March 19, 2021

The Rude Pundit: The Real Culture War Is Over Vaccines

The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
3/18/2021
The Real Culture War Is Over Vaccines

snip//

Sandy is not dumb. She claims that she stays out of politics, but that's the kind of lie that lots of people repeat when what they really mean is "I believe some fucked up shit and don't want anyone to know or to challenge me on it." Unspoken through all of this was where Sandy was getting her information. I avoided saying, "Fucking shut off the fucking Fox 'news' already," although I have said that to her on other occasions. She said she doesn't watch it but "it's on when I go visit my mom." Which, again, is just another way of saying, "Yeah, I suck that shit down along with every nutzoid meme my crazed Facebook friends post and every link to a sinister-sounding YouTube video telling me how liberals use coronavirus to mind control you."

This is the real cancel culture right here. It's not Dr. Seuss shitcanning books with racist images. It's not the genitals of Potato Heads. It's not even saying, "Well, I guess fuck Harry Potter" because JK Rowling is transphobic. No, the culture war that's being fought that matters far more than any of that is on the minds of people when it comes to coronavirus and the vaccines. Then the disinformation being spread by the most-watched and -clicked conservative news sources is about life and death, not if you've got the sads because If I Ran the Zoo is hitting history's dustbin.

What Fox "news" and the rest have done is to turn the COVID vaccine into just another sock they can all jack off into and toss into the laundry basket brimming with stiff footwear. See, getting vaccinated isn't about making you a good citizen, a healthy person, or a considerate human being. No, it makes you a tool being manipulated by Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, Big Pharma, and probably AOC and socialism and, sure, Hillary Clinton.

For example, on Fox, obviously, Tucker Carlson, who always looks like he's wondering if he just farted or sharted or full-on shit himself, is backing the anti-vaxxers by "asking questions" about the vaccine: "How effective is this coronavirus vaccine? How necessary is it to take the vaccine? Don't dismiss those questions from anti-vaxxers, don't kick people off social media for asking them." Yes, don't dismiss people who think that there are microchips in the shots or still cling to the completely discredited idea that all vaccines cause autism. Doing what conservatives always fucking do in blowing up one small thing, Carlson took the tiny - no, infinitesimal number of cases of blood clots in Europe and used that to discredit the vaccine as a whole. He talked about a case where someone died of a brain hemorrhage after getting vaccinated and asked, "Should this scare you? We don't know, but the rest of us deserve an answer. Instead, our leaders are acting as if the science were totally settled and you're not allowed to ask questions." In Europe, 37 cases were reported out of 17 million people injected. That's statistically zero. At best, it's what we might call "a rare side effect." The diabetes drug Jardiance caused 12 cases of rotting of the taint in 1.7 million users, but no one's rushing to tell people not to take it. (Yes. Taint rot.)

How is this cancel culture? Because they are treating the anti-vaxxers like all the other things they claim have been "canceled" by the left. If you think Confederate monuments should stay up, why should you be condemned for that? If you think boycotting Goya products is wrong, why should anyone be allowed to tell you you're wrong? And if you think the vaccine is dangerous despite virtually every single bit of available science saying it is not, well, aren't you allowed to say science is wrong despite having absolutely no background in medical research? Shouldn't we all just accept your God-given, American right to dissent from reality? What happened to freedom? Hey, I'm just asking the fucking questions here.

This is a dangerous fucking game the right is playing, often with full knowledge that they're just conning the rubes and milking them for all the pillows they can buy. Then again, other Fox shows, like Hannity, which is on right after Carlson's, hosts are whining that Biden isn't giving Donald Trump enough "credit" for developing the vaccine. So which is it? Either the vaccine's a dangerous thing that Biden is using to murder you or it's a blessing dropped right from Trump's chafed loins.

more...

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-real-culture-war-is-over-vaccines.html

March 19, 2021

Donald Trump Is Drowning in Criminal Investigations and Legally Screwed

However this works, I will be watching with glee!

