Coronavirus News Updates

[kscarbel2]

Quad Cities  /  May 11, 2020

The same day his press secretary tested positive for COVID-19, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Iowa without a mask, and a video shows the CEOs he met with at a public roundtable were asked to remove theirs.

The video below clearly shows Ron Cameron of Mountaire Farms, Ken Sullivan of Smithfield Foods, Rodney McMullen of Kroger, Noel White of Tyson Foods and Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, being asked to remove their masks before Pence and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds arrive — maskless — at the roundtable hosted at HyVee headquarters in West Des Moines. All five complied.

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[kscarbel2]

My opinion of Vice President Pence just fell to zero.

[david wild]

On 4/28/2020 at 5:54 PM, mackey58 said:

Is malaria still that rampant. In 3rd world countries like it was when the Panama canal was put in

I keep my pills on hand for Malaria, been vaccinated for typhoid, Cholera and a bunch of crap I don't even know, If you want to travel to highly civilized modern Africa that's what you do so you don't come down with some unknown crap, last trip to Ghana one of the GE guys went out on a private flight with a tube glued in his butt to catch the fluids draining out his  butt hole, so yes all those bugs are still out there.

[Mack Technician]

A what where 🤮 !??!?  Were they using him to power the airplane? ✈️  

You boys down in Georgia have your own way of dealing with infirmity. Lord may I never get sick in Atlanta......and if I do may they please have run out of the 2” tubing. 

[david wild]

No we were told not to eat anything that had local milk, he knew more than the rest, after a week he was looking real bad, then stuff started leaking out, so they tubed him put this goo looking glue (?) and charted a flight and hauled him out, he would have never made a commercial flight, it's wonder we all didn't get something, you want to see some weird crap you need to go there, and it was nothing compared to Tanzania, Dar es salaam  was really bad, like you want to go home now bad, Tema Ghana was not so bad and the compound we had was first rate, girls were a buck a day and was for everything (cleaning and ??) I opted out for the girls, divorce in GA. ain't cheap. 

[kscarbel2]

This event today was very informative, but also troubling. Worth your time to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5FHRElONJc

[kscarbel2]

Read of the week

------------------------------------------------------

In the early days of the pandemic, the US government turned down an offer to manufacture millions of N95 masks in America

Aaron David, Washington Post  /  May 9, 2020

It was Jan. 22, a day after the first case of covid-19 was detected in the United States, and orders were pouring into Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from as far away as Hong Kong.

Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech, could ramp up production to make an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, though, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs.

“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Bowen wrote that day in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”

But communications over several days with senior agency officials — including Robert Kad­lec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and emergency response — left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer.

“I don’t believe we as a government are anywhere near answering those questions for you yet,” Laura Wolf, director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection, responded that same day.

Bowen persisted.

“We are the last major domestic mask company,” he wrote on Jan. 23. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”

In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.

Bowen’s overture was described briefly in an 89-page whistleblower complaint filed this week by Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Bright was retaliated against by Kadlec and other officials — including being reassigned to a lesser post — because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency.”

Emails show Bright pressed Kadlec and other agency leaders on the issue of mask shortages — and Bowen’s proposal specifically — to no avail. On Jan. 26, Bright wrote to a deputy that Bowen’s warnings “seem to be falling on deaf ears.”

That day, Bowen sent Bright a more direct warning.

“U.S. mask supply is at imminent risk,” Bowen wrote. “Rick, I think we’re in deep shit,” he wrote a day later.

The story of Bowen’s offer illustrates a missed opportunity in the early days of the pandemic, one laid out in Bright’s whistleblower complaint, interviews with Bowen and emails provided by both men.

Within weeks, a shortage of masks was endangering health-care workers in hard-hit areas across the country, and the Trump administration was scrambling to buy more masks — sometimes placing bulk orders with third-party distributors for many times the standard price. President Trump came under pressure to use extraordinary government powers to force the private industry to ramp up production.

In a statement, White House economic adviser and Coronavirus task force member Peter Navarro said: “The company was just extremely difficult to work and communicate with. This was in sharp contrast to groups like the National Council of Textile Organizations and companies like Honeywell and Parkdale Mills, which have helped America very rapidly build up cost effective domestic mask capacity measuring in the hundreds of millions.”

Carol Danko, an HHS spokeswoman [and employee of the American people], refused to comment on the offer by Bowen and other allegations raised in the whistleblower complaint. Wolf also refused to comment on the whistleblower complaint.

A senior U.S. government official with knowledge of the offer said Bowen, 62, has a “legitimate beef.”

