3 ms·

When you say 'theft', did someone pay for and then not receive the supplies?

by 762236 7y ago

Mc_Big_G 7y ago
What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to willfully not understand what is happening here? Red hats scramble brains.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  To be expected. They don't come with a tin foil lining. The CIA perfected their mind control tech that was being trialed on Obama's diplomatic missions.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
KarlKemp 7y ago
Yes, these were paid in advance by MA. There have been dozens of similar reports. Nobody is currently shipping anything without up-front payment. Here's a detailed account from a hospital administrator in the New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 (Edit: did the linked article change? Anyway: the up-front payment is described in the article, that I somehow managed to link here again). This one ends well. Others didn't. Note that this isn't about the money. It's literally life-saving equipment. The Federal Government has to either take responsibility, take over all purchasing, and distribute the material in a transparent, need-based process. OR it can tell the states to each do their own thing. They'll outbid each other and end up paying far more than necessary, many will buy more than needed to be on the safe side because the political risk is highly asymmetrical. It's a stupid way to do this, and it will cost lives (and money). But, unlike testing, it's not totally impossible. What the Federal Administration can't do is tell the states do buy their own supplies, then intercept any shipments and... well, nobody really seems to know what they're doing with it. The best-case scenario for what's happening is probably just incompetence. If, in six months or so, a gigantic stash of PPE is found in some warehouse, people in the administration will point to that as vindication: see! we didn't intentionally kill anybody. Second best scenario: Are they giving it back to commercial resellers that happen to be golf buddies with the son-in-law, who then get to sell the same shipment several times? Somehow, commercial distributors seem to be involved. We'll hopefully find out about the why and how in due course. Nightmare scenario: if the narrative about conservative and swing states receiving far more, both in terms of population as well as disease burden, than blue states turns out to be true... I don't know what happens? That's so far beyond the pale it would never even be considered possible in normal times.
- danaris 7y ago
  I mean...I don't have a link to back this up, and would be happy to be corrected, but my understanding was that your "Nightmare Scenario" is already known to be verifiably true, and possibly even explicitly stated as intentional by Trump himself. (Though I'll certainly grant that "stated by Trump" and "verifiably true" do not have a particularly high positive correlation.)
  - KarlKemp 7y ago
    I was hedging a bit... Even assuming it's true, it might actually be preferable to allow them to come up with some face-saving "clerical error" and reverse course. That's assuming they are at least somewhat spooked by these stories coming out now and have belatedly realised the trouble they are in otherwise. Yes, I know that isn't likely to happen. That's not because I have any sympathy –- it's the rare occasion where every fibre of my being is yearning for the pitchfork. It's like the logic where you catch your spouse cheating, and they kinda know they were caught. But you somehow muddle your way through with even implausible deniability because you both want the relationship to survive and the standard playbook just doesn't allow that. Assuming it's true, the normal result, and the only result that would allow reconciliation, would be impeachment/resignation and criminal prosecution. The charge is somewhere between thousand-fold negligent homicide up to (but not including) something not entirely unlike Genocide? But given recent experience, none of that would happen. Imagine Biden becoming President and a second or third wave hitting in early 2021. Then what? People will be out for blood. Would the new admin have the grace and political capital to resist calls for retribution? Or would that just be seen as rolling over, chumps doing good-governance as if nothing had happened, setting themselves up for even worse next time around? This is a road that leads to only very dark places.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > That's so far beyond the pale it would never even be considered possible in normal times. Isn't this the other way around? Allocating government resources to swing districts and party constituencies is politics as usual, with typically no real exceptions even for life-saving resources like funding for emergency services. What's unusual is to see it happening in the middle of a crisis when that is usually the sort of thing to bring people together and put aside party differences. But that's what happens when you destroy all the moderates and make everything into a tribal war.
hitpointdrew 7y ago
Absolutely. The Massachusetts tax payers paid for those masks. The Feds stole them. Massachusetts didn't get a reimbursement check for the "seized" masks.

