Imagine something. It’s March 2020 and America is gearing up for March Her Madness.
Instead of being shocked to hear that actor Tom Hanks has contracted something called the coronavirus, the nation was told that one million Americans would die from the new disease. Only if we take steps to reduce that number to 5 million or 10 million.
Did the news that a million people would definitely die should have sounded the alarm bells to the point of action?
Several girls were kidnapped and murdered in the 1990s and early 2000s. Suddenly, walking children to school became an act of child abuse. We can’t just let our children go out to play. I need a play date.
Will parents keep their children out of school in the face of the certainty of a literal mass death event? Even if they knew on day one that 1 in her 330 Americans would die from her COVID-19, parents would have bubble-wrapped their children and stapled them to the wall.
The country would have locked itself down. Instead, 9/11 happened here and he one day on Iwo Jima brought the numbers with the daily dribbling and drabbing.
I bring this up because Pima County Health Services Director Teresa Cullen lost her chance to become Arizona Health Service Director. After an extremist super-cons jumped at her on her COVID mitigation efforts.
Republicans in the Senate voted against her nomination, and Gov. Katie Hobbs’ team just sat back and watched it all come down.
It was worse than that. Hobbes tried to withdraw Karen’s name from the nomination, but somehow the vote did. A voice vote in an institution where Republicans won his 16-14 lead. Democrats in the state Senate didn’t even want to force a roll call, did they?
No Democrat was in forcing Arizona Republicans to profess that public health leaders should not take public health action during a public health emergency. Doesn’t it smell of hypocrisy? Or insanity?
As you may remember, it was President Donald Trump who told governors to declare a state of emergency and lock down the country. And scientists and public health experts agreed.
the crime she was charged with
As head of the Department of Health, Cullen made recommendations to county administrators. County administrators took action with the approval of the Board of Supervisors. Voters then re-elected that board, putting additional Democrats on it as Rex Scott won the traditionally safe Republican district.
In 2022, anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine school board candidates have been defeated across Pima County, whether in Republican enclaves or Donkeyville.
Her community wasn’t mad at Cullen.
Women deserve medals. Cullen should have its own parking lot at every shopping center in Tucson.
Instead, she won the star chamber by the Arizona Senate’s Board Nominating Committee chaired by fake Trump elector Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek.
The accusations aimed at her came straight out of Grandma’s basement. Hoffman pointed to Karen as the reason thousands of jobs were lost in Pima County because the Department of Health tried to change the behavior of businesses that were indifferent to the deaths of their customers. I did so in my training program.
Pima County has created a public list of businesses that are not adhering to public health precautions and it is a “crimson letter,” said the Do Nothing Crowd. I want to know which companies I think should be sacrificed on the altar of lies in Trump’s election.
She has been accused of pursuing racial issues in order to reach communities that are often excluded from public health solutions.
Indeed, Karen could have exonerated herself better.
No, no, no. That’s not the answer to give.
To Hoffman and his Wakkadoodle band, I would say:
“Chairman Hoffmann, aren’t you a digital marketer by day? So what do you know about public health? Nothing. What are you looking for? I have no clue.
“I’m sorry you and your Queen Creek Brothers are so afraid of a changing world. I don’t think you can control the world better than a worm-killing fairway shot. It’s not my problem. I did what it did keep Pima County safe and will do it again is among the therapists in desperate need.My kitchen.I kept people alive.Because that’s my job.Thank God I didn’t listen to you.
just kidding. I wouldn’t have used the word “funny”. I would have been totally Karlin.
Will Humble, former director of state health services, took a more modest move rant on twitter.
“I am (and) terribly sorry for the greatly missed opportunity. Dr. Cullen is uniquely qualified for the (medical services) post. Not only qualified, but needed,” he typed. Turn on, this is a man who was adamant against medical marijuana. “Her tenacity, curiosity and no-nonsense personality are desperately needed by agencies seeking accountability from her.”
Beginning of revisionism
A really simple proposition for someone like Hoffmann. Their thinking goes something like this: The rest of us have to do whatever they say. Both conditions are necessary for them to be free.
If electoral deniers like Hoffman were allowed to rewrite history, I believe they would.
Hobbs’ team is still new, but it’s going to be a long four years for Arizona Democrats if they don’t learn how to fight back.
I’m afraid someone has decided that if America is going to hold them accountable for the coup attempt, the country should loosen up all the other crap they’ve done.
No, you have to own everything.
And coronavirus was a big one.
Sure, the coronavirus has been a massive cultural disorder, but we (and I include the media in this) are more likely than a mass casualty event that we’re all sick of it. I treated it like an ongoing nuisance.
What if the virus was carried in a balloon…
It was one political party that ultimately decided that the virus should be allowed to run its course, unhindered, with maximum death and death. It wasn’t. The rest of us cannot allow it to become common knowledge. Please do not cede this territory in a culture war.
Over 30,000 Arizonans have died from COVID-19 in about two years.
The same people who don’t touch COVID are ready to double down on mass incarceration because “crime is spiraling out of control in the Blue City.” Actual liberties and constitutions are cursed. This level of confusion is unacceptable.
Quick: How many murders have there been in total? Tucson and phoenix In 2022? 2,000? 1,000? 500?
Try 256. It tracks 2020 figures (latest), which show 525 murders statewide. Properly analyze COVID cohorts.
Fentanyl and other opioid death clocks at 5 o’clock on the 1stAgain, much less deadly than when COVID was at its most virulent. But for fentanyl, we would have to effectively close borders.
Yes Jake, COVID-19 is a real emergency and Karen has done her job. period. Say thank you and send a card with candy.
As director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, she should have been allowed to do similar work in the future in the event of another pandemic.
Hobbes MIA
And where were Hobbes and her team? They should have protected Karen.
The sad truth is that the “Democratic clever operative” (longest eye roll ever) has always insisted the party should not be distracted from dining table issues and should not cede its cultural underpinnings to the right. It means that
horse tonsils. We need to bring America back to its senses and make the madmen pay the political price. call me crazy Book bans and human sacrifice should be defined as outside mainstream Arizona values.
The last time a right-wing mob took an undisputed position in this way, the country ended up in a war in Iraq that went particularly poorly.
Love it or hate it, Democrats and the American left will self-limit and let more extreme voices know when they’ve gone too far. On the right side, too far is not enough.
Until they pay the price, Hoffmann’s bad acid trips will become our reality.
Room for review is not a crime
Did Cullen do everything right? Especially when faced with an expansion situation where variables have been loaded. As such, virtually all first responders and military units are forced to act embarrassingly, interrupting their mission with reporting or post-reporting.
If anyone later asked Dwight Eisenhower about the D-Day landings, he would almost certainly say that he would have done something different. It was not blacklisted. After the Republicans nominated Ike, the country made Ike a two-term president.
The distance beyond the moon “could have been done better” and that “5 or 10 million body bags had to be stuffed to prove Murika was free”. distinguish.
someone has to say it. Well done Dr. Cullen. you are not a crazy person. It was the man who presided over your hearing and celebrated your defeat.
Well done