Levin Report
Donald Trump Is Drowning in Criminal Investigations and Legally Screwed
He’s also facing 29 lawsuits though it’s the investigations that could land him in prison he’s probably most worried about.
By Bess Levin
March 18, 2021


For much of his adult life, Donald Trump was known for going after his enemies with frivolous lawsuits, so much so that by the time he ran for president in 2016, he and his businesses had been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions. According to a 2016 report, Trump had no qualms about responding to “even small disputes with overwhelming legal force” and didn’t “hesitate to deploy his wealth and legal firepower against adversaries with limited resources,” sometimes refusing “to pay real estate brokers, lawyers, and other vendors.” In other words, he was a consummate bully who used his money and power to screw over little people, and never worried about the tables being turned, as he would simply countersue, like his family business did in the 1970s when the Justice Department accused it of discriminatory housing practices. But as the old saying goes, “karma is a bitch and she relishes the idea of a litigious a-hole living out his last days in prison."

On top of the well-publicized investigations into Trump out of New York—one from Attorney General Letitia James and the other from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.—the ex-president is facing no fewer than three probes concerning his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Two of those investigations are based out of Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in February she is looking into Trump’s infamous call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the then president pressured Raffensperger to “find” him the necessary votes to win. Willis’s investigation is criminal in nature and will reportedly focus on whether or not Trump broke state laws against “solicitation of election fraud,” racketeering, conspiracy, or making threats related to the election administration. Separately, Raffensperger’s office is also probing Trump’s actions. Additionally, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s actions on the day an angry mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol and tried to block the certification of Joe Biden’s win; according to a spokesperson for Racine, the A.G. is probing if Trump violated D.C. law by “inciting or provoking violence.” While Racine would not be able to charge the 45th president with a felony due to the limits of D.C. law, per The Washington Post, if charged, he could be arrested in the District of Columbia, effectively ensuring he’ll never step foot in the nation’s capital again. On top of that the Department of Justice has launched a broad investigation into the Capitol attack, which could mean it is looking into the ex-president’s role.

And then there are the lawsuits! Per The Washington Post:

more...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/donald-trump-legally-screwed

March 18, 2021

As Florida Sen. Rick Scott searches for GOP lifeline on relief plan, DeSantis throws him a brick

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/17/2021510/-As-Florida-Sen-Rick-Scott-searches-for-a-GOP-lifeline-on-relief-plan-DeSantis-throws-him-a-brick

As Florida Sen. Rick Scott searches for GOP lifeline on relief plan, DeSantis throws him a brick
Kerry Eleveld
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday March 17, 2021 · 4:16 PM EDT


After utterly failing to mount an opposition campaign to President Biden's American Rescue Plan, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida—the man running the GOP’s Senate campaign arm—is begging Republican governors to return the stimulus funding included in the bill.

The response from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? Surely, you jest.



The tension between Scott, who is chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and DeSantis is emblematic of a bigger disconnect between Washington Republicans and state GOP executives and mayors, many of whom have welcomed the federal assistance. On top of that, there's no love lost between DeSantis and Scott, who both appear to have designs on running for president in 2024.

President Biden's rescue plan included some $360 billion to help states and cities address the ongoing the pandemic. Immediately following final passage of the bill, Scott issued an open letter to governors and mayors, calling on them to return what he called “massive, wasteful and non-targeted" money.



But DeSantis already has big plans for the roughly $10 billion that could flow to his state through the trillion-dollar federal relief package. At a press conference last week, DeSantis said the money could be a "game changer" for his effort to address the dangers of flooding and sea level rise. “It’s infrastructure we would have needed to have done anyways,” he noted. Since then, DeSantis has also mentioned making one-time payments to first responders and boosting tourism marketing.

DeSantis even took his opposition to Scott's call a step further when he effectively blamed him and the state's other U.S. senator—Marco Rubio—for not claiming more of the federal dollars for Sunshine State residents. “The Senate didn’t correct the fact that Florida is getting a lot less than what we would be entitled to on a per capita basis,” DeSantis added, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Clearly, whatever angle Senate Republicans think could help them in 2022, DeSantis thinks it's a political loser in his his state, where Rubio will be fighting for reelection next year.

Scott's office apparently declined to give Politico a response regarding the snub from DeSantis.

March 17, 2021

Eric Boehlert: No more word games -- it's GOP "voter suppression," period.

