Who hired Deborah Birx as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator? Answer: Her “friend,” National Security Council #2 man, Matt Pottinger with help from another "friend," Pottinger's virologist wife-Debbie Lerman

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"Q: Who offered you the job? A: My friend Matt [Pottinger], the deputy national security advisor (p. 32)”…Virologist Yen Duong reported to Dr. Birx at CDC for 3 years sometime between 2005-2014...In 2014 virologist Yen Duong married Matt Pottinger…Pottinger was working at a Manhattan hedge fund when he was offered a job as Asia director in newly elected Pres. Trump’s National Security Council. In Sept. 2019 Pottinger was promoted to #2 man in Trump’s National Security Council behind Robert O’Brien.

8/4/2022, “How Did Deborah Birx Get the Job?,“ Brownstone.org, Debbie Lerman

“Reading Deborah Birx’s badly written, poorly edited The Silent Invasion, published at the end of April 2022, is not easy. In fact, it’s mind-numbingly tedious, especially if you try to read every word and not skim over the myriad digressions, repetitions, and multi-paged meanderings.

Nevertheless, according to The Atlantic, it is “the most revealing pandemic book yet,” detailing how “Trump’s team botched the pandemic.”

I agree that this 521-page “excruciating story” (as The New York Times calls it) is indeed revealing. However, it has little to do with Trump or what The Atlantic might consider pandemic botching.

The most revealing parts of the book are: 

1) the claims about Birx herself that, upon close inspection, make little sense, contain strange inconsistencies, or contradict other claims made in the book and elsewhere; and

2) the absurd claims about epidemiology and public health generally, and SARS-CoV-2 specifically, endlessly repeated by Birx as scientific truths when in fact they are anything but. 

Investigating these claims is important because they touch on crucial pandemic questions:

Who made the terrible pandemic policy decisions and,

perhaps most mysteriously and importantly, why?

Here I investigate the

obfuscation surrounding  Deborah Birx’s appointment

as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, and then the garbage science she so forcefully pushed once she got there.

How did she get the job?

I have not interviewed Dr. Birx in person, but I have read her book, as well as articles about her and interviews with her. Based on all of these, I put together a Q&A in which the questions are mine, and the answers are verbatim quotes from The Silent Invasion, as well as Dr. Birx’s testimony before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in the US House of Representatives on October 12, 2021, and other interviews.

Page numbers from the book and line numbers from the hearing transcript are in parentheses. Links to other articles and interviews are also included.

Q: Dr. Birx, you were officially hired as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator on February 27, 2020.

Who offered you the job?

A: My friend Matt [Pottinger], the deputy national security advisor (p. 32)

In the Congressional hearing on October 12, 2021,

you said you did not know why Matt Pottinger was the one

to approach you for this job (lines 1505-1507). It does seem odd that Matt would be in charge of appointing a pandemic response coordinator,

since public health and epidemiology were not at all part of his experience.

As Lawrence Wright reports in The New Yorker in December 2020, “in a very noisy Administration, he had quietly become one of the most influential people shaping American foreign policy.”

So why did he hire you again?

I’ve known him through his wife. I really knew his wife. I worked with her at the CDC. [Sometime between 2005-2014] (lines 1507-1509)

Matt’s wife, Yen Pottinger, is a friend of yours?

A former colleague at the CDC and a trusted friend and neighbor (p. 32)

So Matt Pottinger was not really a friend, it was his wife you were friends with? 

I had known Matt through her eyes for the last three or four years. (lines 1526-1529)

What did you say in your Face the Nation interview on January 24, 2021 about your relationship with Matt and Yen Pottinger?

I’ve known him and I’ve known his wife for a very long time. We’ve worked on pandemics together. Both of us were in Asia during SARS. And so we understood how serious this can go.

Follow-up questions:

Matt and Yen married in 2014. Did you know Matt before that? 

[ANSWER NOT FOUND]

When you say you’ve worked on pandemics together, you do not mean you and Matt Pottinger. You mean you and Yen Pottinger [then Yen Duong] worked on AIDS research at the CDC at some point while you were there, between 2007 and 2014. Correct?