“He was prescient, really,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. “But the reality is [HHS] didn’t have the money to do it at that time.”

Another HHS official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “There is a process for putting out contracts. It wasn’t as fast as anyone wanted it to be.”

A voice in the wilderness

Two decades ago, the low-slung factory in Texas was part of a supply conglomerate that produced almost 9 in 10 medical and surgical masks used in the United States.

Bowen was a new product specialist at the plant back then, and he watched as industry consolidations and outsourcing shifted control of the plant from Tecnol Medical Products to Kimberly-Clark and then shuttered it altogether. In less than a decade, almost 90 percent of all U.S. mask production had moved out of the country, according to government reports at the time.

Bowen and Dan Reese, a former executive at Tecnol, went into business together in 2005 and eventually bought the plant, believing a market remained for a dedicated domestic manufacturer of protective gear.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress appropriated $6 billion to buy antidotes to bioweapons and the medical supplies the country would need in public health disasters. An obscure new government organization called the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or ­BARDA, was among the agencies purchasing material for what would become the Strategic National Stockpile.

Bowen began studying ­BARDA, attending its industry conferences and searching for a way in to press his case.

In the parlance of BARDA, Bowen was seeking a “warm base” contract. The government would pay a premium to have masks manufactured domestically, but his company would keep its extra factory lines in working order, meaning production could be ramped up in an emergency.

Bowen said he soon concluded that BARDA’s focus was trained elsewhere, on billion-dollar deals to induce manufacturing of vaccines for the most exotic disasters, such as weaponized attacks with anthrax or smallpox.

Still, as Bowen moved down the supply chain, appealing directly to hospitals to buy his domestic-made masks, his sales pitch often ended with a plea to call BARDA.

Bowen often carried PowerPoint slides from a 2007 presentation by BARDA and its parent division at HHS, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. One had a table showing that, in the event of a pandemic, the country would need 5.3 billion N95 respirator masks, 50 times more than the number in the stockpile. The presentation concluded: “Industrial surge capacity of [respiratory protection devices] will not be able to meet need and supplies will be short during a pandemic.”

Bowen said he felt like a voice in the wilderness.

“The world just looked at me as a mask salesman who was saying the sky was falling,” he said, “and they would say, ‘Your competitors aren’t saying that in China.’ ”

After Trump’s election, Bowen hoped the new president’s America-first mentality might trickle down to operations like his. He wrote a letter to Trump and addressed it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: “90% of the United States protective mask supply is currently FOREIGN MADE!” it began.

“I didn’t think Trump would read it, but I thought someone would and take note,” Bowen said.

He also called Bright, who had been appointed to lead BARDA just before Trump took office. “In 14 years of doing this, there have been maybe four people in government who I felt like really understood this issue,” Bowen said. “Rick was one of them.”

In Trump’s first year, however, Bowen grew newly disillusioned. During a week when the White House touted its “Buy American, Hire American” initiative, Bowen lost a military contract worth up to $1 million to a supplier that would make many of the masks in Mexico, he said. "Shame on the Department of Defense! One of these days the Bowen wrote on Aug. 17, 2017, to Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Clark, a senior official with the Pentagon’s Defense Health Agency. The US military will need America’s manufacturers to help win another war or fight another pandemic — and they will not exist,”

Proposal to produce goes nowhere 

For Bowen, the first signs of trouble came in mid-January. Online orders through his company’s website, typically totaling maybe $2,000 a year and accounting for only a fraction of his business, suddenly skyrocketed to almost $700,000 in a few days.

On Jan. 20, Bowen also fielded a call from the Department of Homeland Security, urgently seeking masks for airport screeners. Bowen said he did not have masks in stock to fill the order, but the call led him to contact Bright to tell him about the surge in demand for masks. “Is this virus going to be problematic?” Bowen wrote.

Inside HHS, Bright quickly passed Bowen’s on-the-ground observations to a group that included Wolf, the director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection.

“Can you please reach out to Mike Bowen below? He is a great partner and a really good source for helpful information,” Bright wrote on Jan. 21.

“Thanks Rick,” she replied. “We are tracking and have begun to coordinate with fda, niosh, and manufacturers today. More to follow tomorrow. Thinking about masks, gowns (inc those in shortage), gloves, and eye protection.”

Within a day, Bowen sent an email to Wolf laying out what Prestige could do. The company’s four mothballed manufacturing lines could be restarted with large noncancelable orders, he wrote.

