Donald Trump owns the economic misery his terrible administration is causing - high egg prices symbolic of his failures

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Nicholas Kristof.

Maine Writer opinion:  I believe the media created the eggs=economy analogy.  Moreover, the myth was emphasized when on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley interviewed a restaurant owner who said she was a Democrat, but would not vote for Kamala Harris for President because of how much she was paying to keep eggs on her business' menu. This fake argument, in my mind as nonsensical as creating an economy like "tulip bulb mania in the 16th century", nevertheless, somehow became as viral as the bird flu. 

But I believe the media created the political egg rational as a reason why Democrats did not prevail during the 2024, election. Now, Nichols Kristof in this opinion essay is backpeddling out of what the media created. In fact, Democrats did not create a counter argument against the "eggs" myth, but now playing political defense about what could have been done. Perhaps, a focus on Trump's serial bankruptcies would have been a good counter argument to the cost of eggs, but Monday morning quarterbacking, just my opinion. 

Kritoff: If there are Martian scholars examining the United States right now, they might be puzzling over the great Trump paradox.

It’s that President Trump is doing immense long-term damage to the United States by undermining democratic norms, vandalizing the federal government and siding with alleged war criminals in the Kremlin, yet if support for him falls, I doubt it will have anything to do with all this. Rather, it may be … egg prices.

American voters have been, to my mind, surprisingly comfortable with a felon who pardons other, violent felons and engages in reckless attacks on our rule of law and the global system that we created in 1945 and that has hugely enriched and empowered us. Trump doubled down on his, er, “cultural revolution” in his speech to Congress a few days ago, and about three-quarters of those who watched the speech approved of it to some degree (largely because those who watched were disproportionately Republican).

Attacks by Democrats on Trump as undemocratic never got much traction among working-class voters; they cared less about issues at 30,000 feet and more about economic and cultural concerns at three feet. So in a strange way, what may impede Trump and preserve American democracy is not popular revulsion at the historic damage that he is doing to America but rather alarm at the myriad banal impacts on our daily lives because of Trumpian mismanagement.

Trump’s tariffs, even if partly delayed, presumably will raise consumer prices and hurt the financial markets and thus our retirement savings; they will create a mess of supply chains for manufacturing goods. 

One gauge of what to expect: The latest estimate from the Atlanta Federal Reserve is an astonishing 2.4 percent decline in American G.D.P. in the first quarter of 2025.

Americans may put up with a president calling journalists enemies of the people, may even accept a president pardoning felons who club police officers while trying to overturn an election. But historically, they’ve not been very forgiving of presidents who preside over recessions.

What’s more, Republicans are now apparently preparing to slash Medicaid to pay for continued tax cuts for the rich. Sure, Trump denies up and down that he will cut Medicaid. Republicans insist that they’re just cutting waste and fat, that they’re simply promoting work requirements and the like, that they’re not cutting Medicaid as such but just the block grants to the states that pay for it.

But the unarguable fact is that the federal government would be providing less money to pay for health care for the roughly 72 million Americans on Medicaid. The essential reality is that the plan appears to cut health care for the poorest Americans so that the richest Americans can get a big tax cut — and this is not just morally outrageous but also politically fraught.

Elon Musk’s critique of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,”😡👿 accompanied by Trump’s making false claims of widespread fraud in the program, accompanied by talk of selling Social Security offices, seems even more likely to worry voters.

More broadly, while many of us would welcome a savvy review of federal staffing and an effort to prune regulations and the bureaucracy, Trump’s attacks on the federal government are being undertaken with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel. Trump and Musk may think that federal employees pushed out of their jobs are faceless bureaucrats who won’t be noticed, but when they are health workers at a V.A. hospital, patients will notice. When they manage agriculture programs, farmers will notice.

Cuts in the Federal Aviation Administration and in the National Weather Service and NOAA will make flying less safe, James Fallows argues persuasively; at a time when extreme weather events are becoming more common, it’s bizarre to reduce our ability to predict hurricanes, tornadoes and heat waves.

In Western states, we’re already fearful of the ways the Trump cuts will hamstring firefighting during the next fire season. It won’t always be evident whether a plane crash or raging fire can be fairly blamed on Trump. But given that Trump and Musk have been exceedingly careless, mixing up millions and billions, and initially cutting programs for Ebola control and nuclear arms management before rushing to try to rectify those problems, they may not get the benefit of the doubt.

In short, Trump-Musk incompetence and recklessness may — just may — discredit the vandals in Washington and rein them in.

Is it actually reasonable to blame Trump for rising egg prices❓ Perhaps not. That has more to do with long-running avian flu than with tariffs or anything else he has done. 

But, what is true is how Trump has undercut the surveillance system for avian flu and Robert Kennedy Jr.’s skepticism about vaccines will make us more vulnerable to bird flu if we face a pandemic. But Trumpian mismanagement isn’t a major factor in today’s rising egg 🥚 prices. (But, the current unprecedented high cost of eggs is symbolic of his many failures including a series of bankruptcies.)

So would I rather voters rise up in outrage at Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine, his threats to NATO and his campaign to undermine democracy❓ Of course! But I welcome indignation of any kind. Maybe we can be rescued from our nation’s disastrous course by chickens.

Election security is supported with paper ballots

Chris Krebs, was the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Scott Pelley: Let me ask for your reaction to some of the vote fraud that the president and his team have been alleging. Votes tabulated in foreign countries.

Chris Krebs: So all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. I don't-- I don't understand this claim. All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.

Scott Pelley: Voting machines corrupted by mysterious actors in Venezuela?

