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Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
At The Atlantic, Uri Friedman writes—New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet:
The coronavirus pandemic may be the largest test of political leadership the world has ever witnessed. Every leader on the planet is facing the same potential threat. Every leader is reacting differently, in his or her own style. And every leader will be judged by the results.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel embraces science. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rejects it. U.S. President Donald Trump’s daily briefings are a circuslike spectacle, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds no regular briefings at all, even as he locks down 1.3 billion people.
Jacinda Ardern, the 39-year-old prime minister of New Zealand, is forging a path of her own. Her leadership style is one of empathy in a crisis that tempts people to fend for themselves. Her messages are clear, consistent, and somehow simultaneously sobering and soothing. And her approach isn’t just resonating with her people on an emotional level. It is also working remarkably well.
People feel that Ardern “doesn’t preach at them; she’s standing with them,” Helen Clark, New Zealand’s prime minister from 1999 to 2008, told me. (Ardern, a fellow member of the Labour Party, got her start in politics working for Clark during her premiership.) “They may even think, Well, I don’t quite understand why [the government] did that, but I know she’s got our back. There’s a high level of trust and confidence in her because of that empathy.” […]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
“Did the genome of our cave-dwelling predecessors contain a set or sets of genes which enable modern man to compose music of infinite complexity and write novels with profound meaning? … It looks as though the early Homo was already provided with the intellectual potential which was in great excess of what was needed to cope with the environment of his time.”
~~Susumu Ohno, Evolution by Gene Duplication, 1970
At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—GOP wants Kerry to release military records:
This one has me vexed.
Opening a new campaign front, President Bush’s Republican Party on Tuesday called on Democrat John Kerry to release his Vietnam-era military records.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie made the demand after the Boston Globe reported the Kerry campaign was refusing to give up more of Kerry’s military records even though he had promised to do so on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
What, does the GOP really want to give Kerry another chance to flash all his medals, all his heroic acts, and invite comparisons with Bush’s AWOL record?
If so, I’m not sure what Kerry is waiting for. And honestly, this really doesn’t look good for Kerry:
The day after John F. Kerry said he would make all of his military records available for inspection at his campaign headquarters, a spokesman said the senator would not release any new documents, leaving undisclosed many of Kerry’s evaluations by his Navy commanding officers, some medical records, and possibly other material.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: A good way to recover from the weekend is to have Greg Dworkin remind us why the data says Trump could get trounced! PPE pirating continues, as does the USS Roosevelt debacle. What are we learning about asymptomaticity and herd immunity?
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