The Washington Post reports today that the Pentagon diverted coronavirus funds for such things as building jet engines.
A $1 billion fund Congress gave the Pentagon in March to build up the country’s supplies of medical equipment has instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used for making things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.
The change illustrates how one taxpayer-backed effort to battle the novel coronavirus, which has killed roughly 200,000 Americans, was instead diverted toward patching up long-standing perceived gaps in military supplies. The Cares Act, which Congress passed earlier this year, gave the Pentagon money to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”
But a few weeks later, the Defense Department began reshaping how it would award the money in a way that represented a major departure from Congress’s original intent. The payments were made even though U.S. health officials believe there are still major funding gaps in responding to the pandemic. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Senate testimony last week that states desperately need $6 billion to distribute vaccines to Americans early next year. There remains a severe shortage of N95 masks at numerous U.S. hospitals. These are the types of problems that the money was originally intended to address.
We have already seen how federal funding for the pandemic favored private and charter schools, which received six times as much money as public schools.
“A $1 billion fund Congress gave the Pentagon in March to build up the country’s supplies of medical equipment has instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used for making things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.”
Not sure about the engine parts, but body armor would surely come in useful against the corona virus.
And whether dress uniforms would be apt of not depends what sort of dress it involved.
Of course, S&M dressing in leather unifunifowith whips and chains wouldprobably not help (at least nog against the virus)
But if it involved dressing as doctors and nurses, then surely it would be useful.
Actually, even jet engine parts might help to decontaminate surfaces through heat.
SDP, could you ingest jet engine fuel to kill COVID?
It would seem to make more sense to give money to the CDC than the Pentagon for this purpose, although with each passing day the CDC seems to be yielding to Trump’s political pressure. The latest political incursion is the removal of the term “airborne” in describing the transmission by Covid. Iit is believed that airborne was deleted because corporations and the government do not want to be on the hook for improving ventilation and air exchange systems. in public and commercial buildings. Trump’s people want to make it clear that the disease is spread by tiny droplets in the air, and not the air itself.
The politicization of once completely nonpartisan agencies like the CDC is part of the tragedy of the Trump era. Nothing can be trusted that comes from any government agencies. They are all subject to political control by Trump officials, like Michael Caputo, who recently stepped down as communications director for the CDC after claiming that the scientists were conspiring to undermine Trump.
“Nothing can be trusted that comes from any government agencies.”
Mission Accomplished!
Trumparanoia
A scientific coup
What scientists will do
To fiddle with my brain
And overthrow my reign
They’re meeting in the cabs
And plotting in the labs
It really is sedition
The scientists’ position
Onion headline:
CDC Vows to Have Something to Stick into Your Arm by November