Yes

As far as you and Matt, when you say both of you were in Asia during SARS – you mean back in 2002-2003, you were in Thailand doing research on an AIDS vaccine that never came to fruition,

and Matt was a reporter for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal in China?

Yes [ref ref]

You were Yen Pottinger’s [then Yen Duong] boss at the CDC when you worked at the Division of Global HIV/AIDS,

a position you left in 2014.

What can you tell us about your friendship with Yen from the time you left that job

until Matt offered you the Covid Task Force position?

In our three years working together at the CDC, I had marveled at her abilities in the lab. (p. 32)

As early as mid-January [2020], Yen and I had been in communication about the outbreak in China. As events unfolded, we shared whatever insights, information, and anxiety we had. (p. 32)

You and Yen were communicating about your anxieties starting in mid-January [2020]. You say you were communicating with Matt even earlier than that?

Off and on in early January 2020, I’d share my thoughts with Matt: about the larger picture, about how the virus response in the United States should go, and about how the White House could better manage its messaging around the virus (p. 33)

How did you communicate with Matt?

In my back-channel communications with Matt, I pulled together all the publicly available data I’d been compiling and analyzing, connecting the dots to create a concerning picture,

and sent it to Yen to forward to him. (p. 34)

So were you communicating with Yen as a friend or as someone who conveyed your concerns, through her husband, to the White House?

In communicating with Matt, I had ensured they would have everything I was seeing, to use during White House meetings. I let Yen know that the earliest data available showed that the Wuhan outbreak and subsequent spread would be, at a minimum, ten times what SARS had been. (p. 34-35)

Why were you communicating with a deputy national security advisor through his wife?

For privacy and security reasons, I wasn’t ready to use official White House email. I trusted that Matt would share the information with those who needed it and not reveal that I was his source. (p. 34)

When you say “privacy and security reasons,” what do you mean?

Fearing blowback for stepping outside my area of responsibility, I asked him not to use my name when discussing the opinions and data I was providing. (p. 60)

You were sending Matt Pottinger, a deputy national security advisor with high security clearance, data that you say was publicly available, through his wife’s private email,

to pass on to the White House without revealing you as his source?

I had access to more unreported, real-time global data (p. 57)

Through her work, Irum [Zaidi, my PEPFAR chief epidemiologist and data person] knew another “data person,” who had access to figures about the novel coronavirus from around the world and very specific data from China. This individual was taking a great risk in passing it along to Irum, and his courage serves as an example for all of us. (p. 59)

So now you’re saying you were getting secret data (not publicly available) from China that was unavailable to Matt Pottinger (although he was the Deputy National Security Advisor for Asia), and

passing it along to him

through personal communications with his wife,

in the hopes of influencing White House policy?

What I wanted to do was define the actions being taken on the emerging virus based on the data. In my years of working with high-level leaders around the world,

I had wielded metrics to move minds

and formulate policies, standing behind data

to justify the changes (p. 34)

I communicated to Matt that we needed

to break this chain linking the novel coronavirus to SARS and the seasonal flu

and reprioritize testing, full mitigation,

mask wearing,

improved hygiene,

and more social isolation. (p. 38)

So you felt it was your job to give Matt Pottinger very specific public health policy recommendations for the White House

long before you were hired for the task force position.

But he had offered you a job as early as November 2019, correct? 

In November 2019, shortly after settling into his new role, Matt had communicated to me that he wanted me to work at the White House in some capacity as a public health security advisor. (p. 33)

Were you aware that the timing of Matt’s offer coincided with an intelligence report (denied by the Pentagon) from the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) about a potentially dangerous virus already circulating in China in November 2019?

[ANSWER NOT FOUND]

What is a public health security advisor? Is that related to the National Security Council (NSC) which, in your book, you say hired you through Matt?

The NSC had seen the early reports out of China and Asia before my arrival. Indeed, through Matt Pottinger, it was they who had recruited me to the White House to reinforce their warnings. (p. 169)

The NSC and Matt Pottinger had already seen the early data from China that

you said you were passing along to Matt through Yen? 

