questions from the press or the congress about topics he doesn’t wish to address. And his method of dealing with that is to get very angry and hostile. That’s what the Trump administration calls “diplomacy” — my way or the highway.

Trump, Barr and Pompeo are the real Three Amigos: a triple threat of ignorance, fanaticism and crude playground bullying.

11 more months, people, 11 more months….

If the coronavirus, and the election, and Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on reason are getting you down, just enjoy this little moment of levity even if she isn’t your candidate.

When I tell you this sent me FLAT on the floor pic.twitter.com/lGzLpd75fS

— marv 🇵🇸 ❂ (@mvn_dn) February 27, 2020

Here’s the whole segment. And it’s worth watching all the way to the end:

She is the very definition of the Happy Warrior.

*sigh*

If this Pro Publica report is correct, somebody made a very big mistake. If it was done in order to ensure a patent for American companies then … I just can’t:

As the highly infectious coronavirus jumped from China to country after country in January and February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost valuable weeks that could have been used to track its possible spread in the United States because it insisted upon devising its own test.

The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out to create a more complicated test of its own that could identify a range of similar viruses. But when it was sent to labs across the country in the first week of February, it didn’t work as expected. The CDC test correctly identified COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. But in all but a handful of state labs, it falsely flagged the presence of the other viruses in harmless samples.

As a result, until Wednesday the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration only allowed those state labs to use the test — a decision with potentially significant consequences. The lack of a reliable test prevented local officials from taking a crucial first step in coping with a possible outbreak — “surveillance testing” of hundreds of people in possible hotspots. Epidemiologists in other countries have used this sort of testing to track the spread of the disease before large numbers of people turn up at hospitals.

This story is based on interviews with state and local public health officials and scientists across the country, which, taken together, describe a frustrating, bewildering bureaucratic process that seemed at odds with the urgency of the growing threat. The CDC and Vice President Mike Pence’s office, which is coordinating the government’s response to the virus, did not respond to questions for this story. It’s unclear who in the government originally made the decision to design a more complicated test, or to depart from the WHO guidance.

“We’re weeks behind because we had this problem,” said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents 100 state and local public laboratories. “We’re usually up-front and center and ready.”

WTF???!!!

In the approximately 137 Democratic primary debates we’ve had so far this campaign season, President Trump’s ongoing assault on the rule of law and professional expertise has barely come up. Maybe the moderators think the topic is too risky and the candidates believe it’s too abstract, but it’s been astonishing to see events happening before our eyes be virtually ignored in these major political events.

This issue might be about to become a whole lot less abstract and a lot riskier to ignore. We are facing a potential global health crisis, and a new set of professionals whose training and knowledge we depend on will be put to the test by a president who has no respect for them.

It’s no secret that Trump has been on a tear ever since he was acquitted of abusing his power by his Republican accomplices in the U.S. Senate. Each week has brought a new series of attacks on enemies and institutions.

Aided and abetted by his legal majordomo, Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump has recently turned to attacking prosecutors and judges, singling out those who tried his good friend Roger Stone for committing crimes on his behalf and the judge who sentenced him. But in a truly sinister turn this past week, he and his supporters and the media have gone after jurors in the case, causing the judge to issue a stinging rebuke.

Nonetheless, Trump continued to slander one member of the Stone jury with no evidence, based solely upon dishonest, scurrilous attacks on her that he saw on Fox News.

There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the forewoman in the Roger Stone case. Look at her background. She never revealed her hatred of “Trump” and Stone. She was totally biased, as is the judge. Roger wasn’t even working on my campaign. Miscarriage of justice. Sad to watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2020

The president of the United States personally attacked a citizen who served on a jury that returned a verdict he didn’t like. This is what it’s come to.

Meanwhile, Barr, the alleged hero who boldly went on TV two weeks to decry the president’s interference in Justice Department business, had nothing to say about these latest inappropriate presidential salvos. Instead, he chose to give yet another shocking speech in which he betrayed his extremist philosophy, clearly informed by the right-wing fever swamp. Barr is apparently too busy waging war on “the progressive movement” to keep defending the professionalism of the lawyers and investigators of federal law enforcement.

The president also continued his crusade against the intelligence community. Now that Trump has installed one of his cronies, Richard Grenell, as director of national intelligence, it’s pretty clear that we won’t be hearing much more about Russian interference on his behalf going forward. The agency heads had already canceled their annual congressional threat assessment testimony in order not to anger the president again. Intelligence professionals have been muzzled.

These are grave threats to the country. America’s most powerful institutions of law and national security are systematically being corrupted in ways that endanger our system of government. And perhaps all the politicians and media folks are right that average people don’t see how this affects their daily lives.

