Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Hello, weekend! I hope you all have something fun to look forward to this weekend. Here are a few news items to chew over. Feel free to post anything you think would interest readers. Please make sure to include links.
First news item
Weighing in on the vaccinated to mask up:
Yes, if you’ve been vaccinated, you can still die from COVID-19, but the odds are infinitesimally small…But the CDC isn’t recommending mask-wearing to protect the vaccinated. It claims, without providing supporting data, that the vaccinated need to wear masks to protect the unvaccinated from the new delta variant.
Let’s assume the CDC actually has the data to support its policy. There are three primary arguments to require the vaccinated to mask up.
First, we need to protect unvaccinated adults, who account for nearly all COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations. There would be a good case for this if vaccines weren’t readily available. But they are. At this point, if you choose not to get vaccinated (without a medical excuse), I think that’s profoundly foolish, but that’s your choice.
Second, there’s the matter of children under 12 who still can’t get the vaccine. My heart aches for any child who dies from COVID-19—or anything else. Fortunately, the death rate for children is statistically miniscule. According to the CDC, of the more than 600,000 deaths from COVID-19, only 335 have been kids under 18 (and it’s unclear how many of them had significant additional health issues). According to the CDC, roughly twice as many kids die in car accidents every year. We don’t ban kids from cars.
The third argument, usually only hinted at, is that we need to keep COVID-19 from mutating into an even more dangerous variant that can defeat vaccines. This is a real concern. But masking and even lockdowns won’t prevent that. As best we can tell, the delta variant came from India. We could require Americans to wear masks and even get vaccinated, but that wouldn’t stop the virus from mutating somewhere else. And unless we want to ban global travel indefinitely, or until we vaccinate much of the planet (which we should do), we have to live with that possibility.
Meanwhile, there are real costs to backsliding back into masking and, heaven forbid, school closures, lockdowns, etc.—which some people are already agitating for. This stuff is terrible for kids, infuriating for adults, and (rational or not) profoundly disruptive of social peace and trust. The chief incentive for getting vaccinated—after protecting yourself and your loved ones—is the promise of getting back to normal.
Second news item
Totally unsurprising he said this:
Former President Donald Trump pressured acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to declare that the election was corrupt in an attempt to help Republican members of Congress try to overturn the election result, according to notes of a December 2020 call Trump held with Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue.
During the December 27, 2020, call, Trump pressured Rosen and Donoghue to falsely declare the election “illegal” and “corrupt” even after the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump said on the call, according to Donoghue’s notes.
Third news item
The long-expected gubernatorial recall election in California is set for Sept. 14, and 46 candidates (not including the governor himself, Democrat Gavin Newsom) have officially qualified to run. But perhaps the most intriguing development in the race has come in recent polling. After the recall looked uncompetitive for months, evidence has emerged that the race is tightening.
Until last week, there had been no new polls of the recall election in about a month. But since then, we’ve gotten two — and both showed Newsom in danger of being recalled. First, an Emerson College/Nexstar Media survey found that 48 percent of registered voters in California wanted to keep Newsom in office, while 43 percent wanted to recall him. Then, a poll from the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times found that 50 percent of likely recall voters wanted to keep Newsom and 47 percent wanted to oust him. These fresh polls — both within the margin of error — differed markedly from a handful of surveys released in May and June that found the recall effort trailing by at least 10 percentage points.
Who casts a ballot in this unusually timed election could be pivotal. The UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll underscored why: Among registered voters, Republicans were far more likely to say they’d vote than Democrats or independents. Eighty percent of Republican registered voters said they were absolutely certain to vote, compared with only 55 percent of Democrats and about half of independents. As such, likely voters were opposed to removing Newsom by only 3 points, while the spread was much wider among all registered voters — 51 percent were opposed to removing him compared with just 36 percent in favor (in line with the pollster’s findings in early May and late January). In fact, Republicans’ enthusiasm for this race is so high that they make up roughly one-third of the survey’s likely electorate, even though they constitute only about one-quarter of California’s registered voters.
Fourth news item
Tragic: “I should’ve gotten the damn vaccine”:
Two weeks ago, life was great for Jessica DuPreez. She was on vacation in San Diego with her fiancé Michael Freedy, (better known as Big Mike at the M Resort where he worked), and their five kids ages 17, 10, 7, 6 and 17 months.
Shortly after their vacation, Freedy went to the hospital for what he thought was a severe sunburn. He tested positive for COVID-19.
Thursday morning, Freedy died with DuPreez by his side…
Freedy was not vaccinated for COVID-19.
“We wanted to wait just one year from the release to see what effects people had, but there was never any intention to not get it,” DuPreez said. That is a decision she said she will always regret and has now gotten the shot along with their oldest child.
Freedy sent her a text message while in the hospital it said, ““I should have gotten the damn vaccine.”
Fifth news item
Vile:
To @dineshdsouza and the others downplaying January 6th: you are disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/86bLnfACIf
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) July 29, 2021
Sixth news item
President Joe Biden had just announced plans to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan in April when, during a classified briefing with top national security officials on Capitol Hill, one lawmaker stood up and asked a pointed question.
What was the Biden administration’s plan to evacuate the thousands of Afghan nationals who aided the U.S. war effort, and expedite their visas?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin didn’t have an answer. “We’ll get back to you on that,” Austin said, according to two people in the room and a defense official familiar with the interaction.
Austin’s response shocked them — and it foreshadowed what many members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, now see as a failure by the Biden administration to sufficiently prepare for the avalanche of visa applications and the need to quickly evacuate those Afghans from the country as the Taliban make steady territorial gains.“It’s my view that the evacuations should have started right after the announcement of our withdrawal. That evacuation started too late,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, said in an interview. “But it started. And I appreciate the fact that it’s going, and that they’re doing it aggressively now.”
The White House has finally agreed our allies must be evacuated and it has a plan to evacuate those who can make it to Kabul. Sadly, it is not enough. The Association of Wartime Allies recently polled the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa population. Nearly 49% are outside Kabul — a population of approximately 34,000 people. Unless we go save them, they will die within weeks…The Taliban claims to control 85% of the country and is fighting to take the cities it does not yet control…An Association of Wartime Allies survey estimates that 3,200 Afghan allies are currently trapped in Kandahar.
The Taliban has a presence on Afghanistan’s roads and have created checkpoints for vehicles. They have used biometric data at these checkpoints to identify US allies and administer their death sentences on the side of the road. Hundreds have already suffered this fate, according to No One Left Behind.
Commercial air travel is scarce between Afghan cities, and most of our allies cannot afford the ticket. The Afghan military cannot defend or move these people. Only US troops can do it. Now, we have two options before us. Either we accept the mass murder of people we made a promise to save or we take bold action. I argue we must do the latter.
The President should order the 82nd Airborne Division or the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force back into Afghanistan. We should retake airfields we held mere months ago. Some remain in Afghan military control, others we will likely have to seize from the Taliban by force. From these air bases, we should begin the evacuation of our Afghan wartime allies that should have properly occurred before we withdrew any of our own forces.
Seventh news item
Read this first. I had planned to write about Simone Biles pulling out of the Olympics but didn’t get around to it. And I’m so glad I didn’t because David French has written a very insightful piece about the decision that Biles made (behind paywall):
Every now and then you can read a sentence or two of prose that can change your life. I’ve had that experience more than once reading C.S. Lewis, but these words, from The Screwtape Letters, have stood out to many as much as anything he’s ever written. “Courage is not simply one of the virtues,” wrote Lewis, “but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”
Until I read those words, I’d had a more cramped view of the term. There was physical courage, the willingness to risk your body in the face of mortal danger. And there was moral courage, which usually manifested itself in the willingness to accept, say, career or reputational risks to make a righteous stand. But to Lewis, courage is essentially tied to every virtue, to the point where we don’t even know if we possess the virtue until it’s tested.
…
So a great gymnast (the greatest in world history) who has “played hurt” many times before is persevering in the face of historic abuse and an ongoing scandal, and she’s still participating in a system that (despite recent reforms) has engaged in the systematic exploitation of young girls. In those circumstances, she faced a potentially catastrophically-dangerous crisis that not only profoundly risked her health, it also risked the success of her national team.
