riversedge
riversedge's JournalFox News wanted viewers to hear an anti-vax trooper's story - until he died of COVID
Fox used him to promote their ratings--and now pretend he never existed. He was only 51 years old with a wife and 4 kids. Sickening.
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1488210004129759237?s=20&t=WK0LvACdgL2biH3JSfBvRg
Fox News wanted viewers to hear an anti-vax trooper’s story – until he died of COVID
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 01/31/22 12:56 PM EST
Last week’s toll of more than 16,000 recorded U.S. deaths from COVID-19 is made all the more heartbreaking because so many of the deceased had the opportunity to take vaccines that dramatically reduce the danger posed by the virus. Robert LaMay, a former Washington state trooper whose tragic death from COVID-19 was confirmed by the press over the weekend, was one such victim.
Fox News has tried to turn workers who refuse vaccine mandates into culture war heroes, even though the network itself voluntarily imposed a requirement that its own employees be either vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 daily. LaMay became the latest such figure in October, after he resigned from the state police rather than follow Washington state’s vaccine requirement.
The network’s hosts and others on the right promoted LaMay’s story and presented his refusal to take a lifesaving drug as an example their audiences could emulate. But once his 15 minutes of fame were over and he could no longer be used to further the right-wing agenda, LaMay became expendable – his passing from the virus has not been mentioned on Fox as of posting time.
LaMay, a 22-year veteran of the force, said he received a religious exemption from Washington state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate but ultimately decided to resign before it took effect after being told he would have to take a different position. Video of his final signoff in his cruiser, in which he told Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to “kiss my ass,” went viral after it was shared on October 16 by right-wing local radio host Jason Rantz.....................................
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Regardless, LaMay’s brief blip of right-wing “celebrity” won’t comfort his widow or help to raise his four children. And Fox’s stars and the executives standing behind them will continue to encourage more of these tragedies.
Australia says Kanye West must be fully vaccinated to perform
Source: the
By Olafimihan Oshin - 01/30/22 03:29 PM EST
Australia's prime minister said rapper Kanye West must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to perform concerts in their country.
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"They apply to everybody, as people have seen most recently. It doesn't matter who you are, they are the rules,” Morrison added. “Follow the rules — you can come. You don't follow the rules, you can't."
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Friday that West, who legally changed his name to “Ye,” is planning to launch a series of stadium concerts in March.
West, who announced the February release date of his forthcoming album “Donda 2,” said in an interview last year that he has received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
However, West had previously referred to COVID-19 vaccines as “the mark of the beast” in an interview with Forbes magazine in 2020.
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Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/592013-australia-says-kanye-west-must-be-vaccinated-to
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1488076106070732805?s=20&t=ZPIf4qeCtngVxVf4hJ1CYQ
At texas rally Trump suggests that if he is reelected, he will pardon Jan. 6 Capitol rioters
Trump really gets more dangerous as the days go by--and nobody seems to know how to stop him--nor do they seem to want to stop him.
Trump suggests that if he is reelected, he will pardon Jan. 6 Capitol rioters
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/29/trump-jan6-protesters/
By Tyler Pager
Yesterday at 11:32 p.m. EST
CONROE, Texas — Former president Donald Trump suggested Saturday night he will pardon the rioters charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol if he is elected president in 2024.
Trump, who has teased but not confirmed another run for president, has repeatedly criticized the prosecution of individuals who violently stormed the Capitol to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. But his comments at a Texas rally on Saturday marked the first time he dangled pardons, an escalation of his broader effort to downplay the deadly events of Jan. 6.
Some of those involved in the riot held out hope for a Trump pardon before he left office 14 days later, but none were granted.
“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly,” he said near the end of a lengthy campaign rally in Conroe, a city about 40 miles north of Houston. “We will treat them fairly, and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
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Trump also bashed the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, as he continued to spread baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him.
“This hasn’t happened to all of the other atrocities that took place recently,” he said. “Nothing like this has happened. What that ‘unselect’ committee is doing and what the people are doing that are running those prisons, it’s a disgrace.”