A major public health crisis, however, is something else again. Everyone is potentially affected and the signs are already evident that this administration’s general lack of respect for professional expertise has muddled the response. The whole country is watching, and so far it’s not looking good.

We’ve known for more a month that the coronavirus had pandemic potential. The stories coming out of China have been frightening and it’s been clear for a while that despite that nation’s authoritarian system, it could not contain either the narrative or the illness. Big Brother has no power over viruses.

When Americans were evacuated out of China and landed in California, it all looked orderly enough. People would be kept under quarantine for a couple of weeks and then could go home. All would be well. The administration announced quarantine measures for anyone who had traveled to China’s Hubei province and funneled all travelers from China to certain airport hubs for screening. Major airlines all voluntarily suspended flights to and from China. Trump patted himself on the back for more or less single-handedly staving off the disease, and that was that from the administration.

Inconveniently for him, since then the virus has spread to 37 countries, and the number of cases is growing exponentially. The stock market is having its worst week since the crash of 2008 due to forecasts of major economic upheaval. Epidemiologists are still operating without all the evidence, trying to figure out just how lethal this virus is. But we know that it can kill people and is highly contagious.

From all reports, the president is extremely unhappy with this turn of events, primarily because he believes it could interfere with his re-election. It’s easy to see why he thinks that: He and his Republican friends worked hard to gin up the Ebola outbreak into a national panic in 2014, and there’s good evidence that it had an effect on the outcome of the midterm elections that year, when the GOP made major gains.

But this time we don’t have a competent administration in charge to deal with the actual crisis while gadflies like Trump and Fox News play political games. Just as he has corrupted the DOJ and the director of national intelligence’s office, purging the ranks of experts and professionals by any means necessary, so too he has degraded the nation’s public health system, first and foremost by firing the White House pandemic response team and cutting the CDC’s efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks by 80%.

And now Trump has put Vice President Mike Pence, the man who botched an HIV outbreak response as governor of Indiana, in charge of the response, reportedly because “he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

Just as the administration has muzzled Intelligence experts from speaking out about anything that might threaten Trump’s re-election, they are now muzzling public health experts, undoubtedly for the same reason:

 The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by government health officials and scientists, directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearances with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, according to several officials familiar with the new approach.

Public health experts have never been censored in the past. When you add to that the Grand Canyon-size credibility gap created by Donald Trump’s pathological lying about everything, this crisis could get very bad indeed.

At the moment the president and his Fox News supporters are spending most of their time whining and passing on misinformation:

This is how Fox News handles a growing public health crisis pic.twitter.com/FgY1J5u8W7

— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) February 28, 2020

So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of “Trump”.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2020

Trump has managed to escape from disaster many times in his life with a combination of lies and luck. But you cannot lie your way out of an epidemic. So we had all better fervently hope that his luck, and ours, holds out. 

My Salon column reprinted with permission

Personally, I think the answer is patently obvious.

It is very likely that this epidemic will create serious problems in the US, both because of the virus itself but also as a result of Trump’s sheer incompetence and public overreaction. What’s needed in a president is someone who can fully grasp the nuances of health crisis policy, hire and manage the experts, and explain what is going on in accessible, plain language.

Warren in a heartbeat. She is highly intelligent, mentally sharp, focused, experienced, compassionate, honest, able to manage complicated projects, and has a will of iron.

We all know that the absolute worst person in the world to manage Covid-19 is the one sitting in the Oval Office right now. Any of the Democratic candidates would do a more than competent job. But if I give the matter some serious thought, it’s clear that Warren is the best presidential candidate to handle a crisis like this one.

And all along we thought Donald Trump would get us into a war that would get Americans killed (Washington Post):

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.

The evacuation flight arrived from Wuhan, China on Jan. 29:

The workers were in contact with passengers in an airplane hangar where evacuees were received and on two other occasions: when they helped distribute keys for room assignments and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes.

In some instances, the teams were working alongside personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in “full gown, gloves and hazmat attire,” the complaint said.

Also (emphasis mine):

After their deployments, the workers returned to their normal duties, some taking commercial airline flights to return to their offices around the country, the lawyers said.

Not to mention:

California is monitoring 8,400 people for possible contagion but lacks lab kits for testing them. The state has only 200.

A Solano County, California woman is receiving treatment at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento having tested positive for the new coronavirus (Covid-19) after over a week’s delay:

Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.

The new case in California makes it clear the virus is spreading undetected in at least one area of one state. The woman is not believed to have traveled outside the country and had no contact with a known case. As her condition worsened — she is on a ventilator — health officials in California asked the CDC to test her for the virus. Because she had not been to China and had not been a contact of a known case, the agency said no.

