Open Thread | We Knew What They Were Doing This Spring

Posted on August 3, 2020 by rikyrah

When this was happening in the Spring, so many of us said that this is what was happening. So, there is no surprise for it to be validated. But, only increases my loathing of them.

From Vanity Fair:

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
This spring, a team working under the president’s son-in-law produced a plan for an aggressive, coordinated national COVID-19 response that could have brought the pandemic under control. So why did the White House spike it in favor of a shambolic 50-state response?
BY KATHERINE EBAN
JULY 30, 2020

………………………….

Normally, federal government purchases come with detailed contracts, replete with acronyms and identifying codes. They require sign-off from an authorized contract officer and are typically made public in a U.S. government procurement database, under a system intended as a hedge against waste, fraud, and abuse.

This purchase did not appear in any government database. Nor was there any contract officer involved. Instead, it was documented in an invoice obtained by Vanity Fair, from a company, Cogna Technology Solutions (its own name misspelled as “Tecnology” on the bill), which noted a total order of 3.5 million tests for an amount owed of $52 million. The “client name” simply noted “WH.”

Over the next three months, the tests’ mysterious provenance would spark confusion and finger-pointing. An Abu Dhabi–based artificial intelligence company, Group 42, with close ties to the UAE’s ruling family, identified itself as the seller of 3.5 million tests and demanded payment. Its requests were routed through various divisions within Health and Human Services, whose lawyers sought in vain for a bona fide contracting officer.
During that period, more than 2.4 million Americans contracted COVID-19 and 123,331 of them died of the illness. First in New York, and then in states around the country, governors, public health experts, and frightened citizens sounded the alarm that a critical shortage of tests, and the ballooning time to get results, were crippling the U.S. pandemic response.

But the million tests, some of which were distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to several states, were of no help. According to documents obtained by Vanity Fair, they were examined in two separate government laboratories and found to be “contaminated and unusable.”

Who got paid from this invoice. There’s a reason why there’s nothing on it. Why the merchandise was CRAP. It was supposed to be CRAP. This was never a genuine order.

 

But, this is the true ‘blockbuster’ part of the article. Just getting into print what we already knew.

Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.

Can you imagine any other White House doing this in the modern era. Even White Houses that you didn’t like. Like I said…it was obvious as we lived through it in real time…but, to see it in print. They all deserve to be thrown under the jail.

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54 Responses to Open Thread | We Knew What They Were Doing This Spring

    • eliihass says:
      August 4, 2020 at 9:52 pm

      Won’t stop him from trying.. and who will stop him..

      All the thumb-twiddling from the sidelines and Twitter ‘outrage’ hasn’t dampened his brazenness and not surprisingly, hasn’t made a dent in 4 years..

      Our so-called checks and balances cratered instantly ..even as the now cowering media who couldn’t bring themselves to address the historic president with the honorific he’d legitimately earned.. still endlessly and obsequiously never fail to address a treasonous buffoon with that title.. and follow him around like lost puppies, catering to him, his every demand and obeying his every command …standing like idiots around an idling, fuel-wasting taxpayer paid helicopter, as he bullies, insults and picks and chooses what and how to disinform..

      But, the media are desperate to have ‘access’.. not to collect important and relevant information to be reported immediately as news to inform and educate the masses, but only entirely to glean ‘exclusives’ aka, damning info that ought to be news, but which they’ll instead hoard for as long as they can, as leverage to get a lucrative book deal or two..

      Reply
  23. eliihass says:
    August 3, 2020 at 6:56 pm

    There’s a stark difference between ‘ambition’ and cheap, unprincipled, character-absent, desperately malignant opportunism… off-putting in both men and women.. (E.g: Cory Booker vs. Frank Lautenberg..)

    But still so hilarious, all this ramped-up faux-outrage, faux-victimization and ridiculously gratuitous wielding of race and gender – but only entirely designed to attempt to strong-arm Biden into selecting a failed candidate desperate for an alternative path to WH, and who isn’t remotely deserving of the spot as Biden’s running mate/VP (important proviso: if there is in fact an election, and if he pulls off a win with all sorts of non-kosher shenanigans afoot)..

    2008 redux.. except with a far mediocre ‘beneficiary’ …

    Who can forget the raucous crowd of the 2008 season’s swathes of PUMAs, miscellaneous ‘feminists’, indentured black coons entirely beholden to the Clintons with lips permanently attached to the Clintons’ a*ses.. folks who endlessly insulted, attacked, finger-wagged, then demanded that then Nominee Obama put Hill on the ticket, or else..

