Michael Caputo Is Freaking Out, Man
[Editor's Note: It helps if you read the following topic sentence in an internal "Cheech And Chong" sort of hippie accent.]
Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo is absolutely freaking out, man. The dude really needs to mellow out.
Think that's too retro-colloquial? Well, you be the judge....
Exhibit A in defense of my theme today is the following tidbit from a Politico article today on Caputo's perhaps-imminent departure from his job. He may quit, he may take a medical leave, nothing's certain at this point. But what was reported is that he's meeting with his boss (the secretary of H.H.S.) today, and Caputo convened a rather odd staff meeting before it:
[H.H.S. Asst. Sec. Michael] Caputo also disputed anonymous White House criticism about his mental health -- saying that some of his comments have been taken out of context -- and concluded the meeting by encouraging his staff to listen to music by the Grateful Dead.
To which we can only reply: Far out, man.
Hippie snark aside, though, let's review what brought Caputo to this point (before addressing that Grateful Dead comment in greater detail).
In April, Caputo became the chief spokesperson for H.H.S. He had no experience, other than being a Trump loyalist. You'll note that this was just after the COVID-19 pandemic began to truly rage across the country. Since then, Caputo has been the point person for squelching any science or scientist who dares disagree with his Dear Leader. He's the one who has tried to control Dr. Anthony Fauci's media appearances, for example. Just last week, further proof of his meddling with the facts was uncovered by Politico, showing how Caputo has been interfering and trying to politically edit scientific reports from the Centers for Disease Control -- an unheard-of practice that shocked many government scientists and Democratic politicians:
The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.
But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.
Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by Politico.
HuffPost then helpfully provided some interesting background on Caputo:
The Health and Human Services official who has been pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change COVID-19 reports to reflect well on President Donald Trump has troubling Kremlin ties stretching for years.
Politico was the first to report last week that HHS Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo has been orchestrating a pressure campaign on the CDC to alter agency reports -- and even stop them -- to fit Trump's far more optimistic view of COVID-19. The president himself admitted that he lied when he presented a sunnier view of the pandemic.
Caputo, a former top official of the Trump campaign who has no medical or scientific background, has claimed his actions are a defense against the imagined "deep state" out to get Trump. But reports of his CDC scheme have renewed fears about his history with Russia, which interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump.
Caputo, who lived in Russia for six years, was an adviser to Boris Yeltsin from 1995 to 1999 and helped him get elected as president. He also served as an adviser to a subsidiary of the state-owned energy company Gazprom, and reportedly helped shore up Russian President Vladimir Putin's reputation.
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."
Before he was appointed to his current role, Caputo also scrubbed nearly his entire Twitter history, which was riddled with graphic, offensive attacks, outlandish conspiracy theories, and racist comments about the Chinese.
One more confirmation of Nancy Pelosi's comment: "With Trump, all roads lead to Putin."
This weekend, the pressure got to Caputo in a big way. He posted an extended rant on Facebook, where he started absolutely freaking out.
In the Facebook video, Caputo criticizes government career scientists, the media and Democrats, the [New York] Times reported and Caputo confirmed. He said he was under attack by the media and that his "mental health has definitely failed."
"I don't like being alone in Washington," Caputo said in the video, describing "shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long."
Caputo also said the CDC, which is part of HHS, had a "resistance unit" that aimed to undermine Trump. Without offering any evidence, he also accused scientists "deep in the bowels of the CDC" of giving up on science and becoming "political animals."
They "haven't gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops" to plot "how they're going to attack Donald Trump next," he said in the video. "There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president."
He also predicted that Trump would win the election but that Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, would refuse to concede. "And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin," he warned in the video. "The drills that you've seen are nothing. If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be hard to get."
Let's just review for a moment, shall we? This is the guy who has the final call on what information the government puts out to the public about the coronavirus pandemic and the scientific facts. This is the guy who is trying to dictate to Dr. Anthony Fauci what he can and cannot say to the media. This is the guy who is the chief spokesperson for a cabinet-level federal department.
At least he realizes he's freaking out. Here's a longer excerpt from the Politico story about the staff meeting he called today:
Caputo told staff that he is scheduled to meet with HHS Secretary Alex Azar later Tuesday, the people with knowledge of the meeting said.