Eventually, more than 10 days after she went into hospital, the CDC agreed she could be tested. Dozens of health workers who may have come into contact with her at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital, in Vacaville, Calif., are now being monitored.

After the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks in 2001, I worked briefly on the design of a smallpox vaccine filling facility. The Department of Health and Human Services meant to stockpile enough doses “to protect every U.S. civilian” in the event of a bioterrorism attack. Our team worked 7-days a week on design. The plant was constructed in just 72 days (without building permits, as I recall).

Baltimore permitting officials only stumbled upon the warehouse conversion near the Ravens’ stadium. As I heard it, they tried to halt construction. But this was a national security and public safety matter. Speed was of the essence. One call from the White House silenced all complaints.

That was late 2001. And in 2020? The Chinese recognized the Covid-19 outbreak the first week of January. While there is no vaccine yet, the U.S. has not even obtained a sufficient supply of test kits. The few sent out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta proved faulty. South Korea so far has tested over 35,000 of its people. The U.S.? Only 426.

Who is in charge? This guy:

Trump earlier today on coronavirus:

“It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear. And from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better, could maybe go away, we’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.” pic.twitter.com/icBPCr71jP

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) February 28, 2020

In three short years, that guy has lobotomized America’s cabinet agencies and gutted their capacity to respond to national crises. As the George W. Bush administration said of the Sept. 11 attacks, no one could have predicted it, right?

The Trump administration’s paper-towel-pitching response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico in 2017 contributed to the nearly 3,000 deaths attributed to the storm’s aftermath. Now, Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak could run up an even higher death count on the mainland.

That guy is running for reelection. Has anyone “got a plan for that“?

President Bush and Michael Brown thank you, @realDonaldTrump. Compared to their bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina (1,800+/- dead) in 2005, your job performance makes them look like rocket scientists.

UPDATE for good measure (May 10, 2018):

The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.

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They never sleep:

Donald Trump is escalating his assault on America’s legal system in ways that continue to shock. Earlier this week, the president lashed out at Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg by demanding, ridiculously, that the liberal judges recuse themselves from cases involving himself or the administration. Trump then went after the jury forewoman and federal judge in the Roger Stone case, ignoring his own attorney general’s request that he stay out of active federal cases.

Now, according to sources, the West Wing is bracing for Trump to pardon Stone or commute his three-year prison sentence. “Commuting the sentence, if there is any action taken, is the only remotely safe thing. A full pardon is corruption,” a former West Wing official told me.

That’s a nice sentiment. But they don’t care. Stone has known Trump for a very long time and Trump has trusted him with his dirtiest political work. I don’t think he’ll settle for commutation. And I don’t think he’ll want to rot in jail for several months either:

Republicans close to the White House say officials are lobbying Trump not to go ahead with a Stone rescue. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Jared Kushner have argued to Trump that a pardon or commutation would create an unnecessary scandal during an election year. “They all think it’ll be a problem and that there will be hearings,” a Republican briefed on the internal conversations told me. Another source briefed on the matter said that Trump is being told, “We don’t need the hassle. Do it after the election.” Sources also said West Wing officials have told Trump that stepping in could lead Attorney General William Barr to resign—an outcome one Republican close to the White House described as “catastrophic.”

And anyway, his top advisor is pushing him hard in the other direction:

Trump’s desire to intervene on Stone’s behalf is being stoked by Stone’s longtime friend, Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In private, Carlson has lobbied White House officials to convince Trump to keep Stone out of jail. It’s the same case he’s made on Fox News. Last week, Carlson bashed Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the federal judge presiding over Stone’s case. “She is an open partisan, who has so flagrantly violated the bounds of constitutional law and fairness, it’s shocking she’s still on the bench. If there’s anyone in Washington who deserves to be impeached, it’s Amy Berman Jackson,” he said on air. Carlson continued the attack on air Tuesday night, calling Jackson “corrupt, dishonest, and authoritarian.” Carlson has also tried to discredit the jury’s forewoman, who Stone’s lawyers claimed failed to disclose anti-Trump tweets during jury selection. (Yesterday, Jackson erupted over Carlson’s attacks during a courtroom hearing. “Any attempts to invade the privacy of the jurors or to harass or intimidate them is completely antithetical to our system of justice,” she said.)

Carlson says Trump runs the country like a TV producer which means he heightens aa crisis in order to swoop down and be the hero. Oh lord:

At the same time that Trump’s lawlessness is metastasizing, he is raging about the spread of the coronavirus. Trump has responded to criticism of how his administration is ill prepared to handle the health crisis by blaming the media for tanking the stock market. In private, Trump has blamed acting secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf for failing to have a clear message during a contentious Senate hearing yesterday, a source said.

