U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) speaks at a rally hosted by former President Donald Trump on April 02, 2022 near Washington, Michigan. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Rep. Lisa McClain wrongly claimed Osama bin Laden was caught during the Trump administration.
Bin Laden was killed during a 2011 raid under the Obama administration.
McClain also falsely claimed unemployment is at a 40 year high, calling the Biden administration “weak.”
“Well, President Trump was in office. We didn’t have a war and I think he made three peace treaties,” McClain said during her speech. “Caught Osama – Osama bin Laden and Soleimani, Al Baghdadi. And this President is weak. And I’ll tell you weakness breeds aggression. We need strength.”
Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a leader of ISIS, were both killed during military operations completed during the Trump administration.
The 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, however, was conducted during President Barack Obama’s first term in office. Joe Biden was serving as vice president at the time. Trump was hosting “The Apprentice” – a reality/game show on NBC.
During her remarks, McClain also said unemployment is at a “40-year high” while there is “a labor shortage.”
McClain falsely claimed Osama bin Laden was caught during the Trump administration. Bin Laden was killed during a 2011 raid under the Obama administration. McClain also falsely claimed unemployment is at a 40 year high. It is actually at a 40 year low. McClain is running on lies https://t.co/goILRfm5v9
A Chippewa Falls attorney who is a key player in a movement to take the impossible step of decertifying the 2020 election is running for attorney general on a platform of using the office to prosecute doctors who did not administer the anti-parasite drug ivermectin to dying COVID-19 patients and instead gave them other treatments.
Mueller said in an interview she is launching a campaign in order to investigate six Wisconsin hospitals for their doctors’ decisions to not administer ivermectin to COVID-19 patients. She would not disclose the names of the hospitals or reveal details of her allegations.
Mueller said the CDC and FDA are “liars” and that families have called her “begging for help, trying to figure out what to do because their loved ones were in hospitals and the families believed that those loved ones were basically being murdered. And they had the drugs withheld from them.”
“I am running for attorney general because of potential homicides in hospitals, because of vaccines — so-called vaccines,” she said.
Mueller, who said she took ivermectin last year while infected with COVID-19, said she did not consult a doctor or scientist to analyze whether the deaths or illnesses could have been prevented by the drug that doctors and researchers say has not been proven to be effective against the coronavirus. She said a trial would root out the facts of the situation.
Patrick Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Preventive Medicine Residency Program, said doctors who do not prescribe ivermectin to COVID-19 patients are upholding the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to patients by making decisions according to the consensus of available credible medical research.
“We strive to get it right. We do the best job we can to do no harm, and this is an example that would be unthinkable to me to ask a physician to prescribe a medicine that is at best ineffective and at worst harmful,” Remington said.
“There are valid debates about the best ways to treat serious illnesses and science is iterative, that as we go along we learn by experimentation, we learn by carefully conducted research,” he said.
“Ivermectin has undergone that scrutiny from early anecdotal evidence that it might be effective to well-conducted scientific studies that show that not only is it not effective but it can be harmful, and no credible medical organization or professional organization recommends it,” Remington said.
A large clinical trial published Wednesday involving about 3,500 people infected with COVID-19 showed ivermectin did not lower the incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of COVID-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis.
The study compared about 1,300 people in Brazil who received either ivermectin or a placebo. The rest received a different treatment.
Retail prescriptions for ivermectin surged in late 2020 before vaccines were widely available and after a catastrophic surge of COVID-19 cases. In December 2020, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson held a Senate hearing in which physician witnesses touted the drug as a COVID treatment and claimed positive research about ivermectin was being ignored.
Pierre Kory, a Wisconsin physician and one of ivermectin’s most vociferous promoters, testified at Johnson’s hearing that if people took the drug they would not get sick. Eight months later, despite taking ivermectin weekly, Kory came down with COVID-19.
Mueller cites Kory’s opinion in her effort to pursue civil penalties, and if elected, criminal charges against doctors who have refused to prescribe the drug in cases where patients died.
“What I would do if I became attorney general is I would open investigations into those deaths and if the facts were substantiated, I would probably bring charges against the people that were responsible for this,” Mueller said.
She said she is working on a civil lawsuit against multiple health care systems with multiple plaintiffs but declined to disclose details.
In October, Mueller represented the family of a Waukesha County man who was infected with COVID-19 in their pursuit of an order forcing Aurora Health Care officials to honor a prescription for ivermectin written by a doctor not authorized to practice medicine at the Aurora hospital where the man was in a drug-induced coma and breathing with a ventilator.
Asked Supreme Court to invalidate the 2020 election
In November 2020, Mueller asked the state Supreme Court to throw out the results of the presidential election because the use of ballot drop boxes were illegal, in her view.
The court rejected the petition from Mueller but in a recent ruling barred the use of drop boxes in the April 5 and subsequent elections because state law is silent on whether they are allowed. A final ruling is pending.
