Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word
Source: LA Times
Although President Trump has directed states and hospitals to secure what supplies they can, the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Officials whove had materials seized also say theyve received no guidance from the government about how or if they will get access to the supplies they ordered. That has stoked concerns about how public funds are being spent and whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.
In order to have confidence in the distribution system, to know that it is being done in an equitable manner, you have to have transparency, said Dr. John Hick, an emergency physician at Hennepin Healthcare in Minnesota who has helped develop national emergency preparedness standards through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies%3f_amp=true
See the other article about how Massachusetts got by the feds.
[link:https://www.wwlp.com/news/massachusetts/3-million-masks-ordered-by-massachusetts-seized-at-port-of-ny-in-march/|]
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
sheshe2
(83,746 posts)OneCrazyDiamond
(2,031 posts)I believe it is a part of his re-election strategy. Look at the explosion of cases in blue states, and where help is sent.
DENVERPOPS
(8,810 posts)doing what Boston did????? National Guard and State Police escorts.......I am sure inviting the so called press would be interesting....
sandensea
(21,624 posts)Just like the 3rd world-style despot he is.
chowder66
(9,067 posts)BusyBeingBest
(8,052 posts)Or rather, move this one up to the front of the potential investigation/hearings queue.
Drum
(9,154 posts)This crew has been inexorably grinding toward this dark age of death, theft, and deafness.
Hekate
(90,645 posts)cstanleytech
(26,283 posts)Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)All three can be true at the same time and I believe they are.
Initech
(100,063 posts)fwvinson
(488 posts)Jim__
(14,075 posts)Is that actually legal?
christx30
(6,241 posts)from anyone. If you want to keep what's your's, you pretty much have to hide it or smuggle it, like they did with those masks from china that arrived via the Patriots plane (when did the country turn into a mad libs game?).
Who's going to stop them from taking whats not theirs? Some judge somewhere? Fat chance of that. Trump declared a national emergency, then let it get so bad he can do pretty much anything he wants.
I'm honestly shocked he isn't sending troops door to door collecting toilet paper. Again, hide it, smuggle it, or you will lose it.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)The staties escorted around 200k of the masks to ny.
Maybe it was just as kind of an honor guard. Maybe it was a little bit of thumbing their noses at the feds. Maybe part was actually guarding the masks.
The last is the scary part. Whats that curse about interesting times?
Btw the national guard works for governors doesnt it? At least up to some point.
christx30
(6,241 posts)and he decides to Federalize them, like Kennedy did in Alabama. Then they either turn their guns on the NY or MA or whomever's cops and take the supplies again, or they violate the law.
Again, the feds can't take what they can't find.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)And that was the question. There's no way the state police would stand a chance against the NG if Trump turned them. I'd just hope the troops would show loyalty to their state rather than the national government. But who knows these days.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)You made a claim.
from anyone. If you want to keep what's your's, you pretty much have to hide it or smuggle it, like they did with those masks from china that arrived via the Patriots plane (when did the country turn into a mad libs game?).
Who's going to stop them from taking whats not theirs? Some judge somewhere
A governor who runs the state police has state jurisdiction over them. Governors also have state jurisdiction over their local national guards unless there is a directive from the feds for some national problem .
You imply that this president could pit his power against any governor. He can't. He stated as such in his presser show today. He knows that he can't override governor-controlled state police, too.
These confiscations were FEMA's of supplies en route to hospitals.
You can want to be right that the National Guard is federal, but that's not accurate. Additionally, you're turning the NDAA's 2011 change of federal use of them into a legal possibility for overriding of governors. That's not going to happen.
FEMA's doing the confiscating, not some national guards.
MA's governor used his state police and state powers to aid another state. No FEMA task force would have stopped that. And certainly not national guard.
The words national guard, moreover, don't appear in either article.
getagrip_already
(14,708 posts)The state police here are corrupt to the core. And they are militaristic wannabes.
They would gladly follow hair furor.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)We might be walking that thin line, nationally, between the loyalties and the legal oaths law that enforcement contend with. Governors are the ones who can keep local enforcement in line.
Law enforcement, if it's professional, won't even politically decide who's side their health and safety lies with -- the feds or their own state governor. They know.
Just throwing out a recent example in Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who just replaced her police chief with a chief from Houston who, she trusted, will implement her enforcement policies. Together they're rewriting the policing of Chicago, and the governor backs her up.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2020, 03:06 AM - Edit history (1)
to any commander-in-chief control, and Trump knows it.
The National Guard used to be separate from the US military proper, under states' control, but in the post 9/11 Bush years -- maybe under the Patriot Act or the NDAA of 2011 that formally labeled the US a "battleground" -- they became subject to call ups along with the military, in case the feds needed to use them for disaster relief, etc.
Some governors have refused to allow their National Guard to be used, but so far, under Trump, that hasn't happened.
State Police, State Troopers and Sheriffs are under governors' control. That's stayed the same across presidencies.
machoneman
(4,006 posts)the Feds the who/what/where/when of shipments they had ordered, paid for and expected air shipment of same.
