Cedric's Big Mix

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Shonda Rhimes got it wrong

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

SHONDA RHIMES -- ON TIME T.V. DYNAMO, NOW STREAMER WITH A MUCH SMALLER AUDICENCE -- DECLARED THAT A GROUP OF MEN AT ABC TOLD HER YEARS AGO THAT NO ONE WOULD WATCH GREY'S ANATOMY.

WE REACHED OUT TO THOSE MEN -- MUST CREDIT BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- AND THEY CLARIFIED THEIR REMARKS.

NO ONE SHOULD WATCH.

THEY SAID NO ONE SHOULD WATCH GREY'S ANATOMY.

AND THEY WERE RIGHT.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Abortion and marriage equality. A number of e-mails have come in about those two topics which are related in many ways. Let's start with marriage equality.

There will be a floor vote in the Senate. Here's Senator Tammy Baldwin's statement on what took place this week:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) released the following statement following the Senate vote, 62-37, to advance the Respect for Marriage Act.

“Today, we took a step forward in our fight to give millions of loving couples the certainty, dignity, and respect that they need and deserve. A bipartisan coalition of Senators stood with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support marriage equality. We came together to move the Respect for Marriage Act forward and give the millions of Americans in same-sex and interracial marriages the certainty that they will continue to enjoy the freedoms, rights, and responsibilities afforded to all other marriages,” said Senator Baldwin. “I am proud to have worked across the aisle to earn broad, bipartisan support for this legislation, and look forward to making marriage equality the law of the land.”

And it should be the law of the land. But it's not yet. I'll celebrate when it is.

In the meantime we're getting garbage coverage.

So-called reporters printing lies. I've got four to choose from, they all go with the same lie, but we'll just use one. Playground honor will prevent us from identifying the author of the one we're using but Google will snitch on her if you copy and paste the paragraph below into a Google search:

If you’re wondering why protecting same-sex and interracial marriage is even something that needs to be voted on in the year of our Lord 2022, the legislation was prompted by comments from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who recently said that the Court should reconsider opinions protecting access to contraception and same-sex and interracial marriages. (It’s worth noting that Thomas is also in an interracial marriage, having been married to Virginia “Ginni” Thomas since 1987.)

Do you see the problem? Three other outlets also can't get it right.

And worst of all, she thinks she's cute with her parenthetical.

No, Clarry Thomas did not bring up LOVING V VIRGINIA. That's the case that overturned bans on interracial marriage. He listed marriage equality, he listed sodomy and he listed birth control. LOVING is founded on the same due process aspect. But Clarry omitted it precisely because he is in an interracial marriage -- exposing himself as a hypocrite. Many of us called him out on it when his concurring opinion (what the reporter calls "comments") was issued -- that includes Samuel L. Jackson who was very vocal about the hypocrisy (I would praise anyone for speaking out but, disclosure, Samuel is a good friend of mine).

Now I hope it becomes the law of the land and we'll be thrilled here if it does. But, again, we'll celebrate then, we'll breathe easy then.

We thought ROE was the law of the land until a cabal conspired to shred precedent and overturn fifty years of settled court law.

And during those decades, we watched as Democrats chipped away at it. Our 'friend' Hillary, of course, was part of the attack on abortion rights in the immediate months after the 2004 election. You had a plan by the party -- by leaders in the party -- to push the Democrats away from abortion. They paid various little peons to write non-thought pieces on it. And you had various politicians come forward to move the party away from abortion rights. Hillary took part in that. THE NEW YORK TIMES documented it.

So let's step pretending that We the American People have any groups of friends in Congress when it comes to reproductive rights. As Elaine noted, while people are listing Nancy Pelosi's supposed accomplishments as Speaker of the House, the reality is that she was Speaker of the House when women lost significant rights. Way to go, Nance.

