TRNS News Notes is brought to you by Victoria Jones. Victoria Jones is the Chief White House correspondent and global analyst of the Washington DC based Talk Radio News Service, where her insight and analysis are made available to over 400 news talk radio stations around the country and internationally.

In the News

  • Ebola patient flew on jet: Why?
  • Obama cancels travel – again
  • Ebola hearing today: “We made mistakes”
  • Hospital: More emergency dept problems
  • Obama: Push out info “as aggressively as possible”
  • Pols weigh in (natch)
  • Panic! Don’t panic!
  • A mission name! “Operation Inherent Resolve”
  • There are still no WMD in Iraq
  • Iran: Deal or no deal?
  • Wall Street: The party is over
  • Feminist games critic cancels speech: Massacre threat
  • “She is going to die screaming”

 

Ebola Patient Flew on Jet. Why?
• It was revealed Wednesday that a second nurse who had cared for Ebola patient Thomas Duncan at a Dallas hospital tested positive for the disease. Amber Joy Vinson, 29, had traveled on a commercial flight the day before she showed symptoms (NYT, CNN, CBS, TRNS, Fox, TRNS, WaPo, Reuters, me)

• Vinson should not have traveled on a commercial flight, the director of the Centers for Disease Control said, after learning that she was a passenger on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 on Monday, flying from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth

• Frieden said the CDC guidance is for “controlled movement.” That can include “a charter plane; that can include a car; but it does not include public transport.”

• But hours after the director, Dr Tom Frieden, made that statement, one official said that Vinson had indeed called the CDC several times before boarding the plane  but was allowed to fly because her temperature was 99.5 and not 100.4 which is the cutoff under guidelines. The CDC asked all 132 passengers on the flight to call a CDC hotline

• A federal health official – anonymous – said that it was thought that Vinson’s protective gear would have kept her safe and because her temperature was only mildly elevated, she fell into a category not covered by CDC guidelines. “I don’t think we actually said she could fly, but they didn’t tell her she couldn’t fly … I really think this one is on us.” (yup)

Obama Cancels Travel – Again

• President Obama Wednesday night changed his travel plans for a second day, canceling trips to Rhode Island and New York City which were scheduled for today so he could stay at the WH to oversee the govt’s response (more below). Vinson was moved Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta

• Officials at Kent State University, where Vinson studied nursing and her mother and two other relatives work, asked the three family members to stay off campus for three weeks “out of an abundance of caution.” Frontier said it had put the pilots and four flights attendants on Flight 1143 on paid leave

• Obama directed his aides to monitor the spread of Ebola in the U.S. “in a much more aggressive away” but said Americans should remain confident of the govt’s ability to prevent a widespread outbreak. He promised that a review of the two Dallas cases would discover how they became infected

• The Frontier jet that carried Vinson on Monday made five flights the next day, according to Flightaware.com. Frontier said it grounded the plane as soon as it was notified, about 1 am Wednesday, about the Ebola patient – so a discrepancy there

Nurses Had Extensive Contact With Duncan
• Frieden said the critical period at Presbyterian Hospital was the first three days of Duncan’s care before his Ebola infection was confirmed and before the CDC team arrived in Dallas – 28, 29 and 30 Sept

• Both nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson had extensive contact with Duncan at that time, and both had interacted with him while he was producing a large amount of fluids from projectile vomiting and diarrhea. Officials were focusing on their use of personal protective equipment

• “We noticed, for example, that some health care workers were putting on three or four layers of protective equipment,” Frieden said. “But in fact by putting on more layers of gloves or other protective clothing, it becomes much harder to put them on and much harder to take them off and the risk of contamination during the process get much higher.”

• Vinson’s trip to Ohio last weekend was to plan her wedding with her mother. She was doing her bridal shopping and going to the bridal stores with her mother

Ebola Hearing Today: “We Made Mistakes”
• A transcript of testimony by Dr Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer of the Dallas hospital’s parent chain, Texas Health Resources, is expected to be presented at noon today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (popcorn, large drink, appropriate clothing) (Yahoo, Politico, me)

• Varga can’t attend the hearing. “Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly skilled medical team, we made mistakes,” testimony reads. “We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry.” Friday, the hospital hired global PR firm Burson-Marsteller to help tell its side

• “In our effort to communicate to the public quickly and transparently, we inadvertently provided some information that was inaccurate and had to be corrected. No doubt that was unsettling to a community that was already concerned and confused, and we have learned from that experience as well.” Testimony doesn’t say what the “inaccurate” info was…

• Varga praises the two nurses, doesn’t know how they were exposed. He goes on to say they’ve instituted a number of fixes, including an Ebola “refresher course” (implying staff already knew, which they say they didn’t) for emergency dept staffers