No more word games — it's GOP "voter suppression," period.
Tell it like it is
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago


Scrambling in the wake of Joe Biden's seven-million vote victory in November, Republicans continue to mount a powerful and unapologetic campaign to suppress voting. With so many state legislatures under GOP control, Republicans are sponsoring more than 250 bills aimed at drastically reducing ballot access in coming years. It's being done under the phony banner of "election security." After 2020, Republicans don’t want lots of people voting, especially lots of Black people. So far, the media’s failing to accurately label the crisis that’s unfolding.

The avalanche of bills aim to shorten the early voting period, reduce the number of hours that people can vote on Election Day, eliminate drive-through voting centers, create stricter deadlines for returning absentee ballots, block early voting on Sunday, limit ballot drop boxes, restrict mail-in voting —basically any possible initiative Republicans can think of that would suppress the vote. The obvious implication is that Republicans understand their chances of winning elections decrease when voter turnout increases. And 2020 shattered American records for voter participation. It all represents a massive attempt to roll back democracy.

And it's clearly voter suppression, which is defined as, "any legal or extralegal measure or strategy whose purpose or practical effect is to reduce voting."

The good news is we've seen lots of in-depth, aggressive reporting from various news outlets on the GOP's plan to rewrite election rules in this country. The bad news is that message is getting muted by refusing to call this strategy what it is — voter suppression. The press prefers to frame the GOP's war on democracy as another Both Sides, partisan dust-up over "voting restrictions." That plays right into the hands of Republicans.

"The fact that we are about to be hit with a tidal wave of voter suppression legislation by Republican legislatures throughout the country is the most under reported story right now," Democratic election attorney Mark Elias recently tweeted. "The media is unequipped to cover this in clear moral terms and instead prefers to both sides it."

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/no-more-word-games-its-gop-voter

March 17, 2021

The Rude Pundit: Random Observations on a Presidential Presidential Address

This is a few days old but I don't recall it being posted.

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/03/random-observations-on-presidential.html

Random Observations on a Presidential Presidential Address


1. President Joe Biden's speech to the nation last night could have been a giant victory lap. Having just signed the most significant anti-poverty legislation in at least two generations and leading a country that has gone from the worst rate of COVID deaths to the most vaccinations in the world since he's been in office, no one would have blamed Biden if he had come out to the lectern and said, "Suck my dangly old balls, you Trumpfuckers. Ol' Joe is taking your piles of shit and turning it into fertilizer. You thought I was brain-fucked. Well, sorry, bitches. You're ridin' with Biden and we just floored it. Oh, and indictments have been issued for the following people" followed by a list that included Trump, his terrible children, and most of his circle of poisonous cockmites. Beyond the rhetorical masturbatory fantasies of an angry, exhausted lefty, Biden could have done that. He could have listed all the parts of the American Rescue Plan that will help actual Americans who need rescuing and not only billionaire cash hoarders.

2. But that's not the speech he gave. Instead, what came through most clearly was that Biden wants us to feel the burden of this fucktastrophe of a year. He wants us to feel it and carry it and understand it, as he carries the burdens of all the deaths he has experienced and his own brushes with mortality. He said that it's okay to mourn, no, that it's necessary to mourn the dead, and it's also necessary to mourn the loss of time that we all experienced. He said, "It’s the details of life that matter most, and we’ve missed those details.The big details and small moments. Weddings, birthdays, graduations — all the things that needed to happen but didn’t. The first date. The family reunions. The Sunday night rituals. It’s all has exacted a terrible cost on the psyche of so many of us." Goddamn, I know it's only been four years since Barack Obama was president, but those lines made me realize how much we have been missing since he left office, that sense that someone understood us as whole human beings and not red-hatted cogs in an orange, screaming ego machine. Biden spoke gently and firmly, laying it out there, as he has done before, and making clear that, yes, we will move forward, but we must honor what the cost has been.

3. Perhaps even more importantly, Biden made a case for the centrality of government in the lives of a nation's people, as a part of the people. Since 1981, the idiot mindset of too many members of both parties has been that government should be something minimal in your life (unless, of course, you want an abortion), that direct help is bad, that social programs are worthless, despite nation after nation proving the exact opposite. This kind of thinking has fucked up so many people's lives, from the deregulation that has allowed our air and water to be poisoned to the denial of assistance to the poor. What fucking monsters we've been. What American pigs. Biden reversed that equation in his speech, saying, "Look, we know what we need to do to beat this virus: Tell the truth. Follow the scientists and the science. Work together. Put trust and faith in our government to fulfill its most important function, which is protecting the American people — no function more important. We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. No, it’s us. All of us. 'We the People.'" Notice that he was talking about everyone, and, with his refreshingly straightforward condemnation of violence against Asian Americans, he was saying that the racist shit that was tolerated before is off the table.