What is the virtue in play here? Prudence is one. A sport is not worth your life. It’s not worth your spine. Thus the comparisons to, say, basketball players who “freeze up” and brick three after three are off-base. If LeBron James has a bad game, he’s not risking paralysis with every shot. Moreover, the desire to demonstrate your toughness is not worth the harm to your squad.
Thus, the right-wing critics who piled on again and again and again and again and again decrying Biles’s alleged lack of toughness weren’t so much calling for courage but for recklessness. In spite of all of the factors above, they wanted her to walk out to the mat, fly through the air, and let the chips fall where they may.
The virtue in play was prudence. The vice was recklessness. So when Biles committed to prudence at a testing point more dramatic and high-profile than any of us will likely experience in a thousand lifetimes, she demonstrated exactly the kind of courage that C.S. Lewis so powerfully defined.
Eighth news item
White House slams Delta variant messaging:
The White House is frustrated with what it views as alarmist, and in some instances flat-out misleading, news coverage about the Delta variant. That’s according to two senior Biden administration officials I spoke with Friday, both of whom requested anonymity to candidly offer their opinion on coverage of the CDC data released that suggests vaccinated Americans who become infected with the Delta coronavirus variant can infect others as easily as those who are unvaccinated.
At the heart of the matter is the news media’s focus on breakthrough infections, which the CDC has said are rare. In some instances, poorly framed headlines and cable news chyrons wrongly suggested that vaccinated Americans are just as likely to spread the disease as unvaccinated Americans. But that isn’t quite the case. Vaccinated Americans still have a far lower chance of becoming infected with the coronavirus and, thus, they are responsible for far less spread of the disease.
“The media’s coverage doesn’t match the moment,” one of the Biden officials told me. “It has been hyperbolic and frankly irresponsible in a way that hardens vaccine hesitancy. The biggest problem we have is unvaccinated people getting and spreading the virus.”
As the Biden officials explained to me, the administration is worried that the media’s focus on these instances of breakthrough infections might lead to people being more hesitant to get a vaccine…
MISCELLANEOUS
I have been trying to locate a specific artist whose work always intrigues me and which I wanted to share here but was simply unable to remember the artist’s name. Finally, after umpteen google searches, I messaged an old friend who is an art professor and asked him. He was quick with the name I was looking for: Robert Longo. I first saw large prints of Longo’s work hanging on the walls of a beautifully appointed study in a restored 120-year old home. The prints made for striking focal points in the elegant, neo-classically designed room filled with overstuffed bookcases and antiques:
Have a great weekend.
–Dana
Happy weekend!
Dana (174549) — 7/30/2021 @ 8:14 pmNevada’s governor has reinstated a mask mandate, virtually statewide, and regardless of vaccination status. California’s governor hasn’t.
What could be the cause of this discrepancy? Could it be the recall election? Newsom isn’t that cynical, is he? He just follows the science, right?
Yeah, the science of polling!
norcal (a6130b) — 7/30/2021 @ 8:44 pmPoint 1, I don’t feel any sympathy for anyone 18 or older without some underlying disease that validly keeps them from being vaccinated. I hope they/you don’t die, but it’s your own damn fault at this point.
Point 2, the kids under 12 kind of sucks, they’ve been mostly OK, but are still vectors, and should be prime candidates to knock out 25% of the current unvaccinated because they can’t get vaxxed today.
That will leave several thousand people with underlying conditions, and 10s of millions of morons and the lazy morons.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 7/30/2021 @ 8:50 pm@3 several thousand? Did you have to stand up to reach the place where that number came from or are you well practiced reaching it while sitting down?
The estimates I’ve seen are usually just under 3% of the population. If those are accurate that’s closer to 10m than several thousand.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/30/2021 @ 9:53 pmBecause of all the shirkers and deadbeats, I find i must wear the mask again. Thanks, jerks.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:13 pmNot because I am forced to — I am not — but because we still are not past this thing due to all the people e3xpecting other people to do their work for them.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:14 pmnot recommending mask-wearing to protect the vaccinated. It claims, without providing supporting data, that the vaccinated need to wear masks to protect the unvaccinated from the new delta variant.
Well, the reason that I am wearing a mask is because it will slightly decrease my chance of getting the virus. I have utterly no interest in protecting the unvaccinated from the virus, or from anything else. They have made their choice and I could care less what happens to them. If they are wont to die, they should hurry up and decrease the surplus population.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:17 pmWhat could be the cause of this discrepancy? Could it be the recall election?
Polls show it a dead heat.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:18 pmThese fresh polls — both within the margin of error — differed markedly from a handful of surveys released in May and June that found the recall effort trailing by at least 10 percentage points.
When I am at my most cynical, I think that early polls are fabricated to push opinion, but as we approach the actual election they have to get honest, lest they get shown up.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:22 pmThe RAP is Bill Kristol and Mike Murphy. AKA the usual suspects. Kristol may be #NeverTrump but Murphy is #NeverConservative.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:30 pmThe evacuation of Afghans should have stated several months BEFORE we started leaving. Instead of going on about the “stolen” election, GOP leaders should be hanging Biden out to dry on this one.
If they retake the House, it would be an possible impeachment article. Shameful and entirely his fault.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:35 pmAnyone who has watched Biles vault knows just how close to the edge her game is. One mistake and she breaks her neck, or back, or maybe just all her teeth. To try to do that under the pressure that was being heaped upon her was insane. It’s sad — her performance is worth traveling to Japan to see in person. But not to appease the howling press.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:39 pmTexas surpasses New York in number of coronavirus cases
……..
Once the US epicenter of the pandemic, New York now ranks fourth in total case count behind California, Florida and Texas, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
…….
Texas was one of the first states to reopen in May, but Gov. Greg Abbott announced a pause to any further reopening in June when cases surged. Now Texas is one of the 41 states to implement mask requirements in some form to protect against the virus’s spread.
…….
Texas Republican Louie Gohmert, who has frequently refused to wear a mask, has tested positive for the virus.
Gohmert told CNN last month that he didn’t wear a mask because he had been tested and he didn’t yet have the virus. “But if I get it, you’ll never see me without a mask,” he said. But he began to wear a mask more in the last two weeks he said.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:45 pm……..
Right-Wing Media Launches Unhinged Attack on Simone Biles
…….
Following superstar gymnast Simone Biles citing concerns of mental health after shockingly pulling out of the women’s team competition, a number of conservative media figures and pundits attacked her on Tuesday for supposedly being a “quitter” and “selfish sociopath” who had brought “shame on her country.”
……..
Talk radio hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton, who recently took over the coveted early-afternoon time-slot vacated by the late Rush Limbaugh, took turns on Tuesday’s show blasting both Biles and the praise she received for admitting her withdrawal was due to mental health concerns.
“The blue checks have already rallied to Simone Biles’s defense and said, ‘Oh, it’s so brave,’” Travis sneered, prompting Sexton to add: “Why is this brave? What’s brave about not being brave? Cause that’s what we’re talking about here. This is ‘Oh, you didn’t stand up to the bully?’ So to speak… No, I think that’s the not brave move.”
…….
“Are ‘mental health issues’ now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport? What a joke,” (Piers Morgan) tweeted. “Just admit you did badly, made mistakes, and will strive to do better next time. Kids need strong role models not this nonsense.”
Conservative writer Amber Athey, for her part, labeled Biles a “quitter” while arguing that the gymnast lacked “mental toughness” and was self-centered for only deciding to withdraw after the competition had started. The suggestion here was that the only reason Biles dropped out was the fear of tarnishing her legacy.
“Is it all that surprising that someone this overconfident—some might say arrogant—would struggle to mentally rebound from a poor performance?” Athey wrote.
………
“Biles doesn’t suffer from a specific mental illness, at least not that we know of or that’s ever manifested itself before. What she experienced wasn’t that, it was something more common among professional athletes: she got psyched out. She wasn’t mentally tough when she needed to be,” (John Daniel Davidson of The Federalist) said, adding: “……..But instead of being ashamed of that, or apologizing to her teammates and her countrymen, Biles seemed to revel in taking care of her ‘mental health,’ whatever that means.”
……….
“You’re representing your nation, you selfish sociopath,” (Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA), the 27-year-old community college dropout huffed. “You know who has the gold medal? Russia! I have to look at the 4’11” Olympians chewing on their gold medals smirking at the Americans. I’m not okay with that!”
Kirk went on to complain that “we are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles” before calling her “immature” and a “shame to this country.”