The NSC had seen the early reports out of China and Asia before my arrival. (p. 169)

When you recount how Matt called to offer you the task force job on February 23rd and 24th, you state that he had access to information you did not, correct?

Matt’s urgency represented another degree of concern: the unknown. If he was this concerned, what else was happening? What else would happen? With one of the highest security clearances, Matt had access to all kinds of information that I did not. (p. 61)

So was Matt Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Asia and a top influencer on foreign policy, with one of the highest security clearances,

depending on you for information unavailable to him otherwise,

or not? 

[SEE ABOVE ANSWERS]

At the Congressional hearing in October 2021, what did you say about your communications with Matt and Yen Pottinger regarding the pandemic?

[They] reached out to me about what I was seeing globally, what I thought this was going to become, and we were communicating primarily around what we were seeing globally on the pandemic. And more about the global response than specifically the White House response. (lines 308-309)

As mentioned earlier, you received a White House job offer from Matt Pottinger back in November 2019. At the Congressional hearing you were asked when your conversations with Yen and Matt shifted into the possibility of you “taking on a role.” (line 318) What was your answer to the Committee?

The end of January [2020], they were looking for someone to talk to the American people about the pandemic and what was being done. (lines 319-321)

In your book you describe that offer, on January 28th, as being arranged

through Yen, Matt’s wife. Correct?

On January 28th [2020]… I received a text from Yen Pottinger. (p. 32) Yen knew I would be on the White House complex for my meeting with Erin Walsh, and

the text she sent me said that Matt had a “proposition” for me.

She didn’t know any of the details, but Matt had apologized for the short notice and said he hoped we could meet face-to-face.

Yen arranged so that I could meet him in the West Wing,

and once we were both there, Matt got to the point quickly. He offered me the position of White House spokesperson on the virus. (p. 33)

Let’s recap: You’re saying the offer of a job as White House spokesperson on the coronavirus came from Matt Pottinger, a high-level national security advisor whose wife, a senior technical advisor for laboratory surveillance at Columbia University, arranged your meeting in the West Wing.

Why was Yen involved in this hiring process?

How did Yen have the authority or connections

to arrange such a meeting?

[ANSWERS NOT FOUND]

After you refused the spokesperson job several times, Matt Pottinger came back with a different offer: White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. According to Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker article,

it was Yen’s idea to offer you the position. The article also makes it sound like this was the first time Matt considered you for a job:

At home, Pottinger fumed to Yen that eight hundred million dollars was half the sum needed just to support vaccine development through Phase III trials.

“Call Debi,” Yen suggested.

Debi was Deborah Birx, the U.S. global AIDS coördinator. 

From 2005 to 2014, she led the C.D.C.’s Division of Global H.I.V./AIDS (making her Yen Pottinger’s boss). Birx was known to be effective and data-driven, but also autocratic. Yen described her as “super dedicated,” adding, “She has stamina and she’s demanding, and that pisses people off.” That’s exactly the person Pottinger was looking for.

What are other reasons you’ve given for why you were the right person for the Task Force job?

As early as February 13 [2020], the day before I left for South Africa,

Yen and I exchanged texts.

Matt had told her

that there was a lack of leadership and direction

in the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force. (p. 54)

[from Yen’s text:] He thinks you should take over Azar, Fauci, and Redfield’s jobs, because you’re such a better leader than they are. He has been underwhelmed thus far. (p. 38)

On February 26 [2020], Matt called me expressing greater worry.

He told me that every moment I delayed making my decision, 

I could potentially be costing American lives. (p. 62)

Matt seemed certain I was the missing piece. He knew I had worked on RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, from the laboratory bench to the community, developing tests, therapeutics, and vaccines. (p. 65)

More specifically, what epidemics or pandemics have you dealt with?

I’ve also seen the devastation that viruses mete out. HIV, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, Ebolavirus—I’ve been on the front lines and have worked with many other experts in the field as the world navigated these public health crises. (p. 3)

But in your work you actually dealt with…?

HIV, TB and malaria (p. 26)

What did your family think about the White House job offer?