Chris Krebs: So again, there's no evidence that any machine that I'm aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power. Period.

Support election security with paper ballots! 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/30/cybersecurity-202-chris-krebs-fiercely-defends-election-while-president-trumps-attacks-it-get-weirder/

US election security official fired by Trump slams ‘farcical’ claims of voter fraud in interview.

Chris Krebs said he stands by his assessment that the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history".

Krebs was sacked after repeatedly striking down the president’s conspiracy theories surrounding his loss.

Chris Krebs was not “necessarily surprised” when President
Donald Trump fired him in a tweet. (!Fired for doing his job!)

But, in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” (Scott Pelley) the former elections security official said he stands by his assessment that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”

Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, was fired on November 17 after repeatedly striking down the president’s conspiracy theories surrounding his loss.

In an interview airing in full on Sunday, (November 29, 2020) Krebs described the claims being circulated by Trump and his allies as “farcical.”

“The proof is in the ballots,” Krebs said. “The recounts are consistent with the initial count and, to me, that’s further evidence – that’s confirmation – that the systems used in the 2020 election performed as expected, and the American people should have 100 per cent confidence in their vote.”

Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes transcript with Chris Krebs:

Though the transition has begun, Donald Trump remains largely holed up in the White House tweeting false accusations of a rigged election from behind a crumbling wall of lawsuits. No legal challenge, no recount, no audit has changed the outcome in any state. Mr. Trump's claim that millions of votes were deleted or switched is denied by the official he chose to secure the nation's election systems. Christopher Krebs called the 2020 vote "the most secure in American history" which promptly got him fired. Tonight, in his first interview since he was dismissed, Krebs tells us why he believes the vote was accurate and why saying otherwise puts the country in danger.

Chris Krebs: I have confidence in the security of this election because I know the work that we've done for four years in support of our state and local partners. I know the work that the intelligence community has done, the Department of Defense has done, that the FBI has done, that my team has done. I know that these systems are more secure. I know based on what we have seen that any attacks on the election were not successful.

Two years ago, Donald Trump put Christopher Krebs in charge of the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs, a lifelong Republican, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

His agency, known by its acronym, "CISA" helps secure computer systems anywhere that a security breach could be catastrophic, nuclear power plants for example, and the election hardware in all 50 states.

Scott Pelley: Why are you speaking to us?

Chris Krebs: I'm not a public servant anymore, but I feel I still got some public service left in me. And, you know, it's hard once you take that oath to uphold and defend the constitution from threats foreign and domestic, it's hard to walk away from that. And if I can reinforce or confirm for one person that the vote was secure, the election was secure, then I feel like I've done my job.

Krebs, who's 43, worked on cybersecurity in the Bush administration, became director of cybersecurity policy at Microsoft and joined the Trump Department of Homeland Security in 2017. His priority was to stop anyone from repeating Russia's 2016, election hacking and disinformation.

Chris Krebs: So we spent something on the order of three and a half years of gaming out every possible scenario for how a foreign actor could interfere with an election. Countless, countless scenarios.

Scott Pelley: So back in 2017, as you're looking ahead to the election in 2018 and then ultimately the election in 2020, you have a to-do list. And the to-do list includes what?

Chris Krebs: Paper ballots. Paper ballots give you the ability to audit, to go back and check the tape and make sure that you got the count right. And that's really one of the keys to success for a secure 2020 election. 95% of the ballots cast in the 2020 election had a paper record associated with it. Compared to 2016, about 82%.

Scott Pelley: And with a paper record, you can go back and verify what the machine is saying by physically counting the paper?

Chris Krebs: That gives you the ability to prove that there was no malicious algorithm or hacked software that adjusted the tally of the vote, and just look at what happened in Georgia. Georgia has machines that tabulate the vote. They then held a hand recount and the outcome was consistent with the machine vote.

Scott Pelley: And that tells you what?

Chris Krebs: That tells you that there was no manipulation of the vote on the machine count side. And so that pretty thoroughly, in my opinion, debunks some of these sensational claims out there-- that I've called nonsense and a hoax, that there is some hacking of these election vendors and their software and their systems across the country. It's-- it's just-- it's nonsense.

Before the election, as the president called mail-in ballots a fraud, Krebs' team released a report highlighting the safeguards built into mail-in voting. His agency knocked down rumors and exposed an Iranian plot to intimidate voters. On Election Day, November 3, Krebs assembled a team in his command center to defend the vote.

Chris Krebs: We had the Department of Defense Cyber Command. We had the National Security Agency. We had the FBI. We had the Secret Service. We also had representatives from the Election Assistance Commission, which is the federal independent agency that supports the actual administration of elections. We had representatives from some of the-- vendors, the election equipment vendors. And they're critical because they're the ones out there that know what's going on on the ground if there's any sort of issue with some of their systems. And we had representatives from state and local governments.

Scott Pelley: How did the day go?

Chris Krebs: It was quiet. And there was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before or after November 3rd.

And yet, this was the president, November 5.

Donald Trump on November 5: And this is a case where they're trying to steal an election, they're trying to rig an election.

Nine days after Election Day, Mr. Trump tweeted falsely that machines from Dominion Voting Systems deleted millions of votes. Krebs couldn't remain silent. His agency and its election security partners answered with a public statement.

Scott Pelley: To quote from the November 12th statement that CISA and its partners put out, "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes or changed votes or was in any way compromised."

Since he was fired, about a dozen Republican senators have vouched for Krebs' work.

Scott Pelley: The president's essentially saying in that tweet that you did a lousy job, that you and your team blew it, and allowed massive fraud, all across the country.