President Donald Trump -- a close ally of Caputo who helped install him as HHS' communication head this year -- is also expected to be involved in any decision about Caputo's next steps.
Three people with knowledge of Caputo's decision-making confirmed that he was mulling stepping aside as the department's assistant secretary for public affairs to take medical leave. One former HHS official told Politico that Caputo, a former Trump campaign official, has long complained of the stress caused by having been mentioned in the special counsel's investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
During the meeting with his staff on Tuesday, Caputo made allusions to the fact that HHS had functioned for a long time in the past without a permanent top communications official, said one HHS official.
Caputo also disputed anonymous White House criticism about his mental health -- saying that some of his comments have been taken out of context -- and concluded the meeting by encouraging his staff to listen to music by the Grateful Dead.
Which brings us to some helpful suggestions for Caputo himself. Now, the Grateful Dead wasn't like most bands for many reasons, one of which was they had no standard setlist. They didn't just play the same couple dozens songs over and over again, they had literally hundreds to choose from on any given night.
Just off the top of my head, here are a few Grateful Dead lyrics I felt might be helpful to Caputo, right about now. Again, there are probably even-better songs to choose, so feel free to make your own suggestions down in the comments. But here are the ones that sprung to my mind. Living in California, the first has already been on my mind for the chorus (Way up on the mountain, there's a fire! A fire on the mountain!), for obvious reasons:
Fire On The Mountain
Long distance runner, what you standing there for?
Get up, get out, get out of the door
You're playing cold music on the barroom floor
Drowned in your laughter and dead to the core
There's a dragon with matches that's loose on the town
Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down(Chorus)
There's a fire! A fire on the mountain!
Fire! Fire on the mountain!
Fire! Fire on the mountain!
Fire! Fire on the mountain!. . .
Long distance runner, what you holding out for?
Caught in slow motion in a dash to the door
The flame from your stage has now spread to the floor
You gave all you had. why you wanna give more?
The more that you give, the more it will take
To the thin line beyond which you really can't fakeFire! Fire on the mountain!
(etc....)
Of particular note, for Caputo: "Get up, get out, get out of the door."
There are plenty of Dead lyrics covering paranoia, but one song really stands out, in response to Caputo's: "shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long" comment:
When Push Comes To Shove
Shaking in the bedroom, covers on your head,
Are you still in fear of the hand beneath the bed?
Grabbing at the handle, scratching at the door,
Maybe it's mystery killer you saw on Channel Four.
Or maybe we should get a little more mystical, by turning to one of the biggest Dead fan favorites?
Dark Star
Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis
Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?
But maybe there's an easier explanation for all of Caputo's paranoid ramblings?
Casey Jones
Trouble ahead, the lady in red
Take my advice you'd be better off dead
Switchman's sleeping, train Hundred and Two
Is on the wrong track and headed for you(Chorus)
Driving that train, high on cocaine
Casey Jones, you'd better watch your speed
Trouble ahead, trouble behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mindTrouble with you is the trouble with me
Got two good eyes but we still don't see
Come round the bend, you know it's the end
The fireman screams and the engine just gleams(Chorus)
Driving that train, high on cocaine
Casey Jones, you'd better watch your speed
Trouble ahead, trouble behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mind
But perhaps the most appropriate lyrics come from a song that was semi-post-apocalyptic in nature. Bear in mind, please, that the children's nursery rhyme "Ring Around The Rosie" -- where the final lyric comes from -- was widely seen at the time this song was written as referring to the Bubonic Plague. This explanation has since been mostly debunked, but that was the prevailing opinion when the song was written. Which fits in perfectly with Caputo's job woes and the pandemic we now find ourselves in, obviously.
Throwing Stones
Commissars and pinstripe bosses roll the dice
Anyway they fall, guess who gets to pay the price?
Money green, or proletarian gray
Selling guns instead of food today
So the kids they dance and shake their bones
And the politicians throwing stones
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down
Ashes, ashes, all fall down. . .
While the current fashions set the pace
Lose your step, fall out of grace
The radical, he rant and rage
Singing someone got to turn the page
And the rich man in his summer home
Singing just leave well enough alone
But his pants are down, his cover's blown
And the politicians throwing stones
So the kids, they dance, they shake their bones
'Cause it's all too clear we're on our own
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down
Ashes, ashes, all fall down
His pants are down, his cover's blown.