Yen and I had a bit of a laugh when she asked me what my husband thought of my taking on a new role. I’d told her that, given that I was still in South Africa and he was in the United States, I hadn’t yet told him (not to mention my adult daughters) about the possible White House move. (p. 63)

How long had you been married?

I’d married only a few months before (p. 202)

You did not tell your brand new husband that you were offered a top level position at the White House?

I was that concerned about information being leaked. Who knew who was monitoring our communications? (p. 63)”

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“EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: HOW SHE GOT THE JOB“

“Deborah Birx, an immunologist and Army Colonel who worked for the Department of Defense and US Military on AIDS research, served as Director of the CDC’s Division of Global HIV/AIDS and as the US Global AIDS Coordinator [ref], was appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator on February 27th, 2020.

She had no training or experience in epidemiology, novel pathogen pandemic response, (unless you consider combating well-established and known diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries such response), or airborne respiratory viruses like the coronavirus.

She was offered the position by Matt Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor for China, who told Birx

if she did not take the job American lives could be lost.

According to Yen Pottinger (Matt’s wife) Matt thought Birx was a better leader than the heads of NIAID, the CDC and other senior public health officials.

The basis for Matt’s very high opinion of Birx’s leadership capabilities

and the importance of her appointment

to saving American lives

is unknown. 

Yen Pottinger was a researcher who had worked in Dr. Birx’s CDC lab.

Yen and Deborah may or may not have been good friends who kept in touch

after Birx left her job at that lab in 2014, the year Matt and Yen married.

Birx may or may not have been friends with Matt independently of Yen.

Yen may or may not have been the person to suggest Birx for the Task Force Coordinator job. 

Before the Coordinator job, way back in November 2019 when nobody was talking about a potential coronavirus pandemic, [#2 man at National Security Council] Matt Pottinger had offered Birx a public health security advisor job.

This may or may not have actually been a job offer from The National Security Council, which may or may not have known at the time of a potentially dangerous virus circulating in China.

At the end of January 2020, Matt offered Birx a different job, as White House coronavirus spokesperson.

Birx first learned of this through

a text from Yen Pottinger,

who claimed not to know what Matt wanted to propose, and then proceeded

– through unknown security clearances and connections –

to coordinate a meeting in the West Wing where the job offer was made.

Birx declined.

Starting in mid-January 2020, or maybe earlier, weeks before that spokesperson job offer,

Birx communicated with Yen and Matt about the novel coronavirus that she supposedly learned about on January 3rd from the news (The Silent Invasion, p. 3).

Birx was mostly communicating with Yen about her fears and anxieties and/or she was communicating with Yen and Matt about

her global observations.

Or maybe she was giving Matt specific advice through Yen regarding pandemic policies

that she wanted him to transmit to the White House.

Birx was basing her public health policy recommendations, which she may or may not have been sending to Matt through Yen in early or mid-January 2020 (when she was officially working on AIDS in Africa) on publicly available data. Or she may have had access to secret data from China. 

Matt [as an NSC official] had access to secret data that Birx did not have and seemed very concerned about the situation,

possibly due to that secret data. 

Throughout her communications with Matt and Yen Pottinger, Birx was very worried about security and secrecy,

which is why

she was using personal emails and texts rather than Matt’s official White House email.

She did not even tell her grown daughters or her husband about the big White House job offer, because she thought this was such sensitive information and who knew who was monitoring her communications.

It is unknown when Birx’s new husband learned of his wife’s big White House appointment.”

“Author: Debbie Lerman, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.”

……………………………………………..

Added from Ms. Lerman, 7/10/2023:

“The consensus was achieved through what Robert Malone has described as “military-grade information warfare capability and technology that was designed for our opponents outside the US and has been

turned on American citizens.”

Basically, the intelligence and national security agencies in many countries, not just the US, turned their military propaganda playbooks, originally intended to counter terrorists and topple foreign regimes,

on their own people.