• Others expected to testify include Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Wednesday, Fauci said, “What happened there, regardless of the reason, is not acceptable,” and Dr Tom Frieden, director of the CDC – who’s being called on to resign by a few Republicans
Hospital: More Emergency Dept Problems
• In Medicare’s most recent ratings, although Texas Presbyterian scored well on surgery, obstetrics and cardiac and stroke care, the hospital did less well, below state and national averages, on assessments of its emergency department – where Duncan first went and was sent home on his first visit

• It took an average of 52 minutes for an emergency patient to be seen by a doctor or nurse, twice the state and national averages. Court records reveal several recent cases of bad outcomes in the emergency room – including failure to diagnose TB and sending the patient home with antibiotics (similar to Duncan)

• Separately, Dr Daniel Varga, the hospital’s chief clinical officer, said in an interview Wednesday that a nurse had not asked Duncan about his travel history until two hours after he arrived in the emergency room. The nurse noted he had come from West Africa, but didn’t communicate that to the doctor who re-interviewed Duncan 10 minutes later

• The doctor somehow came away with different info, that Duncan was a local resident. Dr Varga said he didn’t know how that had happened
• The appalling Dr Keith Ablow, member of the Fox News medical A-Team, said Obama won’t protect Americans from Ebola because “his affinities are with them
[Africa], not us.” “This guy, who has names very similar to two of our archenemies, Osama, well, Obama. And Hussein, Hussein.” (speechless because gagging) (TPM, me)
Obama: Push Out Info “As Aggressively As Possible”
• The admin is “taking this [Ebola] very seriously at the highest levels of govt,” President Obama said Wednesday afternoon, after a hastily-arranged meeting with Cabinet heads and agency heads responsible for the govt’s efforts to combat the deadly disease. Obama offered his “thoughts and prayers” to the two nurses (TRNS, Hill, me)

• “What I’ve directed the CDC to do is that as soon as somebody is diagnosed with Ebola, we want a Rapid Response Team – a SWAT team, essentially – from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible, hopefully within 24 hours, so that they are taking the local hospital step by step through exactly what needs to be done.”

• Obama said the admin was paying special attention to “nonspecialized hospitals and clinics” that “don’t have that much experience dealing with these issues.” “We’re going to have to push out this information as aggressively as possible, and that’s the instructions that I’ve provided to my team.”

• Obama said the WH was “monitoring carefully” the remainder of the healthcare workers who had come into contact with Duncan. “We understand that many of them are scared and we’re going to make sure that we’re on the ground 24-7 to provide them the sort of support … they need to get through this particular challenge.”

• “I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed not the doctors but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients. They followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing, I felt perfectly safe doing so.” Obama added the “dangers of a serious outbreak are extraordinarily low.”
Pols Weigh In (natch)
• In his first public response to Ebola this month, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in a statement Wednesday that President Obama should “absolutely consider” banning travel from countries most affected by Ebola “along with any other appropriate actions as doubts about the security of our air travel systems grow.”

• House Democrats are pushing back hard against proposals to institute a travel ban. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) said Wednesday that there is no epidemic and “we have to turn internally and look at our own selves and make sure our health infrastructure is where it needs to be.” (Hill, Dallas Morning News, Roll Call, me)

• Sen Rob Portman (R-OH) says it took an Ohio constituent 180 minutes to get through to the Ebola hotline at the CDC. Portman tweeted that it was “unacceptable.” The newest U.S. Ebola patient flew to Texas from a Cleveland airport

• At least two Republican lawmakers are calling for Dr Tom Frieden, Director of the CDC, to resign. Rep Tom Marino (R-PA) said Frieden should resign “immediately,” and Sen Pete Sessions (R-TX) answered conservative radio host affirmatively when asked if Frieden should resign

• Democrats on the House Appropriations health subcommittee, which oversees the funding of agencies involved in the Ebola response, said Wednesday it’s “unacceptable” their panel’s top Republican won’t call a hearing to evaluate resources on the ground

• Vid: Calm down! Here’s Fox News’ Shep Smith’s rejoinder to “irresponsible” Ebola coverage (hmmm – by whom, I wonder?)

Panic! Don’t Panic!
• Psychologists are increasingly concerned about another kind of contagion, whose symptoms range from heightened anxiety to avoidance of public places to full-blown hysteria (NYT, me)

• Experts have known for years that people judge risk based on a sophisticated balance of instinctual reaction – quick and automatic – versus analytical reasoning – much slower and much harder. In everyday life, the mind juggles the two methods of risk assessment

• For example, most people appreciate that a chance of infection of one in a 100 million is a near zero. But if a friend says he knows an infected person, then our instinctive risk-assessment system is much more likely to focus on the numerator than on the denominator. Am I the one in a million? Me?

