Why America exposed itself to Ebola...

...because protecting "fledgling democracies" is a medical issue.

Thursday at a congressional subcommittee hearing on Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden was asked to respond to a claim he had allegedly made that a travel ban would hurt “fledgling democracies” and therefore hurt any effort to contain Ebola at the source.

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) pushed Frieden on offering an explanation, however, the CDC skirted a direct answer.

Partial transcript as follows:

MURPHY: Dr. Frieden, when we spoke on the phone the other day, you said you remain opposed to travel restrictions because in your words you said, “Cutting commercial ties -- it would hurt fledgling democracies.” Now is this the opinion of CDC? Is this your opinion, or did someone also advise you within the administration, any other agencies, where did the opinion come from that that is of high importance?

FRIEDEN: My sole concern is to protect Americans. We can do that by continuing to take the steps we are taking here and --

MURPHY: Did someone advise you of that – someone outside of yourself that is the position to protect fledgling democracies?

FRIEDEN: My recollection of that conversation is that discussion was in the context of our ability to stop the epidemic at the source.

MURPHY: Well, we can get supplies and medical personnel into the Ebola hot zones and so stopping planes, and I heard you say this in multiple occasions that we have a thousand-plus persons a week coming to the United States from hot zones, am I correct on that -- coming from those areas?

FRIEDEN: There are approximately 100 to 150 per day.

MURPHY: Thank you. OK, and the Duncan case has seriously impacted Dallas and northern Ohio. But what I don’t understand is if the administration insists on granting -- bringing Ebola cases into the United States, clearly you have determined how many Ebola infection cases the U.S. public they can handle. The NIH can handle two of these beds. Do you know that number overall in this country -- how many we can handle?

FRIEDEN: Our goal is no patients.

MURPHY: I understand, but as long as we don’t restrict travel and quarantining people and we’re not limiting their travel, we have a risk. And so the issues of surveillance and containment – I don’t understand it. And this is the question the American public is asking -- why are we folks still allowing folks to come over here and why once they’re over here is there no quarantine?

FRIEDEN: Our fundamental mission is to protect Americans. Right now, we’re able to track everyone who comes in --

MURPHY: But you’re not stopping them from being around other people, doctor. I understand that, and I have a high respect for you. But even though they are not limited from travel. They’re not quarantined for 21 days. And they could show up with symptoms. They could bypass other questions Mr. Wagner referred to in the thermometers on there and this is what happened with the nurse that went to Cleveland. So I’m concerned here -- is this the position of the administration that there will be no travel restrictions?

FRIEDEN: We will consider any options to better protect Americans. 

Mission creep.

Mission Creep.

The mission of the American government used to be protecting the American people; now it so much more.

Obama is risking Ebola outbreak in US for his own ambitions.  

Why the government doesn't work - mission creep problem.

If the CDC seems slow to respond, realize that it has its hands full managing obesity and children's nutrition, rather than focusing on, you know, deadly communicable diseases.

The former is important to the First Lady; the latter is important to everyone else.

“It Has A Mission Creep Problem,” argues David Harsanyi, noting that large chunks of the Centers for Disease Control’s budget and attention now go “to temporary health scares and trendy crusades that often go well beyond any mission it should be pursuing.” Glenn Reynolds has more at USA Today on how the agency has far more on its plate than communicable disease these days, “having involved itself in everything from playground safety to smoking in subsidized housing.” (And binge drinking, and obesity, and suburban zoning, and….)

It seems that as government has gotten bigger, and accumulated more and more of its own ancillary responsibilities, it has gotten worse at its primary tasks. It can supervise snacks at elementary schools, but not defend the borders; it can tax people to subsidize others’ health-care plans but not build roads or bridges; and it can go after football team names but can’t seem to deal with the Islamic State terror group.

Earlier on the Centers for Disease Control and on director Thomas Frieden, who of course won fame before his CDC appointment for his activism as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s health commissioner, crusading against salt, sugar, guns, and so forth.//

We need a smaller, more focused government.

Government corruption and government incompetence all wrapped up in one.

Jonathan Turley is turning out to be the rare sane liberal.

If Government bureaucracies aren't focusing on their core missions; if they are enforcing pro-gay pride, racial quotas, minority-hiring schemes, smoking education programs, etc., then they won't - and don't - do what they are supposed to do.

//The patent office opinion also seems to leave the future of trademarks largely dependent on whether groups file challenges. Currently trademarked slogans such as “Uppity Negro” and “You Can’t Make A Housewife Out Of A Whore” could lose their protections, despite the social and political meaning they hold for their creators. We could see organizations struggle to recast themselves so they are less likely to attract the ire of litigious groups — the way Carthage College changed its sports teams’ nickname from Redmen to Red Men and the California State University at Stanislaus Warriors dropped their Native American mascot and logo in favor of the Roman warrior Titus. It appears Fighting Romans are not offensive, but Fighting Sioux are.

As federal agencies have grown in size and scope, they have increasingly viewed their regulatory functions as powers to reward or punish citizens and groups. The Internal Revenue Service offers another good example. Like the patent office, it was created for a relatively narrow function: tax collection. Yet the agency also determines which groups don’t have to pay taxes. Historically, the IRS adopted a neutral rule that avoided not-for-profit determinations based on the content of organizations’ beliefs and practices. Then, in 1970, came the Bob Jones University case. The IRS withdrew the tax-exempt status from the religious institution because of its rule against interracial dating on campus. The Supreme Court affirmed in 1983 that the IRS could yank tax exemption whenever it decided that an organization is behaving “contrary to established public policy” — whatever that public policy may be. Bob Jones had to choose between financial ruin and conforming its religious practices. It did the latter.

There is an obvious problem when the sanctioning of free exercise of religion or speech becomes a matter of discretionary agency action. And it goes beyond trademarks and taxes. Consider the Federal Election Commission’s claim of authority to sit in judgment of whether a film is a prohibited “electioneering communication.” While the anti-George W. Bush film “Fahrenheit 9/11” was not treated as such in 2004, the anti-Clinton “Hillary: The Movie” was barred by the FEC in 2008. The agency appeared Caesar-like in its approval and disapproval — authority that was curtailed in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.

Even water has become a vehicle for federal agency overreach. Recently, the Obama administration took punitive agency action against Washington state and Colorado for legalizing marijuana possession and sales. While the administration said it would not enforce criminal drug laws against marijuana growers — gaining points among the increasing number of citizens who support legalization and the right of states to pass such laws — it used a little-known agency, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to cut off water to those farms. The Bureau of Reclamation was created as a neutral supplier of water and a manager of water projects out West, not an agency that would open or close a valve to punish noncompliant states.

When agencies engage in content-based speech regulation, it’s more than the usual issue of “mission creep.” As I’ve written before in these pages, agencies now represent something like a fourth branch in our government — an array of departments and offices that exercise responsibilities once dedicated exclusively to the judicial and legislative branches. Insulated from participatory politics and accountability, these agencies can shape political and social decision-making. To paraphrase Clausewitz, water, taxes and even trademarks appear to have become the continuation of politics by other means.

What is needed is a new law returning these agencies to their core regulatory responsibilities and requiring speech neutrality in enforcement. We do not need faceless federal officials to become arbiters of our social controversies. There are valid objections to the Redskins name, but it is a public controversy that demands a public resolution, not a bureaucratic one.//