We must expose as much of the propaganda network as possible, in order to dismantle the consensus narrative and arrive at the truth.”…

View all posts

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Media so desperate for Republicans to nominate Trump that they devote most of their programming to him. GOP candidates who don’t surrender a quote to media are accused of “enabling” Trump–Ann Coulter

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“Democrats have won three national elections in a row by making them all about Trump….[Republican] Candidates who aren’t talking about Trump are attacked for “enabling” him.”

July 26, 2023, “GOP Pledge: No More Talking About Trump,”

“Please, God, can we talk about something else?”

“The media are so desperate for Republicans to nominate Donald Trump that they’ve turned over 96.7% of their programming to covering him, with brief interruptions for Emmett Till updates. Like dogs playing a game of fetch for eternity, they never tire of rehashing Trump’s legal troubles, his behavior on Jan. 6 (which has now been more investigated than the Kennedy assassination), his payment to a stripper, his call to election officials in Georgia and on and on and on.

It has become clear that the media also plan to make the GOP presidential primaries entirely about Trump.

Every Republican running for president

is required to spend half of any interview answering questions about the former president.

Even when they’re not saying anything at all about him,

somehow the media make it about Trump.

E.g.:

Ron DeSantis gives a speech in South Carolina not mentioning Trump.

Headline: “Ron DeSantis says little about Trump indictment; decries unequal justice and ‘weaponization‘” — USA Today

Mike Pence announces he’s running for president.

Headline: “Pence Delivers Strong Rebuke to Trump in Campaign Announcement” — New York Times

Nikki Haley attacks Trump.

Headline: “Nikki Haley accused of ‘MAGA agenda’ after supporting abortion restrictions in town hall” — The Guardian

Candidates who aren’t talking about Trump are attacked for “enabling” him. MSNBC’s totally objective, nonpartisan anchor (and former Biden press secretary) Jen Psaki denounced Republicans on Monday, complaining that,

unless they’re constantly berating him,

“they are effectively enabling a guy who led an attempted coup. And for what? To maybe win a handful of delegates?”

Republicans, forget the pledge to support the party’s nominee. It’s pointless, irrelevant, stupid and openly defied, as it was in 2016 by Jeb! and John Kasich.

The pledge we need candidates to take is this:

We jointly refuse to answer any more questions about Trump. All of you, except Chris Christie.

Do you really think the media are trying to help you with this endless focus on Trump?

They’re putting Republicans in a no-win situation:

Either the candidates are forced to take

an utterly indefensible position by defending Trump, 

or they’re required to write off the votes of all Trump supporters.

Democrats will never be asked to criticize any part of their coalition — and they’ve got a much crazier base than Republicans do. Why are Republicans held responsible for every nut on the right, while Democrats are allowed to skate on the core beliefs of their base?

Here are some questions Democratic candidates ought to be asked but never will be.

— Do white lives matter? Why did Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley have to apologize for saying “All lives matter” in 2016?

— What percentage of white people do you believe are racist? Should teachers and college professors who indoctrinate students to believe that all whites are guilty of “systemic racism” keep their jobs?

— Did Joe Biden really believe that “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was nearly lynched by white guys shouting, “This is MAGA country!” in the most affluent part of Chicago during a polar vortex? Did Kamala Harris believe it? Nancy Pelosi? Cory Booker? They said they did. Do you think such psychotic paranoia is, as liberals like to say, “normal”?

— If one unionized teacher could stay home while still being paid,

but 10 children would die, which would you choose? The American Federation of Teachers, a major Democratic donor,

relentlessly fought to keep schools closed throughout the [so-called] pandemic. A Reuters study later found that the school closures led to a 43% rise in drug-related 911 calls for people aged 20 and younger.

— Should the police be defunded? If not, will you denounce left-wing “philanthropist” George Soros? A major source of dark money for Democratic causes, this sinister figure gave $35 million to anti-police activists in 2021. Last year, as the murder rate continued to soar, he pledged to give more.

— How about ICE? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned on abolishing ICE. Other Democrats who support abolishing ICE include Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand. House Democrats have actually introduced legislation to abolish ICE.

[Former “New York Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo Calls ICE “A Bunch of Thugs”,” 8/31/2018]

–– What is a woman? Do you think Biden’s Supreme Court pick, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, was lying when she claimed under oath not to know the answer to that question, or is she stupid?

