Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Pompeo’s Sly Shading To Avoid Accountability

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In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in response to excellent questioning from Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), that the data on COVID-19 from either Japan, South Korea, or the EU was “worthless”.

“They’re not tracking. They’re not counting cases.” “So putting forward that data in a senate hearing is just silly,” Pompeo bullied.

Really, Secretary Pompeo?

Is it Japan, South Korea, or the EU that provides “worthless” COVID-19 data?

Is it Japan, South Korea, or the EU that is “not tracking” and “not counting” cases?

This is, at a minimum, a disgraceful lack of candor by Secretary Pompeo under oath.

To be clear, South Korea, Japan, and the EU are not only tracking and counting cases, they are doing a much better job of it than we are.

It is difficult to believe that Secretary Pompeo does not know this.

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  1. Worthless data, Mr. Pompeo?

    South Korea has a population of 51 million, roughly 1/6th the population US 320 million, yet has only suffered 300 COVID deaths compared to our 160,000.

    • South Korea is a totalitarian state with nearly twice the population of California crammed into an area the size of Kentucky.

      They are an even more authoritarian state than Donald Trump’s America.

      I don’t want to live in South Korea. Do you?

      • Um, NORTH Korea is a totalitarian state; South Korea is classified as a “fully-functioning democracy”.

        • I agree that “totalitarian state” overstates things.

          I do not want to live in South Korea. I do not want Donald Trump’s government to have the power to shut down America the way that South Korea was shut down.

          Locking down an area the size of Kentucky is different from locking down an area the size of the US.

          • Apparently bob-gardner wants to live in South Korea, wants Donald Trump’s government to have the power to shut down America the way that South Korea was shut down, or feels that locking down an area the size of Kentucky is the same as locking down an area the size of the US.

            Fascinating.

            • I didn’t have a career in the software industry so I don’t feel qualified to make grand pronouncements concerning epidemiology. I’m neutral about living in South Korea, and unfortunately the president does have the powers that Tom described.
              Could it be that the eviction ban is making some landlords irritable?

    • Much of my concern stems from the South Korean “National Security Act” (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/south-korea-national-security-act/) passed in 1948. I understand that South Korea is making great progress. I haven’t seen anything (yet) suggesting that this law has been repealed or significantly restricted.

      I admit that my gut reaction to South Korea is dated and may reflect the South Korea of an earlier time. The country has not always been a “fully functioning, thriving democracy”.

      Even the link you cited mentions some issues with the South Korean approach (emphasis mine):

      One issue South Koreans need to pay heed to is striking the right balance between surveillance and privacy. People confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus are tracked by the GPS in their smartphones, and a record of their movements is sent to the smartphones of everyone nearby as an emergency alert. These people are identified by numbers rather than names. But, there is no question that this system is invasive. Stricter surveillance is applied to people who are self-isolating, usually at home, following a possible exposure. Their compliance with quarantine is monitored by their smartphone GPS, and a supervising officer calls several times a day to check whether they are really at their residence. After several instances of people cheating or violating this surveillance rule, the idea of having those in quarantine wear wrist band monitors entered the policy debate. Civic groups have protested that this measure would harm the privacy and human rights of individuals. The health authority compromised, agreeing to implement wrist band monitors only when people who have already violated the self-isolation rules once consent to do so.

      The recent episode of popular attacks against sexual minorities deserves special attention. Following multiple days of zero new domestic cases, the government relaxed its physical distancing campaign on May 6. However, a young man who visited several clubs in the Itaewon district in Seoul during a long public holiday in early May was diagnosed just after the social distancing campaign ended, and turned out to be another super-spreader. Young men and women with active social lives can become silent virus disseminators. Several of the clubs that this particular young man visited were identified as gay clubs, and he was outed as a homosexual and has faced personal attacks in digital spaces ever since. Many other patrons of these clubs who might have been infected through this Itaewon link remain fearful of being tested for the virus as they don’t wish to be involuntarily outed and face the harsh social stigma that remains pervasive in South Korea against sexual minorities. The number of those who have been infected through the Itaewon clubs is approaching 119 as of May 13, and the planned re-opening of schools has been delayed. Public anger over the resurgence of COVID-19 cases has led to harsh criticism of gay people online as being irresponsible about public safety. In an attempt to quell the fears of people who may have been exposed and encourage everyone to get tested, the government has increased penalties for anyone who does not come forward and also made it possible for residents to be tested by only providing their phone number and not their name.

      …

      Balancing the responsibility of the government to conduct surveillance with the value of individual privacy rights is not an easy task during an unprecedented health crisis like this. Nevertheless, some measures for tracking the infected disproportionally discount individual rights. Popular attacks against the gay community should be stopped in particular. This issue must be addressed by all democracies since this liberal value of individual rights is the crucial criteria that distinguishes democratic health governance from authoritarian health governance. In addition, all democratic governments must relinquish their enforcement power once the crisis has ended. As people will rely more on the government during the economic recovery phase, civil society groups should act as a check against centralized administrative power to ensure that it is not abused or misused.

      It seems to me that the concluding sentence of your piece acknowledges that the South Korean approach is more intrusive than even the author of the piece is comfortable with as a long-term stance.