When you say 'theft', did someone pay for and then not receive the supplies?

by 762236 7y ago

When you say 'theft', did someone pay for and then not receive the supplies?

What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to willfully not understand what is happening here? Red hats scramble brains.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
To be expected. They don't come with a tin foil lining. The CIA perfected their mind control tech that was being trialed on Obama's diplomatic missions.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

KarlKemp 7y ago

Yes, these were paid in advance by MA. There have been dozens of similar reports. Nobody is currently shipping anything without up-front payment. Here's a detailed account from a hospital administrator in the New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 (Edit: did the linked article change? Anyway: the up-front payment is described in the article, that I somehow managed to link here again). This one ends well. Others didn't. Note that this isn't about the money. It's literally life-saving equipment. The Federal Government has to either take responsibility, take over all purchasing, and distribute the material in a transparent, need-based process. OR it can tell the states to each do their own thing. They'll outbid each other and end up paying far more than necessary, many will buy more than needed to be on the safe side because the political risk is highly asymmetrical. It's a stupid way to do this, and it will cost lives (and money). But, unlike testing, it's not totally impossible. What the Federal Administration can't do is tell the states do buy their own supplies, then intercept any shipments and... well, nobody really seems to know what they're doing with it. The best-case scenario for what's happening is probably just incompetence. If, in six months or so, a gigantic stash of PPE is found in some warehouse, people in the administration will point to that as vindication: see! we didn't intentionally kill anybody. Second best scenario: Are they giving it back to commercial resellers that happen to be golf buddies with the son-in-law, who then get to sell the same shipment several times? Somehow, commercial distributors seem to be involved. We'll hopefully find out about the why and how in due course. Nightmare scenario: if the narrative about conservative and swing states receiving far more, both in terms of population as well as disease burden, than blue states turns out to be true... I don't know what happens? That's so far beyond the pale it would never even be considered possible in normal times.

danaris 7y ago
I mean...I don't have a link to back this up, and would be happy to be corrected, but my understanding was that your "Nightmare Scenario" is already known to be verifiably true, and possibly even explicitly stated as intentional by Trump himself. (Though I'll certainly grant that "stated by Trump" and "verifiably true" do not have a particularly high positive correlation.)
- KarlKemp 7y ago
  I was hedging a bit... Even assuming it's true, it might actually be preferable to allow them to come up with some face-saving "clerical error" and reverse course. That's assuming they are at least somewhat spooked by these stories coming out now and have belatedly realised the trouble they are in otherwise. Yes, I know that isn't likely to happen. That's not because I have any sympathy –- it's the rare occasion where every fibre of my being is yearning for the pitchfork. It's like the logic where you catch your spouse cheating, and they kinda know they were caught. But you somehow muddle your way through with even implausible deniability because you both want the relationship to survive and the standard playbook just doesn't allow that. Assuming it's true, the normal result, and the only result that would allow reconciliation, would be impeachment/resignation and criminal prosecution. The charge is somewhere between thousand-fold negligent homicide up to (but not including) something not entirely unlike Genocide? But given recent experience, none of that would happen. Imagine Biden becoming President and a second or third wave hitting in early 2021. Then what? People will be out for blood. Would the new admin have the grace and political capital to resist calls for retribution? Or would that just be seen as rolling over, chumps doing good-governance as if nothing had happened, setting themselves up for even worse next time around? This is a road that leads to only very dark places.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> That's so far beyond the pale it would never even be considered possible in normal times. Isn't this the other way around? Allocating government resources to swing districts and party constituencies is politics as usual, with typically no real exceptions even for life-saving resources like funding for emergency services. What's unusual is to see it happening in the middle of a crisis when that is usually the sort of thing to bring people together and put aside party differences. But that's what happens when you destroy all the moderates and make everything into a tribal war.

hitpointdrew 7y ago

Absolutely. The Massachusetts tax payers paid for those masks. The Feds stole them. Massachusetts didn't get a reimbursement check for the "seized" masks.