……..
Keeping it classy!
Related:
………
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/30/2021 @ 11:12 pmAn apology with all the sincerity of having a gun at his head.
Dana– Love the Longo art. ‘Groovy’ stuff: very 60’s-ish… the website you posted has some eye-catching gems as well.
_____
5.’Because of all the shirkers and deadbeats, I find i must wear the mask again. Thanks, jerks.’
‘Eyes Wide Shut,’ eh Kev?!
‘Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing’ – Chris Isaac
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/30/2021 @ 11:59 pmSimone Biles doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone on this rock– especially flabby-azzed conservative ideologues.
Courage to compete; courage to retreat.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:03 amWhite House slams Delta variant messaging…
Delta V is fast moving bugger, eh Joey?! 😉
Just like you haulin’ Coors in your 18-wheeler. Remember?!?!
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:10 am@14 When the likes of Ken Paxton needs to straighten you out, you’re in deep sh!t.
norcal (a6130b) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:11 amThat’s eff’d up. The unvaccinated are a deadly public menace, but it’s not because they’re bad people. OK, some of them are, but most are just credulous dupes who aren’t smart enough to figure out that the people they take advice from are terrible. Wishing them dead is… well, like I said, it’s eff’d up.
lurker (59504c) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:42 amThe guy in the photo reminds me of The Talking Heads Stop making Sense Tour.
mg (8cbc69) — 7/31/2021 @ 3:55 amKevin M. having a fit because he can’t control the universe.
mg (8cbc69) — 7/31/2021 @ 3:57 amHard to imagine someone saying those things about Simone. She deserves GOLD for her honesty.
mg (8cbc69) — 7/31/2021 @ 4:03 amBecause of all the shirkers and deadbeats, I find i must wear the mask again. Thanks, jerks.
Welcome to New Mexico.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:45 amBiden-Harris anti-vaxxers? Yep
“I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated. But this latest moral mania — and make no mistake about it, the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” p.r. campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series of such manias, dating back to late 2016 — lays bare everything that’s abhorrent and nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington consensus.
If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population, and now insist they’re owed financially besides. . . .
Now this new vaccine debate has been amped to 11. The universal consensus of the “Powerhouse Roundtable” types is that it’s time to start opening the cans of whoop-ass on the vaccine-hesitant, yanking services and civil liberties from those murderous holdouts who are, the president tells us, “killing people.” They do this acting like the public doesn’t remember the messaging from the Biden-Harris campaign last year, which was talked about at the time as being irresponsible precisely because it set a precedent of urging the public to distrust the vaccine.”
https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:52 am“They do this acting like the public doesn’t remember the messaging from the Biden-Harris campaign last year, which was talked about at the time as being irresponsible precisely because it set a precedent of urging the public to distrust the vaccine.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:54 amI think the note from the acting AG about his conversation reinforces that Trump was attempting to steal the presidency after he lost the election. I think we’re fortunate that the lefty leadership worked as hard a they did to keep counter-protesters away from the Rally on Jan 6. We’re also fortunate that Trump is incompetent and timid in the face of risk. Had events enabled him delay the certification ‘until order can be restored and security ensured’ it’s unclear what would have happened. The strategy seems pretty clear; delay the process until there’s a sufficient pretext to maintain power. It’s concerning to think about how this would have gone under a competent person.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:54 amDo you mean this as snark? If so it’s not clear. If not then it’s a unusual for you and I hope you’re doing ok because I like you.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:57 amNo matter how much you want your side to be right about this they’re wrong; turning vaccination into a partisan issue and pushing over and over again that people shouldn’t take it is bad for the country. No matter how much you want the actions of your team to be the fault of the other team they’re not. They’re the fault of the people who do them. Those people, and their supporters are hurting the country and prolonging this pandemic.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:03 amKevin M (ab1c11) — 7/30/2021 @ 10:13 pm
You’re wearing the mask again because:
1) the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of delta
2) the “authorities” have no other plan but desperately can’t be seen as not having a plan
3) you’re virtue signaling and it let’s you pretend you’re sacrificing for “the country”, “the greater good”, or whatever else motivates you.
Actually, I take back (1). That’s a real reason to wear the 😷 but you’ve said you don’t believe those numbers.
This reminds me of the religious flagellation cults.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:10 am@28 Hello pot. Let me introduce you to kettle. You say you live in a glass house and you’re getting a load of rocks delivered. That’s interesting.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:13 am4). Although the vast majority of people who contract and spread covid are unvaccinated people who are vaccinated still have the ability to spread. The exact figures are unknown and public health officials l, as is typical, are proposing rules that place a very priority on public health. People who share this priority will comply, as will those who want to signal grouo affiliation.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:15 am@30, that’s Jr. High clever and you can’t support it with evidence. Do you have a point to asset or are you yet again just commenting on flaws in how an argument is made while you take no position in the argument itself?
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:26 am*assert.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:27 amWhat’s all this than!
Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:46 amWho ya gonna believe, the Instapundit or your own eyes?
The Instapundit: “The pandemic is over.”
Your own eyes.
I sure wish the pandemic was over, but as that Daily New Cases graph shows, it isn’t.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:48 am28… Biden-Harris most certainly did what they could to spread distrust. Their statements have been quoted here before. That you weren’t paying attention is on you. No matter how many times you stamp your feet and disagree.
Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:51 am22, Patterico ain’t Barstool or OutKick. Good.
urbanleftbehind (50adeb) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:54 amHard to imagine someone saying those things about Simone. She deserves GOLD for her honesty.
mg (8cbc69) — 7/31/2021 @ 4:03 am
Not really. Trump has given license to his supporters to “tell It like it is.” They would say the are just being brutally honest.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:56 am“ We got some new COVID-19 rules yesterday. They were different than the rules we got the day before that, and I assume they’re different than the rules we’ll get tomorrow.
To recap:
Absolutely do not wear a mask
You must, must, must wear a mask or you’re killing Grandma
Don’t leave the house or you’re killing Grandma
If you can’t avoid leaving the house, stay at least six feet away from any other human being you see or you’re killing Grandma
Wash your hands 20 times a day
Do not touch your face or anything else, ever
Get vaccinated so you don’t have to wear a mask
You have to wear a mask even if you’re vaccinated
When the above rules change, and then change back, and then change back again, shut up about it or you’re a stupid MAGA-head
Don’t forget to vote Democrat.”
https://jimtreacher.substack.com/p/the-rules-wouldnt-keep-changing-if
Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:56 am@32; you’re playing the my team your team game in @28.
So, you want to talk about how you admit that it’s been politicized but that it “shouldn’t make it this bad for the country”? Your point seems to be yes my side made it political and your side should have complied.
You’re argument is basically the classic domestic abuse scenario. The ever popular “Yes, I hit you but it’s your fault and I’m only trying to help you”.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:57 amFifty years ago today, another technologic triumph by America.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:02 am@13 amazing that the four most populous states have the most cases
lefty rip just saw tx getting called out and it was instantly newsworthy
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:06 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:26 am
Almost forgot, yes, all of the mixed messages and political games have absolutely eroded trust.
To use Kevin M’s analogy; you wake up on a plane with the sleaziest most dishonest person you know. He says, listen, I know I drugged you and got you on this plane but it’s totally safe because I inspected it myself and do all of the maintenance. Don’t worry about this storm, I planned the route and I’m a wonderful meteorologist and expert navigator. But we need to jump out of this plane before it crashes, trust me it’s going to crash. Now I know I robbed your wallet to pay for the flight but luckily I had enough left over to buy this parachute. It’s totally safe, I checked it myself, and the store I bought it from has a 100% safety rating from me. So, put this on and jump. Now, we might be over the ocean, or maybe a desert, or rough mountains. Trust me I’ll figure out what to do about where you land on the way down.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:11 amCome on, man! Let’s cut through the malarkey! Here’s deal: Vaccination suppresses mutation.
Viruses do not mutate only when the Rothschilds irradiate them with their space lasers. They also mutate as they go from host to host in their host population. Bats. Pangolins. Oppressed victims of systemic racism. White Anglo-Saxon Christian victims of oppressed victims of systemic racism.