Far out, man.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Dave's not here.
So, where were you Sunday night?
Ship Of Fools
[...]
The bottles stand as empty now, as they were filled before.
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more.
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few
"Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools"
Ship of Fools, on a cruel sea.
Ship of Fools, sail away from me.
It was later than I thought when I first believed you
But now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools.
I think Caputo could use some Zevon instead.
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money
The shit has hit the fan
We need more posts like this.
It's times like these when I miss Michale being here to explain Ronna McDaniel's claim that the US only has the highest mortality rate in the world because they do more testing. (Sunday's Face The Nation with a gob-smacked Chuck Todd.)
I want him to tell us why Trump's campaign is pulling ads and rallies from swing states because it really looks like they're broke. You could be forgiven for thinking the Trump campaign's most recent ad was really an ad for Biden - only the ad's very poor quality tells us it wasn't done by any of the pro-Biden groups because they have been consistently hitting extremely high standards all year.
If Trump loses re-election, will Michale ever turn up again? I guess he will, in order to tell us how terrible Biden is, once the initial shock and misery wear off.
Meantime, is there anyone here saying Biden could lose because [insert reason]. I can't imagine what reason anyone could give at this point except the obvious - the republicans will cheat to steal the election because they are desperate to hold onto power. That could happen, especially as Americans seem to think it's unpatriotic to question the integrity of their elections in spite of the evidence.
Has Sanders been lauded for pouring shit on Biden with less than two months to go to E-Day? I keep wondering how low he has to go before losing his sainthood. His most ardent fans are keeping him up there so far and refusing to vote for any Democrat including Biden.
All very predictable yet there are still folks who insist on referring to the treacherous Sanders as a Democrat, no matter how much he declares he isn't or how often he expresses his disgust and dislike of the party in one way or another. The timing of his criticism shows he's obviously out to punish Democrats for failing to make him their nominee. If he helps Trump get another 4 years he doesn't care. That just gives him a chance to say how he would've beaten Trump if Democrats weren't so blind and stupid.
Personally I believe Democrats chose the only viable candidate they had, the one of which Trump is most afraid and for good reason. The difference between the two is Grand Canyon-sized. Trump is steeped in sin, incompetent and inadequate. Biden has every virtue of the good man and then some.
I'm looking forward to Elizabeth's choices for Biden's cabinet picks - or have I missed it? I hope not. I have two or three I'd like to see in there too. Delighted with Harris as his running mate!
William Burns for Secretary of State; John Kerry for Secretary of Defense; the guy who can best explain why Democrats are the competent stewards of the economy and and best able and equipped to put a stake in the heart of the Republican cult of economic failure for Secretary of the Treasury - three guesses as to who that is and the first two don't count. Heh.
I know, I know ... that last one ain't gonna happen. But, it gives me no small amount of pleasure just thinking about the non-existent possibility of it. :) Seriously, after his second tour of duty, the Republican cult of economic failure would be obliterated, once and for all.
Who would YOU like to see in a Biden cabinet, Mopshell?
I would also add a cabinet position with a title like Secretary of Public Health, with special portfolio on a national strategy for testing, isolation, contact tracing and quarantine. Ahem.
I nominate Dr. Michael Ryan for the position - if Biden could persuade him to leave his Executive Directorship of Health Emergencies at the WHO. I'd also be happy with Bill Gates.
Wow maaan! I was reading your column and I blanked out and found myself listening to Dark Star on Europe '72.
Dream Team:
Kerry Sec. of State
Elizabeth Warren Treasury
Cory Booker HHS
Leon Panetta Defense, if he wants an encore. He's still alive, right.
If you have a better slot for Kerry I could definitely deal with Hillary back at State. I thought she did well and sooo many Repugs would be simply appoplectic, hee hee.
[]
Yo Mopshell I agree with
Personally I believe Democrats chose the only viable candidate they had, the one of which Trump is most afraid and for good reason. The difference between the two is Grand Canyon-sized. Trump is steeped in sin, incompetent and inadequate. Biden has every virtue of the good man and then some.