Chris Krebs: We did a good job. We did it right. I'd do it a thousand times over.

Still, the president's lawyers have filed at least a dozen suits and spun conjecture without evidence.

Rudy Giuliani on November 19: And you should be more astounded by the fact that our votes are counted in Germany and in Spain...

Scott Pelley: As you watched Rudy Giuliani's news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, what were you thinking?

Chris Krebs: It was upsetting because what I saw was a apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election, to confuse people, to scare people. It's not me, it's not just CISA. It's the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop, 18-hour days, for months. They're getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was, again, to me, a press conference that I just-- it didn't make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy. And that's dangerous.

Scott Pelley: Let me ask for your reaction to some of the vote fraud that the president and his team have been alleging. Votes tabulated in foreign countries.

Chris Krebs: So all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. I don't-- I don't understand this claim. All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period.

Scott Pelley: Voting machines corrupted by mysterious actors in Venezuela.

Chris Krebs: So again, there's no evidence that any machine that I'm aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power. Period.

Scott Pelley: Communist money from China and Cuba used to influence the election.

Chris Krebs: Look, I think these-- we can go on and on with all the farcical claims that-- alleging-- interference in the 2020, election, but the proof is in the ballots. The recounts are consistent with the initial count, and to me, that's further evidence, that's confirmation that the systems used in the 2020 election performed as expected, and the American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.

Scott Pelley: In a news conference a lawyer who was representing the president at the time, Sidney Powell, said specifically that the Dominion Company's voting machines, quote…

Sidney Powell on November 19: It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden.

Chris Krebs: Votes were cast in Georgia, for instance, again, on paper. They were counted by a machine. They were subsequently recounted by hand. The outcomes of that count were consistent. If there was an algorithm that was flipping votes or changing votes, it didn't work. I think the more likely explanation, though, is that there is no algorithm, that the systems performed as intended. That the series of security controls before, during, and after an election protected those systems from any sort of misbehavior.

Most elections are run by each state's secretary of state. But not one of them, Democrat or Republican has reported ballot rigging that would change the election. Some are paying a price for integrity.

Chris Krebs: And it's, in my view, a travesty what's happening right now with all these death threats to election officials, to secretaries of state. I want everybody to look at Secretary Boockvar in Pennsylvania, Secretary Benson in Michigan, Secretary Cegavske in Nevada, Secretary Hobbs in Arizona. All strong women that are standing up, that are under attack from all sides, and they're defending democracy. They're doin' their jobs. Look at-- look at Secretary Raffensperger in Georgia, lifelong Republican. He put country before party in his holding a free and fair election in that state. There are some real heroes out there. There are some real patriots.

At the Capitol, the stage is going up for Inauguration Day, January 20. Well before that, on December 14 the presidential electors will cast their ballots—which should settle the election. Christopher Krebs told us it's ironic that the disruption and disinformation he feared from abroad came, instead, from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Scott Pelley: The president says you're dead wrong about election security, and to him you say what?

Chris Krebs: There is no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election.

Chris Krebs: Yeah, I stand by that.

Scott Pelley: Trump tweeted after that statement, quote, "The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud." Do you remember what the president said at the end of that tweet?

Chris Krebs: Oh, I was terminated? Is that-- yes. I recall that.

Scott Pelley: Were you surprised?

Chris Krebs: I don't know if I was necessarily surprised. It's not how I wanted to go out. I think I-- the thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn't get a s-- chance-- to say goodbye to my team. And I'd worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, so that's what I'm most upset about.

"I'd like for you to do me a favor, though...."

So, the mantra of horrible quotes continues to discredit Trump's already indefensible legacy. Indeed, Trump added yet another miserable contribution to the repetitive, and growing list of regrettable and certainly nonresidential material. In my opinion, the quote, "I'd like for you to do me a favor, though..." has supplanted "Make him an offer he can't refuse" as a preferred threat metaphor, straight from the classic Mafia lexicon of "clear and convincing language". 

Quotable quotes by failed Donald Trump:

1.  Access Hollywood transcript: "Trump: I did try and fuck her. She was married." 
2.“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”
3.  "Russia if you're listening..." (Trump illegally asked Russia to help him win in 2016. He shouldn't get away with it!)
4.  "I'd like for you to do me a favor, though...."


"‘I would like you to do us a favor though’: The one sentence that could bring Trump down"

Echo opinion by Eugene Robinson published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
Impeachment of a president is a deeply serious affair. Efforts by President Donald Trump and his defenders to explain away his clear-as-day abuse of power are providing a bit of comic relief.

The problem for the president and his amen chorus is that the White House released a document proving Trump guilty of an impeachable act. In the official memorandum of a July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — at a time when Trump was unilaterally withholding $391 million in military aid for Ukraine, which Congress had approved — Zelenskiy expresses a desire to purchase U.S. anti-tank missiles. Trump replies: “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

Book him!

The “favor” includes firing up an (illegal!) investigation of Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump ignores U.S. national security interests and uses taxpayer funds as leverage to coerce a foreign leader into interfering in the 2020 election. For such conduct, he not only can be impeached but must be impeached.

Those trying to somehow explain this away are reduced to playing dumb.

Some Republicans claim not to have found the time to read the rough transcript of the phone call, which is a mere five pages long. Others claim to have misread it: When Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” read the above quote to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy initially disputed that the president said the word “though,” which delivers a clear message: Zelenskiy will get his missiles if Trump gets his investigation.

When Scott Pelley pressed the point, McCarthy hemmed and hawed about former President Barack Obama before complaining that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should not have opened an impeachment inquiry based on a phone call that “the speaker never even heard.” 