“This is NOT something we would ever wish to do and have NO plans to do it on our own,” he wrote. “I’m simply letting you know that in a dire situation, it could be done.”

Over the next three days, Bowen kept HHS officials informed as orders for a million masks came in from intermediaries for buyers in China and Hong Kong. On Jan. 26, he sent the email warning that the U.S. mask supply was at “imminent risk.”

Bright forwarded it that day to Kadlec and others, urging action: “We have been watching and receiving warnings on this for over a week,” he wrote.

The next day, Bright wrote to his deputy asking him to explore whether BARDA could divert money earmarked for vaccines and other biodefense measures to instead buy masks.

From his end, Bowen said his proposal seemed to be going nowhere. “No one at HHS ever did get back to me in a substantive way,” Bowen said.

The senior U.S. official said Bowen’s idea was considered, but funding could not easily be obtained without diverting it from other projects.

Bowen started talking to reporters about the mask shortage in general terms. He was soon invited to appear on former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon’spodcast: “War Room: Pandemic.”

On the Feb. 12 podcast, the two commiserated over the beleaguered state of U.S. manufacturing. “What I’ve been saying since 2007 is, ‘Guys, I’m warning you, here’s what is going to happen, let’s prepare,’ ” Bowen said on the program. “Because if you call me after it starts, I can’t help everybody.”

Bowen said Bannon put him in touch with Navarro, the White House economic adviser.

Navarro was quick to see the problem, Bowen said. After talking with Navarro, Bowen wrote to Bright that he should soon expect a call from the White House. “I’m pretty sure that my mask supply message will be heard by President Trump this week,” Bowen wrote. “Trump insider reading yesterday’s Wired.com article, the ball is screaming toward your court.”

According to Bright’s complaint, he soon began attending White House meetings and helping Navarro write memos describing the supply of masks as a top issue. Emails and memos attached to the complaint show Bright reporting back to Kadlec and others about his work with Navarro.

None of it turned the tide for Bowen.

Nearly a month after his emailed offer, Bowen received his first formal communication about possibly helping to bolster the U.S. supply. The five-page form letter from the Food and Drug Administration — one Bowen said he suspected was sent to many manufacturers — asked how his company could help with what was by then a “national emergency response” to the shortage of protective gear.

Bowen responded on Feb. 16, by firing off a terse email to FDA and HHS officials. He directed the agencies to a U.S. government website listing approved foreign manufacturers of medical masks. “There you’ll find a long list of . . . approved Chinese respirator companies,” he wrote. “Please send your long list of questions to them.”

In March, Bowen submitted a bid to supply masks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which by then had taken over purchasing.

The government soon spent over $600 million on contracts involving masks. Big companies like Honeywell and 3M were each awarded contracts totaling over $170 million for protective gear. One distributor of tactical gear — a company with no history of procuring medical equipment — was awarded a $55 million deal to provide masks for as much as $5.50 a piece, eight times what the government was paying months earlier.

On April 7, FEMA awarded Prestige a $9.5 million contract to provide a million N95 masks a month for one year, an order the company could fulfill without activating its dormant manufacturing lines. For the masks, Prestige charged the government 79 cents a piece.

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[kscarbel2]

Bloomberg  /  May 30, 2020

One farm in Tennessee distributed Covid-19 tests to all of its workers after an employee came down with the virus. It turned out that every single one of its roughly 200 employees had been infected.

In New Jersey, more than 50 workers had the virus at a farm in Gloucester County, adding to nearly 60 who fell ill in neighboring Salem County.

Washington state’s Yakima County, an agricultural area that produces apples, cherries, pears and most of the nation’s hops, has the highest per capita infection rate of any county on the West Coast.

The outbreaks underscore the latest pandemic threat to food supply: Farm workers are getting sick and spreading the illness just as the U.S. heads into the peak of the summer produce season. In all likelihood, the cases will keep climbing as more than half a million seasonal employees crowd onto buses to move among farms across the country and get housed together in cramped bunkhouse-style dormitories.

The early outbreaks are already starting to draw comparisons to the infections that plunged the U.S. meat industry into crisis over the past few months. Analysts and experts are warning that thousands of farm workers are vulnerable to contracting the disease.

Aside from the most immediate concern -- the grave danger that farmhands face -- the outbreaks could also create labor shortages at the worst possible time. Produce crops such as berries have a short life span, with only a couple of weeks during which they can be harvested. If a farm doesn’t have enough workers to collect crops in that window, they’re done for the season and the fruit will rot. A spike in virus cases among workers may mean shortages of some fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, along with higher prices.