      I don’t want the government of Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo to have any more power than they’ve already seized.

      I enthusiastically agree with you that we MUST replace crazy with science, and do so as soon as possible.

      The unfolding disaster in Beirut shows us the consequences of dysfunctional government unable to provide even the basic mechanics of modern society. The evidence is all around us that the Donald Trump administration has more in common with the incompetence of Beirut than the leadership of South Korea.

      I’d like to see us somehow find a way to invoke the 25th Amendment, NOW. I fear that by January of 2021, there may not be much left for any president to rescue.

      Please understand that I AGREE with you about the importance of having Joe Biden be President and the urgency of following science instead of crazy (demon seed!).

      • I think these powers are appropriate and their approach worked. It’s not dissimilar from Merkels approach in Germany, which has much stronger fines for individuals and businesses that disobey quarantines. I’ve been helping my wife with her capstone paper for her BSN Conversion program, and she’s writing about mandating a hypothetical Covid vaccine. The Jacobsen v. Massachusetts case gives government wide latitude to combat pandemics.

        Lockdowns, quarantines, mask mandates, business closures, all of these things are terrible inconveniences and inarguably illiberal. What makes them constitutional and less totalitarian than they seem on their face is that they are temporary.

        Italy is a prime example of another country where a national lockdown, limiting essential businesses exclusively to medical service and food providers, and banning intercity and interstate travel until the crisis subsided worked and took only about 8 weeks to do so.

        Had America done that back in February/March as Italy did, it would be save to reopen schools, reopen the rest of our economy, and return to normal. I think we grossly underestimated how unprepared this individualistic nation was for a collective action problem like this. As a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis, it’s a terrible omen.

        So yes the president does have this power and he deliberately choose not to use it to punish blue states as Vanity Fair outlines. He deserves to lose every single elector and he deserves to go to jail along with most of his administration.

        We gave up far more freedoms far more permanently over 12 hijackers and 3,000 Americans. This virus, which Christopher and his conservatives bedfellows try to downplay, has already claimed more Americans than all the post WW2 conflicts combined, more than 50 9/11’s, and counting. We need another lockdown, as the rising cases in MA show, being a smart state is not enough to protect us from a virus.

        • You really want to invite Trump of all people to invoke such powers? Yes, we have a few more cases. That was always going to be the case and it’s not feeling temporary. Temporary is when they issued a shelter in place order for Watertown just long enough to capture the marathon bombers, also very narrow geographically. I’m glad you at least admit these practices are illiberal, but I still object to mere inconvenience. Taking a detour around road work is an inconvenience. This is impacting people’s lives in ways that even when lifted won’t just instantly return to normal as if nothing happened. The Constitution provides loopholes not for hell, high water, terrorism, or pandemic. I’ve also come to believe we are holding COVID to an impossibly high standard. We tolerate community spread that could be fatal for the flu and smallpox took hundreds of millions of lives before a vaccine was found, yet civilization did not wait around for that before there was any social life.

        • I think these powers are appropriate and their approach worked. It’s not dissimilar from Merkels approach in Germany, which has much stronger fines for individuals and businesses that disobey quarantines.

          I think you’re delusional about what and who America is today.

          “It’s not dissimilar from Merkel’s approach in Germany”?

          Are you KIDDING?

          Repeat after me: DONALD TRUMP IS NOT ANGELA MERKEL.

          These powers might be appropriate if the US government was in the hands of people who show even a modicum of respect for law, order, the Constitution, and basic human rights.

          How on EARTH can you read of the illegal invasion of Portland Oregon by armed storm troopers of the DHS and suggest that “these powers are appropriate”?

          We know what “detention centers” mean in the US. I find it astonishing and disappointing that you advocate giving the administration of Donald Trump power to forcibly “quarantine” whomever it chooses in such concentration camps.

          In some alternate universe sometime after January of 2021, there may an American government firmly in the hands of responsible adults. In that universe — if and only if that government has passed laws with TEETH that prevent a recurrence of the abuses of the Donald Trump administration — I might be more receptive to what you suggest. Here are some things that will signify the arrival of this alternate universe:

          • Donald Trump and his family are confined in federal prison serving life sentences for a long list of crimes.
          • William Barr is in a similar federal facility.
          • Every attorney who has worked on behalf of Donald Trump and his administration is disbarred for life.
          • The GOP is dissolved and dead.
          • The NRA is dissolved and dead.
          • The Department of Justice is an independent entity, perhaps within the Judicial branch. The Attorney General is absolutely outside the reach of the President just as the Supreme Court is today outside that reach.

          In America of August 2020, on a weekend where Donald Trump has issued yet another executive order that once more illustrates his fundamental contempt for Congress, I think you’re delusional.

          I am no “conservative bedfellow”. I agree that Christopher consistently understates the dangers and risks of this virus.

          Your comment, on the other hand, exemplifies and validates the arguments Christopher is making about opening Pandora’s Box further than it already is.

          You are proposing to hand Donald Trump — and, by proxy, Vladimir Putin — complete and forcible control over virtually every aspect of American life. This power, once handed over, will take generations — and oceans of blood — to retake.

          I’m sorry, but I think you’re as wrong about this as I’ve ever seen you here on BMG. I beg you to walk this one back.

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