While the nation heaves a great sigh of relief now that we are emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, we hear very little about preparations for future biological catastrophes—natural pandemics, laboratory accidents, and bioterrorism. All of the post-mortems to date have focused on positing blame on the possible guilty parties—bats and/or pangolins as viral sources; China for suppressing information about the initial outbreak and refusal to share information; the Wuhan Institute of Virology for a possible lab leak of the virus; the World Health Organization for coddling China, being slow to recognize the threat, and its perfunctory investigation of the origin of the outbreak; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for repeatedly falling down on the job; and Donald Trump and his administration for downplaying the threat and utter, unprecedented incompetence.
 
From all indications, the Biden administration appears more concerned with investigating the origins of the coronavirus than taking the necessary steps to prepare for and protect us from the next pandemic. President Biden recently gave intelligence agencies 90 days to search for clarity on whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.
 
Regardless of what any investigation reveals, one thing is true: The risk of a natural pathogen, a lab-enhanced germ, or a bioterrorism event is escalating:

• The destruction of natural habitats is accelerating worldwide, bringing the more than estimated 800,000 viruses that are potentially zoonotic (able to jump species from animal to human) in closer contact with us. There is not much we can do to stop this because national sovereignty (see Brazil’s intentional destruction of the Amazon rain forest) forecloses any “dramatic” international action. Nevertheless, some multinational efforts (such as paying countries to stop habitat destruction) have met with modest success and should be pursued more vigorously.

 
More than 70 percent of newly emerging infectious diseases—such as HIV/AIDS, West Nile virus, SARS, MERS and avian influenza—come from animals. At a minimum, the Biden administration needs to revive the pandemic planning and defense offices, mechanisms and plans that Trump shelved. In addition, it needs to invest in and invigorate human and veterinary medical efforts to meet these threats.

• Biomedical research, while very important (e.g., COVID-19 vaccines), increases the risk that laboratory- and research-related accidents could let a dangerous pathogen escape. High-containment disease research labs are proliferating for purposes of biodefense, but also to undertake so-called “gain-of-function” studies that make germs more dangerous. These hazards could be mitigated by increasing the current lax level of oversight.
• In 2001, U.S. government microbiologist Bruce Ivins was accused of murder for sending letters containing anthrax. He committed suicide on the eve of his indictment for the murders, so his actual guilt or innocence was never adjudged. However, the circumstantial evidence is strong--the DNA of the anthrax strain in the letters matched that in his laboratory. A search of his home turned up “hundreds” of similar letters. This internal security risk has increased significantly since then. More than 20 new federal, and many more new private, biosafety level 3 and 4 labs have been built in recent years, meaning many more individuals now have access to incredibly lethal pathogens.
• The external security risk is even greater. U.S. rivals such as China and Russia engage in extensive bio -weapon research and, despite being signatories of international agreements to destroy their biological stockpiles, secretly maintain them. Smaller nations such as North Korea, Syria and Iran also engage in bio-weapon research and development. Non-state terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda want to get their hands on bio-weapons. The devastation these weapons of mass destruction could cause is immense.

 
Finally, we need to strengthen our public health system. During the pandemic, it became clear that some of our public health agencies function poorly. Overall, the shortcomings of our disrespected, underfunded and uncoordinated public health system demonstrated that it was unprepared to respond effectively to a major health crisis on a national scale. Having learned nothing, eight “red” states recently enacted legislation restricting the authority of public health agencies to declare a health emergency and limiting their ability to order quarantines and isolation, a blatant politicization of something apolitical. In Ohio, the legislature gave itself the authority to override Department of Health emergency orders. Seven additional states are considering similar restrictive legislation. All of this will make it more difficult to combat future pandemics.
 
Joy and relief over emerging from almost a year-and-a-half of isolation, fear and anxiety over Covid-19 should not be permitted to put the very serious issues the pandemic exposed on the back burner.
 
