crickets
crickets's JournalI'm confused. From yesterday:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213926222https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/18/ventilators-coronavirus-stockpile/
August 18, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EDT SAN FRANCISCO — Months into a $3 billion U.S. effort to manufacture tens of thousands of ventilators to stave off coronavirus deaths, the government stockpile is facing a glut.
General Motors and Ford by early May began delivering the first ventilators they scrambled to manufacture, in part compelled by President Trump’s invocation of the federal Defense Production Act. General Electric, Philips and other manufacturers’ efforts have delivered more than 94,000 of them to the stockpile, and General Motors plans to soon hand over its business to a counterpart. [snip]
Now, unexpectedly, the vast majority of ventilators are going unused. The Department of Health and Human Services said it had handed out 15,057 ventilators by Friday, and there were 95,713 ventilators in the federal stockpile. Of those, 94,352 came from contracts signed since the beginning of the pandemic. [snip]
“While there is not currently a shortfall of ventilators in the [strategic national stockpile] inventory, the new ventilators procured during the covid-19 response will ensure the United States is prepared to respond to any hot spots in the coming months as well as future public health emergencies,” an HHS spokeswoman said, adding, “Many states initially requested far more ventilators than they actually needed,” leading to the surplus.
Article is much longer; it sounds like by the time production finally got into gear, demand dropped a bit as approaches to treatment changed. Quotas haven't gone down and are still being filled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, but no additional contracts are expected. At one point the article mentions state and international back orders. No, I don't understand why there are backorders when there's also a surplus, and in some cases (also in the article) states are sending back ventilators they no longer need.
I don't get it. Why does the FDA think there's a ventilator shortage? Is there still a ventilator shortage?
This bears repeating:
Jared? What are you doing with all the ventilators?
*tap* Is this thing on?
There are attorneys already on it who DeJoy has acted improperly.
U.S. Postal Service leader acted without following federal law - WA AG Ferguson
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213933509
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/postmaster-general-pauses-plan-for-overhauling-mail-delivery/
Under federal law, the Postal Service must follow a certain process before altering service, including a review by the Postal Regulatory Commission and a public comment period.
DeJoy didn’t do that, Ferguson told reporters in a joint news conference with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Shapiro filed a separate suit with similar allegations.
Here's hoping they can speed this along.
Removing the machines wasn't enough and DeJoy knew that.
He made sure to destroy them, destroying national infrastructure in the process. He did so to deliberately, without following USPS protocols, with deliberate intent to affect the outcome of federal elections. There are a raft of felonies he can be charge with, and none of them should be punished merely with fines.
This man needs to go to jail for a very, very long time.
Effing Breitbart and Fox News. So ticked off I can't even type straight. Ugh.
Apologies, I can't brain right now, so - this is the paragraph to read:
Good! DeJoy is claiming he'll halt all of the USPS changes for now,
but he needs to restore the capacity the USPS had before he wrecked it. The loss of those sorting machines needs to be addressed before the election. He can't be allowed to just walk away from that.
The reduction in sorting capacity map is from this WaPo article:
Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html
The machine reductions, together with existing mail delays and a surge of packages — a boon to the Postal Service’s finances but a headache for an organization designed to handle paper rather than boxes — also risk hamstringing the agency as the election approaches and have led lawmakers to hike pressure on DeJoy to rescind his directives. [snip]
The letters warning about November caution many states that their deadlines for voters to request an absentee ballot are too close to Election Day and that “the Postal Service cannot adjust its delivery standards to accommodate the requirements of state election law.” The letters put the onus on election officials to adjust deadlines or educate voters to act well before them. [snip]
Eighteen states and D.C. have eased or expanded access to mail ballots during the pandemic, allowing concerned voters to avoid potential exposure to the virus at polling places. These policy shifts have brought the number of Americans who are eligible to cast mail or absentee ballots in the general election to a historic high of nearly 180 million, roughly 97 million of whom will automatically receive an absentee ballot or an absentee ballot request form in the mail, according to a tally by The Washington Post.