Vaccinate the population and both the virus and its mutations will become footnotes to history. Like Trump. Do it for the history books!
nk (1d9030) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:18 amThis is pretty easy to agree with.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:20 am@36 deceptive as usual.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:20 amI noticed the following news items after a discussion earlier this week on the fairness of Thomas Barrack’s $250 million bail (the fact he easily made that bail should give one pause):
Nikola Founder Is Charged With Fraud in Rebuke to Wall Street
In a warning shot to a thriving corner of Wall Street, federal authorities on Thursday filed criminal and civil securities fraud charges against the founder of Nikola — a start-up automaker that went public by merging with an investment firm last year.
……..
Mr. Milton was taken into custody in Manhattan on Thursday morning and was released on a $100 million bond co-signed by two other people and secured by two properties worth $40 million.
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20-year-old arrested in deadly shooting at Corona movie theater
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:24 am………
Joseph Jimenez was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and robbery and was being held in lieu of $2-million bail at Presley Detention Center in Riverside, police said.
………
Who’s bail was excessive? For the record, the shooting suspect should have just been denied bail forthwith rather than setting an amount. And the billionaire should have at least struggled a little to come up with his.
only when a democrat is president can the white house slam bad covid messaging and get the media to blame itself for it
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:28 am@47 who did barrack kill?
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:30 am46… you are bumfuzzled, as usual.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:35 amPRRI: Religious Identities and the Race Against the Virus: (Wave 2: June 2021)
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The U.S. fell short of the 70% vaccinated goal that the Biden administration set for the July 4th holiday, but it came close. While many states and localities did achieve that goal, the second quarter of 2021 also saw increasing disparities between state vaccination rates—disparities that are driven by a complex range of factors, including political affiliation, religious affiliation, race, and socioeconomic status.
Two-thirds of Americans (67%) report having received at least one dose of a vaccine, and another 4% say they will get vaccinated as soon as possible. Less than one in five (15%) are hesitant, a decrease from 28% in March, and 13% say they will not get vaccinated, similar to the 14% who said they would not get vaccinated in March.
The proportion of Americans who worry that the long-term effects of the COVID-19 vaccines are unknown dropped more than 10 percentage points, from 58% in March to 47% in June.
Refusals have held steady across most demographic groups, although some subgroups have become significantly less likely to say they will refuse to get vaccinated, including, notably, Black Protestants (19% said they would refuse in March; 13% said they would refuse in June) and Republicans (23% said they would refuse in March; 19% said they would refuse in June).
Among religious groups, Hispanic Catholics have increased most in vaccine acceptance, from 56% in March to 80% in June. Nearly eight in ten white Catholics (79%) are also vaccine accepters, up from 68% in March. Other non-Christians (78%), other Christians (77%), the religiously unaffiliated (75%), and white mainline Protestants (74%) are also above the 70% mark, with increases of 11-15 percentage points in each group.
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More than four in ten Hispanic Protestants (44%) say that having time to get vaccinated or deal with the possible side effects is a critical reason (22%) or one of the reasons (22%) they have not gotten vaccinated yet. More than one-third of Americans ages 18–29 (38%), 30–49 (37%), Black Protestants (37%), and Black Americans (36%) say the same.
Black Protestants are most likely to report that a health condition is a critical reason (18%) or one of the reasons (18%) they have not gotten vaccinated. About one-third of Hispanic Protestants (34%) also report that health is a critical reason or one of the reasons they have not gotten vaccinated.
Hispanic Protestants are most likely to report that lack of childcare is an issue (21%), but one in five Black Americans (20%) struggle with this as well. The same is true of having reliable transportation: Hispanic Protestants (21%) and Black Protestants (18%) are most likely to say this is a critical barrier or one of the reasons they have not yet gotten vaccinated.
Republicans remain less likely than independents or Democrats to be vaccine accepters but have increased from 45% accepter in March to 63% in June, a larger gain than independents (58% to 71%) or Democrats (73% to 85%).
However, Republicans remain divided by what media they trust. Those who most trust far-right news outlets (46%) have become more likely than they were in March (31%) to refuse vaccination.
Majorities of Americans without college degrees in all race and ethnic groups are vaccine accepters, whereas most were below 50% accepter in March. Black and Hispanic Americans without four-year degrees have increased most—about 20 percentage points (40% in March to 59% in June for Black Americans; 49% in March to 69% in June for Hispanic Americans).
Republicans, Americans under age 50, and rural Americans remain among the most likely to be hesitant or refusers, but about one in five of those who are vaccinated in each of these groups—those under 50 (19%), Republicans (20%), and rural Americans (20%)—say one or more of these faith-based approaches helped convince them to get vaccinated.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:36 am………..
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:24 am
The purpose of bail isn’t to punish the suspect prior to a conviction. It should be about flight risk and risk of further harm to the community.
The 2nd case looks on the surface like high risk of further harm and a possible flight risk.
The 1st case seems low risk of further harm and a possible flight risk.
It’s become common to deny bail and in some cases use solitary confinement as a way to encourage a plea deal. Solitary confinement is a torture technique and using it on someone prior to a conviction seems especially egregious.
That type of abuse seems unlikely in these two cases but it makes me lean towards granting bail when the risk can be mitigated.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:37 amI never said there wasn’t some of this going on across the aisle, and I don’t excuse it.
But only dishonest, hyper-partisan types would make the claim that Biden-Harris were innocent.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:38 amDo you mean this as snark? If so it’s not clear. If not then it’s a unusual for you and I hope you’re doing ok because I like you.
Yes. It’s a riff on Scrooge. But, really, if people refuse to be vaccinated against a disease that has killed over 600,000 Americans, they HAVE made a choice. They are not interested in helping their community and I see no reason why their community should be overly concerned about the consequences of their choice.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:40 am@47 who did barrack kill?
No one, but there was a debate about whether $250M was excessive. Given his wealth, a large bail amount was probably justified, and apparently it was no problem for him (and Nikola) to meet it.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:40 am@40, it’s politically unfortunate for team R that team D has picked a position that’s correct on the merits. That doesn’t justify lying about the value of the position and dishonestly arguing against it. (See Tuckers “just asking questions” for examples of dishonesty)
We need as many people as can to get the vaccine.
More Republican leaders should follow the lead of the Governor or Arkansas and Mitch and encourage that.
If team R could stop pushing people to not get vaccinated and encourage the covid vaccine it would take the issue away from the Dems and be good for the country. The loudest and most influential voice pushing against the vaccine are Republican leaders, both media and elected.
I understand how this situation makes Team R ppl unhappy, but that’s not my priority. We need as many ppl as possible vaccinated.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:40 am@52 Fantastic comment. Agree 💯.
No snark. I mean it.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:43 amhttps://youtu.be/IJWlBfo5Oj0
Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:45 am@55 by your own reasoning jimenez should’ve been denied bail, so barrack’s was infinitely more excessive
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:46 amThe 2nd case looks on the surface like high risk of further harm and a possible flight risk.
The 1st case seems low risk of further harm and a possible flight risk.
I agree with the bail amounts in both cases (except the murder suspect should just have been denied bail outright). In Nikola’s case I am not certain it would guarantee his appearance, he is a billionaire and if he felt he was going to lose it might be worth his while to escape to a country like Brazil that has no extradition treaty with the US. See also Carlos Goschen.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:49 am@56 the poor messaging on vaccines is 1) the media’s fault, and 2) team R’s fault
i think this was just a given from jan20 onward
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:50 am@55 by your own reasoning jimenez should’ve been denied bail, so barrack’s was infinitely more excessive
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:54 amYes, Jimenez should have been denied bail, it is a death penalty case. And I think Barrack can afford to skip bail and pull a Carlos Goschen and head to a country without an extradition treaty with the US if he wanted.
You’re wearing the mask again because:
1) the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of delta
Vaccines don’t “stop” a virus. They slow it. And they slow it to the degree that the herd is immunized. What is happeneng here is that a lot of people are hoping the other people will do the heavy lifting.
2) the “authorities” have no other plan but desperately can’t be seen as not having a plan
When they do get a plan, you’ll oppose it.
3) you’re virtue signaling and it let’s you pretend you’re sacrificing for “the country”, “the greater good”, or whatever else motivates you.
Where you are simply being honest about your desire to see Biden fail, even if it kills people.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:01 amSweden’s failure (and what we can learn from it):
In judging coaches and teams, the ultimate measure is their win-loss records. In judging leaders and nations in the war against the COVID virus, it is deaths per million.