“We’re watching very, very nervously -- the agricultural harvest season is only starting now,” said Michael Dale, executive director of the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project in Portland, Oregon, and a lawyer who has represented farm workers for 40 years. “I don’t think we’re ready. I don’t think we’re prepared.”

Unlike grain crops that rely on machinery, America’s fruits and vegetables are mostly picked and packed by hand, in long shifts out in the open -- a typically undesirable job in major economies. So the position typically goes to immigrants, who make up about three quarters of U.S. farm workers.

A workforce of seasonal migrants travels across the nation, following harvest patterns. Most come from Mexico and Latin America through key entry points like southern California, and go further by bus, often for hours, sometimes for days.

There are as many as 2.7 million hired farm workers in the U.S., including migrant, seasonal, year-round and guest-program workers, according to the Migrant Clinicians Network. While many migrants have their permanent residence in the U.S., moving from location to location during the warmer months, others enter through the federal H2A visa program. Still, roughly half of hired crop farm workers lack legal immigration status, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

[kscarbel2]

A report from the BBC said that dexamethasone, a cheap and widely available steroid, is being seen as a success in low doses to combat patients who are suffering serious symptoms from COVID19.

The BBC report cited a study from Oxford University, which included 2,000 hospital patients who were given the steroid and were compared with more than 4,000 who didn’t get the drug. The report indicated that for “patients on ventilators it cut death risk from 40% to 28%,” and for “patients needing oxygen it cut death risk from 25% to 20%.”

[kscarbel2]

Reuters  /  June 26, 2020

Scientists are only starting to grasp the vast array of health problems caused by the novel coronavirus, some of which may have lingering effects on patients and health systems for years to come.

Besides the respiratory issues that leave patients gasping for breath, the virus that causes COVID-19 attacks many organ systems, in some cases causing catastrophic damage.

“We thought this was only a respiratory virus. Turns out, it goes after the pancreas. It goes after the heart. It goes after the liver, the brain, the kidney and other organs. We didn’t appreciate that in the beginning,” says cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol.

In addition to respiratory distress, patients with COVID-19 can experience blood clotting disorders that can lead to strokes, and extreme inflammation that attacks multiple organ systems. The virus can also cause neurological complications that range from headache, dizziness and loss of taste or smell to seizures and confusion.

And recovery can be slow, incomplete and costly, with a huge impact on quality of life.

The broad and diverse manifestations of COVID-19 are somewhat unique. With influenza, people with underlying heart conditions are also at higher risk of complications. What is surprising about this virus is the extent of the complications occurring outside the lungs.

While much of the focus has been on the minority of patients who experience severe disease, doctors increasingly are looking to the needs of patients who were not sick enough to require hospitalization, but are still suffering months after first becoming infected.

Studies are just getting underway to understand the long-term effects of infection, says Jay Butler, deputy director of infectious diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We hear anecdotal reports of people who have persistent fatigue, shortness of breath,” Butler said. “How long that will last is hard to say.”

While coronavirus symptoms typically resolve in two or three weeks, an estimated 1 in 10 experience prolonged symptoms, Dr. Helen Salisbury of the University of Oxford wrote in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday.

Salisbury said many of her patients have normal chest X-rays and no sign of inflammation, but they are still not back to normal.

“If you previously ran 5k three times a week and now feel breathless after a single flight of stairs, or if you cough incessantly and are too exhausted to return to work, then the fear that you may never regain your previous health is very real,” she wrote.

Dr. Igor Koralnik, chief of neuro-infectious diseases at Northwestern Medicine, has found about half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had neurological complications, such as dizziness, decreased alertness, difficulty concentrating, disorders of smell and taste, seizures, strokes, weakness and muscle pain.

[Maxidyne]

The traditional wisdom is that it's not the fatalities that cause defeat in a war, it's the burden of caring for the wounded. While COVID-19 fatalities have largely been in the elderly so the loss of productive years of life may not be that damaging to our economy, Loosing millions of productive working age people to disability and millions more to care for them will be a major drag on our economy for decades.

[david wild]

OK chicken little where did any one say that millions of workers would be affected by the virus and be put out of the work force ?? try helping build this great country instead of tearing apart and if this place is so terrible go someplace more to your liking ?? oops that's right other countries don't want people with negative attitudes either.  

