A CRISIS EMERGENCY REQUIRES AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Honorable Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi:

We feel that our leaders have failed us. Our president has severe mental problems that have made the coronavirus crisis significantly worse than it should have been.

We feel that our CIA has failed us, as it was supposed to know what was happening abroad and to warn us of threats so we could properly prepare.

We feel that our military has failed us, demanding even more money for tanks and missiles while not readying to defend us against a pandemic that is already killing far more Americans than all the recent wars and terrorist attacks combined.

We feel that our Congress has failed us by not urgently fulfilling its responsibilities.

The truth is that the risk of a grave pandemic has been known for some time. Those who know anything about pandemics have warned us, urging us precisely to prepare for what has now happened.

The SARS outbreak in 2003 was a lesson in how it could have been prevented. There have been papers, studies, lectures, and pleas to heed its warnings.

Indeed, government personnel ordered a major study after Donald Trump started cutting funding for pandemic preparedness back in 2017. The comprehensive study accurately warned that what is happening now could happen and that we needed to prepare urgently. But the president’s subordinates so feared even to present the study to him that the pleas for more funding for urgent…