And it often helps to look outside the United States for insights on what policies work. Sweden and its three neighbors, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, provide a particularly clear example:
Norway: 146
Finland: 177
Denmark: 438
Sweden: 1438
As you can see, Sweden has, of the four nations, by far the worst record against COVID, with about 10 times as many deaths per million as Norway.
Why? Norway and Sweden, after all, are similar in many ways. The most likely explanation is that Sweden pursued a far more open strategy against COVID than its neighbors. The Swedish government had, it seems nearly certain, a bad game plan.
As you can see, Finland did almost as well as Norway, but Denmark has worse results than either, though far better than Sweden’s.
Why? Most likely because Denmark is more of a crossroads than the other three nations, and is more densely populated. We can check the first hypothesis by looking at other nations. Iceland, which has no land connections, has an even better record than Norway’s (87 deaths per million). Panama, which is almost nothing but a crossroads, has the worst record of any of the Central American countries (1552 deaths per million).
(So, did the Swedes fire their losing coach? Nope. The Social Democrat Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, has, so far, kept his position. The Swedes must be a forgiving people.)
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:03 amHigh public support for mandating vaccines
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As the remaining unvaccinated population becomes increasingly difficult to reach, persistent questions emerge regarding whether vaccines should be mandatory in some or all circumstances. In our April/May survey wave, six in ten respondents approved of the government mandating vaccines for everyone.
Overall, public support for federal, state, and local governments requiring that everyone be vaccinated remains very strong, ranging from 61% to 70%, depending on the specific type of mandate.
Public support for such mandates has increased since April/May, both overall and in specific circumstances, like for getting on an airplane and returning to school or a university.
These over-time increases in support emerge across nearly all partisan and demographic subgroups we investigated.
Majorities of respondents in nearly all (45+) or all states and the District of Columbia approve of all four types of vaccine mandates we consider.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:11 am……..
Majorities of all subgroups but one support universal vaccine mandates. The exception is Republicans, 45% of whom support a universal vaccine mandate. Support for universal vaccine mandates either increased or remained steady across all subgroups since April/May.
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We find similar increases across racial/ethnic groups between April/May and June/July, with the largest increase (4 points) among African Americans (from 64% to 68%) and the smallest (no change) among Hispanics (70% in both waves). The corresponding increases among White and Asian Americans are 3 points (from 59% to 62%) and 2 points (from 78% to 80%). As these data indicate, there remains a substantial gap in support for vaccine mandates across these groups, with the least supportive group, White Americans, 18 points less likely than the most highly supportive group, Asian Americans, to support such mandates. This gap is nearly identical to the 19 point gap in our April/May survey.
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The partisan gap in support for vaccine mandates remains vast, with Democrats nearly twice as likely as Republicans to approve (84% vs. 45%). Interestingly, both Democrats and Republicans increased their support for vaccine mandates by 3 points from April/May, when we observed an identical 39 point gap. Independents, however, did not change their support level (57% in both survey waves).
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Support for requiring vaccinations to get on an airplane is higher than for a universal mandate (70% versus 64%). Majorities of every subgroup support airplane mandates, and the support for such mandates has increased, or at least remained steady, across all demographic categories. The general demographic patterns of support are very similar.
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Support for mandating that children be vaccinated in order to attend school was modestly lower than for a universal vaccination mandate (61% versus 64%), but increased by 3 points since April/May. There was a single demographic where we found a small decrease (among the youngest cohort of respondents; perhaps among those with young children for whom the vaccine has not yet been approved). For the remaining demographic subgroups, support increased or remained steady.
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Support for requiring vaccines to go back to university is high, at 66%, but has remained largely unchanged since April/May. Majorities of every demographic support requiring vaccines to go back to university, except Republicans, 47% of whom support a university mandate. Over-time shifts in support are modest across all demographics.
………
Overall, we find strong support for mandating that everyone get vaccinated, with majority support in all but three states: Wyoming (46% approval), and North and South Dakota (between 49% and 50% approval) (Figure 6). The highest support emerges in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, at 81% approval each. At least 70% of the public in another 10 states − all of which are Democratic leaning − approve of a universal government vaccine mandate.
#60 Carlos Ghosn is a fascinating character.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:15 am@64 interesting data and pretty good comparison set.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:59 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:40 am
This is a very confusing comment. If team R is telling people to not get vaccinated why would they be upset about R’s telling people to not get vaccinated.
BTW; you got any links for the R leaders telling people to not get vaccinated?
I’ve seen R governors and congressmen pushing the vaccine.
frosty (237723) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:04 amRip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 8:11 am
Propaganda works. News at 11.
frosty (b77749) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:14 am@68 Patterico wrote a couple of posts about it last week.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:25 am@69 so it would be good if conservative leaders would stop pushing propaganda.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:25 amThis link works: Stefan Löfven.
Jim Miller (edcec1) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:45 amJustice Dept: Republican Rep. Mo Brooks may be sued over Jan. 6 speech to Trump supporters
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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) had argued that he is effectively immune from a lawsuit filed by his colleague Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) that accused Brooks, then-President Donald Trump, and others of fomenting the failed attack on Congress.
…….
The (Department of Justice) “cannot conclude that Brooks was acting within the scope of his office or employment as a Member of Congress at the time of the incident out of which the claims in this case arose,” the court filing said. “Inciting or conspiring to foment a violent attack on the United States Congress is not within the scope of employment of a Representative — or any federal employee.”
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The department’s legal argument concluded that Brooks’s appearance at the rally outside the White House that preceded the riot “was campaign activity, and it is no part of the business of the United States to pick sides among candidates in federal elections.” The issue will ultimately be decided by a judge or an appeals court.
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Brooks said the department’s reasoning was wrong because “the law is very broad,” adding that he believes the courts will eventually side with him.
“I was not advocating anyone do anything in any campaign,” Brooks said. “If that is the standard, then everything that is done in Congress is campaigning because everything that is done in Congress affects campaigns.”
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:51 am………
Brooks had also asked for the House to intervene in the lawsuit, but earlier Tuesday the general counsel declined, saying in a letter that it was “not appropriate” to get involved in a dispute between two members.
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Sweet Jaysus, rid us of these Democrats… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-cPo1wqxD8
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:03 amTeh Fresh Prez of D.C. Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJz6__YePU
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:05 am38-
mg (8cbc69) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:16 amold orange man bad is still ruining your life, you should try bikram yoga
@70; so no links? Want to try again before it’s safe to conclude you don’t have any evidence for “don’t get the vaccine” and that this is just you interpreting a variety of things from people you don’t like in the way that fits your bias?
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:23 amA colossal waste of time…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:26 amFor those in the betting pool; it looks like we hit “it’s orange mans fault” at 38.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:28 am@41. ROFLMAO and, as with nearly all American made cars in the 70’s- a recall was necessary– to Houston: the front steering didn’t work on EVA 1. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:38 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:25 am
You mean like DeSantis who has said get vaccinated. Or Trump. Or McConnell. Or Kemp. I could keep going but I’m sure that’s not enough and you’ll still say R leaders are pushing against the vaccine.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:46 am@41. FWIW, Rip, Fifteen’s hardware was budgeted for and purchased under LBJ; the rover development costs w/Boeing were funded then as well. It was The Big Dick who cancelled the last three Apollo ‘J’ missions [18,19,20] after the hardware was already paid for [all that was needed was operational budgets] which is why the last three Saturn Vs are on display around the country and not at the bottom of the ocean. [It was Nixon’s ‘nothing Kennedy’ bugaboo.] The Big Dick cancelled everything else as well- including the preliminary space transportation system plans w/a space station — except for the shuttle, forcing a redesign into a much larger vehicle- chiefly to accommodate KH-12 spysats for shuttle budget source and customer- the DoD. The Big Dick sowed the seeds for the accidents to come. GOP administrations have never been strong ‘space-friendly’ entities- chiefly talk w/little action for budgetary backing– going back to Ike’s era. ‘No bucks; no Buck Rogers’…
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:52 amRunnin’….hidin’… hoooo… hoooo… hoooo!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:57 amFound out this week that one of my employees is disgusted with their university and that they mandate the vaccine to return to school. She has a classmate, a scholarship athlete, who is in the hospital with severe heart and lung damage as a side effect to taking the vaccine. So a perfectly healthy young man, who had basically zero risk from the virus is permanently damaged thanks to an irrational policy inflicted upon him by a feckless university system run by callous people.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 7/31/2021 @ 10:57 amhttps://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/COSA-National-Vaccines-Full-Report.pdf
71% of people believe that taking the vaccine should be personal choice and not mandated.