We had ROE and we had years of chipping away at it. Poor women were, of course, the first to suffer. And we can blame men because men were in Congress and women really don't come into Congress in significant numbers until the 1992 genderquake (resulting largely from the country seeing the way the Senate demonized Anita Hill). But the reality is, ROE continued to be sliced and diced.

And when it wasn't being chipped away at, it was being used as a political football.

Codifying it not only would have saved reproductive rights, it would have pulled a get-out-the-vote tool from the Democratic Party not to mention a fundraising tool for the party.

And that, let's be honest, is why Nancy never led on codifying it and why Barack Obama broke his campaign promise that the first thing he would do as president was codify ROE.

If you supported ROE you were held hostage for years by the Democratic Party.

They didn't protect it by making it law, they didn't protect it by ensuring that all women had equal access.

They used it.

And some are e-mailing saying that I'm not celebrating our victory in the midterms.

I don't see it as a victory and I'll explain why.

But we did note WSWS's live coverage blog when they noted the victories in various states in this month's elections.

I've waited and waited -- in vain? -- for the Feminist Majority Foundation to put out some statement. Maybe they're not feeling it -- I'm not feeling it -- and maybe we're both wary for the same reason.

The American people turned out and supported the right to privacy. They did a great job.

But the people usually do.

It's the politicians that don't.

The Democrats lost the House. That's reality. They should have lost it by a bigger percentage, they should have lost the Senate.

Abortion is what saved them.

And as I write that I cringe because they don't have a history of standing up. They have a history of using and abusing.

I'll use an example from this century. As a party, they supported the Iraq War. After the people turned against it, the party began to find its voice. (There were members against the war who were in Congress, they did not steer the party.) Finally, in 2006, Nancy promised us that if the Dems could get control of just one house of Congress in the midterm vote, they could end the Iraq War.

The American people gave them control of both houses.

And they didn't end it.

They didn't end it because no one had expected control of both houses. Despite the fact that the public had turned against the war, the idiots leading the Democratic Party hadn't expected that turnout. So instead of ending it, it was decided to carry it over for at least two more years. If opposition to the war could get them control of both houses, it could also lead to control of the White House.

The dying didn't matter. The Iraqis dead and wounded didn't matter, the US troops dead and wounded didn't matter. The violations of international law didn't matter.

To the party, the Iraq War was nothing more than a get-out-the-vote tool.

And, to this day, we still have US troops stationed in Iraq.

Yes, abortion is probably the biggest reason that Dems were not wiped out in this month's mid-terms.

But why I'm not feeling a 'victory' here is because the party tends to use women and I can see very easily the Democratic Party refusing to address abortion by codifying it so that they can use the issue as a get-out-the-vote and fundraising tool for several more election cycles.

I hope that doesn't happen.

But already Joe Biden's declared this week that ROE won't be codified.

Really.

Because before the election, when he needed people to vote Democrat, he said what?

That he was fine with suspending the filibuster to codify abortion rights. Or does no one remember that?

And Dems may not control the House, but they have 212 seats to the Republicans 218 and there are still five more seats to be called. Let's say that they all went Republican. That would be 223. That's eleven seats.

Isn't Joe the reach across the aisle guy?

He can't get 11 votes in the House from the Republicans?

The Dems can't make deals that would garner the support of 11 Republicans.

Abortion is not a fringe issue, it has majority support.

There's no excuse for not putting this to a vote. There's no excuse for not demanding bipartisanship on this issue. It is what the American people support.

So this nonsense that Joe offered this week of how the results of the election mean nothing can be done is nonsense and garbage and too many of us have seen this over and over. So, yes, I fear abortion is an issue that they are going to string us along on for several election cycles unless we make it clear that we're not playing that game.

That means stop lying, stop spreading lies, stop being silent. It means that we stop pretending that backstabbers like Hillary Clinton are our friends. Again, she used the aftermath of the 2004 election to trash abortion rights -- even THE NEW YORK TIMES called her out on it.

