This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1300886
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1300886
For the life of me, I don’t understand this reluctance to use the DPA to address some of the issues encountered in this such as the availability of PPE’s or respirators. Not that it would correct all the problems but it certainly would help, I think.
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Newsflash:
tRump will never do the right thing unless and until all other avenues have resulted in dead ends or exhausted itself, and then its usually too late.
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He’s waiting Cuomo to do it, and, if and when it’s successful, he’ll take the credit.
Some of you may see the flaw in this approach for some actions…
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The administration needs to rapidly assemble an interagency team outside of the White House with the right experience,
I don’t think he’ll do this because I thin there’s something he doesn’t want them to see. What that is will have to wait an after the disaster commission’s investigation.
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the President has steadfastly declined to use the authorities he’s invoked in any type of holistic way.
Has anyone tried bribing him to do so? He’ll take action if it’s for his personal enrichment.
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Trump doesn’t get credit for creative outreach. Surely we all remember when FDR tapped Sears-Roebuck to build aircraft carriers.
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Yes, a thorough investigation led by a team of crack lawyers and prosecutors will hold Trump to account. It’s worked before.
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It makes sense when you remember his default is to ALWAYS make sure the right people profit from any government decision. They can’t profit then why bother?
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“In fairness” should have a big snark tag attached. In fairness this administration has no “institutional memory,” it has no memory at all barring the wants and prejudices of the Orange Shitgibbon.
“In fairness,” the DPA authority has been used tens of thousands of times on a per contract basis and there was no barrier to doing so for COVID-19, none.
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Brooks Brothers is in… How about Ralph Lauren? Chanel? Reserved for the French?
A friend who works in marketing just told me one of her vendors had a new sponsorship option… they could purchase N95 masks with their client’s logo or branding. How in the world does a marketing company have a stockpile of N95 masks to sell for profit instead of being required to turn it over for actual medical uses?
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Ah, but they all have the Ralph Lauren logo above the left cheek!
DPA does not have to be used in a systematic way. It was so used, in my experience, for GEMINI and APOLLO – code-named “projects”. We had a mission at NASA-MSC and management teams from USAEC and Rickover’s “Naval Reactors” shop. And, we not only had access to both government “arsenals”, “weapons stations”, and so on, many going back to the 1920’s or earlier, but also to all the huge GOCO plants.
On the other hand, in NOUGAT, we mostly just took up nearly all the slack in the commercial oil and gas (drilling) as well as the coal mining (tunneling) industry during a slump in those commodities.
Of course, those code-names are over 50 years old and I am 77.
Today, the opportunity is PPE but not the globalized medical supply industry. Rather, remnants of the Army’s “CBN” warfare facilities at Natick and Fort Detrick could be rapidly mobilized. These include built in-house and GOCO facilities, as well as commercial vendors. They could even a coop distributor like HGAC-Buy.
Here is an example of what could be improvised very quickly:
However, the developer is trapped in an academic commercialization shop organized around “venture capital” and “real-estate” based on contingent-fee intermediation including medical device and drug regulation and testing. That is the opposite of this:
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From Ralph Lauren:
“In addition, we are starting the production of 250,000 masks and 25,000 isolation gowns with our US manufacturing partners.”
In a couple weeks someone needs to follow up and ferret out exactly how much PPE stuff the MyPillow guy actually cranks out. I’m betting it’ll be about zero.
The worst scenario is approaching for NY and God forbid, to the rest of the country…
So will Covidiot Trump’s worst scenario happen only when his vulturistic family and rich donors/BFFs start to die like flies?
Covidiot Trump et al has been busy trying to profit from this pandemic…the attempt to buy the German vaccine firm, the delayed response to Covid19 because Jared has to do research…turns that research was the Oscar Heathcare of Kushners and the deflection of the Covid Website to Google’s Verily…on and on, profiteering amidst a pandemic.
Truth be told, Covidiot Trump is NOT using the DPA to is full extent until he and his family/Cronies are in place to profit from it…rising death toll be damned!
Zero, even with a BOGO.