The last four years have been difficult for most of us, As we close out the current Trump administration and look forward to a more humane and sane Biden term, we note that recent events show that the current administration as failed to protect us against the Coronavirus and failed to defend us against vast Russian cyber attacks.
The COVID PANDEMIC
The entire year has been dominated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and many countries in the world are experiencing second or third waves of COVID-19 cases as the weather turns colder. The virus affects black and brown people disproportionately.
As the weather has turned cold, many countries are experiencing second and third waves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), bringing a fresh wave of lockdowns in countries like France and the United Kingdom or restrictions to daily life, but in some regions, hospitals systems are again being pushed to the brink.
As of November 25, the global death toll had reached 1,412,223, with 18% (259,976) from the United States alone. The number of confirmed global cases reached 59,905,468, and the United States accounted for 21% (12,598,660) of the total global number. Over the summer, some parts of the world had a bit of a respite from SARS-CoV-2, but as the summer months turned into fall, cases began picking back up.
However, there is now some hope in the not-too-distant future with 3 vaccine candidates reporting strong efficacy data.
Lori Aratani in The Washington Post reports that “President Trump’s decision to mislead the public about the severity of the crisis, his failure to listen to scientists about how to keep Americans healthy, and his refusal to implement a coordinated national plan to stop the coronavirus have all contributed to devastating results.
More than 227,000 Americans dead, more than 8.8 million Americans infected, and a dangerous virus that continues to spread out of control nine months after it reached our nation’s shores.”
Record numbers of cases have been reported in the past week, according to The Washington Post.
“Today’s report exhaustively documents what has long been clear: The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been a tragic failure,” subcommittee Chairman Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a call with reporters. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who created the subcommittee over GOP objections — said she would be recommending its renewal in the next Congress.
Last month, Republican members of the panel released their own report, which praised the president’s response saying he has carefully balanced health concerns with the need to reopen the economy.
The wide-ranging critique by Democrats takes a far different view citing multiple failures by the administration, including examples where officials sidelined top scientists when their advice put them in conflict with the administration’s agenda and repeatedly weakened public health recommendations, including calls to make face coverings mandatory.
The report identifies issues with pandemic-related contracting, citing examples in which Trump administration officials awarded contracts without competition to companies that lacked experience in the field or had political connections to the administration.
In other instances, the report says, companies won contracts but failed to meet their obligations. The subcommittee also indicated it is looking into seven contracts issued by four federal agencies that raise “significant red flags.”
The report says the administration undermined efforts to help Americans who lost their jobs or were at risk of losing their homes because of the pandemics.
And it isn’t just individuals the administration failed, the report contends, saying the Trump administration mishandled programs designed to help small businesses stay afloat.
The report goes on to say: “The Select Subcommittee’s investigations show that the Trump Administration weakened these programs by prioritizing larger and wealthier businesses over truly struggling small businesses, exacerbating inequity in the economic downturn, and also failed to institute adequate financial controls, leading to significant fraud, waste, and abuse.”
And what more, “Contrary to Congress’s intent, Treasury provided [Payroll Support Program] funds to more than a dozen airline industry contractors that had engaged in mass layoffs,” the report says.
And now come the news that a Trump administration official pushed for a herd immunity strategy to respond to coronavirus, writing that it is good for lower-risk people to be infected with the virus, according to emails obtained by Congress.
Paul Alexander, at the time a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official, referred to younger people and lower-risk people in an email and wrote, “we want them infected.”
Scott Atlas, a Trump official, pushed for herd immunity, calling for low-risk Americans to be infected, emails show Trump claims US nearly at 15 percent COVID-19 immunity: ‘That’s a very powerful vaccine in itself’
Most health experts say it is impossible to shield vulnerable people if the virus is circulating unchecked among others.
Pandering ro Russia
WASHINGTON — Over the past few years, the U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars on cyber offensive abilities, building a giant war room at Fort Meade, Maryland, for U.S. Cyber Command, while installing defensive sensors all around the country — a system named Einstein to give it an air of genius — to deter the nation’s enemies from picking its networks clean, again.
It now is clear that the broad Russian espionage attack on the U.S. government and private companies, underway since spring and detected by the private sector only a few weeks ago, ranks among the greatest intelligence failures of modern times.
Einstein missed it — because the Russian hackers brilliantly designed their attack to avoid setting it off. The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security were looking elsewhere, understandably focused on protecting the 2020 election.
Asked Tuesday whether the Defense Department had seen evidence of compromise, the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, said, “No, not yet, but obviously looking closely at it.” Other government officials say that is trying to turn ignorance about what happened into happy spin — it is clear the Defense Department is one of many government agencies that made extensive use of the software that Russia bored into.
“Stunning,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote Tuesday night. “Today’s classified briefing on Russia’s cyberattack left me deeply alarmed, in fact downright scared. Americans deserve to know what’s going on.” He called for the government to declassify what it knows and what it does not know.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called the Russian cyberattack “virtually a declaration of war.” He was wrong — all nations spy on each other and the United States uses cyber infiltration to steal secrets as well — but disparate Russian intelligence units have, in previous attacks, used similar access to shut systems down, destroy data and, in the case of Ukraine, shut off power.
Inside banks and Fortune 500 companies, executives are also trying to understand the impact of the breach. Many use the network management tool that the hackers quietly bored into in order to carry out their intrusions, which is called Orion and made by Austin, Texas-based company SolarWinds. Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons are designed, also uses it, as do major military contractors.
SolarWinds was a ripe target, former employees and advisers say, not only for the breadth and depth of its software, but for its own dubious security precautions.
The company did not have a chief information security officer, and internal emails shared with The New York Times showed that employees’ passwords were leaking out on GitHub last year. Reuters earlier reported that a researcher informed the company last year that he had uncovered the password to SolarWinds’ update mechanism — the vehicle through which 18,000 of its customers were compromised. The password was “solarwinds123.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be taking a cyberattack joy ride through federal government agencies, and once again President Donald Trump shows no intention of applying the brakes. Putin knows that president-elect Joe Biden will take the Kremlin’s hacking, malware, denial of service attacks and election interference seriously. So the Russian president has just weeks remaining to muscle his way through the firewalls and security infrastructure of key U.S. agencies to pilfer, posture and provoke. And if a new attack revealed this weekend is any indication, we could be looking at a cyber showdown between Biden and Putin as soon as the president-elect takes office.
Conclusion
These two areas of failures show the need for a competent government led by an administration that is knowledgeable. In addition, we as citizens must be vigilant and educated on the policies and people they can support equality, especially for communities of color,
The National Association of Black and White Men Together fights hard to achieve a better life for all. We fight for these and for policies against racism and homophobia,
The NABWMT Media Committee, too these ends, has a Political Action program. If you wish to help email us at nabwmt@nabwmt.org
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Sources: The American Journal of Accountable Care, Washington Post, theHill.com