    Who can forget how in the end Nominee Obama defied them all and went with his choice of Biden …but had to still appease the Clintons by “rewarding” Hill with the high-profile, resumé-embellishing Sec of State gig.. (which she then still turned around to try to use as ‘superior qualifications’ as she unceremoniously quit to mull a run against him in 2012..)

    A gig she and her cohort of wagon-hitching sycophants now turned into a hostile parallel shadow government.. so hostile that the historic President could hardly visit his own state department which had been turned into Hill-land.. Foggy Bottom essentially became an operation base for the brazen attempts at undermining the duly elected historic President right from within his own party and administration…

    And for the years, spanning 2008 – 2016, to tv and every public medium, forum and private gathering they went.. to attack and undermine her boss (the nerve of him! Hill-shudder..)

    …They dispatched the likes of Bill, Ann Marie Slaughter, Lynn Forester de Rothschild etc. (all who’ve now gone completely mute and practically vanished from sight, with nary a whimper since November 9, 2016… even as the treasonous buffoon who actually stole their gal’s gig and continues to publicly pummel her, has never received even the slightest of lip from any of these same fellow Democrats who spent their every waking moment devising ways to not only demean, sabotage the Obamas, but to destroy them.. permanently take them out.. some of their acolytes are actually still doing that ‘work’.. because, heaven forbid the Obamas continue to be popular …even in spite of the best laid plans of various determined take-down armies..

    So, forgive me if this weak revamped version of that handy playbook from 2008 only causes fits of laughter..

    Same folks who endlessly and mercilessly maligned Biden, and continue to brazenly demean him even as they publicly lay out their plans for how they intend to torpedo him, elbow him out and install their gal in his spot… now demand that he do their bidding.. worse, put their 5% getting failed candidate rejected by the very same black folks who buoyed Biden to the win, in the spot next to him.. because, ‘black’ woman…😉

    If Biden – who was privy to the shenanigans of Hill and co., is foolish enough to fall for this even weaker game, he’ll deserve the messy crap he and his administration (if we even have elections and if the Russian/Saudi intervention plan fail), will be enmeshed in.. He’s already been afforded a glimpse into the endless mess they’ll be bringing with them..

    Don’t do it Joe.. these thirsty foes ain’t loyal.. and certainly aren’t worth it.. and worse, besides their own oversized ego, ambition, and over-bingeing on their own cheap, paid “influencer” manufactured hype, they ain’t sh*t.. and bring absolutely nothing to the ticket… zilch..

    P.S:

    And about all this sudden gaslighting pearl-clutching faux-righteous tsk-tsking over so-called ‘pitting’ of ‘black’ women against each other …hilarious.. it’s all ironically, mostly come from/been outsourced to the toxic Twitter paid “influencers” of the very same failed candidate who now plays victim and cries foul because the strong-arming and toxic tactics her paid “influencers” perfected since the primaries, have finally been turned on said failed candidate..

    They’re exactly the very same toxic folks who’ve tried to kneecap every black woman potentially in the running …to as usual, clear the field for their preening, baselessly entitled, over-hyped and undeserving failed candidate..

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      August 4, 2020 at 9:05 am

      eliihass, I’ve been expecting this…

      Yeah, the only good thing about 2008 (politically) was that PBO finally was nominated and elected. I remember the PUMAs, Hillary’s rabid supporters, and those awful months of primaries and caucuses. I was never a fan of Hillary or Bill, but after 2008 they reached a whole new level of despicable. And then there’s 2012, Hillary thought about it but didn’t. She waited for 2016, the sure bet. Yes, indeed.

      I’m paying very little attention to Biden these days or who he selects for VP. I’m having a difficult time caring at this point. These people, the Democratic leadership, have their ways of getting what they want. PBO was an aberration from business as usual, interfering with Hillary’s “inevitability”.

      I knew that Bernie Sanders would NEVER get the Democratic nomination. The leadership was not going to allow it. His policy ideas are antithetical to their corporate friendly, anti-populist beliefs. Medicare for All? God no!!!! Free college? God help us!!! And so on.

      I’m tired and weary and hoping I don’t get COVID and die.

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        August 4, 2020 at 9:30 pm

        Don’t give up, our Liza.. and no, you certainly won’t get COVID.. God forbid..