[Maxidyne]

We're waiting for better COVID-19 morbidity stats, but there's enough ancedotal reports of COVID-19 being a cause of chronic illness and disability that we need to further slow it's spread. As for building this country, even though I'm retired that's literally what I do- The water system rebuild project I've been working on for years was just granted 80% of it's funding. And do you really want all of us skilled workers, techs, and engineers to leave? That's exactly what's happening, Trump is chasing so many of these workers out of the country that his "election" set off a real estate boom in Canada!

[david wild]

No the truth is most likely you are referring to union workers who are only thinking about how fast they can get on disability for stubbing their toe, they wouldn't know a hard day of work if they tripped over it, the days of unions being useful have long gone and have become nothing but a protection scheme for useless workers, I personally have had to deal union workers at powerplant jobs, funny when something critical needed to be done it would happen on the weekend when the union workers were off and we could get things done with out all the drama, your man Obama is the one that sent your jobs overseas, don't you read the jobs reports, don't you read the want ads or the tool box magazines that advertise plant work, everybody was crying for help till the liberal virus came along and yes it is a liberal virus, the virus is just another fraud for Pelosi to use against Trump even though he did what liberals complained about but then it was the right thing to do, to bad your hate for Trump is guided by lemming mentality otherwise you too would see the good Trump has done.  

[Maxidyne]

6 hours ago, david wild said:

No the truth is most likely you are referring to union workers who are only thinking about how fast they can get on disability for stubbing their toe, they wouldn't know a hard day of work if they tripped over it, the days of unions being useful have long gone and have become nothing but a protection scheme for useless workers, I personally have had to deal union workers at powerplant jobs, funny when something critical needed to be done it would happen on the weekend when the union workers were off and we could get things done with out all the drama, your man Obama is the one that sent your jobs overseas, don't you read the jobs reports, don't you read the want ads or the tool box magazines that advertise plant work, everybody was crying for help till the liberal virus came along and yes it is a liberal virus, the virus is just another fraud for Pelosi to use against Trump even though he did what liberals complained about but then it was the right thing to do, to bad your hate for Trump is guided by lemming mentality otherwise you too would see the good Trump has done.  

Thanks to the Unions I don't have to celebrate my 70th birthday in a few weeks in a truck thousands of miles from home in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Instead I've been able to spend the last 15 years enjoying life and using my skills to do volunteer work for worthy clients like my city that couldn't afford to pay me. Sorry that you haven't been so lucky.

[Maxidyne]

Truth is, our infrastructure is in horrible shape, and we're in no place to criticize.

[kscarbel2]

We're in no position to criticize anyone.

[Maxidyne]

Is the U.S. in such bad shape that the only positive comparisons you can make are to failed dictatorships?

[storkmack]

Was just talking about this the other day.   Wouldn’t we have benefited as a nation by having a unified nation wide approach?  Like a prime time TV discussion led by Trump back in let’s say February?   Instead all we get is political BS from news outlets and  political hacks that have everyone going in different directions and then people wonder why there is some much anxiety and angst among us.    

[j hancock]

Could have been beneficial.  Even with a meeting, doesn't mean the herd will all go the same direction.

Problem is that then and to some extent now, the medical community doesn't fully understand the problem.  There was the push to use ventilators and now that has been determined not to be helpful as first thought.  Some positive results have come with a steroid treatment.  There is going to be a ton of testing and research for many months/years.

Even with a plan of lock down, distancing, etc. some areas have been hit very hard.

The common element seems to be the transmission by droplets hence mask usage, distancing and washing hands.

I have given up on watching the news because of the drama, hype, BS, so on. I try to read info from the CDC every couple of days to see what they might be saying.

 

[david wild]

Yep, me and my crew are off in Midwest city waiting for our State Patrol escort but we are having a great time and soon we will be on our way moving a Airplane part that will honor our Vets so again that is great too and then were off to move a Caboose that will go on display so you will standing on the sidewalk watching us preserve history, like I have said it's great to be on this side of the fence, due to my horrible non union job that you assume that I have I have seen the pyramids  in Egypt, been to the mountains outside of Accra Ghana and hung out at Bob Marley's house, even met his son here in the USA only because I knew about his dads house, flown around the world on the biggest flying plane in the world, got any idea what it feels like to fly in a plane that weighs 1.3 million pounds ??? even stood inside the unfinished 225,  I have done the transfer at sea to a pilot boat from a cargo ship while under way, have you ? and of course spent a year in Ireland and worked in Iraq and other destinations in Africa, been to France, Ukraine, Sweden, Kuwait,Netherlands and on and on what have you done ?  Yep my non union scab job sure has been hard to take, oh since you made such a great  living with your Union job how commercial property have you invested in ??? maybe you stay retired and be seen not heard.       

