WASHINGTON—Thursday was the day that they handed the big hammer back to Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives, making her the first person since Sam Rayburn to become Speaker twice. (And, yes, I'm happy that, even merely as a point of reference, Mr. Sam is back in the news again.) But the day, hung low and gloomy with stunted winter, began with some truly ominous news out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—which, by the way, is neither.

The government of the DRC shut down the country's internet service, effectively isolating the nation from the rest of the world. From CNN:

Internet and social media shutdowns have become more and more common across Africa and Asia in recent years, particularly as authoritarian governments look to China as the model for controlling what people can say and do online. Speaking to Reuters Tuesday, a senior adviser to DRC President Joseph Kabila, said internet and text messaging services were shut down to preserve public order after "fictitious results" were circulated on social media.

Barnabe Kikaya bin Karubi told the news agency that the country would remain offline until full results were published on January 6. Doing otherwise could "lead us straight toward chaos," he added. In a joint statement, US, European Union, Canadian and Swiss diplomats called on the Congolese government to refrain "from blocking means of communication, in particular access to the internet and the media."

Over the previous weekend, the DRC held a pretty thoroughly ratfcked election that nonetheless was seen as a defeat for the country's ruler, Joseph Kabila. The resulting turmoil was what gave Kabila's government the opening to shut down the Internet. This effectively cuts off the thousands of Congolese refugees in this country from contact with their relatives still on the other side of the ocean. It also drops the curtain on two ongoing humanitarian catastrophes that will get worse, not better.

Votes are counted at the Alfajiri Collage in Bukavu following election day in the DR Congo on December 30, 2018. Getty Images

The DRC is still a violent place. Because of that, and because of the uncertain state of things politically, hundreds of Congolese are fleeing the country, many of them to Uganda. This crisis is made worse by the fact that the DRC currently is in the middle of the worst Ebola outbreak since 2014. From CNN:

The outbreak is the second-deadliest and second-largest in history, topped only by one in West Africa in 2014, when the disease killed more than 11,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. Those intimately affected include health care workers, some of whom have traveled to the region from other nations. An American who was providing medical assistance in Congo experienced a possible exposure to the Ebola virus and is being monitored for symptoms in the United States, according to a statement from the Nebraska Medical Center on Saturday.

The medical center did not disclose the person's identity due to privacy concerns. North Kivu province, which includes the cities of Beni, Kalunguta and Mabalako, remains the epicenter of the outbreak, though cases have been reported in neighboring Ituri province, according to the World Health Organization. The two provinces are among the most populous in the nation and border Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.

This, of course, has caused panic among the DRC's immediate neighbors and this latest move by the DRC government effectively drops a blackout curtain over the crooked politics, and the sprawling violence, and over epidemic disease as well.

A man walks past ransacked tents by demonstrators near the Ebola transit centre in Beni, following a demonstration against the postponement of elections in the territory of the Beni and the city of Butembo on December 27, 2018. ALEXIS HUGUET Getty Images

The Kabila government even used the outbreak as an excuse to disenfranchise a million voters who live in the most critically affected areas. This resulted in rioting, during which the angry citizens took out their rage on Ebola testing facilities. And so it goes. From Time:

The outbreak has been difficult to control amid armed violence and community protests, and the violence has increased “in intensity and frequency,” the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday. And yet “there is reason to be hopeful” the outbreak will be brought under control as soon as possible, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. He spent New Year’s Day in Congo.

Amid the election-related protests last week, Tedros warned that “prolonged insecurity” in Congo could lead to a rise in new Ebola cases. Some of the Ebola cases in this outbreak have been reported close to the heavily traveled border with Uganda. For months, Ugandan officials have been subjecting all passing through official border posts to mandatory Ebola screening.

There already is one case of Ebola in this country. There may be others, and, judging by his performance during the 2014 outbreak, the current president* can be counted upon to bring his cool-headed reason to bear on the topic. Or, maybe, I can renew the discussion I had in 2014 with my new BFF at the time, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. My confidence in this administration*'s ability to handle a crisis remains unbounded.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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