— Should men be allowed in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms and prisons? Should they compete in women’s sports? Should children be allowed to poison and mutilate themselves under the belief that they can change genders? Are Republican governors

who ban these practices guilty of “hate” —

as claimed by almost all Democrats? Do you agree with Biden that such measures are “ugly“ attacks from “hysterical” and “prejudiced” people?

— If blacks, Hispanics, whites and Asians are not disciplined, arrested and imprisoned at their exact proportions in the population, is that proof of racism?

— Is it OK to be white? If so, will you call on liberal “hate watch” groups and college administrators across the nation to stop treating that phrase as “hate speech”?

— Should Al Sharpton be required to pay income taxes? This Democratic kingmaker has been a guest of President Biden’s at the White House at least twice, the Obama White House more than 72 times and has his ring kissed by any Democrat running for president.

The last time The New York Times investigated, about 10 years ago, Sharpton owed more than $4 million in income taxes. 

While we’re on the subject, he’s also responsible for the Tawana Brawley hate hoax in 1987, and in the 1990s he helped gin up angry mobs in Crown Heights and at Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem,

which resulted in eight deaths.

True, that was a long time ago. Do you think if DeSantis had met with David Duke a really long time ago, the media would say, “no biggie”?

Democrats have won three national elections in a row by making them all about Trump.

Unless the GOP is intent on committing suicide, their No. 1 objective has got to be preventing this from happening again. Every Republican candidate for president (except Chris Christie) has got

to take this pledge. 

I promise not to answer any more questions about Trump.”

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COPYRIGHT 2023 ANN COULTER

 

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Thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors with tuberculosis released into 44 states to sit next to your child in school. Feds also send states minors with venereal disease, HIV, and history of violence

 .

July 18, 2023, “Illegal immigrant kids with tuberculosis infections released into 44 states," Washington Times, S. Dinan

[10/22/2018, “Caravan of 7,000 Central American migrants continues north, defying warnings to turn back,” CBS News]

“The government is releasing thousands of illegal immigrant children with latent tuberculosis infections into American communities without assurances of treatment.

Nearly 2,500 children with latent infections were released into 44 states over the past year, according to a court-ordered report on how the Health and Human Services Department is treating the children.

About 126,000 total were released, indicating an infection rate of 1 in 50 migrant children.

The government says it can’t treat the children because they are in custody for a short time and

treatment requires three to nine months.

HHS releases infected children to sponsors and

[allegedly] notifies local health authorities in the hope

that [already overburdened local taxpayers] they can arrange for treatment

before the latent infection becomes active.

Those hopes are often dashed.

Local health officials say the notifications are infrequent

and the child has often already arrived

when they are told about a case in their jurisdiction.

“We do not know how often the sponsors follow through on treatment,” the Virginia Department of Health told The Washington Times in a statement.

“By the time outreach takes place,

the child has sometimes moved to another area or state.”

The Times reached out to HHS for this report.

The children in the department’s custody, known in government-speak as unaccompanied alien children, or UACs, are a particularly tricky population.

Under the law, Homeland Security

must discharge most children quickly

and send them to HHS. The department holds the children in government-contracted shelters while searching for sponsors to take in the children…at the border without parents.

The system is fraught with problems, including crowded shelters and struggles to find capable and conscientious sponsors.

In thousands of cases, the government quickly loses track of the children….

Treatment requires knowing where the children are

and having sponsors willing to follow through

on the lengthy course of care.

Tuberculosis isn’t the only disease that’s challenging.

The government had to create protocols to handle chlamydia and gonorrhea, according to the court report, written by Aurora Miranda-Maese, the monitor ordered by the court to keep tabs on how the government is treating children in its custody.

Ms. Miranda-Maese identified tuberculosis as one challenge. Because the

government wants to rush the children out of custody [and deliver them to already overburdened local taxpayers across the US], authorities usually

don’t feel they have the time to begin treatment.