Mueller said she is running because she has not seen enough interest from the other Republican candidates — former state Rep. Adam Jarchow and Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney — in COVID-19 and election issues. She said Attorney General Josh Kaul, the Democratic incumbent, should investigate doctors’ decisions surrounding COVID-19 infections.
Kaul and Toney declined to comment. Jarchow did not respond to a request for comment.
Republican lawmaker tweeted about repealing Reedy Creek act after company denounced ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Republican lawmaker tweeted about repealing Reedy Creek act after company denounced ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Reedy Creek Improvement District—created by state lawmakers in 1967—acts as Walt Disney World’s own government with two cities and land in Orange and Osceola counties.
“In effect, they’re their own city out there. They can zone the way they want. They can do things the way they want. They can even build a nuclear power plant if they want,” News 6 political analyst Jim Clark said.
Those rights are now being discussed among some Florida lawmakers who are thinking about repealing the Reedy Creek Improvement Act of 1967.
“I think that this is a feud that is escalating into a war between Florida Republicans and the Disney corporation which is the largest single-site employer in Florida,” Clark said.
The law — which has been the subject of controversy, sparking protests around Walt Disney World after the company did not initially publicly condemn it — bans discussions on sexual identity in Florida classrooms in kindergarten through third grade and requires such conversations to be “age-appropriate” in successive grades, though the law does not define “age-appropriate.”
“For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it, I think, one was fundamentally dishonest but, two I think that crossed the line,” DeSantis said Tuesday.
This response came a day before Florida House Rep. Spencer Roach tweeted that legislators held two meetings in the past week to discuss repealing the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act.
“Disney has been extremely generous with Republican politicians in Florida. They give about $200,000 a year, including $12,000 to the state representative who is stirring this up,” Clark told News 6. “It would be a disaster for Disney. One of the reasons they came here in the mid-60s was the legislature’s promise that they could have self-government.”
Richard Foglesong, a retired Rollins College political science professor and the author of Married to the Mouse, said he believes talks of revoking the act is just a way of the Republican party showing what they stand for, but no real change will come out of those discussions.
“If you ask me whether it’s politically possible to take these privileges away from the Disney company, I don’t think so,” Foglesong said. “I think that cooler minds will prevail and that this is really a shot across the bow to try to bring the Disney company, Mickey Mouse if you will, into line with Governor DeSantis. I thought it was more of March Madness of the political kind, the thought that the Republican Party, which used to be the party of business, would want to take on of their biggest donors.”
News 6 reached out to Reedy Creek Improvement District and its spokesperson responded they have no comment at this time. A request for an interview with Rep. Spencer Roach was forwarded to his office but they have not yet replied.
Is this part of the cancel culture of the libs that the right wing keeps claiming exists. Because it seems to me the ones doing all the canceling of people is the right / Republican thugs.
So if a doctor doesn’t want to treat colored folk that would be OK. What about the people with red hair because they are icky folk? When does the right of quality healthcare take a back seat to bigotry? Oh yes when it is Christians needed to discriminate so they demand the right to refuse to help / treat a patient in medical need. God before helping the sick and caring for the needy, was that what old Jesus said? See if they are of the right political party and follow your church doctrines before you give medical aid was a verse I never learned was in the bible.
South Carolina lawmakers on Friday passed a bill allowing medical professionals and insurance companies to deny care based on personal belief. Some say the legislation, which now heads to the state Senate for consideration, would disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color.
Under the bill, titled the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” South Carolina law would be altered to excuse medical practitioners, health care institutions and health care payers from providing care that violates their “conscience.”
Dozens of state residents in February testified against the bill, calling it vague and overbroad. They also shared concerns that the legislation would disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
HB 4776 allows healthcare institutions to refuse to provide care, even when it is medically necessary and in the best interest of the patient. Under this legislation, healthcare institutions will be able to refuse to refer, teach, and research any items they deem to be against their beliefs.
These bills will impact access to gender-affirming care, contraceptives, HIV medications, fertility care, end of life care, and mental health services, as well as allow insurance companies and employers to refuse to reimburse, pay, or contract for medically necessary services.
Religious freedom is a fundamental American value that is entirely compatible with providing quality, non-discriminatory healthcare. It is not a license to deprive others of their rights simply because of personal beliefs.
This bill sends the message that those seeking medical care in conflict with their doctor’s non-medical values are not equal members of society entitled to dignity and respect.
The South Carolina House passed a bill that would allow medical professionals, healthcare institutions, and insurers to deny access to gender-affirming care, contraceptives, HIV medications and more.
Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s failed anti-COVID strategy, at a 2020 news conference.
(Associated Press)
Throughout much of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out for its ostensibly successful effort to beat COVID-19 while avoiding the harsh lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed on residents of other developed nations.
Swedish residents were able to enjoy themselves at bars and restaurants, their schools remained open, and somehow their economy thrived and they remained healthy. So say their fans, especially on the anti-lockdown right.
A new study by European scientific researchers buries all those claims in the ground. Published in Nature, the study paints a devastating picture of Swedish policies and their effects.
Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight.