        With this evil cohort currently hijacking our WH and government, and wreaking untold havoc on this country and the world.. it can be temptingly easy to want to try to revise history or even try to forget or pretend that there aren’t more than a few scoundrels and bad faith players among those who now appear to be (temporarily, conveniently and seemingly) ‘aligned’ with us in our collective horror at this unraveling of our democracy and never-ending dystopian machinations of a narcissistic 2-bit con treasonous buffoon foreign asset and his complicit cohort of devious co-conspirators and enablers..

        I’ve tried very hard to bite my tongue so as not to distract from the current evil and endless horror now playing out.. and the challenges and urgent circumstances we face.. And to make sure we don’t arm this evil Vlad cohort with damaging tidbits to hobble Dems..

        But, hard to continue to watch as some try to insult our intelligence..

        The hard truth is, if this treasonous buffoon hadn’t run against Hill …there’s no denying that she and Bill would still very much be palling around with him (and Chelsea would still be ‘besties’ with daughter-wife) …and they’d all be gleefully united in their joint contempt of and hostility towards the Obamas.. And the likes of Harris and Booker would still be having fundraisers hosted by daughter-wife and Jared.. and actively soliciting campaign donations from the very same racist con man, even as he very publicly, racially attacks and incites hate and death threats against America’s first black First Family..

        The endless attempts at revisionism, all while still trying to exploit and revamp their same old worn-out lame playbook, is tiresome.. and insults the intelligence of those who pay attention..

        P.S:

        There’s reason to not tune out and to care about what happens.. like a cornered wild animal trapped and desperate, this deeply insecure, jealous, corrupt, grifting, petty, megalomaniacal, treasonous buffoon, who’s now tasted the ultimate power of the federal government, brazenly, corruptly wielding it for personal vendettas and to line his pocket.. and enjoying the endless taxpayer protections and luxuries he always faked but never had.. This criminal unindicted co-conspirator of record, who has as many indictments awaiting him even as he’s unbelievably been temporarily allowed the pretense and use of our WH as protection and illegal cover from his crimes.. this vile creature will stop at nothing to stay on..

        And as I’ve always said from even before he slithered in, he’ll burn this country and world down to save his b*tt..

        He’s also less focused on and even less concerned with Biden..

        It is the Obamas that he’s really obsessed with.. they live rent-free in his, his 3rd wife and their evil cohort’s collective heads.. Even in the midst of what is a serious crisis …they remain a prime focus of their ire… their ultimate metaphor for ‘the blacks’ not knowing and needing to be put in their place..

        And in these even more endlessly eye-opening days.. I’ve also worried that the Obamas – even with their Secret Service detail.. especially with their Secret Service (Dan Bongino, anyone?) simply aren’t safe from the unhealthy obsessions of this temporarily empowered, hollow, green-eyed megalomaniacal small vile creature …as long as he remains in our WH and unchecked, continues to wield and abuse the awesome powers of our federal government..

        Reply
      • Liza says:
        August 5, 2020 at 8:44 pm

        These are dangerous times, to be sure. Trump is capable of anything because he has absolutely no idea of what it is like to be held accountable. He does not understand consequences. A couple of days ago Rep J. Clyburn was on MSNBC saying he believes Trump’s plan is to be “America’s first strong man”. I thought something very similar when Trump floated the possibility of postponing the election. It didn’t go over well, but it does seem to indicate he’s got something in mind.

        I think the Obamas will be okay. Trump’s obsession with them is certainly twisted and pathological. Someone, some insider who knows the whole story will probably reveal it one day and we’ll learn, as usual, that it’s worse than we imagined. But there isn’t going to be much in person campaigning or events this year so it’s much safer.

        Reply
  37. Nancie McDermott says:
    August 3, 2020 at 6:29 am

    Rage. Fury. Disgust. No surprise no shock no satisfaction toon to have what we knew and saw be confirmed with paper trails and insider’s words. But dear God almighty in heaven, I would have preferred to be wrong. Their evil cruelty and malice defy measure.

    Reply
  38. Nancie McDermott says:
    August 3, 2020 at 6:29 am

    Rage. Fury. Disgust. No surprise no shock no satisfaction toon to have what we knew and saw be confirmed with paper trails and insider’s words. But dear God almighty in heaven, I would have preferred to be wrong. Their evil cruelty and malice defy measure.

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    August 3, 2020 at 5:58 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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