The lines were drawn long ago and if you're not going for our right to privacy, you're not our friend and we're idiots if we pretend otherwise.

Sorry if I took the buzz off the victory. I was biting my tongue. Ahead of the elections and now. I'd planned to address that when we did the year-in-review here. But that is the reality of the way the party is with abortion. We have the numbers, we just don't have the representation in Congress. We would if we'd stop treating them like our wayward spouses and clucking over them and acting like it was okay that they forgot to take out the garbage and aren't they cute. They aren't our spouses. They are our public servants. And we need to remind them of that.

I am very hopeful that marriage equality will be the law of the land due to an act of Congress. And, if that happens, it will be something to celebrate. But I've watched the Democratic Party with ROE for too many years and Joe's remark this week indicates nothing has changed or been learned there.

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"Leaders? Seriously?"

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"
"Big 'un Tara Reade loves Scott Ritter -- maybe more than she loves food"

"THIS JUST IN! TARA READE PROMOTES A SEX OFFENDER!"

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Big 'un Tara Reade loves Scott Ritter -- maybe more than she loves food

PARODY, PEOPLE, REMEMBER: PARODY.

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

TARA READE EXPLAINS TO THESE REPORTERS -- MUST CREDIT BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S BIG MIX -- THAT SHE'S USED TO BEING CALLED NAMES.

"FAT. I GET CALLED FAT A LOT. PEOPLE SAY WHY WOULD JOE BIDEN ASSAULT YOU -- LIKE I LOOKED LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS YOUNGER. OR THEY SAY, 'WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST USE YOUR GIRTH TO SMUSH HIM LIKE A BUG WHEN HE ASSAULTED YOU?' 'OR WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DROWN HIM IN YOUR BOOB SWEAT!' I GET A LOT OF FAT JOKES," READE BRAGS.

OH. OKAY.

''OR LIKE," TARA READE CONTINUES, "'WANT TO GET TARA TO LOSE WEIGHT? PAY THE ICE CREAM TRUCK GUY TO KEEP DRIVING'."

ALRIGHT.

"OR THEY SHOUT AT, 'YOU SO FAT, THE ANIMALS AT THE ZOO FEED YOU!' OR LIKE THEY SAY WHEN I ACCUSED JOE BIDEN OF ASSAULT, JILL BIDEN SNAPPED BACK, 'WHY DON'T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE -- LIKE SHAMU!' OR --"

SHE DRONED ON LISTING ONE FAT JOKE AFTER ANOTHER FOR OVER AN HOUR.

BUT IT WAS NO JOKE WHEN SHE TOOK THE PAPER OF MISRECORD TO COURT RECENTLY FOR WHAT SHE SAYS WAS THEIR ATTEMPT TO AID IN IDENTITY THEFT. THE COURT FOUND IN FAVOR OF 'THE NEW YORK TIMES.'

AND THAT'S WHAT TARA READE WANTS TO TALK TO US ABOUT THIS MORNING.

HOWEVER, THE REASON WE AGREED TO INTERVIEW THE WOMAN WHO WAS RECENTLY ATTACKED ONLINE BY SEXIST PIG MICHAEL TRACEY WAS BECAUSE SHE IS NOW USING HER TWITTER ACCOUNT TO PROMOTE REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER SCOTT RITTER.

WHY, WE ASKED HER, WOULD SHE, A SURVIVOR OF ASSAULT, PROMOTE A MAN ARRESTED MULTIPLE TIMES FOR ATTEMPTING TO USE THE INTERNET TO ENGAGE IN SEX WITH UNDERAGE GIRLS, A MAN CONVICTED OF THIS AND SENT TO PRISON FOR THIS, A REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER -- WHY, WE ASKED, WOULD SHE USE HER TWITTER ACCOUNT TO PROMOTE HIM?

WHY?

DOESN'T SHE CARE ABOUT OTHER VICTIMS?