“Minors are not routinely treated for [latent tuberculosis infection]while in [resettlement] care

because the average length of stay is typically shorter than the time required to complete treatment,

and because there could be negative effects from discontinuing … treatment before completion, such as developing drug-resistant TB,” Ms. Miranda-Maese wrote.

She said the government relies on a reporting system through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to alert local health authorities.

Virginia’s experience suggests the follow-through rate for sponsors to obtain the needed treatment is low.

Virginia’s health department said it focuses on connecting local health officials with sponsors who take in children younger than 5 at high risk of latent infections progressing to active tuberculosis and juveniles

who might be infected with HIV.

The CDC, which runs the notification portal, didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Times.

UACs do get routine dental care and reproductive care, including pregnancy tests, and are given information about emergency contraceptives. The government will also facilitate abortions, including making “all reasonable efforts to secure a legal abortion” for girls in states where the procedure is restricted.

The report details the levels of accommodation for the children, including individualized assessments of their educational attainment and daily schooling that is “sensitive to the cultural differences of the minors in care.”

Under new rules, each UAC is allowed at least 50 minutes of phone calls every five days and additional 45-minute calls on birthdays and holidays.

The report also revealed that HHS has no “secure” shelters to place UACs

with criminal records or histories of violence, threats or

sexually predatory behavior.

The report doesn’t say where those dangerous UACs are placed,

given the lack of a secure facility.

Tuberculosis is another instance where illegal immigrants

receive better treatment than those

attempting to enter the U.S. legally.

Those arriving as permanent legal immigrants are

required to undergo screening beforehand, as are refugees.

Those with active cases can be excluded from entry.

Illegal immigrants who show up at the border

are already in the country.

In one glaring example,

tens of thousands of illegal immigrants being welcomed and “paroled” into the U.S. through Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ policies

are not required to test negative for latent tuberculosis infection

before arrival.

Instead, they are told to be screened within 90 days of arrival.

Homeland Security would not disclose the compliance rate nor the consequences for those who fail to comply.

In a brief statement to The Times, the department did call the rate “high” and pronounced itself “encouraged,” but acknowledged that it must prod migrants to comply.”

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

 

 

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In Venezuela Trump was deeply complicit in making ordinary people suffer for no reason except to show that US is a Big, Stupid Bully-Stephen Kinzer, Boston Globe

 .

Venezuela: “Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere is the United States more deeply complicit in making ordinary people suffer, with less reason, than in Venezuela.…Our refusal to tolerate foreign leaders who defy us lies at the heart of this heartless campaign....It should not be up to Americans to decide whether Maduro is a bad leader.”…Trump continues US status quo of depraved indifference to humanity.

9/16/2020, “Back off of Venezuela already,” Boston Globe, Stephen Kinzer

“The American campaign against socialist leader Nicolás Maduro is only hurting the people of the country.”

“Somehow, Venezuela has moved toward the top of our list of foreign enemies. Presidents Obama and Trump have portrayed it as

a dangerous challenger to American power.

It’s an odd choice. This nation of 28 million, perched on the northern coast of South America, is effectively bankrupt. Its navy has six small gunboats, three frigates that can barely sail out of sight of land, and two 40-year-old submarines. Yet according to many in Washington, it ranks with China, Russia, and Iran as an urgent threat to American security.

In 2015, evidently moved by reports of corruption and human rights violations,

Obama declared “a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States

posed by the situation in Venezuela.” He began imposing sanctions on Venezuela’s government and leaders.

Trump has intensified the pressure. The United States has sanctioned more than 150 Venezuelans, revoked the visas of more than 1,000 others, and offered a $15 million bounty to anyone who delivers President Nicolás Maduro into our hands. We have

seized billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets;

placed Venezuela on lists of countries that support terrorism, drug trafficking, corruption, and human rights abuses;

and sought to prevent it from processing or buying oil, once the mainstay of its economy. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, echoing Obama’s exaggeration, has declared

Venezuela “a true threat to the United States.”

US Navy warships, including guided-missile destroyers, conduct maneuvers near the Venezuelan coast.

Last year [2019] Trump announced that the United States would no longer recognize Maduro because of the doubts, shared by many Democrats, about the legitimacy of his 2018 re-election.

