Nevermind The Vaccine Scientist, Get MeThe Dog Breeder!

You'reDoingAHeckuvaJob
NotBrownieVille


Yesterday, we mentioned that an actual vaccine scientist who oversaw successful responses to previous pandemics was fired by the Trump administration for doing the right thing.

Today, we present  the story of the fine young fellow who currently runs the day-to-day COVID-19 response for Mr. Trump's Health and Human Services Department, thanks to a Reuters piece by Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor:

On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared....


Of course, it has proven to be the case that Mr. Trump's government was demonstrably not prepared at all.

But wait, there's more!

...Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.”...


So.

Where did the Glimmer Twins, Mess'rs Azar and Harrison, the fine fellows running the show actually come from?

...Azar is a Republican lawyer who once clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and counts current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a friend. Under George W. Bush, Azar worked for HHS as general counsel and deputy secretary. During the Obama years, he cycled through the private sector as a pharmaceutical company lobbyist and executive for Eli Lilly. After Trump’s first HHS secretary was forced out in a travel corruption scandal, Azar stepped in, in January 2018.

Two years later, at the dawn of the coronavirus crisis, Azar appointed his most trusted aide and chief of staff, Harrison, as HHS’s main coordinator for the government’s response to the virus.

Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company.

Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.

The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sale price was $225,000....


Gosh.

With the finest, most excellent 'best people' like that running things, what could possibly go wrong?


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Subheader got you deja-vu'in'?....This.
Tip O' The Toque to Driftglass who wants everyone to remember that, in addition to the good Trumpists, the Republican Party is also full of, well....Republicans.


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