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WE'LL ASSUME SHE WAS YET AGAIN MUNCHING ON HIGH FAT AND GREASY FOOD THIS MORNING AND ONE OF HER LARGE, ROTUND, PUDGY AND SAUSAGE-LIKE FINGERS ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE WRONG BUTTON RESULTING IN HER MISTAKENLY BLOCKING US.

IN OTHER WORDS, TARA READE GOES TO A RESTAURANT AND IS HANDED A MENU. SHE SLOWLY LOOKS OVER EACH PAGE AND THEN TURNS TO THE WAITER AND SAYS "YES."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Abdul Latif Rashidf. Who?

It took a year and three days after the election, but Ira finally announced a new president yesterday. The moment was not without drama. ALJAZEERA reports, "Rashid replaced fellow Iraqi Kurd Barham Saleh as head of state after the two-round vote in parliament on Thursday, winning more than 160 votes against 99 for Saleh, an assembly official said. Saleh reportedly walked out of the parliament building as the votes were tallied." Saleh finally leaves. He wasn't content to be president of Iraq, he tried to ignore the Constitution during his tenure and elevate the position of president to that of prime minister. A complicit foreign media helped him out -- in part to make it appear Iraq was more stable than it actually was.

Saleh's hissy fit might make some believe that Abdul is from a different political party. Nope. PUK. They performed dismally in the 2021 elections -- a pattern they've had since the party lied to the Kurds about the health of Jalal Talabani but they got to hold on to the presidency.

War turned Iraq into a land of widows and orphans. The median age in Iraq is 21-years-old. But the leadership never reflects the country which is how 78-year-old Abdul is now president.

78.

You'd think that would bother them after Jalal. 78 is how old Jalal was when he had his stroke and the Talabani's began deceiving Iraq.

As 2012 drew to a close, Jalal, then president of Iraq, had a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany. He remained in Germany for over a year and a half. The Talabani family refused to allow people to visit him in while he was in the hospital for that entire time -- including Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.

When the first wave of rumors that Talabani had either died or was permanently incapacitated, took hold in May of 2013, Jalal was posed for a series of photos that appear to indicate his body was present but that was all.

The photos were compared to the film Weekend At Bernie's in Arabic social media. (In the 1989 film, Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman play two men who drag the corpse of their boss, Bernie, around and pretend he's alive.)

When Jalal left Iraq the Talabani family was down playing his condition. They were falling back on the 'knee surgery' nonsense.

In May of 2012, Jalal stabbed many Iraqi political leaders in the back and outraged many in the KRG by refusing to allow the no-confidence motion to be passed on. As a result of the outrage directed at him, Jalal retreated to Germany where he remained for months. He needed to have, his flunkies and family insisted, immediate surgery to take care of a life threatening condition. This lie was repeated for weeks and weeks. Jalal had knee surgery.

Karama bit him in his fat ass. Jalal snuck back into Iraq July 19, 2014. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move his own body. He wasn't fit to be president and his family lied to the Iraqi people. That destroyed confidence and its why the PUK continues to suffer each election.

Well suffer in that the voters don't want them. The system is so corrupt that they continue to hold onto power.

Here's fat ass Jalal with Abdul.

That's right. They were brother-in-laws. Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed has held many jobs -- currently she's the Executor at the Political Bureau of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). She and Abdul have three children sons Azos (1982) and Zagros (1988) and daughter Sara (1987). Shanaz and Hero are the daughters of Ibrahim Ahmed -- a Kurdish novelist who rose to be the Secretary General of the KDP in 1953 -- in other words, the same faces, the same family and why Iraqis feel betrayed over and over by the entrenched corruption in the system.

Ahmed has named Mohammed Shia Al Sudani as prime minister-designate.

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Saturday, September 17, 2022

The Fat Shaming Meghan McCain

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

ENOUGH WITH THE FAT JOKES. MEGHAN MCCAIN,SELF-PROCLAIMED "PRINCESS OF AMERICA,'' IS EXPECTING. BUT EVEN SO, SHE REFUSES TO LAY OFF THE FAT JOKES.