4. And, inevitably, conservatives lost their little goddamned minds, going full-blown ragegasm at a speech that sought to unify the nation. There was the laughably moronic image of tiny Tucker Carlson reacting to the speech in the corner of the Fox "news" broadcast; it was mostly Carlson doing his Tucker stare, which means looking like a little boy seeing a vagina for the first time. There was Brian Kilmealready bizarrely telling everyone to move on from the half-million dead, which is what you say when you're one of the people who helped murder them. Screechmaven Mark Levin blustered that the speech was "propagandistic," revealing that right-wingers think that compassion and care is propaganda, which is pretty accurate. But the most hilarious thing that upset the right-wing fucknuts is that Biden didn't give "credit" to Donald Trump for his administration's role in developing the vaccine, which is pretty bold for a bunch of people who never gave Obama credit for building the economy that Trump brayed like an ass about for years. Sure, though, let's give credit where credit is due. Biden could have said, "Donald Trump ignored the coronavirus for too long, politicized simple things to prevent it, lied about its seriousness, held events that actively spread it, and refused to come up with a national plan, leading to widespread economic misery and over a half-million Americans dead, but he didn't totally botch it when it came to the vaccine." Yeah, fuck all of these increasingly deranged, insignificant, pathetic dicks.

5. What we also got in the speech is that Biden isn't looking for our approval (although, you know, every politician is). He is looking for our help. He is leveling with us about what has happened and what needs to happen and what consequences are if we fuck it all up. He told us he needs us and that he trusts us, perhaps a little too much, to do the right thing when it comes to finally bringing this miserable crisis to its jubilant end. Yes, July 4 as our Independence Day from COVID is hokey, but it's not a goal for cynics like me. And, unlike Trump's promises a year ago that things would be over by Easter 2020, it's genuinely realistic. It was a presidential presidential speech, and, even more, it was a healing speech, not just from the virus, but from what the last administration did to us. We can get past this, Biden was saying, all of it, and be better in body and mind and soul and country. Let's hope he's right. Let's help him be right.

(Note: Yeah, this is a bit of a slobbery blow job for Biden. But that's okay. There will be plenty of time to take him to the woodshed over all kinds of shit.)

(Note: The Affordable Care Act is arguably the last great anti-poverty legislation, but the American Rescue Plan does even more.)

March 16, 2021

Trump's CFO's ex-daughter-in-law is cooperating with prosecutors and 'refuses to be silenced,'...

Trump's CFO's ex-daughter-in-law is cooperating with prosecutors and 'refuses to be silenced,' her lawyer says
Jacob Shamsian




An attorney representing the former daughter-in-law of the Trump Organization's CFO, Allen Weisselberg, says she's cooperating with prosecutors conducting an inquiry into Donald Trump's finances and "refuses to be silenced."

Jennifer Weisselberg "is committed to speaking the truth, no matter how difficult that may be," her attorney, Duncan Levin, told Insider in a statement. "She will continue to cooperate fully with the various law-enforcement agencies that are investigating her ex-husband's family and the very powerful interests they represent."

"Jennifer refuses to be silenced any longer by those who are conspiring to prevent her from sharing what she has learned over the past 25 years," Levin added.

more...

https://www.businessinsider.com/jennifer-weisselberg-refuses-to-be-silenced-trump-investigation-manhattan-da-2021-3

March 16, 2021

Biden Administration Is Quietly Scrubbing Every Bit Of Trump Misinformation Out Of The CDC

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/03/15/biden-administration-is-quietly-scrubbing-every-bit-of-trump-misinformation-out-of-the-cdc.html


Posted on Mon, Mar 15th, 2021 by Sean Colarossi
Biden Administration Is Quietly Scrubbing Every Bit Of Trump Misinformation Out Of The CDC


During the course of the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump spewed misinformation on a regular basis, often putting out anti-science nonsense under the guise of CDC guidance.

