The media have no idea how to cover increasingly deranged GOP
Off the rails
Eric Boehlert
56 min ago

snip//

In normal times, if the public sacking of Cheney for lack of fealty and the public support for insurrection had happened in the same calendar year it would be been considered a shocking turn of events for a mainstream political party in this country. The fact that both events happened within hours of each other this week only highlighted how radical, dangerous, and anti-democratic the GOP has become, as it hurtles far beyond the mainstream and into the abyss.

Unfortunately, the Beltway press has no idea how to cover this story. It still refuses to use the proper tools and language to put the troubling actions of the GOP in context via its straight news coverage. Hiding behind Both Sides journalism, timid language, and purposeful naïveté, news outlets still aren't being honest about the dire threat Trump Republicans now pose to the country.

Watching the party maneuver itself to be able to invalidate future elections — by passing voter suppression laws, installing local election boards that refuse to certify wins, empowering state legislatures to refuse to certify their state tallies, and electing a Republican majority in the House of Representatives that deny the Electoral College count — means the United States faces the most entrenched, internal political threat since the Civil War. That's no exaggeration, considering the defining loyalty test for the GOP today is backing Trump's claim that the 2020 election was stolen, which in turns positions the party to question all future election results.

The GOP and its followers have become consumed in deliberate lies, yet the press still views the party as a serious entity whose views deserve to be treated respectfully.



more...

https://pressrun.media/p/the-media-have-no-idea-how-to-cover

No one could see this coming.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-driver-panic-buys-four-cans-of-gasoline-then-hummer-bursts-into-flames?ref=home

Florida Driver Panic-Buys Four Cans of Gasoline, Then Hummer Bursts Into Flames
CAUTIONARY TALE
Jamie Ross, News Correspondent
Updated May. 14, 2021 6:39AM ET /
Published May. 14, 2021 6:23AM ET

https://politicalwire.com/2021/05/14/pelosi-wont-lift-mask-requirement-for-house/

Pelosi Won’t Lift Mask Requirement for House
May 14, 2021 at 7:44 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

New York Yankees say 8 vaccinated members tested positive for Covid-19. Here's how that could happen
By Holly Yan, Homero De la Fuente and David Close, CNN
Updated 0023 GMT (0823 HKT) May 14, 2021


(CNN)Eight members of the New York Yankees have tested positive for coronavirus this week despite being inoculated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the baseball team said Thursday.

The eight infected Yankees include coaches, staff members and a player. Seven do not have symptoms, said Jason Zillo, the team's vice president of communications.

The Yankees said the eight infected members received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at least two weeks ago.

The single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 72% effective against Covid-19 among US trial participants and 85% effective against severe Covid-19. The two-dose vaccines used in the US, from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, are both about 95% effective.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/13/sport/yankees-test-positive-covid/index.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/really-pelosi-responds-after-gop-rep-andrew-clyde-compares-capitol-riot-to-a-normal-tourist-visit?ref=home

‘REALLY?’ Pelosi Responds After GOP Rep Compares Capitol Riot to ‘Tourist Visit’
NOT HAVING IT
McCaffrey Blauner, Breaking News Intern
Updated May. 13, 2021 12:15PM ET /
Published May. 13, 2021 12:13PM ET
Evelyn Hockstein/REUTERS



Edit to add, Politicus:



https://www.politicususa.com/2021/05/13/pelosi-house-republicans-sick.html

Speaker Pelosi called House Republicans sick for claiming that the attack on the Capitol was a normal day.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1392862577441529858


Speaker Pelosi said:

The GOP’s New Heroes Are All Killers, Kooks, and Creeps
DEFINING DEVIANCY DOWN
The party has shed the last of its old skin, and what’s emerged is hideous to behold.
Wajahat Ali
Published May. 13, 2021 4:53AM ET

snip//

The foolish hope that Donald Trump was merely an outlier, a freakish aberration whose eventual exit would allow “adults” like Mitch McConnell to go back to their belligerent obstructionism, court packing, and shameless cravenness to corporate America and the 1 percent— you know, “business as usual,” as if any of that was normal or healthy — is gone.