[Quickfarms]

Unions served a purpose at one point in time but that purpose has for the most part disappeared. There purpose was apprenticeship schools but that has been largely replaced by trade schools and community colleges.

I do not know of any skilled tradesman that exited the work place because of trump, it actually quite the opposite.

Engineers have degrees and professional licenses and are not unionized. I am an engineer and have never been part of the union.

Having worked for a union shop I can say that there are a lot of union workers that hide behind the contract to get out of work or milk the project. Then there a few that actually understand that behavior hurts the company, and ultimately them, and uses the contract as a guide. Many of the crews I had would do there work and go home regardless of weather they had worked there 8 or not. I did have a few crews that would call me if they were going to get done early, sometimes I would have the crew go to another project, usually to answer a question on the route back to there home, other times I would just tell them they got there 8 and I would see them in the morning. Guess who got the new equipment, trucks and overtime.


The truth is since trump was elected I know multiple people that have postponed there retirement.

This pandemic has not hurt my work, it has actually improved multiple aspects. Traffic has been greatly reduced or eliminated. We do not do worthless meetings anymore. Rates are way up.

[41chevy]

2 hours ago, david wild said:

Yep, me and my crew are off in Midwest city waiting for our State Patrol escort but we are having a great time and soon we will be on our way moving a Airplane part that will honor our Vets so again that is great too and then were off to move a Caboose that will go on display so you will standing on the sidewalk watching us preserve history, like I have said it's great to be on this side of the fence, due to my horrible non union job that you assume that I have I have seen the pyramids  in Egypt, been to the mountains outside of Accra Ghana and hung out at Bob Marley's house, even met his son here in the USA only because I knew about his dads house, flown around the world on the biggest flying plane in the world, got any idea what it feels like to fly in a plane that weighs 1.3 million pounds ??? even stood inside the unfinished 225,  I have done the transfer at sea to a pilot boat from a cargo ship while under way, have you ? and of course spent a year in Ireland and worked in Iraq and other destinations in Africa, been to France, Ukraine, Sweden, Kuwait,Netherlands and on and on what have you done ?  Yep my non union scab job sure has been hard to take, oh since you made such a great  living with your Union job how commercial property have you invested in ??? maybe you stay retired and be seen not heard.       

 

Now now, the union in the mid of April made my job a breeze.  There are 6 houses in a small development whose only access in or out is a bridge a mile away. The piers were getting eroded from the recent rains. Town and county requested for us the install temporary diverters  so police, fire and medical could have access. My company gets there and low an behold the local union boy arrives. Calls the VSP and informs them we are not on the state list of necessary business, VSP officer informs me we are in violation of governors mandate and will be fined, equipment impounded and as owner I can be arrested. We leave and return to my property. I called the town and infromed them the bridge will not be stabilized with out an edict from the governors office allowing us to be there.  That injuries or death of the 9 adults, 18 children or the 5 elderly are on Trooper Galanti's  and Union rep Hennesy's heads and it is on video .

The same VSP officer  shows up a few minutes later at my gate and demands entry to look my property over "because you are blaming me" for enforcing the states edict and because the local union guy informed him that all your crap is ex military and he needs to know why.  Told him I was turning around and going to my car and he  may now shoot me in the back. . .smile you're  definitely on video and likely ranged in on.

Never knew the Unions run the VSP and can void somebodies rights under the Constitution.

 

Thanks to the unions compliant and the VSP  voiding the Constitution my crew had a lot of OT.  We re did my road with gullies on both sides for drainage, added two switch backs and  fougasse pits for de icing.

Edited June 27, 2020 by 41chevy

[david wild]

OH one other point you need glasses because if looked at the photos of my truck which are on here there is no sleeper, yes we stay in motels and eat at real restaurants not truck stops, only time we go near a truck stop is to buy fuel, when on unexpected vacation we enjoy the local attractions, that's how we know so much about our great country, since we really like to eat I know all kinds of great places from coast to coast for a good meal, from Newick's  and the Backroom in NH to Rudy's in TX ,AZ  and UT, Bobby Rubinos in south Florida, Rays in Greenriver UT I could go on forever, you should get out more often, OH and Haircuts, the best is the Sheraton in Kuwait city a true pleasure.

[Maxidyne]

Let me get this right... You started a move with a 20' wide load pulled by an old Mack without making sure of your permits and routing for the trip. Now your paying out of pocket for a week wasted in a South Dakota motel... And I'm supposed to be jealous?