Rachel Maddow reported on Monday night that the Biden administration is quietly and quickly doing a massive cleanup effort to scrub the CDC of this anti-science “junk” that the Trump administration left behind.

Leading the effort is the number two official at the CDC, Dr. Anne Schuchat, who Trump silenced during his administration.



https://twitter.com/i/status/1371634506231320579

Maddow said:



Trump’s failure to lead with science led to the loss of lives and credibility

more...

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/03/15/biden-administration-is-quietly-scrubbing-every-bit-of-trump-misinformation-out-of-the-cdc.html

March 15, 2021

Democrats Plan To Steamroll Republicans With Reconciliation For Big Infrastructure Jobs Bill

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/03/15/democrats-plan-to-steamroll-republicans-with-reconciliation-for-big-infrastructure-jobs-bill.html

Posted on Mon, Mar 15th, 2021 by Jason Easley
Democrats Plan To Steamroll Republicans With Reconciliation For Big Infrastructure Jobs Bill


Senate Democrats expect Republicans to try to block a big job-creating infrastructure bill, so the Democrats are planning to use reconciliation.

Politico reported that Sen. Ben Cardin was caught on a hot mic telling Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that reconciliation is the plan:



Biden and Buttigieg have had several bipartisan meetings in the Oval Office, but several factors make earning Republican support for infrastructure legislation a challenge.

Democrats aren’t fooling around. They aren’t going to engage in a dance with obstructionist Senate Republicans that ends with them not supporting the proposed legislation. Senate Republicans will be given plenty of chances to help to shape an infrastructure bill.

If they refuse, Democrats will go it alone and take all of the credit for rebuilding America and creating even more good jobs.

March 15, 2021

ICE Keeps Releasing Detainees With Positive Coronavirus Tests, Says Report

Someone needs to get their act together...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-keeps-releasing-detainees-with-positive-coronavirus-tests-says-report?ref=home

ICE Keeps Releasing Detainees With Positive Coronavirus Tests, Says Report
‘IT’S REPREHENSIBLE’
Jamie Ross
Reporter
Published Mar. 15, 2021 7:00AM ET

March 15, 2021

Eric Boehlert: What a mess -- the media's dopey Biden gotcha stories

https://pressrun.media/p/what-a-mess-the-medias-dopey-biden

What a mess — the media's dopey Biden gotcha stories
Return of the Optics Police
Eric Boehlert
33 min ago


Leaning hard into the task of creating conflict and controversy where none exists, the Beltway press is trying its best to rustle up gotcha stories that ding President Joe Biden. Struggling to adjust to the new media landscape that does not feature a narcissistic, pathological liar president, and one who does not purposely create outrage, journalists are swinging and missing as they work too hard to manufacture news.

Biden travels during the pandemic! Biden wears a Rolex! Biden hasn't given a press conference! Biden hasn't credited Trump for the vaccine! Biden hasn't "united" the nation! The breathless exercise is already tedious. And it's only March.

In a way this is the Beltway press returning to "normalcy" after Trump's four years of deliberate chaos. And normalcy for the D.C. media is pelting Democrats with gotcha stories about optics and how something the president has done doesn't look right, as determined by journalists. Not that the president has done anything wrong. Just that it doesn't feel right, and that now that gets treated as Important News, just months after a president who ran the White House as a criminal enterprise and tried to demolish free and fair elections in America left office.

snip//

Over this weekend, the Associated Press returned to a weird Biden gotcha storyline: He should avoid air travel during the pandemic. "The White House defends those [Delaware] visits at a time when the administration is urging the public to avoid unnecessary travel," the AP tweeted.

The wire service first pushed the Fox News-sponsored narrative last month, stressing that Biden's decision to fly on the weekend to his home in Delaware ran counter to CDC pandemic guidelines. The obvious hole in the gotcha story is that the CDC urges Americans not to travel because it wants people to avoid crowded airports and crowded planes, which is not something Biden has to encounter as the President of the United States. The idea that the Oval Office occupant cannot safely travel one year into a pandemic makes no sense.

Fact: Biden has deliberately unplugged Trump's outrage treadmill. The press needs to adjust and stop trying to concoct gotcha news.