And that’s a real poll and not a push poll unlike other options.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 7/31/2021 @ 11:08 amA sad postscript requiring nothing less than “under the jail”:
urbanleftbehind (50adeb) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:23 pmhttps://news.yahoo.com/anthony-barajas-tiktok-star-dies-183200555.html
Once the US epicenter of the pandemic, New York now ranks fourth in total case count behind California, Florida and Texas, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Let’s have some perspective, though. At the current rate of death from COVID in Texas, they will surpass New York’s per capita COVID death rate sometime in the fall of 2040.
JVW (ee64e4) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:53 pm‘Sellout’: Anti-vax conservatives come for DeSantis
……
The Republican governor has come under attack from the medical community and Democrats as the Delta strain of Covid-19 sweeps through Florida, turning it into a national coronavirus hotspot. The state recorded more than 73,000 infections last week — four times as many as the start of July — leading to overcrowded hospitals and more than 300 deaths in the most recent seven-day period. Florida is now home to one in five new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But as DeSantis encourages vaccinations — he said “vaccines are saving lives” — he is facing a backlash from the anti-vaccination wing of his political base. It’s the same group that praised him and helped thrust him onto the national stage for his hands-off approach to the virus. ……..
“Don’t let political correctness get in the way of health choices,” former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said recently of DeSantis’ comments, speaking on “The Right Side with Doug Billings,” a conservative radio host and podcaster.
Another conservative radio host, Stew Peters, last week called DeSantis a “sellout” and suggested the governor was taking bribes, though didn’t specify from whom.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:53 pm……….
And that’s a real poll and not a push poll unlike other options.
A push poll (or “propaganda”) is a poll with results you don’t like and a “real” poll is one with results you do like.
Got it.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 12:56 pmPaul Montague made it clear that Stew Peters is of no consequence, Rip. And Politico didn’t include the audio of Flynn, so who cares?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:03 pmPoint 1, I don’t feel any sympathy for anyone 18 or older without some underlying disease that validly keeps them from being vaccinated. I hope they/you don’t die, but it’s your own damn fault at this point.
I think that’s entirely fair, but I want to make this one point. I came of age in the mid and late 80s and early 90s, when AIDS was at its peak. Very early on we understood that there are several things that could be done to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS: avoid unprotected sex and sharing needles, especially in communities which had very high rates of AIDS infections. Still, there were thousands of new cases where people failed to heed these simple instructions.
So if you were someone who took the position that people who were afflicted with AIDS after engaging in what were clearly known to be risky behaviors were fully responsible for their own predicament, and you are now taking the same position with respect to COVID sufferers who refuse to vaccinate, social distance, or mask, then I can respect that. If you are on the other hand one of those people who refuses to blame anyone for their irresponsible behavior, then I highly disagree with you, but I respect your consistency on the issue.
However, if you are of the opinion that HIV/AIDS sufferers back then were almost blameless victims (or you were lazy and blamed it on Ronald Reagan) but now believe that COVID deniers have got what is coming to them, or if you thought that AIDS sufferers were reaping what they sowed but are now trying to make excuses for those who wouldn’t vaccinate, social distance, or mask, then I have zero respect for your opinion on the matter. I’m not aiming this comment at anyone who comments on this blog; more from what I read on toxic sites such as Twitter and on many other blog chat sections.
JVW (ee64e4) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:04 pmFrosty, I’m on a cell phone at the beach. You’ll have to wait until I’m bored. Until then you can keep pretending this isn’t something your team is doing.
Time123 (5d8bdb) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:29 pmMay teh sharks be with you…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:36 pm@92 it’s less of a waste of beach time to just say you can’t back it up
JF (e1156d) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:41 pmIf that’s how you define push polls it explains a lot.
I define a push poll as one that comes from a group with a predefined agenda promoting that agenda versus a poll that comes from an actual historical professional polling organization.
But I guess we see things differently. I’m shocked.
NJRob (a35f12) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:42 pmTime123 (5d8bdb) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:29 pm
I’ve never gotten the impression you know what team I’m on. While you enjoy the beach you can keep pretending you do.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:44 pmI’m late to this conversation.
What is team A doing and what is team B doing?
BuDuh (7bca93) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:44 pmJVW (ee64e4) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:04 pm
This is an interesting analogy. At the time it was politically incorrect to blame people with HIV. It was politically incorrect to discuss a lot of topics related to the spread. That disease spread largely by behavior, and it was easy to prevent, but we were required to pretend otherwise. We’re required to pretend a bit, just different things, for COVID too.
I think the biggest difference between that and this is fear. Most people weren’t afraid of AIDS because they had to engage in risky behavior to be at risk. The fear of COVID is extreme even though there are a number of ways to mitigate the individual risk and the risk itself is not very well understood.
There are also a variety of differences in society overall. We didn’t have social media then and mental health overall is worse.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 2:12 pmNothin’ from nuthin’, but how much worse can Joe Biden’s dementia get?!?!? During Don Lemon’s Biden “interview” on CNN, Biden was seen coughing and sneezing after he was seated, causing a blob of what appears to be snot on his chin. Biden didn’t notice and squint-babbled on and on for so long that someone handed Joe a note that said “Sir- there’s something on your chin.”
Biden wiped it off… looked at it for a bit… and then appeared to eat it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aQmAd0pQc
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 2:14 pmBuDuh (7bca93) — 7/31/2021 @ 1:44 pm
The wicked witch from new york and his team of flying monkeys, aka evil team R, are telling everyone to get the vaccine but because they are who they are we all know they really mean don’t get vaccinated.
The good witch of the north and the virtuous and well-intended team D are telling everyone the time for voluntary vaccines is over and it’s time to mandate it. They really hate this but it has to be done because evil team R is telling people to
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 2:25 pmgetnot get vaccinated.@99; it can get a lot worse. It sounds like everyone really wanted the first female VP of color but now whoever is running this show doesn’t seem equally as interested in KH as POTUS.
We might end up with a Weekend at Bernie’s or Dave scenario. There’s also the more obscure Patterns of Force option which I think we’re already moving towards.
frosty (f27e97) — 7/31/2021 @ 2:34 pmFirst look: Don Jr., Ron DeSantis dominate poll of GOP frontrunners
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 3:47 pm(Net Favorables)
Donald Trump Jr. +55
Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.). +54
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy +24
Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) +17
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) +8
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell +2
Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.). −43 (Ouch!)
……….
Poll Data: Fabrizio, Lee & Associates
@102. If you-know-who decides not be the king– be the king maker.
But my vote goes to Darlin’ Haley, no matter what.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 3:58 pmA federal judge issued a sharp rebuke to the FBI’s attempt to expose the identity of one of the anonymous victims of a March raid that seized more than $86 million in cash, jewelry, and other valuables from safe deposit boxes in Beverly Hills, California. Now a new legal effort is seeking to force the government to explain its own still-secret justification for the raid.
In a ruling issued last week, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner rejected prosecutors’ request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the owner of Box 904, one of more than 600 safe deposit boxes seized by the FBI during the March 22 raid of U.S. Private Vaults. The box-holder, identified in court documents under the pseudonym “Charles Coe,” claims to have lost more than $900,000 in cash and other valuables. In trying to get the lawsuit dismissed, prosecutors also asked Klausner to force Coe to identify himself publicly before returning the seized property.
https://reason.com/2021/07/29/fbi-seized-900000-from-safe-deposit-box-on-pure-conjecture-federal-judge-says/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 4:06 pm@91.
The AIDS/Covid analogy is fine as far as it goes, but like most analogies it’s imperfect. Of course everyone is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their choices. But choice, consequence, and foreseeability all vary, so the responsibility and fault that follow do too.
On the one hand, I don’t recall any widespread campaigns of disinformation designed to persuade people that condoms were a hoax which wouldn’t protect them from AIDS. In that regard I hold people who contracted AIDS from unprotected sex, knowing the risk, more responsible for their plight than people who catch Covid because they credulously imbibe the motivated antivax reasoning of politicians and media personalities, many of whom are vaccinated themselves.