THE FORMER CO-HOST OF ''THE VIEW'' INSISTS THAT THE DAILY ABC WRESTLING PROGRAM TOOK A YEAR TO REPLACE HER AND THEN IT TOOK "TWO PEOPLE TO REPLACE ME"

OH, MEGHAN, MEGHAN, MEGHAN.

HOW CAN ONE PERSON BE SO FILLED WITH SO MUCH VANITY YET SO MUCH SELF-LOATHING ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

SUCKING ON A TOOTSIE POP, U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN DECLARED, "THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Senator Patty Murray: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. now has over 21,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox -- more than anywhere else in the world, and my home state of Washington has over 500 cases. I've heard from families who are rightly concerned by how bad this has gotten. And public health officials -- including back in Washington state -- who are frustrated to see our response run into issues we should be prepared for by now. That’s why I continue to push the Biden Administration about my concerns with the monkeypox response, and urge quick action: on testing, treatments, and vaccines, and on clear guidance to the public, health care providers, and state public health officials. So it's reassuring to see we are making progress. On testing, capacity has increased one thousand percent, and FDA just approved a faster track for additional tests. On vaccines, BARDA is helping to stand up a new vaccine fill and finish site in Michigan, HHS is working to expand the number of distribution sites in states, and the Administration's advice for splitting doses has greatly stretched our vaccine supply. On outreach, the Administration has started working with states to make vaccines available at events with many people from the LGBTQ+ community in attendance. And perhaps most importantly -- the rate of new cases is going down. Now that is all encouraging news, but let me be clear -- we must remain vigilant in our response. And these promising improvements don;t excuse the issues I have been hearing about from communities, state health officials, and advocates from the start of this outbreak. Patients have spoken out about how hard it is to get tested -- some even waited days, despite having clear symptoms. Providers have had to jump through hoops to get their patients treatments. And I'm constantly talking to public health officials in my home state of Washington, who have told me how communications with states could have been far clearer -- and faster, and how the challenges in accessing tests and vaccines have delayed our response. I know states have especially struggled with the federal government's decision to forgo the system we typically use to distribute vaccines, the one we are already using for COVID vaccines. When it comes to vaccine distribution, some shipments have been sent to the wrong state, and even spoiled after storage at the wrong temperature. There have been issues with vaccine supply too -- like when thousands of vaccine doses were delayed because FDA had yet to inspect the new plant they were from, or when the Biden Administration missed an opportunity to procure more vaccines at a crucial point in this outbreak. And again, we are seeing inequities worsen this outbreak for some communities. Advocates in the LGBTQ+ community -- who have faced the vast majority of cases -- have also made clear they feel they are being overlooked, or in some instances stigmatized. We need to keep focusing and improving on outreach and on getting information and resources -- like vaccines-- to those who are most in need, and most at risk. And that must include communities of color, who we know don't have equitable access to vaccines. This is especially important as early data suggest Black and Latino communities are disproportionately burdened by this outbreak. We must do better. We need to be applying what we learned from the COVID response, and providing the resources communities have made clear they need. Of course, there is an enormous difference between this and the COVID pandemic, which is: thanks to decades of investment in smallpox research, we already had tests, treatments, and vaccines ready to go before this crisis even began. That should serve as a reminder to all of us about the immense value of investing in public health preparedness. But it's also why the stumbles in getting these tools deployed were especially frustrating and inexcusable. To learn from this, we need to be clear-eyed about what went wrong. Not just on challenges we faced in the last several months, but that we have faced for decades --challenges that, to be frank, have spanned many Administrations, not just this one. For example, we had over 20 million vials of smallpox vaccine in our national stockpile -- but they weren;t replaced as they expired over the course of a decade. I know I join my Ranking Member and members of this Committee when I say we have to do better -- not just on COVID, not just on monkeypox -- but on public health threats, period. Because we