I disagree with Sanders as any kind of treacherous bad guy. I'm a Bernie Bro and while I'm sure Joe will be a good President Bernie woulda beaten Trump in 2016 and this election too if he won the nomination. And Bernie has yanked the Overton Window decidedly leftward. And that's nothing but good news.
Ridiculous comment above. Bernie said that Biden needs to focus on economic issues. I just heard James Carville say that he agreed with Bernie. He could hardly be described as a Bernie Bro.
Only the herd mentality of the death cult zombies could allow this reality TV orangutan to be a viable candidate and I'm being charitable to call him viable. He tweets some Q-loon insanity about Joe being a pedophile and the best his embalmed corpse of a son-in-law could come up with to defend him was to say that he's transparent about thinking insane things. Living in the same universe those who would still vote for him at this point is mind-boggling.
Who thought it was a good idea for Drumpf to do a "town hall" with voters asking him questions? The same mentally-ill person who thought it was a good idea to talk to Woodward in front of a tape recorder? What a disaster! He's going to be Biden's punching bag on the 29th. Is he going to call those voters enemies of the people tomorrow?
Now the orange one is apparently basing policy on the gripes of unnamed restaurant waiters. I suppose it's a step up from Lou Dobbs, but I don't think that suburban housewives will be impressed. Don't wear masks because waiters don't like to wear them? WTF? Who does? Critical thinking is in short supply with death cult zombies, but does anybody else think it sounds like a good idea to go to a restaurant w/o a mask and have a maskless waiter breathing on your food and in your face?
Laura Ingraham desperately called the town hall an ambush by ABC. Is she afraid she's going to prison too?
JFC-4
You nailed it. So did Zevon. Perfect fit to the Trump Regime and Classic Zevon themes:
Inflated sense of entitlement....
Risky behavior.....
Somebody else' s fault....
Why me? When it all blows up.
How was I to know she was with the Russians too?
MtnCaddy,
I'm a Bernie Bro and while I'm sure Joe will be a good President Bernie woulda beaten Trump in 2016 and this election too if he won the nomination.
Really? How so?
JFC,
Who thought it was a good idea for Drumpf to do a "town hall" with voters asking him questions? The same mentally-ill person who thought it was a good idea to talk to Woodward in front of a tape recorder?
Heh.
Mark McKinnon said that whoever took that call should have said, "No hablo ingles. Lo siento. Adios!"
Oh, well ...
MtnCaddy,
Your pick for treasury is every bit as unlikely as mine. :)
I forgot to mention that I would put Senator Warren at the head of the CFPB, if it's still around.
Bob Woodward was on Morning Joe today. It's worth watching if you can. He talks about "living this 24/7 for 8 months" and makes it sound like it was very painful. It is hard to imagine spending so much time with such a deformed monster.
The Trump campaign has pulled all TV advertising from 3 more states, including both Nevada and Arizona. The other being either Iowa or New Hampshire. This is in addition to earlier pull outs in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where all TV ads have stopped and where the Trump campaign has reportedly give up on trying to win. They have also reportedly managed to burn thru one billion dollars of campaign funding, That's ONE billion with a "B" without anything to show for it. Some of this included money spent on the Washington D.C. media market, which Trump had no hope of winning, just so Trump in the name of vanity could watch his own campaign ads on TV.
And, speaking of Dr. Ryan, I just listened to his remarks from the last WHO presser and would like to paraphrase, if not directly quote, them here because they need to be heeded if schools are to open safely this fall and remain safe through the school year.
He has a special way of framing an issue that gets to the heart of the mattter!
(This is a quick transcription of mine and I'll use quotes just so anyone reading it will know they are Dr Ryan's words, almost in their entirety )
"It is time for countries to make some serious decisions and two principles must be sustained - protecting older and vulnerable individuals from death; the importance, above all else, of educating our children.
"We have to sustain pressure on the virus. We have to reduce transmission at the community level in order to lower the risk to older and vulnerable people and to maintain an environment in which children can continue to attend school.
"How do we do this? Adults must separate themselves enough to drive transmission downwards. So, what is most important? Our children back at school or the nightclubs and bars open?