But,  of course Speaker Pelosi didn’t have to hear it. 

In fact, Trump himself publicly acknowledged asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden.

McCarthy finally settled on what is perhaps the lamest defense of all: The whistle blower whose complaint set all of this in motion “wasn’t on the call.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has lashed himself to the mast of Trump’s foundering ship, has gone all-in on this narrative. “This seems to be like a political setup. It’s all hearsay. You can’t get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. The whistle blower didn’t hear the phone call,” Graham said on “Face the Nation.”

If Graham, who has a law degree, were to read the whistle blower’s complaint — which is all of nine pages long — he would see there is no issue of hearsay whatsoever. The whistle blower says he or she was informed of the phone call’s content by “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.” That alone would not constitute admissible evidence in a court of law. But the White House released the transcript — which both confirms and supersedes the description of the call in the complaint. 

There is no need to rely on hearsay evidence when you have direct evidence — provided, in this case, by the defendant himself. Oops.

The contest for the most unhinged defense of the president comes down to Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani. Narrowly, I give the nod to Trump.

Giuliani has been giving interviews in the persona of a shrieking banshee, waving sheaves of paper that he claims prove that Biden and his son Hunter are somehow corrupt. “It is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and I’m not,” he told The Atlantic magazine. “And I will be the hero! These morons — when this is over, I will be the hero!”

OK, that’s hard to top. Trump manages, though.

In dozens of tweets and retweets over the weekend, Trump convincingly proved just one thing: Those who worry this is a trap and he actually wants to be impeached can relax. No one could fake being so frantic.

Witness a representative tweet from Sunday evening: “I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the ‘Whistleblower.’ Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!”

Trump also quoted (cult!) evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress as saying on Fox News: “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” (The parenthetical is Trump’s.)

Endorsing armed insurrection constitutes grounds for impeachment. The most damaging witness against Trump, by far, is Trump himself.

Eugene Robinson  is a columnist for The Washington Post. This echo opinion was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Donald Trump must be removed as a candidate

Trump campaign management is chaotic.....

Scott Pelley interview on CBS News

CBS' Evening News Highlights GOP Civil War Breaking Out Over Trump’s Racist Attacks

Scott Pelley: "The Man Who Will Soon Be The Head Of The Republican Party Appears To Be Threatening Its Chances For The White House, The House, And The Senate"

SCOTT PELLEY (HOST): 

Tonight Donald Trump is standing by his attack on the Mexican-American federal judge who is presiding over the Trump University fraud cases. In insisting that a Latino judge cannot be fair, Trump is picking a fight with exactly the voters he needs in November, Latinos. Major Garrett reports the man who will soon be the head of the Republican Party appears to be threatening its chances for the White House, the House, and the Senate.

[...]
MAJOR GARRETT: Judge Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican parents who became American citizens.

(TRUMP: We're going to have great borders. We're going to have the wall.)

GARRETT: Donald Trump, who wants to build a wall on the US-Mexican border, argues Curiel's heritage compromises his independence in the lawsuits.

GARRETT: This made Republican leaders who had begun to rally around the presumptive nominee recoil.

JASON CHAFFETZ: People are disturbed that you would want to try and dismiss a judge based on his ethnicity.

MARCO RUBIO: He needs to stop staying it. That man is an American.

SEN. BOB CORKER: I don't condone the comments.

PAUL RYAN: I completely disagree with the thinking behind that.  (Shame on Speaker Ryan for endorsing Trump, in the first place....)

MITCH MCCONNELL: I couldn't disagree more with what he had to say.

GARRETT: Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins has yet to endorse Trump.

SUSAN COLLINS: It was an appalling statement for Donald Trump to have made, completely unacceptable, and he owes the judge an apology, and he owes the American people an apology.

Scott Pelley CBS News comment and report

GARRETT: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse tweeted Trump's attacks are quote, "The literal definition of racism." Even for former speaker, Newt Gingrich, long a Trump ally, it was too much.

NEWT GINGRICH: This is one of the worst mistakes Trump has made, and I think it's inexcusable.

GARRETT: Trump appeared most unnerved by Gingrich's criticism.

GARRETT: This afternoon, in a call with close supporters, Trump doubled down and encouraged them to robustly defend his view of the case. Even Trump loyalists admit the campaign staff is too small and management chaotic. Today's conference is a classic example. Trump told supporters to discuss the pending lawsuit freely. The exact opposite of what his own campaign staff had been telling them to do.

(Listen up Reince Priebus....Republicans must remove Donald Trump as the party's presumptive nominee and nominate a qualified candidate.)

Excellent 60 Minutes Segment on Ebola from the nurses who cared

"And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there."

(I was particularly  appreciative of how these nurses revealed the intensity  of the personal care they provided to the deceased Ebola patient Mr. Duncan.)

Thank you to the heroic nurses who did all they could to save the life of Ebola patient Mr. Duncan, at Texas Presbyterian in Dallas Texas.  This 60 Minutes segment, with interview led by Scott Pelley, demonstrates the unlimited compassion and competence of the heroic nurses who valiantly tried to save Mr. Duncan's life but, sadly, the virus was already too advanced for him to recover.  

Nurses who cared for Ebola patient Mr. Duncan at Texas Presbyterian in Dallas Texas

Treating Ebola: Inside the first U.S. diagnosis

The medical staff who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., tell the inside story to Scott Pelley.

The following is a script of "Treating Ebola" which aired on Oct. 26, 2014. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Patricia Shevlin and Gabrielle Schonder, producers.

