https://mphprogramslist.com/101-most-influential-professors-of-public-health-the-leaders-in-the-field/

Because, standing up a public health architecture and implementing pubic health measures to control a virus ain't exactly rocket science. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last 10 months and learning about respiratory pathogens and how to control and prevent their spread knows that case identification, isolation of cases, tracing all contacts and quarantining contacts is the only way to reduce and prevent transmission of SARS-COV-2.

Perhaps, Dr. Fauci could be pried away from NIH. I guess I just want to see a high-profile person who knows what they're doing and can lead a successful effort to make the US a leader once again in pandemic response and preparedness. So, I'm open to anyone who can do that.

Do you have any suggestions?

But, I would be just as happy with Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove in charge. Though, I think it would be harder to pry her away from the WHO than it would be to get Gates to leave his foundation.

why on earth would you want bill gates to work on pandemic response? that's as far outside his expertise as education is, and he's already screwed up quite a bit in my field just by being a rich, influential, enthusiastic amateur.

The Gates Foundation has undertaken several projects in education. They have not gone well, and while Gates has always had the ability to walk away from these projects unscathed, not everyone has been so lucky.
~peter greene - forbes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/05/08/why-bill-gates-is-not-the-man-to-reimagine-new-york-education/?sh=2a1d766079cc

She has been nothing short of stellar in her role as Technical Lead for COVID-19 at the World Health Organization. Her contributions to the regular WHO virtual press conferences, along with those of Dr. Mike Ryan and the Diretor General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros, have been invaluable in helping us understand what needs to be done to control this virus.

Maria makes America proud, every single day!

Mom

Don't Mess with Texas Voters (Shout out to Kick and Bleus!)

Bledsoe (The Constitution Party candidate running against Lindsey Graham

The Economist magazine has endorsed Senator Biden for president and would vote for him if it had a vote.

President Trump likes to warn that the stock market will crash and burn if Biden is elected and that the economy will whither and die.

In reality, according to economists in America, the stock market has long ago baked in a Biden victory.

Democrats may have an opportunity to finally put to rest the long and strongly held if wholly misguided notion that Republican ideology and practice are based on economically sound principles because, they are most decidedly NOT based in reality, let alone in sound tax and fiscal policy.

props on the pie reference, but what's so unlikely about getting rid of the filibuster? if dems don't do it now, republicans almost certainly will next time around.

JL

that would render ineligible about three quarters of current elected officials.

A hefty slice of pie in the sky for Mr Sweetooth.

LL&Pie

Yeah, well, that's why there's a few curve balls in there. Like the bit about the Hatch Act and propaganda. And the inspectors general -- we need to move these powers totally AWAY from the DoJ, to avoid future Barrs.

-CW

The big problem with Trump (and the gang - Mr. Barr, etc.) was that he made clear that executive branch illegalities would not be investigated or prosecuted by - wait for it - the executive branch.

Obviously the Constitution's Framers didn't think like that - they saw George Washington, Mr. Integrity, as the first president and model for the rest. And they weren't far wrong, all things considered. Almost all presidents before this one have been able to distinguish between "politics" and "crime" when deciding how far they could go in exercising their tremendous power over federal law enforcement.

In the end, this kind of thing can't be legislated. The country's political culture will be what it will be. Official corruption top to bottom - or official corruption only up to a certain point, above which it's prosecuted for, frankly, looking bad to the majority constituency.

I second this whole heartedly, every 5 years (of which this is one of them) I have to file a new SF-86 and have my past tossed through by the OPM; Then every 6 months I have to file an SF-86c to maintain my security clearance. It is a real PITA but I do like what I do and so I go through it.

If I can do it so can anyone who wants to be in congress or the president.

I would also take it a step further and make them file a modified version of the SF-86c every 6 months just like the rest of us mortals have to do. The only reason I say modified is that congresscritters and the president talk / travel to foreign entities on the regular. So perhaps it gets modified to require disclosure of non-public record, non-official interactions.

Congress and the president are the only positions in government where some form of clearance comes with the job. It is high time for that to stop.

If we had some requirement like this in place we would not have had a trump, and also not a Hillary...

We had something close to that once upon a time called the FCC Fairness doctrine. Unfortunately with the advent of cable T.V. and the birth of cable news networks the doctorine was ruled to not apply to them as they were not utilizing the "public airwaves.

We should bring back the fairness doctrine...

Here's an entry point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

See, that's another good reason why it could work! I almost included in my list "reform executive orders and signing statements" -- I bet the GOP could get on board that one, at the start of a Dem president's term...

Heh.

-CW

No, it's close (I found this one when searching, earlier today), but not the one I'm remembering. THe article went into great detail about the lack of clarity in the 1887 law, how the 1948 one was supposed to fix it, and how it may have introduced even more problems instead. It was a VERY long article, I do remember that...

I hate it when I don't save links...

Sigh.

But thanks for suggesting it! I have one other article from a few weeks ago that is downright terrifying, that I'm saving for Friday's column:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/23/election-nightmares-guide-430915

Still don't know what I'm doing on Friday, though. I may punt on Hallowe'en and not even carve pumpkins... in that case, I'd put out a regular FTP article instead...

-CW

I think this is the
POLITICO article you referenced.

You came to the right Comments section!

Pizza

Cruel

Doc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act

and here's a PDF version of the 1948 revision:

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/80th-congress/session-2/c80s2ch644.pdf

I did read an article that did a deep dive into these a few weeks ago (in Politico maybe?) but I couldn't find it while writing this... sorry...

-CW

One last idea... creating a “Truth in journalism” rule for media. If you are knowingly gonna spread false information to the masses, you should have to post a disclaimer at every commercial break or the beginning of every written article. People need to understand if they are getting opinion pieces or if they are getting information that they can accept as being true. We have blurred the lines far too much for this to continue. Yes, you have the freedom to say whatever you want, but I have the right to be warned if I am listening to a journalist telling me facts or an entertainer spewing BS!