know there will be more. Just last week New York declared an emergency due to polio -- yet another public health risk we need to watch closely. So I want to hear from our witnesses today about not just what they are doing right now to improve our response to the monkeypox outbreak -- and fast -- but also how we can fix this in the long term and make sure the stumbles of the past couple months never happen again. I want to know what you and the Administration are doing to make sure we have enough tests, treatments, and vaccines for this outbreak-- and get them where they need to go while also maintaining an adequate stock of supplies for any smallpox threats. What are you doing to improve outreach to the LGBTQ+ community, address the disproportionate harm to Black and Latino communities, fight stigma and misinformation, and right the inequities we[ve seen in our response so far? How are we making the most of new research to develop promising vaccines and therapeutics, and then make them more quickly available -- while continuing to uphold the gold standard of safety and effectiveness? And are we getting schools and colleges everything they need to stay open and keep students and the school community safe? I'm glad CDC has provided guidance for K-12 schools -- and fortunately the science tells us elementary and secondary school kids are not at high risk right now, and CDC has also released resources for colleges which is critical with students returning to campus this fall. We need to make sure colleges and universities are equipped to prevent potential outbreaks as students move into dorms and live in close quarters with each other. I realize you've got your work cut out for you on all of this, especially with COVID still raging -- but there's no reason for us to fall behind. So I'm going to keep pushing you here, because families back in Washington state and across the country are counting on you to get it right. That's also why I'm going to keep pushing my colleagues here in Congress about the need for funding to support all this work. I know I'm not the only one here with concerns about the monkeypox response but we can't just say 'this isn't working' without providing the funding to end this outbreak and build the public health system Americans deserve. So I will continue to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and push to deliver the resources that will help get families the testing, treatments, and vaccines they need. And I'm interested in hearing from the witnesses on what the needs are when it comes to investing in our monkeypox response. It is also important to me we continue to keep our eyes on the horizon when it comes to future outbreaks and pandemics, and build a stronger public health system for whatever threat comes next. As the saying goes -- an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That starts with building a world class public health system, rather than one that lags behind our peers. Our communities deserve to be as safe as anyone in the world, which is why Senator Burr and I are continuing to work to pass our PREVENT Pandemics Act. Our bipartisan legislation implements the lessons from our COVID response and improves our policies and processes on issues like strengthening supply chains, improving management of our national stockpile, modernizing data systems, and other items which would address many of the challenges we've faced with monkeypox. But a strong public health system also requires strong investments. Because our public health system was underfunded before COVID struck -- and it has been overwhelmed ever since. We have to end the cycle of crisis and complacency by making sustained investments that allow us to build, and maintain, robust public health infrastructure at all levels. And I'm going to keep pushing for all of these steps, because we should all know by now just how much is at stake. I can tell you, families in Seattle know, parents in Spokane know, nurses in Yakima know, workers in Olympia know, people across Washington state, and across the country, know: COVID was never going to be the last public health crisis we face -- and neither is monkeypox. The question is not whether there will be a new threat -- it is when it will strike and whether we will be ready. The truth is, the monkeypox response so far has not been encouraging -- but there are some clear signs of progress, and there are clear steps we can, and should, take to improve. And I don't just want to hear today about the steps you will be taking -- I want to see action. And you better believe I'll be watching closely.

She was speaking Wednesday at the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Appearing before the committee were Dr Rochelle Walensky (Director of the CDC), Dawn O'Connell (Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response), Dr. Robert Califf (FDA Commissioner) and Dr Anthony Fauci (NIH Director). Murray is the Committee Chair, Senator Richard Burr is the Ranking Member.