• The Ebola outbreak has many of the elements that could quickly stoke instinctual panic, experts note. It’s invisible and deadly, a point graphically communicated in nonstop pictures and videos from Africa. Like SARS, MERS and bird flu, it’s a strange, exotic threat, and there’s little that can be done personally to limit it

• These elements are precisely those that are most likely to cause contagious anxiety, researchers have found. Add to this the fact that death from Ebola is so gruesome, and people can become fearful very quickly

• Hong Kong’s govt is ready for new talks with student protesters next week, chief exec CY Leung has said. He was speaking after scuffles between protesters and police continued for a second night (BBC, me)

A Mission Name! “Operation Inherent Resolve”
• The U.S.-led military mission against ISIS now has a name, the Pentagon announced Wednesday: Operation Inherent Resolve. (how dreadful – and someone got paid to come up with In(co)herent)
“The name Inherent Resolve is intended to reflect the unwavering resolve and deep commitment of the U.S. and partner nations in the region and around the world to eliminate” ISIS

• A U.S. Central Command statement continued: “It also symbolizes the willingness and dedication of coalition members to work closely with our friends in the region and apply all available dimensions of national power necessary – diplomatic, informational, military, economic – to degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS (Yahoo, Hill, Politico, me)

• The WSJ had reported on 3 October that the name had been considered and rejected, with one unnamed military officer saying “it is just kind of bleh.” (like the statement – which is full of blah)

• There were questions as to whether the admin was reluctant to name the military action and acknowledge a new war in Iraq, but defense officials said the campaign had simply grown to an extent where a name was feasible

• Veterans groups had complained that the lack of a formal name could shortchange Americans risking their lives to fight ISIS by leaving them unable to claim the recognition of a combat medal. One American, a Marine, has lost his life in the operations

There Are Still No WMD in Iraq
• Wednesday, the NYT published an explosive new story on American soldiers who were wounded while handling corroded munitions extracted from Saddam Hussein’s inactive chemical weapons program (see News Notes for Wednesday)

• The Iraq Study Group has long documented the existence of these decrepit and corroded weapons stocks in Iraq, something which has nothing to do with the “weapons of mass destruction” claims purveyed by war supporters (Intercept, me)

• Despite the fact that the article repeatedly points out that none of its revelations validate the claims made to justify the war, it has still been seized upon by hawks as some kind of retroactive justification. This is not just ahistorical; it evinces an ignorance of the realities of American involvement in Iraq

• The Pentagon said Wednesday that “there are no indications, right now, that they [ISIS] have possession of those chemicals.” However, Buzzfeed reported (see News Notes) that there have been several cases in Kobane of burns that appear to be from chemical weapons (TRNS, me)
• The truth is that the U.S. was aware of the existence of such weapons at the Al Muthanna site as far back as 1991. This is because Al Muthanna was the site where the UN ordered Saddam Hussein to dispose of his declared chemical weapons in the first place

• Those weapons that couldn’t be safely destroyed were sealed and left to decay on their own, which they did. The site was neither “active” nor “clandestine” – it was a declared munitions dump being used to hold the corroded weapons which Western powers themselves had in most cases helped Saddam procure

• ISIS militants very recently came into control of the Al Muthanna site, a development which would never have come about were it not for the chaos wrought by the Iraq War
• ISIS militants are retreating in parts of the strategic Syrian town of Kobane, a Kurdish official says. Idriss Nassan said ISIS had lost control of more than 20% of the town in recent days. The news came as President Obama and European leaders agreed on the need to do more to stop the ISIS advance in Iraq and Syria (BBC)
Iran: Deal Or No Deal?
• A senior U.S. official said Wednesday a deal on Iran’s nuclear program was still possible by 24 November and there were not talks now about extending the deadline, after Tehran and Moscow indicated more time may be needed (Reuters, me)

• EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif and senior officials from the six world powers known as political directors meet in Vienna today. Ashton, Zarif and SecState John Kerry held talks on Wednesday, also

• With less than six weeks to go before the target date, Western officials say there are still important differences between the sides, especially over the future scope of Iran’s production of enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel atomic energy plants but can also provide the fissile core of a bomb if purified to a high degree

• Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said in Geneva the U.S. should stop focusing on the number of Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges, which he described as a “trivial matter,” and concentrate on pushing for a deal

• Western govts want Iran to cut its centrifuge capacity to the low thousands so that it would take Tehran a long time to purify enough uranium for an atomic weapon. Tehran has rejected demands to significantly reduce the number below the 19,000 it has now installed, of which roughly half are operating