It's a long article, and these are four admittedly cherry picked paragraphs. It's worth reading the entire article if you can. Hope that helps.
Saw somebody earlier who was looking for verification of the number of sorting machines involved. 👆 Found it.
With a bleach chaser, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleandrin#Traditional_medicineAlthough oleander has been used in traditional medicine for treating various disorders, there is no evidence that it is safe or effective for any medicinal purpose.[1] Due to its considerable toxicity, use of oleander or its constituents, such as oleandrin, is regarded as unsafe and potentially lethal.[1] Use of oleander may cause contact dermatitis, headache, nausea, lethargy, and high blood levels of potassium, with symptoms appearing within a few hours of ingestion.[1] [snip]
Effects on animals
Oleandrin poisoning by eating oleander leaves can be lethal at low dosages.[30] Cases of sheep lethality have been reported to only one leaf of Oleander.[10] Symptoms present in poisoned animals include bloody diarrhea and colic, the latter especially in horses. Because the leaf itself is quite bitter, only starving animals will be likely to eat the plant. The lethal dosage for animals is estimated to be about 0.5 mg/kg.[10]
:golf clap:
Good for New York! The more states who put the pressure on, the better.
Local and state efforts to get courts to force the USPS hand are the most effective
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213910414
Criminal Referral in NJ Seeks Grand Jury Investigation of Trump’s ‘Arson’ of U.S. Postal Service
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/criminal-referral-in-nj-seeks-grand-jury-investigation-of-trumps-arson-of-u-s-postal-service/
At least 6 State AGs consider legal action to protect USPS operations
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213916584
He also says that there is a lull in the mail volume, that it isn't reaching sorting centers.
"Tell me what you're seeing right now."
"There is a lull - l u l l - in the mail volume. The whole thing is just a -- they're trying to shut us down so that people can't vote, just basically trying to take away people's Constitutional right to vote... to rig the election. That's all this is about. The postal service is fine. If they let us into our business, the postal service is fine. We just have to make it to November to take back control. So people can vote."
"What have you seen in your district?"
"The main thing is just the volume of mail, the first class is down, people are saying they're not getting their mail. I haven't had a whole lot of that, but, but... We don't know where the mail's at. The mail's out there somewhere. The mail is there. It's just not coming to us. They're shutting down our sorting plants and it's just making it harder for people to get their mail."
"What do you think people should do right now?"
"I'm not real sure there is anything people can do. Just vote. Get out there. Go online and get your mail in ballots and vote. Vote before they have a chance to take it away from you."
"What do you think is the role of the Postal Service in democracy?"
"We're the everyday people. We see everything. We see what's going on, we help. Like you said, your former carrier, she would help people. We notice if somebody's sick or somebody hasn't gotten their mail. We know there's an alarm. We know to look. There have been times when I've called to have a safety check, checked on people because they haven't gotten their mail. I had a man in ____, had to call the fire dept to come in and help him out. Had a house blow up from a gas leak. We see everything. We see what's going on in the community. Most of us will take the time to get to know people. Just to know people's habits so you know if something's wrong.
-----
Mail carriers do not get enough credit -- not only for doing their job delivering the mail, but for being community sentinels and taking the time and care to go above and beyond their job to serve their communities.
Thank you, USPS!
Same in S GA. We recently put in some new plantings around the house.
Oleander is a favorite of mine, but we just couldn't do it. The dogs can't be trusted not to find a dead stick, and we have nieces and nephews who have started having babies. The risk of those children randomly chewing on the leaves was too great. All of our hedges and yard plants are non-toxic because you never know.
That Needy Amin is suggesting a toxic common yard plant as a Covid cure makes my blood run cold. That he's suggesting a toxic plant that grows rampant in the South is just dumb. Go for your base again, dude. 
It's fairly well known that oleander is poison. Here's hoping local people warn one another enough to stop tragedy.
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