On the other hand, each act of unprotected sex risks passing HIV to at most one person. Refusing the Covid vaccine is potentially far more consequential. It endangers not only the unvaccinated individual, his family, friends and community, but ultimately, by adding to the availability of hosts in which ever-more infectious and deadly mutations can proliferate, puts the entire human race at risk.
I’m not suggesting how those equities should be balanced. I’m just saying it’s complicated.
lurker (59504c) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:15 pmI don’t recall any widespread campaigns of disinformation designed to persuade people that condoms were a hoax which wouldn’t protect them from AIDS.
If memory serves, there were ‘campaigns’ inferring the plague was some secret, government induced bug – or, as the ‘Religious Right’ suggested, God’s wrath toward dirty needle druggies and the gay lifestyle. But it was the perceived indifference and/or slow response -rightly or wrongly- from the Reagan Administration that stung, mainly due to that sector of society it hit hardest.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 5:24 pmSarah Palin teases 2022 Senate run in Alaska
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she may yet jump back into politics, teasing the possibility of a Senate run in 2022 against incumbent Lisa Murkowski.
“If God wants me to do it I will,” Palin told an enthusiastic audience during a discussion last week with New Apostolic Reformation leader Ché Ahn…….
“I would say you guys better be there for me this time, because a lot of people were not there for me last time,” she added, chiding the conservative Christian audience for what she said was their insufficient support during her 2008 vice presidential campaign with Sen. John McCain.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:32 pm…….
Palin said she was keeping an eye on the race, noting dismissively that there was already a “female Republican” who had jumped into the contest but that Palin had “never heard of her.”
………
She’s back!
I don’t remember that.
That I do remember. It was reprehensible, but I doubt it made anyone think it would be safe to share a needle or have unprotected sex.
Yes, the Reagan administration’s early attitude was also reprehensible, e.g., Larry Speakes making gay AIDS jokes from the WH podium. And it’s fair to attribute an indeterminate number of deaths to the foot draggingly slow response. But responsibility isn’t zero-sum. That some people behaved hatefully, and that the White House didn’t do all it could or should have doesn’t absolve individuals of responsibility for knowingly reckless behavior.
lurker (59504c) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:44 pm@108. Yeah, there was buzz it was some CIA bug:
‘Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 1981, rumors have persisted that the deadly virus was created by the CIA to wipe out homosexuals and African Americans.’ – Time.com
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 6:50 pm@109. I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me. The Trumplican Right has appropriated the Left’s long-held mantle as the ideology of dopey, evidence-free conspiracy theories.
lurker (59504c) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:17 pmGW Politics Poll Finds Varying Confidence in State and Local Elections
Democratic voters continue to have more faith in state and local elections than Republicans, according to new data from the George Washington University Politics Poll. However, confidence in state and local election officials appears to vary depending on voters’ location and party affiliation. Results from the new survey show that Republican voters in states that former president Trump won report far higher levels of confidence in their state and local officials than GOP voters in states that went for President Biden.
………
The poll, conducted in June, showed that 85% of surveyed Democrats expressed trust in their local election officials and 76% also felt that way about their state officials, compared to 63% and 44% of Republicans, respectively. GOP voters’ faith in their state election officials jumped to 70% if they lived in a state won by Trump in 2020. However, only 24% of Republicans living in states that Biden won have confidence in their state elections.
Other key results from the poll include the following:
● Democratic voters’ confidence in the integrity of the upcoming 2022 elections is similar to their confidence going into the 2020 election. Last year before the November election, 76% of surveyed Democrats expressed confidence in the upcoming elections. This year’s poll found that 75% of Democratic voters were confident in next year’s elections. Republicans are less confident in the 2022 elections (28%) than they were before the 2020 vote (46%).
● The survey showed that 82% of Republicans agreed with the statement, “It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.” Only 15% of Democratic voters agreed.
● Support for fundamental principles such as free and fair elections, free speech and peaceful protest are nearly unanimous among both Democrats and Republicans. Their views on other democratic values, however, differ dramatically. Over half of Republicans (55%) supported the possible use of force to preserve the “traditional American way of life,” compared to 15% of Democrats. When asked if a time will come when “patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands,” 47% of Republicans agreed, as opposed to just 9% of Democrats.
● Among all surveyed voters, 51% approved of President Biden’s performance as chief executive; 47% did not approve of the way he was handling the job as president. A mere 25% of respondents approved of the performance of Congress, with 69% disapproving.
Rip Murdock (e03271) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:27 pm………
Poll cross tabs.
No matter how much you want your side to be right about this they’re wrong; turning vaccination into a partisan issue and pushing over and over again that people shouldn’t take it is bad for the country.
No. What’s ‘bad for the country’ is contiuing to confuse if not spook citizens by insisting ‘here’s the deal:’ get vaccinated, then learning even if you did, you still may not be protected, may need multiple boosters, may get sick anyway and/or spread the bug and need to go back to wearing a mask… all while letting illegal sickos pour in freely across your borders — then blatantly lying to the people that you drove an 18-wheeler, thereby breaking the final straw and undermining your own credibility all the more.
The man’s a useless putz. At this point Kamala has more street cred– and that’s not sayin’ much, either. Bu it might be time to send in the relief pitcher.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 9:07 pmThe woke crowd is getting lazy: surely the ‘Black Plague’ was racist– and must be renamed.
Get on it, Joe!
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 7/31/2021 @ 11:04 pmhttps://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/07/28/california-and-five-other-states-ban-gaming-computers-n1465203
Meanwhile, several communist desiring states continue to ban examples of freedom in their bid to save the world.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 7/31/2021 @ 11:10 pmI also grew up in the 80’s, and the one thing I remember amongst the few from those teenage years, were wear a condom(mask), no glove, no love.
Also, there were copious vaccines available within the first calendar year that people are having to make up completely senseless conspiracies to anti-sell.
The introduction of HIV, the conspiratorialization of it’s creation, the mass government blindspot, the spotty, then dedicated research (which decades later lead to the breakthroughs that allow mRNA vaccines to be near realtime created), the intra party fights, the parties taking sides, the anti-vaxx movement barging in…all things that happened in roughly the same order for both things. One has happened over 40 years, one has happened over less than 1 calendar year. From Jan-December of 2020, and the BS escalated.
And today, 8/1/2021, you can go get your covid vaccine tomorrow, you have a choice, HIV…not as much, at least there’s a treatment that rich countries have which keeps it at around a million a year globally, and a few thousand in the US, Covid, not so much. Death count Dec 31 2021 for Covid in the US from Jan 1-Dec 31…780k, plus 2020, so million give or take a few hundred K.
India is looking at realistically 4M today, and potential for up to 50 Million. One IT outsourcer had a 6% attrition rate due to death in one city, they had 65k employees in the city.
This isn’t just an American problem, but the American problem is different than India, or Australia, we have excess vaccines, they do not, and India has no ability to implement lockdowns like Australia.
So I appreciated the complexities of the evolution of HIV, and I’ve always thought of it as a combination science problem, personal responsibility problem, general health problem, and specifically some cultural issues in some circles, and no, not just the gay community (hello the religious zealots, never a good group), that make it a non-trivial problem.
Most of the complicated parts of Covid are known, get a vaccine, you can pretty much gurantee that at most you’ll be a bit sick, don’t get it and your likelihood to not just die, but end up in the hospital are exponentially worse. And masks work to a degree too, not 95% like a vaccination, but 30-50%, and it’s less of a pain the a condom, and you are now having intimate mouth sex with willing participants with all of your gross “particles” floating about the room.
In fact, from now on, mask up 100% of the time because now we know we have a large set of the dirty floating around spewing on all of us without a care in the world, masks today, masks forever.
Oh, and go get vaccinated, it’s free.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 7/31/2021 @ 11:14 pmGood comment, Klink.
I hope this part was hyperbole:
In fact, from now on, mask up 100% of the time because now we know we have a large set of the dirty floating around spewing on all of us without a care in the world, masks today, masks forever.
norcal (a6130b) — 7/31/2021 @ 11:53 pmThe former Commandant of Stalag 13 wrote:
As one who grew up in the 60s and 70s, I just told the girls, “No pill, you gotta jill.”
I’ve never, ever used one.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 8:34 amDCSCA wrote:
The joke going around the hospital at the time? “What’s the worst thing about getting AIDS? Trying to convince everybody that you’re Haitian.”
