Crazy People

Crazy people are in positions of power in this country.  Yesterday Michael Caputo surfaced as a nutter, and the orange wombat confirmed it once again.

Michael Caputo is the assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS.  Caputo reports to Azar.  Sunday he did a live Facebook event during which he said some really weird stuff.  Caputo has been interfering with the CDC weekly release of the Morbidity and Mortality reports.  These are the reports that quantify deaths.  Up until now, no one outside of CDC saw them until they were made public.  Caputo has inserted himself into the process with demands for changes to the data.  During his Facebook event he accused the CDC of harboring a resistance unit whose goal is to undermine the orange wombat.  Caputo went on to suggest that he personally could be in danger from opponents of the administration. “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,” he urged his followers.  Other remarks were as follows (this is excerpted from the NYT article).

C.D.C. scientists “haven’t gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops” to plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next,” Mr. Caputo said. “There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.”

Over all, his tone was deeply ominous: He warned, again without evidence, that “there are hit squads being trained all over this country” to mount armed opposition to a second term for Mr. Trump. “You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,” Mr. Caputo added.

He said his physical health was in question, and his “mental health has definitely failed.”

“I don’t like being alone in Washington,” Mr. Caputo said, describing “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.” He also said the mounting number of Covid-19 deaths was taking a toll on him, telling his viewers, “You are not waking up every morning and talking about dead Americans.” The United States has lost more than 194,000 people to the virus. Mr. Caputo urged people to attend Trump rallies, but only with masks.

The only believable part of that was that his mental health has failed. If you are blocked by the NYT paywall, there is more reporting here.

Huff post reports that Caputo has extensive ties to Russia.  He worked for Yeltsin 1995 to 1999.  Later he had a position improving Putin's image. 

Caputo’s Kremlin ties were so concerning that he became a target of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was questioned but was not charged with any offenses. He also testified before the House Intelligence Committee that he had no contact with Russians while serving on the Trump campaign.

Caputo has attempted to scrub his links to Russia in his Wikipedia bio — and insisted in an interview that his work doesn’t make him a “Putin stooge.” He told his hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, that “at the time, Putin wasn’t such a bad guy.”

So this is the guy that's in charge of communications from the CDC.  Apparently all of this is just fine with the wombat, and Caputo's job is secure.

Speaking of the wombat, he went to California today to discuss the fires.  At the airport he did a press gaggle, during which he said that when trees are downed, after 18 months they dry up because no water is running through them; and then they explode and cause fires.  Oh and there are the dead leaves, leaves are also a danger.  He went after California for not raking the forests.  During the table discussion, Governor Newsom pointed out that only 3% of the forests in California are state.  The rest are federal, overseen by the US Department of Agriculture. When another member of the California delegation mentioned that California is hotter all year round, the wombat replied with his thought that the earth would begin to cool and that the scientists don't know anything. Politicalflare has a piece on this.  I guess this explains why a climate change denier was just appointed to NOAA.

CNN has an article up about how the wombat could end social security by 2022.  I have been making the "la la la la la" noise on the subject because I though that Congress would have to do it, because SS is a federal law.  Nope, I was wrong.  The IRS gives the wombat the authority to suspend payroll withholding when a disaster is declared.  And so, he's suspending withholding for federal and military employees.  The private sector declined to participate.  He can just  declare another disaster.  This is so bad, how many millions of people will be thrown in to poverty because of one psychopath?  I really hope the article is wrong on this, social security is a big chunk of our income.

This guy has got to go.  Sorry I have no pictures today, it's been a slow day in lock-down.