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Former president Trump suggests pardoning those charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection if he were to run and win the presidency in 2024, via
https://twitter.com/cathleendecker/status/1487645847168839680?s=20&t=gK-b86xEPIDQY1xKNDL9Vw
Former president Donald Trump speaks during a “Save America” rally in Conroe, Tex., on Jan. 29, 2022. (Michael Stravato/For The Washington Post)
https://twitter.com/Trippypea47/status/1487789125562511363?s=20&t=gK-b86xEPIDQY1xKNDL9Vw
https://twitter.com/OttoTopci/status/1487786759723311104?s=20&t=gK-b86xEPIDQY1xKNDL9Vw
Sen. Roger Wicker,: 1st Black woman on USSC will be a "beneficiary" of Affirmatice Action
These Black women --whoever they are-- will be vilified by so many Repugs it is sickening
@IAmPoliticsGirl
·
Jan 29
Wow. This thread. Just when you think you can’t be more appalled this guy says something else. Make no mistake, between the overt racism, the misogyny, the book banning & the voter suppression, the Republican Party seeks a white, Christian patriarchy with authoritarian rule.
NEW: The first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court will be a "beneficiary" of affirmative action and she will "probably not get a single Republican vote," U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, said today.
https://mississippifreepress.org/20244/wicker-black-woman-supreme-court-pick-an-affirmative-action-beneficiary/
Show this thread
https://twitter.com/IAmPoliticsGirl/status/1487515484228501504?s=20&t=szJ-02h7wRnRndBZ-EwkbQ
Massive crowd on hand today to hear Michael Flynn's speech in Texas oink oink
@RonFilipkowski
·
3h
Massive crowd on hand today to hear Michael Flynn’s speech in Texas. Photo @KrisGoldsmith85
Badd Company @BaddCompani
Michael Flynn
It's Over, Q is Dead Man shrugging
https://twitter.com/BaddCompani/status/1487542200871256070?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
https://twitter.com/Out5p0ken/status/1487539423130619910?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
https://twitter.com/MerrittKelly1/status/1487547858995728385?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
https://twitter.com/NotTADayEither/status/1487530377510105091?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
https://twitter.com/LocolopezNYC/status/1487521774803857417?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
*******
@DavidCornDC
·
6h
This is frightening. Michael Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was national security adviser to a presidential nominee & (for a brief time) a president. And he's a QAnonish loon who believes globalists "introduced" COVID to they can control the world.
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1487463632472526854?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
Michael Flynn is now saying that COVID was created by George Soros and Bill Gates to take control of the world. This man was a national security advisor to Trump when he was president. Less than 5 years ago. Let that sink in for a minute.
https://twitter.com/rexzane1/status/1487526886347456512?s=20&t=sfPC2vnrJ7TTfgwYq_2_Sg
Gov tells Bette Midler to kiss dog's 'heinie' - and shows it
Source: AP
By LEAH WILLINGHAM an hour ago
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Gov. Jim Justice has a message for singer and actress Bette Midler, who called West Virginians “poor, illiterate and strung out” in a tweet after Sen. Joe Manchin refused to support President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.
The 70-year-old Republican governor ended his televised State of the State address Thursday night by lifting up his English bulldog and flashing its rear end to the cameras and crowd.
“Babydog tells Bette Midler and all those out there: Kiss her heinie,” Justice said, grinning as people applauded and some gave him a standing ovation.
Justice had spent more than an hour touting the state’s accomplishments, including two recently announced economic development projects.
“Absolutely too many people doubted us,” he said. “They never believed in West Virginia. ... They told every bad joke in the world about us.”
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/oddities-bette-midler-west-virginia-governor-jim-justice-dog-f791d896f56707884d1ad7effbe99ffa?utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter
WV has a long way to go!
https://twitter.com/TrueGrit10/status/1487131829316599809?s=20&t=PQdQDg6SehsnpR8kxO149w
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1487125259958599680?s=20&t=aHXzD5sosQ-k90WXi7Uang
https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1487055416194482183?s=20&t=PQdQDg6SehsnpR8kxO149w
This is a story of Henry--a Holocaust survivor...........
Lovely man.
For about a year and a half, I worked at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum here in D.C. as a visitor services representative. On my first day, I was walking with my supervisor, who nudged me at one point and said: "See that guy? That's Henry. Make sure you talk to him." (thread)
https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1486931502353027072?s=20&t=GAhUHqSHI_WUruJ5mJPBIQ
https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1486931532983980032?s=20&t=GAhUHqSHI_WUruJ5mJPBIQ
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1486931502353027072.html
For about a year and a half, I worked at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum here in D.C. as a visitor services representative. On my first day, I was walking with my supervisor, who nudged me at one point and said: "See that guy? That's Henry. Make sure you talk to him." (thread)
Henry Greenbaum was born in Poland in 1928. His father passed away early in the war, his mother and two of his sisters were murdered at Treblinka, and three more of his sisters died in a nearby labor camp. Only Henry, his sister Dina, and brothers Zachary and David survived.