"These are the decisions we need to make coming into the winter months. There are tradeoffs that must be made. There are no rosy answers. The time for decision-making is coming and the risk management approach is the only way to go - sustained surveillance, test and trace, quick results, cluster investigation, isolation of cases, quarantine of contacts.
"There are no alternatives. This is what we must do. It's not easy. It's hard to sustain and everyone is exhausted. But, if we are to serve our children and those older and vulnerable people in our population who might otherwise die this winter then we must sustain these public health activities and these cannot be sustained without government commitment to do this or without societal commitment to participate and be part of this.
"This conversation needs to be had in many countries right now. There are no magic bullets and we need to stop looking for unicorns!
"Our frontline health workers were the heroes in the first five or six months of this pandemic and they remain our heroes. But, teachers, school administrators, school/parent committees have worked so hard to do everything they can to get children back in school and they're our heroes now, too!
"Government needs to support them in these efforts. We as the adult community need to support them. The best thing we can do to support getting our children back in school is to reduce our risk of being exposed and reducing our chance of exposing others. What are we prepared to do in the adult community to ensure that we neither expose ourselves nor expose others to this virus? If we do that, then our children can stay in school."
Now, I've seen both the head of the CDC Redfield and the guy in charge of testing, Admiral Girior, both wave a face covering about and say that this is the most effective tool we have to stop the virus.
This patently false.
Until the US gets its act together on the primary public health measures and activities that will actually reduce transmission of this virus, it will be dealing with its epidemic for a very, very long time and Americans will continue losing their lives and livelihoods.
I dunno. You make it sound as though dying from freedom is not every bit as patriotic as dying for freedom.
"Freedom? Well, that's just some people talkin'."
Great. Biden just repeated that masking is the single most effective tool that can be used against this virus and mentioned testing and tracing only in passing.
You will notice that Dr. Ryan didn't include masking in his prescription for what will reduce transmission. The point is that if the public health architecture for case identification, isolation, treatment, tracing of contacts and quarantining of contacts is not in place, then masks alone will not be the answer.
A rational strategy for the effective and equitable distribution of vaccines has been developed by the WHO. I don't believe Biden mentioned this in his address and Q&A today. He also didn't mention that this strategy needs to be a global partnership. No one will be safe until everyone is safe.
Freedumb and freedumber.
Indeed.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
that, too
Remember that day Roger Stone was found guilty of seven felonies and Michael Caputo flipped out and tweeted:
*
I found it notable enough to post about it:
http://www.chrisweigant.com/2019/11/14/28-29/#comment-149343
If Mikey C. (not to be confused with Mikey Cohen) hadn't "hit delete" when he was hired by Trump at HHS in order to eff with the CDC data/science, you could still view all those incriminating tweets of his, but alas they are now "gone" (but, of course, tweets are never really gone and still archived for all posterity).
John From Censornati [1] -
You're right. So I called him up.
Dave, a college friend o' mine and Deadhead extraordinaire, pointed out I missed a rather obvious one. The last fade-out line is downright prophetic, in fact.
New Speedway Boogie
Please don't dominate the rap, Jack
If you've got nothing new to say
If you please, don't back up the track
This train's got to run today
I spent a little time on the mountain
Spent a little time on the hill
Heard some say, "better run away"
Others say, "better stand still"
Now I don't know, but I been told
It's hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I have heard it said
It's just as hard with the weight of lead
Who can deny? Who can deny?
It's not just a change in style
One step done and another begun
And I wonder how many miles?
I spent a little time on the mountain
Spent a little time on the hill
Things went down we don't understand
But I think in time we will
Now I don't know, but I was told
In the heat of the sun a man died of cold
Keep on coming or stand and wait
With the sun so dark and the hour so late
You can overlook the lack, Jack
Of any other highway to ride
It's got no signs or dividing lines
And very few rules to guide
I spent a little time on the mountain
I spent a little time on the hill
I saw things getting out of hand
I guess they always will
Now I don't know, but I been told
If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load
I don't know whose back's that strong
Maybe find out before too long
One way or another, one way or another
One way or another, this darkness got to give
One way or another, one way or another
One way or another, this darkness got to give
One way or another, one way or another
One way or another, this darkness got to give
-CW
Wow. Why don't you join us Sunday night ...