Dick Hermann
June 25, 2021

​“Operating under the radar” is an understatement when applied to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), one of the most obscure—and unnecessary—U.S. government agencies ever devised by the political class.  From its origins in the wake of Watergate in the 1970s, the FEC has been the League of Nations of election regulation. The League was an idealistic attempt to devise a mechanism to make real “the war to end all wars;” the FEC was a creature of the immediate post-Watergate zeal for political and election reform. Congress perceived a need to make it appear that it wanted to regulate the massive amounts of exceedingly dark money washing around in politics. Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell and Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans, for example, shook down Wall Street’s big law firms and investment banks in 1972, coming away with actual suitcases bursting with cash. Like the League, the FEC is a failed institution, good intentions gone awry. 
 
The great powers created the League of Nations as a sop to America’s hopelessly naive and inflexible President, Woodrow Wilson, mainly to get him to stop talking about “making the world safe for democracy” and dangerous notions like ending colonialism. They had no intention, however, of giving it any teeth.  Similarly, both major political parties deliberately fashioned the FEC to be toothless, in part by assuring that it had an equal number of members from each party so that any uncomfortable rulings about the cesspool of campaign finance would wind up in tie votes, ergo no decisions.
 
Consequently, it came as no surprise that the feeble Commission voted 2-2 regarding its ongoing investigation of Trump’s illegal hush-money payments to porn star, Stormy Daniels/Stephanie Clifford, thereby bringing the investigation to a close. One Republican Commission member recused himself while one Democrat did not bother to show up that day for the most important vote ever in the FEC’s dreary existence.
 
Trump’s fixer-lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to jail for serving as the cash conduit to Ms. Daniels while the man who ordered the payments runs around free to grieve, grift, lie and incite violence.
 
There is no rationale for this hapless organization to continue to exist. Its primary purpose--regulating political campaign contributions and expenditures--was effectively neutered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s dreadful decision in the 2010 case of Citizens United v. FEC and by technology. The former allowed politics and elections to drown in money, paving the way for corporations and billionaires to buy politicians and votes; the latter made it easy for the citizenry to monitor political donations and expenditures by a click of the keyboard.
 
The solution is to get rid of the FEC and replace it with a simple transparent database that logs contributions and political campaign expenditures, including from whom they came and where the money went. Period. There is no need to shell out more than $70 million per year to do what technology can do much better and a lot cheaper. Let the public access the database and draw its own conclusions about who is buying whom.
 
Dick Hermann
June 18, 2021

​Up to now, I was confident that, somehow, we would get past the current crisis of confidence in the survival of our fragile democracy and somehow muddle through. We would be able to put the Trumpian maelstrom of misinformation, mismanagement, and malice behind us as if it were no more than a terrifying nightmare.
 
Now, however, two things happened to turn me from optimist to pessimist:
 
1.      Trump telling his deluded followers he will be reinstated as president in August, a fantasy worthy only of sidesplitting guffaws were it not for his possible purpose behind voicing this preposterous absurdity. He knows this is not going to happen, so what is his real intent? Is it to incite his MAGA crazies to violence once August has passed and they realize he is not going to return to the White House? Trump may also hope that a repeat of his January 6 attempt to overturn the election result will succeed and, having regained the immunity from prosecution that goes with the presidency, keep him from being indicted for his many crimes.
 
Trump promoting this fiction is bad enough. In addition, Sydney Powell, the Trump tool who went to such extremes during the presidential campaign that even Trump disavowed her, is saying the same thing. She is the attorney whose novel defense against a libel suit brought against her by a voting machine company she defamed is: “No rational person would believe my outlandish claims.” And then there is retired General Michael Flynn, caught on tape advocating the overthrow of the government by a military coup.
 
2.      Sen. Joe Manchin (DINO-WV) persists in holding out for congressional bipartisanship, a pipedream on a par with Trump’s August reinstatement illusion. His fly-in-the-ointment obstruction of his own party plays right into the hands of the authoritarian mob (read: Republicans) moving to steal the 2022 midterm elections. Manchin is delusional if he sincerely believes that he alone can persuade the necessary 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster and support Democratic legislative initiatives. In attempting to be the modern reincarnation of Franz von Papen, the erstwhile German chancellor who believed he could tame Adolf Hitler, he is destined for similar disappointment.
 
Trump’s latest attempt at seizing power must be stopped. The danger he represents cannot be overstated. The three criminal investigations of Trump must be accelerated. Indictments cannot come soon enough. Additionally, both Washington, DC law enforcement and the U.S. military need to be put on high alert so that they can stop any violent attempts at overthrowing the government. At this point, nothing Trump does is too far-fetched to be dismissed.
 