Inside the West Wing, there’s panic that Trump’s compulsive fictionalizing could trigger an even bigger crisis if the coronavirus truly explodes. “This is a black swan event,” a former West Wing official said. “The White House is concerned because they can’t control the virus and Trump wants everyone to get out there and say positive things, but people inside don’t have confidence the statements are accurate.”

The official went on: “It’s one thing to get people out there saying, ‘we’re going to win the election’ or ‘the economy is great.’ It’s another to have the government say, ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ but then people start dying.” While we spoke, the official told me that he was searching for face masks on Amazon, but the site was sold out. “I have to go,” he said, and hung up.

That’s very reassuring.

Trump believes he can lie his way out of anything. And he has good reason to believe that. He’s lied and cheated his way out of one self-inflicted crisis after another. And who knows? Maybe he’ll get lucky again this time. We need to hope so because otherwise people are going to die. Not that he cares. If he can find a way to spin that in his favor, he’ll do that too. And his 60 million cult followers will believe him.

You cannot make this stuff up;

One day after briefing the press in an attempt to calm nerves about the spread of the new coronavirus, President Donald Trump spent 45 minutes talking to the lead actors of a low-budget conservative play about the so-called Deep State. 

Phelim McAleer, the playwright behind the play FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers, told The Daily Beast that the meeting with Trump had originally been scheduled for just 15 minutes but went 30 minutes longer than that. ADVERTISING

“We went for a 15-minute meeting that took 45 minutes,” McAleer said. “We were there for 45 minutes in the Oval Office, and he loves it, he loves the play.”

Trump hasn’t seen the play, according to McAleer, but praised its concept: a script based entirely on congressional testimony and the text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who discussed the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s campaign and Russia while having an affair. The play’s leads—Superman actor Dean Cain and former Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Kristy Swanson—also attended the White House meeting.  

McAleer said Trump complained in the meeting about “why some people are in prison [and] why other people aren’t”—an apparent re-airing of grievances that law enforcement officials involved in investigating his campaign haven’t been charged, while his own campaign staffers have been.

“He did most of the talking,” McAleer said. 

McAleer said he couldn’t remember whether coronavirus came up in his discussions with the president. “It was 45 minutes,” he said, “we talked about a lot of things.” 

The meeting was not listed on the president’s formal daily guidance and was only announced via a press release from New Hampshire Republican Party official with ties to James O’Keefe’s video sting operation, Project Veritas.

It’s hard to believe that this right-wing religious fanatic is the libertine Donald Trump’s most powerful henchman, but that the devil’s bargain the religious right has made. The following is a twitter thread from someone who was present at the speech:

AG Barr, speaking to NRB Christian Media Convention: “Politics is everywhere. It’s omnipresent. Why is that?” He says it results from conflict between 2 views: (1) limited govt that preserves liberty (2) govt that submerges individual in “collectivist agenda” The speech is pretty broad and philosophical, but the upshot seems to be themes that Barr has hit previously: He supports a small government, and he does not believe a political system can be substituted for religion. 

Now Barr is attacking the “progressive movement,” for having “broken away from the fold of liberal democracy” He says that has played a “major role” in making politics “less like a disagreement within a family and more like a blood feud between two different clans.” “The crux of the progressive program is the use of the public purse to provide ever-increasing benefits to the public, and thereby build a permanent political constituency of supporters who are also dependent,” Barr says. 

Religion is important to small govt, Barr says, because it “allows us to limit the role of govt by cultivating internal moral values in the people.” “Men are far likelier to obey rules that come from god than to abide by the abstract outcome of an ad hoc, utilitarian calculus.”

 On separation of church and state, Barr says, “This does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” 

Barr is now on to promoting state and local rights. He says concentration of power in D.C. is “another source of the extreme discontent in our contemporary political life.” “You have a problem? Let’s fix it in Washington, D.C. One size fits all.” He then ties that to abortion, suggesting one rule on that issue might not be appropriate for everyone in the country.“It is a recipe for bitter conflict over that rule,” he says. 

Now he’s on to a pressing critique. He says “corporate or mainstream press” is “massively consolidated,” and has become “monolithic in viewpoint.” He also says journalists seem to see themselves less as “objective” reporters of fact and more as “agents of change.” 

This is quite the mishmash of traditional conservative movement drivel, religious extremism and Trumpian faux populism. Fox News Brainrot in full effect.

He can do a lot of damage over the next 11 months. Imagine what he can do with five more years.