Henry survived that labor camp and then time at Auschwitz and then Flossenbürg and had he and his fellow Survivors not been liberated enroute on their death march, he would have likely been murdered at Dachau.
I was awestruck by this man when I met him, and he had no time for that. He didn't want a pedestal. He wanted to genuinely connect with people. He was funny and warm and made the time to get to know staff members. Unsurprisingly, his emotional intelligence was off-the-charts.
Yes, he had a personal mission--he would come every week to chat with visitors for hours at a time, telling his story, over and over again--but he also just wanted the company. He loved to laugh. I was dating another staff member at the time, and he'd jokingly urge us to marry.
One time he came in with a bag of his old neckties and told the staff we were welcome to them. He handed out a few, including one to me. When I came out a few years later, I got rid of just about all my masculine clothing, including all my ties. Except for his. I still have it.
Despite the enormity of his loss and suffering, Henry made the most of his time left. He wanted to enjoy life, he wanted to enjoy the company of others, and he wanted to tell his story to as many people as possible. Why? For the memories of those who didn't survive.
This man could have done whatever the hell he wanted to do for the rest of his life, and no one would have thought lesser of him. And yet, he made it a point to come to the Museum every week and tell his story to more strangers who had never met a Survivor.
Henry knew that his generation was slipping into history and that they would soon all pass on. I think he worried that not having living Survivors around to tell their stories might allow the world to become complacent and fall back into the horrors he witnessed as a young man.
I was very naïve about all this. In 2014, I didn't appreciate his concern nearly as much as I should have. I was working in a world-renowned museum, visited by millions annually, in a national culture with no shortage of media about the Holocaust. How is complacency possible?
Henry, for all his warmth and humor, did not see the world that way. While he strongly believed in the goodness of humanity, he was also acutely aware of how bad things could become again if we weren't consistently educated on those horrors and how they came about.
The Holocaust did not happen overnight or even over a few years. It was the result of a steady drip of poison over MANY years that disenfranchised, then dehumanized, and then murdered millions of innocents. And it could not have been done without the buy-in of ordinary citizens.
Teachers, doctors, lawyers, clergy, shopkeepers, friends, lovers, neighbors, the same kind of ordinary people that each of us see around ourselves every day. The same kind of people as us. We are never too far from that buy-in. It is always looming. Henry knew that.
When I left the Museum in 2014, I was grateful for the experience but at the time, it still didn't hit me how close the threats were as described by Henry. Not just now, not just ten or twenty years ago but the way that unaccountable hatred is always present and must be checked.
For the vast majority of Americans, we all love to imagine that we would be righteous and stand against hatred. We watch movies or read books about the Holocaust and think we'd have done things differently. But would we? Really?
Yesterday, it was revealed that the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee voted, 10-0, to ban "Maus", the iconic, Pultizer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, which is geared toward educating children. Banned, supposedly, for nudity and violence.
Somehow, all the other books in McMinn County Schools that feature violence and nudity--Shakespeare and Hemingway, and, yes, the Bible--were somehow not banned. Those are deemed appropriate. Those are okay for children, we're told. Just not the one about the Holocaust.
It's not just the Holocaust, of course. Books on white supremacy, the history of slavery in the United States, LGBTQ narratives, etc. -- these books are being banned by school districts, too, and at a far greater rate in the past year.
Henry died in 2018, and I think of him often. I miss our conversations. But over the past year, my thoughts have been sharply focused on Henry's persistent concern, the one that kept him coming back, week after week, month after month, year after year.
We are never too far away from the process that landslides into those horrors, and I wish that I had asked Henry more questions about that particularly. That's why he was there. I regret not begging for every bit of wisdom he was willing to offer on that.
I have pictures with Henry from when I was in the closet that are just for me. I don't like to show them. And even this photo doesn't quite do justice to his warmth. But this is where he sat for so many years, telling his story to anyone who would listen. Love you, Henry. /thread Image
• • •
Harris discusses pandemic, migration during visit with new Honduran president
Source: THE HILL
By Brett Samuels - 01/27/22 05:37 PM EST
Vice President Harris on Thursday met one-on-one with the newly inaugurated president of Honduras, where the two discussed additional U.S. COVID-19 vaccine donations and root causes of migration.
Harris attended the inauguration of Honduran President Xiomara Castro and held a bilateral meeting with afterward with Castro, her first meeting with a foreign leader.