• The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s voter ID law on Wednesday, saying that it would set a new requirement for voting beyond those listed in the state’s Constitution (WaPo)
Wall Street: The Party Is Over
• Waves of nervous selling buffeted the stock market in the U.S. on Wednesday, after a steep sell-off in Europe. At one point, the Dow Jones industrial average had plunged 460 points or 2.8%, though it later swung higher to close down 1.1% or 173.45 points. S&P 500 fell 0.8% or 15.21 points. Since their peak a month ago, American stocks have lost over $2 trillion in value

• The steep plunges on Wednesday signaled to analysts and investors that govts and central banks have failed to anticipate a recent weakening in the global economy – and that policy makers may now struggle to prevent their economies from stalling. As a result, the faltering global economy may now be in jeopardy, particularly in Europe (NYT, Bloomberg, WSJ)

• European stocks were particularly hard hit on Wednesday, with Italian shares diving more than 4%. The German and French stock markets both fell by nearly 3%. As is often the case in times of stress, investors sought relative safety in govt bonds, pushing their yields – which move in the opposite direction from their prices – sharply lower

• What caused the sudden rally in the stock market just before 1.30 pm is not clear. But it may have been fueled in part by a report from Bloomberg News saying that Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, had expressed confidence about the U.S. economy at a closed meeting in DC last weekend

• Adding to the nervousness, Walmart, often a barometer for the American economy, on Wednesday lowered its sales forecast for the current fiscal year. An announcement of the third case of Ebola in Dallas injected its own sinister chill and put downward pressure on airline stocks. And there were unexpectedly anemic economic releases in the U.S.

• Vid: FL Gov Rick Scott (R) wasn’t a fan of the electric fan former Gov Charlie Crist (D) had placed under his podium before the start of their gubernatorial debate. A remarkably weird delay ensued. The fan stayed. The debate eventually went ahead #fangate

Feminist Games Critic Cancels Speech: Massacre Threat
• Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist cultural critic who has become a target of harassment by gamers, canceled a public speech scheduled for Wednesday night after the college holding the event, Utah State University in Logan, received threats of violence (Guardian, NYT, me)

• Even after school administrators received the threats against Sarkeesian and those who attended her speech, she planned to give her talk. Sarkeesian, who hosts an online video series that has challenged how women are portrayed in videogames, has been a frequent target of threats because of her work

• But Sarkeesian reconsidered and canceled the talk over security measures. Tim Vitale, the spox, said that the school police told Sarkeesian that, under Utah law, they couldn’t prevent attendees from bringing concealed weapons to the event. Sarkeesian tweeted that she requested firearm searches, but police wouldn’t do them

• Monday evening, members of the school admin received an email threatening that if the talk wasn’t canceled, the author would carry out an attack in the style of the 1989 Montreal massacre, when Marc Lepine murdered 14 women, claiming he was “fighting feminism.”

“She Is Going To Die Screaming”
• “I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols, and a collection of pipe bombs,” the letter said. “This will be the deadliest school shooting in American history and I’m giving you a chance to stop it.”

• “Anita Sarkeesian is everything wrong with the feminist woman, and she is going to die screaming like the craven little whore that she is if you let her come to USU. I will write my manifesto in her spilled blood and you will all bear witness to what feminist lies and poison have done to the men of America.”

• Some opponents of the women have rallied around the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate, though it isn’t clear how many of them are involved in or support the more extreme threats against the women. Wednesday, the hashtag #StopGamerGate2014 became a trending topic on Twitter

• Last week, an independent game developer in Boston, Brianna Wu, said she was driven from her home by threats of violence after she poked fun at supporters of GamerGate on Twitter. Another developer, Zoe Quinn, was also harassed beginning in late August and said she has not been able to return home. Sarkeesian said Tuesday night she would remain vocal
• Disgusting exploitative vids: Secure America Now, a conservative national security nonprofit, is running ads in at least five key midterm states, targeting Democrats over U.S. border security. The ads show journalist James Foley, kneeling, about to be beheaded by ISIS (don’t think the poor man was on the U.S. border…) (Buzzfeed, me)


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Victoria Jones

TRNS’ William McDonald, Nicholas Salazar and Leah Schwarting contributed to this report

 

The Talk Radio News Service is the only information, news booking and host service dedicated to serving the talk radio community. TRNS maintains a Washington office that includes White House, Capitol Hill and Pentagon staffed bureaus, and a New York office with a United Nations staffed bureau. Talk Radio News Service has permanent access to every breaking newsevent in the Washington, D.C. area and beyond.