During a House Oversight Committee this week, Rep. Andrew Clyde tried to gaslight America by declaring there was no riot and that the violent insurrection actually resembled a “normal tourist visit.” I would hate to vacation with Rep. Clyde and his family. The majority of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden.

Trump was not a cancerous growth but the end product of the party’s decades-long molting process. He’s the beating heart. He’s Republicans’ orange avatar, their unrestrained id, their boiling, festering rage that quenches its appetites while securing power and wealth by any means necessary. Democracy, rule of law, equality, fairness, voting rights are all unnecessary and cumbersome obstacles that must be either removed or weakened to achieve the ultimate goal: power for an overwhelmingly white, Christian conservative minority.

Just because Trump is golfing in Mar-a-Lago instead of rage-tweeting from the White House, doesn’t mean the threat has been removed. His tactics and tantrums have merely been picked up and copied by Republicans desperate to ride the same strategy to power in 2022 and 2024, perhaps with less sensationalism and fanfare.

Those who still want to pretend that there is a war for the “soul” of the Republican Party will point to 100 Republicans, including Miles Taylor, Trump’s former Homeland Security official, who are threatening to leave the GOP and create a new party. Taylor said, “The civil war within the GOP is not ending. Today, it is just beginning.”

more...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gops-new-heroes-are-all-killers-kooks-and-creeps?ref=home

https://politicalwire.com/2021/05/13/palm-beach-plans-for-possible-trump-indictment/

Palm Beach Plans for Possible Trump Indictment
May 13, 2021 at 6:31 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Top Democrat buys Funny Or Die
By Rafael Bernal - 05/12/21 12:00 PM EDT


Henry Muñoz, a former Democratic National Committee finance chair, on Wednesday announced his acquisition of Funny Or Die, the comedy website and production company founded by actor Will Ferrell.

Muñoz, a designer, art collector and philanthropist who's one of the main backers of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino, will be Funny Or Die's sole owner. He will own the brand and its content library as well as its social media properties.



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https://thehill.com/latino/553094-top-democrat-buys-funny-or-die

https://politicalwire.com/2021/05/12/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1498/

Bonus Quote of the Day
May 12, 2021 at 11:05 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Got the vaccine? Experts say you can relax about your Covid-19 risk now. Really.
I asked health experts about their post-vaccination lives. Most no longer worry about their own risk of Covid-19.
By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com May 11, 2021, 8:00am EDT


White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said he will not go into restaurants or movie theaters, even though he’s vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaccinated people should continue masking up indoors and avoiding large gatherings. News outlets have reported on “breakthrough infections” of Covid-19 among the fully vaccinated.

All of this can make it seem like getting vaccinated may not be enough to liberate people from the fear of getting sick and the precautions they’ve taken to avoid the coronavirus in the past year. So I posed a question to experts I’ve talked to throughout the pandemic about Covid-related precautions: How worried are you about your personal safety after getting vaccinated?

They were nearly unanimous in their response: They’re no longer worried much, if at all, about their personal risk of getting Covid-19. Several spoke of going into restaurants and movie theaters now that they’re vaccinated, socializing with friends and family, and having older relatives visit for extended periods.



Instead, experts said they mostly remain cautious to protect others who aren’t yet vaccinated. The vaccines are extremely effective — dramatically cutting the risk of any symptoms, and driving the risk of hospitalization and death to nearly zero. There’s some evidence that these vaccines also reduce the risk of transmission, but we’re still learning how much they prevent someone who is vaccinated from infecting another person. When experts are still taking precautions, it’s this concern for others that primarily drives them.

But, over time, they see even those concerns for others becoming less necessary, too.

more...

https://www.vox.com/22423098/covid-19-vaccine-coronavirus-protection-herd-immunity