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During the meeting, Harris told Castro the U.S. would donate "several hundred thousand" COVID-19 vaccines in the next two months in addition to the more than 3 million doses the Biden administration has already sent to Honduras.
In a bid to help Honduran schools remain open, Harris said the Biden administration would provide more than 500,000 pediatric syringes and $1.35 million in funding for refurbishment of educational and health facilities. The administration will also give $500,000 in funding to support the Honduran government's communications campaign and to boost vaccination deployment, the vice president's office said.
The two leaders also discussed root causes of migration, which is something Harris has been tasked with addressing since last spring. She previously visited Guatemala and Mexico as part of that effort, urging migrants at the time not to come to the United States.........................................
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/591733-harris-discusses-pandemic-migration-during-visit-with-new-honduran
I am glad Kamala Harris is taking on new and different roles.
?itok=gSpjItn9
Big lie behind who gets to make COVID vaccines won't protect us With omicron breathing down our nec
@pritikrishtel
From @ChelseaClinton
and me:
There are "at least 120 manufacturers across Africa, Latin America, and Asia capable of producing mRNA vaccines. What they need in order to start saving lives is for the monopolies standing in their way to be removed.”
https://twitter.com/pritikrishtel/status/1483891976042946566?s=20&t=7oraLEYlg-GMEp9-UiKysQ
Big lie behind who gets to make COVID vaccines won't protect us
With omicron breathing down our necks, America has to empower the world to vaccinate itself
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/12/16/covid-vaccine-omicron-share-mrna/8909296002/
Priti Krishtel and Chelsea Clinton
Opinion contributors
Global health experts’ predictions are being realized. In the midst of tragically unequal vaccination access, a new variant of COVID-19 has emerged. As omicron cases are identified all over the world, no GDP is high enough and no health system strong enough to keep out the truth: Nobody is safe until we are all safe.
What is standing in our way of making sure the whole planet gets the vaccines that will actually get this pandemic under control?
Not lack of charity. The United States has shipped more than 300 million doses to over 110 countries (out of the 1.1 billion pledged). It’s heartwarming, but it’s not paradigm-shifting. Less than 4% of the population in low-income countries has been fully vaccinated, compared with more than two-thirds in higher-income countries.
Not lack of incentive. Though not everyone recognizes it, low vaccination rates anywhere put everyone at risk everywhere for new and potentially more deadly variants. Omicron is a case in point. This new wave already means more economic backsliding, unfair travel bans and the emotional toll of revisiting last year’s myriad traumas.
Pfizer and Moderna are expected to reap billions in profit
What’s really preventing us from closing the vaccine gap is the belief that markets can efficiently solve global health challenges, even the most urgent and ubiquitous ones. Governments in wealthy countries continue to abrogate their public purpose in favor of private interests. We, the authors, are not anti-innovation or anti-competition. We are pro-public health and pro-solving global challenges at global scale with governments in the driver’s seat.
The pharmaceutical industry in the West and its proponents claim that manufacturers from other countries do not have the capability to make vaccines.
That, as we discuss below, is a lie. The politically and socially objectionable truth? They are doing exceptionally well by keeping this lifesaving knowledge to themselves. In 2021 alone, Pfizer and Moderna are expected to reap over $50 billion in vaccine sales, and an eye-popping $93 billion next year.
Paul Mango:Mission accomplished: How America achieved the 'impossible' with COVID vaccines
And it doesn’t stop at COVID-19. They stand to make even more profit by using this knowledge and technology to address other diseases.
We have to empower the world to vaccinate itself. But so far we’ve been distracted by a false narrative about the limited capabilities of manufacturers in the Global South rather than what we know in our bones: that ingenuity and dedication are everywhere..................................................................
Virus-ravaged Iran finds brief respite with mass vaccination
Source: AP
By NASSER KARIMI and ISABEL DEBRE today
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — As much of the world sees vaccination slowing and infections soaring with the spread of omicron, Iran has found a rare, if fleeting, respite from the anxiety and trauma of the pandemic.
After successive virus waves pummeled the country for nearly two years, belated mass vaccination under a new, hard-line president has, for a brief moment, left the stricken nation with a feeling of apparent safety.
Now, the specter of an omicron-fueled surge looms large. Hospitals are preparing for the worst as infections tick upward after a monthslong lull. But so far, the variant has not battered the Islamic Republic as it has many Western countries where most adults got jabs a year ago..........................................................
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-middle-east-coronavirus-vaccine-tehran-f4c1a4134ff3e3afa42d6dc3d21ee0c0
Interesting history of Iran and its vaccination policies in the article.
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