The true president, Trump declared, was a little-known politician named Juan Guaidó. He invited Guaidó to be a guest of honor at his State of the Union address last year [Feb. 2020]. Leaders of both political parties treated him like a hero.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said he had touched “the conscience of the world.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In mid-2019 Guaidó proclaimed the “definitive end of the usurpation” and called on Venezuelans to rise up in rebellion. Nothing happened. Then, in a bizarre escalation last April [2019], three boatloads of American mercenaries tried to land in Venezuela to set off an uprising. Their “Bay of Piglets” effort ended with eight would-be invaders dead and more than a dozen others arrested.

“As for who bankrolled it, we’re not prepared to share any more information,”

 Secretary Pompeo said afterward.

Describing the event a few months later, Senator Chris Murphy tweeted: “It got real embarrassing. We tried to organize a kind of coup, but it became a debacle.

Everyone who told us they’d rally to Guaidó got cold feet and the plan failed publicly and spectacularly,

making America look foolish and weak. Since then, it’s been a running comedy of errors.”

Realizing that he is unlikely to topple the government, Guaidó has begun negotiating. His aides have met with Maduro supporters in Norway and Barbados. Both sides have said they want to work together to fight the spread of COVID-19, which has killed nearly 500 Venezuelans. Maduro has invited the European Union to monitor upcoming parliamentary elections. 

Yet the United States rejects all efforts at compromise. Regime change remains our single goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maduro’s government provides free housing to about 3 million Venezuelans, along with subsidized food and medical care. Nonetheless the country is suffering tremendously from a combination of mismanagement and the weight of sanctions. Inflation is raging. Five million citizens have fled. So why do American leaders insist on crushing a nation

that poses no conceivable threat to the United States?

The official answer–Maduro is corrupt and repressive–is hardly credible,

since we happily support governments from Ukraine to Honduras to Saudi Arabia

that are demonstrably more corrupt and repressive.

Domestic politics is part of the explanation. Republicans and Democrats alike have concluded that appearing militantly anti-Maduro will win votes in Florida. Yet pressure on Venezuela began long before this political campaign.

The real reason for our wildly disproportionate focus on Venezuela is that Maduro is an outspoken socialist who regularly

denounces US policies in Latin America and the world.

Our refusal to tolerate foreign leaders who defy us lies 

at the heart of this heartless campaign.

It should not be up to Americans to decide whether Maduro is a bad leader.

Our efforts to depose him have not only

contributed to impoverishing millions of Venezuelans,

but have led him to build relationships with Russia and Iran–surely not a positive development for the United States. Now that both sides in Venezuela seem ready to make a deal, compromise looks possible. The United States should join with the European Union in promoting talks.

Instead we insist on confrontation.

Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere is the United States more deeply complicit

in making ordinary people suffer, with less reason, than in Venezuela.”

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Images: First two images are screen shots from PBS video: “WATCH: Trump praises Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó at the State of the Union | 2020 State of the Union,” Tues., 2/4/2020.

Third image, “President Donald J. Trump meets with Interim President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Juan Guaido Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)”

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“Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.”

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Added: “The United States has the power to decree the death of nations.”

“If people in Bhutan or Bolivia misunderstand Syria, however, that has no real effect.

Our ignorance is more dangerous, because we act on it.

The United States has the power to decree the death of nations.  

In Syria, it is: “Fight Assad, Russia, and Iran! Join with our Turkish, Saudi, and Kurdish friends to support peace!”  

This is appallingly distant from reality. It is also likely to prolong the war and condemn 

more Syrians to suffering and death.”  

Feb. 18, 2016, “The media are misleading the public on Syria,” Boston Globe, Stephen Kinzer, opinion

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Added: "Big, stupid bully" reference, per Candidate Trump in 2016:

"Mr Trump insisted he was "not isolationist" but "America First".

He said: "We have been disrespected, mocked, and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher.

"We were the big bully, but we were not smartly led. And we were the big bully who was the big, stupid bully and we were systematically ripped off by everybody.""

March 27, 2016,  "US Election 2016: Trump laments 'ripped off' America," BBC

 

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