You've heard a lot about the Dallas hospital that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in America. But you've never heard what actually happened from the people who fought for his life at the risk of their own. You're about to meet four nurses who treated Duncan from the time he came into the emergency room, to the moment that he died. The staff had been blindsided by a biomedical emergency that burst into their ER like a wildfire. Contrary to reports that the hospital bungled the response, the story the nurses tell sounds more like a heroic effort to stop an outbreak. 

On September 28, Duncan was rushed by ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. He was isolated in a separate section of the ER and nurse Sidia Rose, starting the night shift, was briefed on the special precautions required for what they now suspected was a case of Ebola.

Sidia Rose: I went over and met with a nurse who gave me a report. She also went over the protective gear that we would be wearing that night. She gave, you know, finished briefing me on what was going to happen, and I literally burst out in tears.

Scott Pelley: Why?

Sidia Rose: It's very scary. I know about Ebola, and the only reason I do, it's because I've been just researching it on my own. Since January, I kept hearing the word popping up in the news. And I just wanted to find out about it.

Richard Townsend: When our supervisor said that we had a potential Ebola case, I don't want to call it calamitous but there was a lot of concern, people became very vocal, understandably it's the boogie man virus.

Emergency room nurses Richard Townsend and Krista Schaefer made sure that Rose was suited up properly. As per the hospital's protocol, she worked with Duncan alone, with Townsend watching over her.
"I got myself together. I'd done what I needed to get myself prepared mentally, emotionally, and physically, and went in there and did what I was supposed to."

Scott Pelley: When you went to approach Mr. Duncan for the first time, what did you do? How did you prepare for that?

Sidia Rose: I gathered myself together. I put on my protective wear and I went in and introduced myself to him and you know just let him know that I would be the nurse helping him tonight.

Scott Pelley: What were you telling yourself?

Sidia Rose: I was very frightened. I was. But and I just dried my tears, rolled down my sleeves, so to speak, and went on about my night.

Scott Pelley: But why do you go in there? Why don't you say, "You know, this one's not for me"?

Sidia Rose: As a nurse, I understand the risk that I take every day I come to work and he's no different than any other patient that I've provided care for. So, I wasn't going to say, "No, I'm not going to care for him."

Scott Pelley: But you were risking your life to take care of this patient.

Sidia Rose: Oh, I know that. And that's why I, as frightened as I was, I didn't allow fear to paralyze me. I got myself together. I'd done what I needed to get myself prepared mentally, emotionally, and physically, and went in there and did what I was supposed to.

Though Duncan's test results wouldn't be known for two days, she was certain she was witnessing Ebola.

Nurse Sidia Rose: The first time when I went in and he vomited, I was standing in front of him, he was sitting on the commode, and there was just so much it went over the bag, it was on the walls, on the floors. I had two pairs of gloves on and shoe covers. And I had my face shield on. I didn't have two masks on at the time, I had just one. No, we didn't have any head covers. But I wiped down the walls, wiped down the floor with some bleach wipes.

Nurse Richard Townsend: He was having so much diarrhea and vomiting that he, you know, she was constantly having to give him the little bags that we have for people to vomit into.

Nurse Richard Townsend: All of that was hazardous waste and it had to be bagged and then double bagged and then put into a separate container that could then be disposed of later. Because anything that has any of his bodily fluids on it has the potential to be lethal to somebody else.

"And that's when he said to me his family had suffered a loss. That he had buried his daughter who had died in childbirth."

Eric Duncan was 42 years old, from Liberia, which is ground zero for this outbreak. Half of all the cases in the world are in Liberia. He flew to Dallas to visit family, became sick a few days later, and then made his first visit to the Dallas hospital.

It was the night of September 25 when Duncan first came into this emergency room. According to the hospital records, he had a temperature of 100.1. Over the course of the four hours or so that he was here, his temperature spiked to 103, but then it dropped back down. Again, according to the hospital records, he told the staff that he had come from Africa, but did not specify West Africa or Liberia. About three o'clock in the morning, with his symptoms not very severe, the staff decided to send him home with antibiotics.

But three days later he was back in the ER gravely ill and about as contagious as he would ever be. The virus is not transmitted though the air but physical contact with a single viral particle can cause infection. The hospital notified state health authorities immediately. And they wanted Nurse Sidia Rose to ask several urgent questions of Duncan.

Nurse Sidia Rose: I explained to him, "We are under the impression that you may have been exposed to Ebola. And I said, "Where are you from?" And he told me Liberia.

Nurse Sidia Rose: And I asked, "Have you been in contact with anyone who's been sick?

Scott Pelley: He said?

Nurse Sidia Rose: No. He said no.

State and federal health officials wanted to know if Duncan had been with anyone who had died in Liberia.

Nurse Sidia Rose: And that's when he said to me his family had suffered a loss. That he had buried his daughter who had died in childbirth.

But nurse Rose says Duncan told her it wasn't Ebola that killed his daughter. Rose told us that she reported this to the Texas Department of Health, but then Duncan denied his own story when he spoke to those officials.

Scott Pelley: What information was it that he denied to the health officials?

Sidia Rose: About his travels, about him burying his pregnant daughter who had died in childbirth. He denied that. He said that's not true.

Scott Pelley: So he wasn't honest with them.

Nurse Sidia Rose: Yeah.

"And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there."

This is nurse Richard Townsend, who dressed in the protective gear that was recommended by the CDC at the time, just as Sidia Rose did.

Scott Pelley: Was any of your skin exposed?