Committee Chair Patty Murray: [. . .] I say, frankly, too many missteps were made early on in the response and a couple hundred cases turned into 21,000. It is unacceptable to communities who already experience barriers to accessing healthcare like the LGBTQ+ and the Black and the Latino communities that are hardest hit by this outbreak. Access to testing was an early challenge in the monkeypox response with many people reporting significant delays in both accessing the test and learning their results. To continue to have these challenges around testing is just simply unacceptable. So, Dr Walensky, let me start with you. How is the CDC working to make sure that tests are more accessible and results are available earlier?

Dr Rochelle Walensky: Thank you, Senator, for that question. One of the big challenges that we had in terms of access to testing was both patients understanding that they were presenting with a new infection and providers understanding that this was a new infection that they had to test for. Indeed, another important clinical consideration was that people were coming in requesting a test when they had no symptoms and they had no rash. As Dr Califf noted, the test for this infection is a swab of the rash so if there is no other FDA approved test, we need to have a rash in order to conduct those tests. So much of what we've done -- and I should mention that we've always had more capacity than we've had tests coming in -- to date, we've used about 14 to 20% of our capacity. But to address these access issues, we had to work with clinicians, we had to work with patients, we had to do an extraordinary amount of outreach so that providers would understand how to test, patients would understand when to come in for a test and our public health partners would know not to gatekeep those tests. And so that was a work that we did early on.

Yes, Walensky, and that is your job. That is your defined job. That's what the CDC does. Stop making excuses and pretending you were suddenly tasked with new responsibilities.

Chair Patty Murray: Dr Califf, Secretary [Xavier] Becerra recently declared that FDA can use the emergency use authorization pathway for monkeypox tests. How will that improve the availability of new tests and what steps are you taking to improve on the progress that you've made?

Dr Robert Califf: First of all, let me concur with Dr Walensky, there's never been a shortage of tests but there's been a shortage of access to tests because of inefficiencies in the system so the EUA authority has enabled us -- we've given one EUA already but we also have five commercial labs which are offering the tests at this point and we issued a guidance just the other day which, uhm, makes it clear that individual institutions that are developing laboratory developed tests should proceed ahead and we've given people clear guidance templates for developing their tests and figuring out if they work. So I'd say, on all fronts, the gates are open under a watchful eye because we also must keep in mind that one of the lessons from COVID was that when the gates were open a lot of the tests turned out to be not so good, got a lot of them out there and we had to reign them back in.

Chair Patty Murray: I -- Well, look. I'm encouraged by the declining cases. But it really is imperative that we remain vigilant. And despite efforts by HHS to increase access to vaccines, some people in my home state of Washington still go to great lengths to get one -- including crossing the border into Canada to get one. Now people, understandably, want to be vaccinated before they get exposed but that means we need more vaccines. Ms. O'Connell, some serious stumbles were made this year when it came to our vaccine supply. What have you done to make sure that never happens again? And what are you doing to increase the supply and distribution of vaccines right now.

Dawn O'Connell: Chairman Murray, thank you so much for that question. What's most important to us is that those who need access to this vaccine get it. So if you continue to hear from constituents that are unable to access the vaccine or having to cross the border, please let us know. We are in the business right now of knocking down those hurdles and making sure the vaccine can be accessed. We did take a very small stockpile that was intended for small pox that was eventually intended to be lyophilized -- freeze dried -- for small pox and converted it to this active monkeypox response. And that required a couple of challenging problems to solve. We moved the fist 372,000 vials, as I mentioned in my opening statement, immediately. We needed FDA to approve -- and they were terrific partners moving quickly -- to approve that second manufacturing line that began, uh, drew the 800,000 vials we were waiting for. That's what it manufactured on. We needed that approval to happen before we could deploy those. FDA worked quickly and we got those out in July. We have also ordered an additional 5.5 million vials of the bulk drug substance that was intended to be lyophilized for small pox -- we have ordered that to be filled and finished and shipped to the United States. And the 2.5 million of those will be manufactured in the United States.

The hearing can best be summed up with one statement from Ranking Member Richard Burr, "You failed on vaccines."

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