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 8:36 amNJRob wrote:
Count me among that 71%!
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 8:41 amKlink,
Your attack on the faithful is disturbing. Calling them “religious zealots” to excuse your attack doesn’t improve it.
AIDS has almost exclusively been a homosexual and intravenous drug use disease. And of course California basically wiped the penalty for spreading the disease because of those exact reasons.
NJRob (701571) — 8/1/2021 @ 8:45 amMostly.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 8/1/2021 @ 8:57 amI care not one whit that you don’t understand the definition of the word zealot.
This was only slightly true in the 80’s, and became complete BS by 2000. You see, communities interact, it doesn’t stay only with “those” people. Your lack of understanding of, well, most things, extends to epidemiology.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 8/1/2021 @ 9:02 amhttps://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/index.html
Your bigotry knows no bounds Klink. And neither does your knowledge of epidemiology. No surprise there that you react with emotion instead of facts.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/1/2021 @ 9:31 amVaccinating everybody would make the spread of a vaccine impervious variant (if such were possible) more likely, not less likely. That’s what they say about using antibiotics a lot.
They’re just engaging in motivated reasoning to support a pre-existing conclusion.
The reason this is only hinted at, is that the reasoning contradicts what is said about the use of antibiotics.
They’re talking about the percentage of newly infected who were vaccinated. What about the percentage of newly infected people who wore masks, when indoors, among strangers? Nobody claims that masks reduce transmission by more than 5)% or 70& (or is that 30% to 50%?)
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/1/2021 @ 11:24 amhttps://lidblog.com/allow-illegal-alien/
Surprising absolutely nobody, the Dems continue to vote to ignore laws when it benefits them.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/1/2021 @ 12:09 pmThe former Commandant of Stalag 13 wrote:
From the trust-the-science Centers for Disease Control:
An image at the same site reports that the new infections were also heavily influenced by race and ethnicity:
Oops!
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 1:28 pmIn the same CDC site, 10% additionally infected are intravenous drug users.
So that makes 4 out of 5.
Out of the remaining 1 out of 5, how many were infected by their partner from the above categories?
NJRob (6fd5e4) — 8/1/2021 @ 1:40 pmOr he should have gotten the monoclonal antibodies, which he probably did not. But you have to know about them.
It might have required that he be discharged from the hospital since they are mostly authorized only for people not hospitalized.
After getting the infusion he could have been re-admitted – maybe to a different and better hospital.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/1/2021 @ 1:40 pmChina,is getting more publicly associated with the Taliban, (in order, I think, so that lower ranking people shouldn’t attack them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvZ7jJT3cg4
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/world/asia/china-taliban-afghanistan.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-meets-with-taliban-stepping-up-as-u-s-exits-afghanistan-11627492777
They are not officially in favor of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan – they are in favor of negotiations.
The Taliban are nt interested in neotiations. The Afghan government would be very lucky to get the deal that Marshal Petain got with Nazi Germany – an unoccupied zone (temporarily) But Petain could offer neutrality of the French colonies, especially in North Africa.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/1/2021 @ 1:54 pm44. nk (1d9030) — 7/31/2021 @ 7:18 am
If there can be mutation that is not affected by the vaccine, but would become immunized by a infection, that allows a more dangerous mutant ti spread further, even if later.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/1/2021 @ 1:59 pmOr:
We don’t accept it , we in fact condemn it strongly, and we take half hearted action to get some people out before.
You have people warning about a refugee problem. They don’t have to worry about too much of a refugee problem because the first thing the Taliban are doing is establishing border control and get ting neighboring countries to agree not to let people in. And many Afghans don’t have passports so can’t fly out to Turkey.
People are not waiting to see if fleeing is necessary. If they wait, it may be too late,
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/world/asia/afghanistan-migration-taliban.html
And all this could have been prevented with just a couple of thousand U.S. troops, who would have been exposed to almost no danger.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/1/2021 @ 2:08 pmThe esteemed Mr Finkelman wrote:
Perhaps much of it could have been avoided if the day after Osama bin Laden became fish food, President Obama had said, “OK, we’re done here, let’s go home.” Perhaps all of it could have been avoided had the lovely Madeline Albright not (allegedly) insisted that we just had to notify Pakistan of the plan to destroy Mr bin Laden’s camp with cruise missiles in advance. Perhaps all of this could have been avoided had Bill Clinton been willing to take custody of Mr bin Laden when it was (supposedly) offered in 1996. Perhaps, were Mr Clinton unwilling to take custody of Mr bin Laden, this could all have been avoided if the President had, plausibly deniably, of course, let it be known that the CIA should have put a bullet in Mr bin Laden’s head.
Am I the only one who has noticed that, when it comes to their security, the Israelis don’t f(ornicate) around?
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 2:50 pmI think Newsom is hoping that Trump comes to CA to campaign for the recall.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/2/2021 @ 10:42 amthis could all have been avoided if the President had, plausibly deniably, of course, let it be known that the CIA should have put a bullet in Mr bin Laden’s head.
What-if games are tricky. For all we know, bin Ladin was the voice of moderation that kept the hotheads from doing something really terrible.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/2/2021 @ 11:00 am132. The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (405d48) — 8/1/2021 @ 2:50 pm
WEll, it wouldn;t have happened in 2021, but maybe would have happened in 2011. The U.S. left Iraq and the result was ISUS nearly taking over the country.
You mean in 1998?
Bill Clinton and his aides gave a lot of double talk to the 9/11 commisssion. They never got a good explanation as to why his oermission to kill Osama bin Laden was withdrawn.
He did. But he lied.
Am I the only one who has noticed that, when it comes to their security, the Israelis don’t f(ornicate) around?
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/2/2021 @ 11:33 amThey do. But not completely. So far.
The can has been kicked down the road now for probably over twenty years.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/2/2021 @ 11:35 amRight-Wing Media Launches Unhinged Attack on Simone Biles
Eff-em:
abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/
TOKYO — Simone Biles is returning to competition in Tokyo. The 2016 Olympic champion will compete in the balance beam finals on Tuesday, a little over a week after stepping away from the meet to focus on her mental health.
She is master of her own domain.
You go, girl!
Kick ass, take Gold– and conservative right-wing media names.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/2/2021 @ 7:25 pmhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9850677/Facebook-blocks-promotion-Officer-Year-post-claiming-sensitive-social-issue.html
Facebook blocks hero cop being acknowledged because of course it does.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/2/2021 @ 9:45 pmhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/the-empire-strikes-back-5.php
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/2/2021 @ 10:11 pmhttps://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1419507613050445826
Showing the world French’s “evolution.”
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/2/2021 @ 10:28 pmGettr is interesting. If you haven’t heard of it, Gettr is a social media site target at conservatives that asks you to make an account so you can “express yourself freely”. It was created by Trump associated Jason Miller and is being financed by a Chinese Billionaire It’s UX is similar to twitter and it bills itself as “fighting cancel culture, promoting common sense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas”.
It’s had a few issues, on start up it’s adherence to open expression was initially challenged by Trolls & Perverts posting Sonic The Headgehog porn. While no one can blame a politics focused social media site from banning porn and trolls their banning of Tim Miller does seriously undercut their free expression claims.
Their latest issue is that the ‘free speech’ platform has become home to people espousing Islamic Jihadist ideas. While these are vile, they’re also clearly political speech.
Beyond just watching garbage people flail about in public the point is that what Gettr is going through is expected. If you want to create an environment where people can have certain types of interactions you need to moderate the space, and doing that moderation is hard. You’ll be harassed by criminals, trolls, people that disagree with you, and 3rd parties looking to use your platform for their own purposes.
I have no problem with the banning furry porn, or Tim Miller or Isis. Gettr has that right. None of those will encourage what Getter is trying to create; a MAGA centric conversation between Trump Supporters, ethno-nationalists, & people trying to sell them things. People have a right to create a space focused on that and the only way to exercise that right is by excluding undesirable content. What I do object to is their demonstrably false claim that they’re creating a space for unrestricted free speech. They’re not. They just want the space curated differently than Twitter.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 8/3/2021 @ 5:30 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 8/3/2021 @ 5:30 am
And, I think, people whose true purpose is to prevent the creation of a forum where original thought can be posted.
Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 8/3/2021 @ 6:25 am