Knowing what trump's evil minions at FEMA, HHS, etc. have done, why in the world do they keep announcing their scores of needed personal protection gear? Keep it quiet, hide the orders, use unusual delivery routes (i.e. thru Canada, Mexico, Caribbean Islands, et al) to prevent Federal seizures.
RobinA
(9,888 posts)arent experienced smugglers, so they arent knowledgeable about clandestine movement of product. Theres a learning curve to this stuff. Theyll learn eventually. Maybe they can hire some mid level drug kingpins to help them learn the ropes.
Chemisse
(30,809 posts)When the federal government tells you 'f*** you, get your own supplies', and then when you do, they steal your orders before they can arrive.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)On how Massachusetts ran a counter op on the feds
ancianita
(36,023 posts)Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)Maybe Im being a bit dark calling it a counter op, but I bet they thought about hiding what they were doing from the feds until it was accomplished.
The part that scares me is the idea of governors having to work at cross purposes to the feds. They are right to do what they need to do to protect us but that makes it more horrible
I still hope this flattens out enough or that trump is no longer there and we can get back to some kind of sanity.
ancianita
(36,023 posts)The Democratic governors are using their brains to outsmart Trump's racketeering. I think it's beyond that. It's downright American patriotism.
I don't think they thought they had to hide what they were doing at all. They've got guns, too, you know. And the force of their governor and state law behind them. FEMA can't override state level transactions. Just hospitals', apparently.
FEMA does its job, but most people in FEMA are not henchmen, just people doing their job while Trump abuses his legal power to order FEMA around. It is a "national disaster," after all.
CA's gov now calls his state a nation state. Which to the rest of the globe, it is, and can be traded with as such. I remember how Venezuelan oil was bought by one northeastern governor when fuel was running out for heat during a particularly bad winter. So governors have global trade. With this hollowed out government these days, they might need to make that work in The People's favor.
When Newsom gets all those millions of supplies and ships them to blue state governors, he will have cockblocked the punishment Trump's administering by favoring distribution to his loyalist governors. We'll get him later in court under RICO law, probably.
Chemisse
(30,809 posts)world wide wally
(21,740 posts)MontanaMama
(23,307 posts)He has shown us who he is.
notdarkyet
(2,226 posts)Ways to fight power.
SergeStorms
(19,193 posts)TryLogic
(1,722 posts)BKDem
(1,733 posts)I guess there's a line that can't be crossed when wishing Trump the worst.
SergeStorms
(19,193 posts)that Special Agent Mike may be watching. Hi, Special Agent Mike!
CloudWatcher
(1,846 posts)SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)TryLogic
(1,722 posts)and ICE officers? What the hell are they doing?
Dem2theMax
(9,650 posts)May he get Coronavirus, and get his one way ticket very soon.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)This is seriously fucked up and seriously scary.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)NoRoadUntravelled
(2,626 posts)Whenever he is engaged in a corrupt activity he clues us in to what he's up to by accusing others of what he is doing himself.
At the end of March he accused hospitals of hoarding supplies and healthcare workers of stealing them.
mahina
(17,646 posts)KY_EnviroGuy
(14,490 posts)That's if folks in a nutshell.
It's almost like having control over the air we breath. This corrupt administration knows what it takes to have leverage over the American people and they seize every opportunity, including turning what should be a daily health PSA into a political shit show.
Impeach the bastard again.............
ancianita
(36,023 posts)It will take some investigating and following the money, but he can be prosecuted, probably, under RICO laws.
notdarkyet
(2,226 posts)dchill
(38,472 posts)It is what it is.
riversedge
(70,190 posts)notdarkyet
(2,226 posts)duforsure
(11,885 posts)To keep hospitals from getting supplies on their own so he can use those supplies as a weapon , which shows he doesn't care about Americans health at all. He never has , and never will. He's killing his own supporters to help himself now. I think death starring them in their face now will wake up many of them now.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)Treasonous swine.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)The anti-Semites delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade but to intimidate and disconcert. Sartre(M.Brooks)
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)tiptonic
(765 posts)I bet the republican states get theirs.
MuseRider
(34,105 posts)Kansas had the nerve to put a Democrat in charge after Brownback/Colyer left and not only that it is a FEMALE Democrat AND she beat Kobach. Our nurses are making their own masks now. Our first shipment was incomplete and the last 7 requests put in over the last 2 weeks were ignored.
0.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)They can't keep track of where they have sent which child. What makes anyone think these guys care about bookkeeping on medical supplies?
gibraltar72
(7,503 posts)Based on what we know Trump and Jared are doing. Announcing you have a supply of masks coming invites Trump to use his powers to intercept them. Jareds store must have stock on the shelves.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)luvallpeeps
(935 posts)I have such a sick feeling in my stomach and my heart. What kind of fuckery is this praytell?
keithbvadu2
(36,775 posts)Republican new seller has 'relationships with a lot of people.'
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142462680
Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus
The fundraiser, Mike Gula, didnt specify his new line of work in the email. But in an interview, he said hed started a new company selling medical equipment thats been in short supply during the coronavirus pandemic.
----------
Asked how hed managed to procure such equipment when there are shortages in hospitals across the country, Gula said, I have relationships with a lot of people.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,922 posts)"Fell off the back off a truck"