Sidia Rose: At that time it was just a gown that I was wearing, so yeah. Not my hands, not my legs, my face, I had my face shield on, the mask with the face shield.

Scott Pelley: So your neck was exposed?

Nurse 

Sidia Rose: Yes.

Scott Pelley: So the CDC protocols that you would've looked up the day he came into the emergency department was in your estimation deficient?

All: Yes.

On September 29, Duncan was carried from the emergency department to intensive care. Nurse Nina Pham, who was involved in the transfer, would become the first person to catch the virus in the United States.

It took 48 hours to get Duncan's positive test results. And by then the hospital, on its own, had equipped the staff with suits that allowed no skin to be exposed. It would be another three weeks before the CDC made this its new standard. Then the hospital moved out all of the patients in medical intensive care and reconfigured the 24-bed unit for just one patient. It was a strange scene for ICU nurse John Mulligan.

Nurse John Mulligan: By the time I came in, they had already received the Tyveks, the pappers. So we had the full hazmat gear that people are used to seeing.

Scott Pelley: Is this the full suit?

Nurse John Mulligan: This is the full suit, yes. There were always two of us in the room at all times. And we were designated two people to be in there. I've been in health care for nearly 20 years and I've never emptied as much trash as just from the waste of his constant diarrhea that he was having was remarkable. And we had these longer surgical type gloves on. They were taped to the Tyvek suit, full headgear with a circulator with a HEPA filter that would plug into the back. And the first time I got out of that suit, it literally looked like someone had pushed me into a swimming pool. I was drenched.

They were working 16 to 18 hour days, spending two hours at a time in Duncan's room.

Nurse John Mulligan: And we held his hand and talked to him and comforted him because his family couldn't be there.

Scott Pelley: You held his hand through the spacesuit?

Nurse John Mulligan: I did. He was glad someone wasn't afraid to take care of him. And we weren't.
"We asked for volunteers. Everyone volunteered."

Nurse Richard Townsend: I have nothing but respect and admiration for everyone that was involved in his care you know everyone has someone in their lives that they love and they care about. I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and my wife is pregnant. And the mortality rate for pregnant women with Ebola is, it's essentially 100 percent.

Scott Pelley: But Richard, why don't you go to the administration and say, "You know, I'm sorry. But my wife is pregnant."

Nurse Richard Townsend: People were allowed to request not to be tasked with his care.

Nurse Krista Schaefer: We asked for volunteers. Everyone volunteered.

Scott Pelley: Everyone was a volunteer, everyone that was there wanted to be there?

Krista Schaefer: Every person, housekeeping, respiratory, physicians, nurses.

But despite all the volunteers Duncan grew worse. An experimental drug wasn't helping.

John Mulligan: Early Saturday morning he had become very critically ill and was placed on a respirator.

Scott Pelley: He was intubated.

Nurse John Mulligan: He was intubated.

Scott Pelley: Tube down his throat?

Nurse Mulligan: Tube down his throat. He had a dialysis catheter placed because he was not making any urine, but he needed to. He was heavily sedated and he had tears running down his eyes, rolling down his face, not just normal watering from a sedated person. This was in the form of tears. And I grabbed a tissue and I wiped his eyes and I said, "You're going to be okay. You just get the rest that you need. Let us do the rest for you." And it wasn't 15 minutes later I couldn't find a pulse. And I lost him. And it was the worst day of my life. This man that we cared for, that fought just as hard with us, lost his fight. And his family couldn't be there. And we were the last three people to see him alive. And I was the last one to leave the room. And I held him in my arms. He was alone.
"I would have nightmares, and still do, of my co-workers being infected and not being able to get to a hospital and treatment and dying."

Scott Pelley: Sidia, you spent perhaps the most time talking with Mr. Duncan and I wonder what you think people should know about him.

Nurse Sidia Rose: He was very kind and very appreciative. Even something as simple as me just giving him cold washcloth to cool his face down because his fever wasn't breaking, even that he was grateful for. He told me thanks.

Within days of Duncan's death, nurse Nina Pham was admitted to the hospital with Ebola.

Scott Pelley: When Nina became sick, that must've sent a lightning bolt through the staff because now it's one of you.

John Mulligan: I thought someone was playing a cruel joke until I finally looked at my phone and saw the missed text messages and the voicemails and turned the news on and went, "Oh my goodness."

Then four days later, nurse Amber Vinson fell ill. Both nurses have since recovered; this is Nina Pham leaving a hospital on Friday. But many on the staff still wonder whether they could be next.

Scott Pelley: Are any of you, all of you, still self-monitoring for signs of infection?

Nurse Sidia Rose: I am.

Scott Pelley: You are? You're still within the 21-day window?

Nurse Sidia Rose: For Mr. Duncan I'm passed my 21-day period. But for Nina Pham I'm still being monitored. I've been asymptomatic. My temperature has been rock solid.

Those who contract the virus are not infectious until they actually become sick. Members of the medical staff must take their temperature now twice a day and show the reading to a state health official. But, in at least one other way, the effect of fighting this virus could linger.

Nurse John Mulligan: I would have nightmares, and still do, of my co-workers being infected and not being able to get to a hospital and treatment and dying. And so it's like any traumatic event, this too shall pass. It's just going to take a little time.

Arab allies join in fight against ISIS - common enemy is the black market price of oil

Scott Pelley narrated a timely CBS 60-Minute segment about the dangers of the evil ISIS, the black Muslim extremist terrorist network operating in Iraq and Syria.