As for Manchin, President Biden needs to do his best LBJ impression and take the loopy legislator to the woodshed. The time for carrots is past. Now is the time for sticks. Presidents have considerable discretion when doling out government money. Now is the time for that discretion to be exercised. Manchin should be advised of exactly how he and his West Virginia constituents will suffer when their federal largesse is substantially reduced.
 
The Manchin Family has a long history of dubious behavior, in stark contrast to the image the Senator tries to convey as part of his Quixotic pursuit of bipartisanship. His family has profited for years from his positions as governor and senator. While West Virginia’s Education Secretary, his wife pushed through a sweetheart contract for her daughter’s pharmaceutical company to provide epi-pens to state public schools. She was recently appointed Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission by President Biden, an enticement to Manchin to get with the president’s program (didn’t work). Daughter Heather, who recently retired as CEO of pharmaceutical company, Mylan, N.V., was often steeped in scandal, including a fake Master’s degree on her resume, jacking up the price of epi-pens by 461 percent, and moving her company offshore to avoid U.S. taxes. During all this, not a peep was heard from Joe Manchin. FYI, Governor Manchin left his state ranked #47 in healthcare, #45 in education, #48 for its economy, and #50 for infrastructure. Nice job.
 
These two measures—heightened law enforcement and military alert, and depriving West Virginia of federal grants and contracts—are mere stopgaps in our ongoing efforts to preserve the republic that so many Americans fought and died to safeguard. Their sacrifice must not have been in vain. Inaction is no longer an option.
 
Dick Hermann
June 11, 2021

​Alarm bells should be going off in rational Americans’ heads at the revelations from a recent survey of 5,500 of our fellow citizens. The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core, found that 28 percent of Republicans believe the QAnonsense that a cabal of Democratic Satanist blood-suckers and child-eaters control the government and that “American patriots may have to resort to violence” to oust the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful leaders to power. If that isn’t scary enough, an additional 55 percent of Republicans have doubts about the QAnon silliness, but do not reject it outright.
 
That means more than 80 percent of Republicans are so delusional that they should not be trusted with the levers of power again. Democrats and the mainstream media (here I include Facebook and Twitter) need to take note of the dire threat this poses to our democracy and denounce these conspiracy mongers daily and vigorously. They are a danger to the republic that must, at a minimum, be neutralized. This is now a war and risks not remaining merely a cold one.
 
Deplatforming purveyors of misinformation and disinformation, like the former president/current troll’s ban from Twitter and Facebook, is not enough. They can still voice their lies and perpetrate their evil on Fox, Newsmax, OANN and right-wing social media platforms, secure in the knowledge that lies and fake news go viral much more easily and quickly than real news.
 
The weapons available to stymie these miserable mavens of malice are few and not very effective.
 
Some folks advocate reviving the Fairness Doctrine, a 1949 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy that required broadcasters to present opposing views when covering issues. When the FCC repealed the doctrine in 1987, it opened the door to outfits like Fox News to prosper by selling fake news and outright lies. The problem with resuscitating the Fairness Doctrine is that every news item about vaccine safety, for example, would require allowing an anti-vaxxer on air to present the opposing view. That’s no solution.
 
Others, including unlikely allies like the Biden administration and some congressional Republicans, want to see Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act repealed. Section 230 allows social media platforms to be considered, unlike publishers, mere information conduits not liable for the content they broadcast. The goal of such repeal legislation would be to render companies subject to libel lawsuits for spreading fake news that harms an individual or organization. However, when push comes to shove, I suspect that Republicans in thrall to Trump and his bodyguard of lies would vote against repeal in order to protect their fake news allies.
 
Probably the best antidote to the madness that has devoured the Republican Party would be education. Unfortunately, that may also have limited effect. Teaching children civics, history, and how to differentiate fact from fiction is a half-measure because it will have little impact now. The challenge is reaching their parents who follow Donald Trump, “Q” and all the other malevolent disseminators of conspiracy theories down the rabbit hole.
 
Dick Hermann
June 4, 2021