Trump's F***d-Up War On America's Health And Foreign Aid Claims First Casualties
The first of many, unfortunately.
It has taken such a short amount of time to move into the “MAGA directly kills children” phase of the second administration of our Emperor of the Sun and All the Sky Donald Trump — less than six weeks by our count. And even that was about five weeks longer than we expected.
First there was the child in Texas who on Wednesday became the first person in America to die from measles in a decade. This death can be directly attributed to the anti-vaccination message of Trump and his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert “Bobby Brainworms” F. Kennedy Jr. Bobby Brainworms seemed remarkably unperturbed about the child’s death at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, possibly because it didn’t involve a bear carcass he could scoop up off the highway and drive around in his van for a while.
Congrats on the accomplishment, fellas! Remind us to send in your nominations for the Nobel Prize for Stupidity.
Then on Friday, The New York Times reported that a four-year-old child in Uganda died of the Ebola virus in the middle of the Trump administration’s cancelling of support for foreign aid organizations working to contain this particular outbreak. God we will never get tired of all this winning! The bleeding from every bodily orifice, though, that we could do without.
The Times reports that the US cancelled four out of at least five contracts it had handed out to NGOs working to aid Ugandans during the outbreak. These programs included screening for Ebola infections at Uganda’s main airport in Entebbe, providing protective gear to healthcare workers in close contact with Ebola patients, and even filter pumps used to administer medications.
Additionally, the cuts at USAID that came about when Elon Musk, in his own words, fed the agency into the woodchipper, meant that the number of USAID employees working to contain the outbreak went from more than 50 in January to six now.
Authorities, meanwhile, are hoping the US will reverse course:
“Continued support from the terminated awards is not only vital to save lives but also vital in protecting the health and security of the United States and global community,” William W. Popp, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, wrote in the cable.
Good luck! Saving lives isn’t something Donald Trump is particularly interested in, unless the people pay him first.
The acting deputy inspector general for USAID, Marc Meyer, and his staff recently prepared a couple of reports (Washington Post via Archive) on the wider consequences of the funding freeze both in Africa and the Middle East. Those reports were ready two weeks ago, but the Post reports that they are not being released for fear that they will make Trump mad and invite some sort of White House retaliation.
That seems like a weird worry to have, considering the administration has already fired something like 90 percent of USAID’s staff, closed its main headquarters, and given employees all of 15 minutes to clean out their desks. What else could they possibly do to USAID employees, poison their pets? But if Trump has a gift for anything, it is for finding new lows, so they are probably right to worry.
In addition to Uganda, the Africa report notes that the withdrawal of American aid is destabilizing an already-volatile part of the world. The broken contracts with local organizations could lead to expensive litigation if any of them sue in US courts. West Africa will now be more at risk for increased terrorism and drug trafficking. Oh, and Russia and China will be able to expand their influence.
Contra this White House aide’s text to Dave Weigel, we knew what “America First” meant. That doesn’t make any of this less outrageous, or cruel, or self-defeating.
As we mentioned, one of the reports being withheld had to do with Africa. The other was on the effect of USAID efforts in the Gaza Strip:
USAID’s disaster assistance response team based in Jerusalem was reduced to three employees from 17, and the response management team supporting Gaza aid was down to seven employees from 20. [...] USAID staff were no longer attending meetings with the Joint Coordination Board, which is responsible for the coordination of aid delivery into Gaza between the government of Israel, U.N. agencies and USAID.
Someone else pointed out that Trump is now endangering the Gaza ceasefire that his own administration helped negotiate.
On the other hand, we suppose letting more Gazans starve to death will allow Trump to break ground sooner on the two-bit gaudy monstrosity of a resort he wants to build on the Strip. Can’t let a little ethnic cleansing stand in the way of that.
Didn’t the courts order the Trump administration to reverse at least some of these cuts? Sure did! But as Atul Gawande, a doctor and writer who worked for USAID under Joe Biden, explained, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defying court orders.
Gawande went on to list some of the 5800 programs Rubio cancelled. They include providing anti-malarial equipment (bed nets, drugs and so on) to 53 million people; all emergency meal kits manufactured for starving children; all the teams the US might deploy to another country after an earthquake to help in recovery efforts; and services to treat HIV-positive children and pregnant women.
So there is your depressing update on the extent of how the United States is shooting itself and its worldwide influence in the dick for no good reason. Sorry about that. We’ll get back to being funny in 2029.
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>> We’ll get back to being funny in 2029. <<
I feel like I haven't been funny in 4 months, so I hear ya, Gary.
So.
Having been a comic fan for many, many years, I made my first purchases from locations like 7-11, but by the time I'd barely turned 18 I would sometimes find myself in the big city (Portland, Oregon) and wander into a comic shop.
Excalibur was among the largest I'd ever been in, with a huge store of back issues as well as current. They also tended to be dusty and activate my allergies. But the people there were the best people in the industry, and Debbie was among the best people in the shop.
She now owns the shop, and I had reason to contact them after many years away. She remembered me, which was surprising enough, and remembered a close mutual friend even better (we were always each better friends with our mutual than we were with each other - nothing against either of us, it just worked out that way). Turns out that we are each still in contact with that mutual friend, her more recently than I.
Long story short, Excalibur is wonderful, the woman who runs the place is wonderful, and I just had a very life and love affirming reaction with an old casual friend who somehow seems to have gotten closer even after not talking for 15 years.
This world. Sometimes it gives us Trump. Sometimes it gives us Debbie and Excalibur comics. Hard to even fathom.