Frankly, in the compelling and often emotional program narrative, one statement summed up the entire Arab response. It was about how ISIS is selling black market oil for $30 a gallon. Retail oil sells for about $91- $100 a gallon, so ISIS is clearly siphoning off illegal profits from its black market sales.

How much does ISIS make from selling oil?

Officials from the Iraqi oil industry have said that ISIS reaps $1 million per day in Iraq in oil profits and that if they get the Syrian fields in [areas where they're advancing], the total would be $100 million per month for both Iraq and Syria combined. They sell it for $30 a barrel because it's a black market...The oil is bought through Turkey from Syria, and it's sold to black market traders...

News media relentlessly ask President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, how the Arab nations will unite to assist in the destruction of evil ISIS, the self declared Islamic State? This evil Middle East terrorist group is effectively using fear, barbarism and mass executions to take territory and overcome millions of defenseless victims.

ISIS terrorism has been going on for quite some time, without an apparent response from the Arab nations, even though they are precariously located in the group's sweepingly destructive path.

But, when it became evident how ISIS was capturing oil fields for the purpose of flooding the black market with $30 a gallon oil....well.....that's a whole new threat to the business of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Therefore, it makes perfect sense for President Obama to take advantage of this rare moment of Arab unity against ISIS, for whatever reason, they're agreeing to fight with the US. Black market oil prices, humanitarian refugee crises, barbarism against fellow Muslims ....or for all of the above reasons.

In attacking ISIS in Syria with an awesome volley of 48 Tomahawk missiles, plus air attacks, the US is also showing the world (including OPEC) the unleashed power of the US military.

OPEC's alliance with Great Britain and the United States comes with an awesome reality. It means the US is now in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Those 48 Tomahawk missiles, with more on the way, are an awesome reminder of how serious Americans are about destroying terrorism, regardless of the price of oil.

Arab nations are not happy about their US alliance with ISIS. Nevertheless, the alternative of seeing oil going to the black market at $30 a gallon, as ISIS advances, is more than OPEC an take.

Americans should listen to the brave Sandy Hook families who lost innocent children and loved family members- Scott Pelley Discusses Common Sense Gun Control Legislation

Although it was certainly a difficult 60-Minute segment to watch, (we can hold the Sandy Hook families in our prayers) just imagine how much courage it took for them to speak to Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes.

At the Newtown CT town hall, Pelley met seven families from a group called Sandy Hook Promise, which works for change and remembrance.

I wonder how many of our nation's legislators watched this segment.  

Shame on legislators who may have deliberately avoided hearing what the Sandy Hook parents said to Pelley. Lawmakers who are asked to give an "up or down" vote on proposed national gun regulation must take responsibility for hearing what the victims of a mass murder have to say about this public policy.
Families of Newtown Connecticut, site of the Sandy Hook Elementary, want the tragic memory of 12/14 - the date of the Connecticut massacre -- to spur new gun control legislation in the U.S. They expressed support for universal background checks and limiting the size of large, human killing, ammunition clips, during the April 7, Pelley interview.

Nearly four months later, just last week, Connecticut passed a gun control law that expands background checks and limits ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. Tomorrow, these families will push for the same in Washington. They believe that their only chance is to keep the resonance of that date ringing. Something else we noticed about "12/14," add them together, and you get 26, the number of lives lost at Sandy Hook.

Here are the parents in their own words:

Jimmy Greene said: Our daughter, Ana was six years old. And in those six years, can look back and say it was an honor to know her. She taught me about how to love, how to give. She was beautiful and every day I cry. 
Francine Wheeler said: This is (a picture of) Benjamin Andrew Wheeler. Ben was six years old. He has a brother named Nate. And Nate was hiding when he heard Ben and his classmates and educators get shot. 

Mark Barden said: And we lost our sweet little Daniel Barden. He was known as the kid that would talk to somebody sitting alone. He was genuinely an old soul.

Nicole Hockley said: This is (a picture of) Dylan. I think the picture kind of sums him up perfectly. He was always smiling and always laughing. And he was very pure. Possibly because of his age. He was six. And possibly because he was autistic.
Neil Heslin said: I'm Neil Heslin, Jesse Lewis's dad. Jesse was six years old. He was my best friend and my buddy. He'd introduce himself as Jesse and Daddy. He was my whole life. 
Bill Sherlach said: Mary was the school psychologist at Sandy Hook Elementary School for 18 years and truly believed that that was the place that she was meant to be, doing what she could call "God's work." 

Terri Rousseau said: Lauren grew up with this idea that she wanted to be a teacher and work with other children. She had a sort of innocence about her, a kind of denial of all the ugly things in the world. We had no idea that some ugly thing would come and take her from us.
Those are memories Terri Rousseau, Mark and Jackie Barden, Nicole Hockley and others wanted state legislators to remember in Hartford, Connecticut. 
Mark Barden said: The lawmakers are going into their caucuses to discuss the legislation at hand. And the rope is there, I think, just to separate the various lobbyists who want to approach them as they go in there, as a last ditch effort to appeal to their cause. That's where we were. 
Mark Barden said: And we (gave them) a letter that we wanted them to read. And we had pictures of our children to give them a personal connection to why we're asking them to go in there and legislate. 

Scott Pelley asked: Why the photographs?
Nicole Hockley responded: They need to not just look us in the eyes, but look our children and the lost ones and see those faces, see what's gone and remember this isn't just about political parties. This isn't just about careers. This is about people. And this is about making change to save people. And it's important to remember the people you are doing this for. 

Mark Barden said: The universal background check is very important. And to that point, I think (the Connecticut legislation) has done a wonderful job. They've worked very hard and they have passed almost everything that we were hoping they would. And they have done it in a bipartisan way, which I think is a great message to send out to the other states and to the federal government as they begin this process.

Scott Pelley asked: Mark singles out the universal background check. Does anyone else find another part of the law important?
Bill Sherlach said: I think the idea of limiting the size of the magazines is critical.

(Bill Sherlach's wife, Mary, tried to stop the gunman.)
Bill Sherlach said: You can have a million bullets, but if you have to put them in one at a time, the ability to do any kind of real damage is significantly reduced. 
Scott Pelley said: The legislature has decided to limit the size of magazines in Connecticut to 10 rounds. The gunman at Sandy Hook was using 30-round magazines. I've heard the argument made, "You can change these magazine clips in these rifles in a matter of two seconds. So what difference does it make?" 
Bill Sherlach: Well, I mean, there was one instance where it wasn't two seconds. And it allowed 11 kids to get out of the classroom. 
Bill Sherlach: It's simple arithmetic. If you have to change magazines 15 times instead of five times, you have three times as many incidents as where something could jam. Something could be bobbled. You just increase the time for intervention. You increase the time where kids can get out. And there's 11 kids out there today that are still running around on the playground pretty much now at lunchtime. 

David Wheeler said: The more bullets you can get out the end of that gun in the least amount time, that is the single area that I believe affects lethality. And the size of the magazine placed in that weapon is a direct contributor to that--a direct contributor to that factor. There is a place for 30-round magazines, in the military, on the battlefield, at a range. If they stay at the range, they stay at the range.

(Wheeler's statement above is the issue that zealots with  the National Rifle Association won't accept. They continue to spread the mythical venom of "people kill people", rather than guns. For for some bizarre reason, these obsessed NRA supporters leap to the conclusion that owning assault weapons will protect them from other evil intended people. They won't accept the fact that it only takes one bullet to kill a person. Firing hundreds of bullets can only mean a killer is intending to commit mass murder.)

In my opinion, if those brave families who suffered such terrible loss can stand up to prevent further mass murders by supporting gun control, then we have a responsibility to listen to what they are saying.

Romney Wrong on Emergency Medical Services and Health Care- Bill Kristol Acknowledges President Obama Inherited Financial Disaster

Two take-aways from the weekend presidential campaign news cycle- (a) Conservative Bill Kristol says President Obama really did inherit a financial disaster and (b) Governor Romney told Scott Pelley how emergency medical services is the safety net for acute medical care.  

Dear Governor Romney, Emergency Medical Services is expensive!  Don't expect EMS to be the safety net for acute care when you intend to revise Medicare and Medicaid- because EMS, as we know it, won't be there at the end of your reforms.

Governor Romney wrongly spoke on 60Minutes with Scott Pelley about how reforming Medicare can save it.  Why fix something that's not broken?  

Medicare is a health insurance policy, many experts are available to recommend actuarial adjustments to the system.  Moreover, don't expect emergency medical services to pick up the pieces when the health care system won't be able to handle the capacity of an aging population if capped health care reimbursement becomes a barrier to health care.

Reforming Medicare does not mean that Emergency Medical Services will be availabe to transport people who need access to acute care.  Among the many mis-statements Romney made on 60 Minutes, he should be held accountable for leaping to the assumption that emergency medical services will be the safety net between sick senior citizens, poor people and death.

Not only is EMS not the right medical care for critical care but the Governor wants to reform Medicare and Medicaid- a source of reimbursement for EMS!  In fact, there won't be any EMS available if senior citizens and poor people must pay for transport with vouchers. EMS is not bundled into any payment system that I know of, so any reform of Medicare or Medicaid will likely exclude emergency care, unless it's trauma related.  I sincerely hope EMS providers get involved in educating their communities about how wrong minded it is for the safety net to acute care services to be supported by emergency medical services- it's expensive, it's not preventive, it's not what emergency medical services providers are trained to do. Assuming EMS will be there as the point of access to acute care, this will require insurance companies to guarantee payment- including Medicare and Medicaid.  It's important for media to point out how wrong Romney was on answering this question.

  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/mitt-romney-60-minutes-health-care_n_1908129.html

WASHINGTON -- Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured. "Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," he said in an interview with Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/23/894341/bill-kristol-obama-has-turned-around-the-financial-meltdown-pretty-well/

On the political front, the weekend news shows were loaded with skeptics with advice for Governor Romney- including conservative pundit Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.

Republican Bill Kristol admits President Obama turned around the financial meltdown of former President Bush "pretty well".

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol says that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is going to have a tough time winning if the election is a referendum on President Barack Obama’s first term. “If this election is just about the last four years, that’s a muddy verdict." The conservative columnist told Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday "Bush was president during the financial meltdown, the Obama team has turned that around pretty well,” he explained.

Romney was aggressive on the 60-Minutes interview, but his responses were loaded with huge assumptions that sounded like schemes he concocted to win the presidential election.  

Perhaps the most telling remark Romney gave on the Pelley interview was when he admitted it was his decision to speak about 47 percent of Americans as being "victims".  

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57518495/campaign-2012-obama-vs-romney/?pageNum=6&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Romney: That's not...that's not the campaign. That was me, right? I-- that's not a campaign.  Pelley: You are the campaign--
Romney: I've got a very effective campaign. It's doing a very good job. But not everything I say is elegant. And I want to make it very clear, I want to help 100 percent of the American people.

So, the bottom line is that Romney knows he is the campaign and his response to Pelley about his leadership is the only true comment the Governor can stand behind.  Yes, he is the campaign and it's not going well.  There's no reason to believe his leadership as a President would be any different.