— Brusselaers, et al, Nature
“The Swedish response to this pandemic,” the researchers report, “was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach.”
The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Nele Brusselaers, is associated with the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; her collaborators are affiliated with research institutes in Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
The details of Swedish policies as described by Brusselaers and her co-authors are horrifying. The Swedish government, they report, deliberately tried to use children to spread COVID-19 and denied care to seniors and those suffering from other conditions.
The government’s goal appeared geared to produce herd immunity — a level of infection that would create a natural barrier to the pandemic’s spread without inconveniencing middle- and upper-class citizens; the government never set forth that goal publicly, but internal government emails unearthed by the Swedish press revealed that herd immunity was the strategy behind closed doors.
Explicit or not, the effort failed. “Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight,” the researchers wrote, adding that herd immunity “does not seem within reach without widespread vaccinations” and “may be unlikely” under any circumstances.
That’s a reproach to the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely criticized white paper endorsing the quest for herd immunity and co-written by Martin Kulldorf, a Sweden-born Harvard professor who has explicitly defended his native country’s policies.
The country’s treatment of the elderly and patients with co-morbidities such as obesity was especially appalling.
“Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives,” the researchers wrote. “Potentially life-saving treatment was withheld without medical examination, and without informing the patient or his/her family or asking permission.”
In densely populated Stockholm, triage rules stated that patients with co-morbidities were not to be admitted to intensive care units, on grounds that they were “unlikely to recover,” the researchers wrote, citing Swedish health strategy documents and statistics from research studies indicating that ICU admissions were biased against older patients.
These policies were crafted by a small, insular group of government officials who not only failed to consult with experts in public health, but ridiculed expert opinion and circled the wagons to defend Anders Tegnell, the government epidemiologist who reigned as the architect of the country’s approach, against mounting criticism.
The bottom line is that Swedes suffered grievously from Tegnell’s policies. According to the authoritative Johns Hopkins pandemic tracker, while its total death rate from February 2020 through this week, 1,790 per million population, is better than that of the U.S. (2,939), Britain (2,420) and France (2,107), it’s worse than that of Germany (1,539), Canada (984) and Japan (220).
Sweden has done better than the U.S. and Britain against COVID, but worse than many other countries that imposed stricter lockdowns and much worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland.
(Johns Hopkins University via Our World in Data)
More tellingly, it’s much worse than the rate of its Nordic neighbors Denmark (961), Norway (428) and Finland (538), all of which took a tougher anti-pandemic approach.
Anti-lockdown advocates continue to laud Sweden’s approach even today, despite the hard, cold statistics documenting its failure.
The right-wing economic commentator Stephen Moore, a reliably wrong pundit on many topics, preened over Sweden’s death rate compared to other countries that imposed more stringent lockdowns: “Sweden appears to have achieved herd immunity much more swiftly and thoroughly than other nations,” Moore wrote.
That was better than the rate of 6.84 in the U.S. , where lockdowns had been fading and had always been spotty, and in Denmark (5.65), but worse than France (3.97), Germany (2.23), Britain (2.23), Canada (2.03) and Norway (0.92).
Moore also declared, “What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their economy.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, of which Sweden is a member, isn’t quite so sanguine.
The OECD found that in terms of pandemic-driven economic contraction, Sweden did marginally better than Europe as a whole, but markedly worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland, “despite the adoption of softer distancing measures, especially during the first COVID wave.” COVID-19, the OECD concludes, “hit the economy hard.”
The Nature authors show that Swedish government authorities denied or downplayed scientific findings about COVID that should have guided them to more reasoned and appropriate policies.
These included scientific findings that infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people could spread the virus, that it was airborne, that the virus was a greater health threat than the flu and that children were not immune.
The Swedish policymakers “denied or downgraded the fact that children could be infectious, develop severe disease, or drive the spread of the infection in the population,” the Nature authors observe. At the same time, they found, the authorities’ “internal emails indicate their aim to use children to spread the infection in society.”
So the government refused to counsel the wearing of masks or social distancing or to sponsor more testing — at least at first. One fact that tends to be glossed over by anti-lockdown advocates is that Sweden did eventually tighten its social distancing regulations and advisories, though only after the failure of its initial policies became clear.
At first, in early March when other European countries went into strict lockdowns, Sweden only banned public gatherings of 500. Within weeks, it reduced the ceiling to 50 attendees. The state allowed no distance learning in schools at first, but later permitted it for older pupils and university students.
In June 2020, Tegnell himself acknowledged on Swedish radio that the country’s death rate was too high. “There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden,” he said, though he backtracked somewhat during a news conference after the radio interview aired.
And in December 2020, King Carl XVI Gustaf shocked the country by taking a public stand against the government’s approach: “I think we have failed,” he said. “We have a large number who have died and that is terrible.”
He was correct. If Sweden had Norway’s death rate, it would have suffered only 4,429 deaths from COVID during the pandemic, instead of more than 18,500.
What may be especially damaged by the experience is Sweden’s image as a liberal society. The pandemic exposed numerous fault lines within its society — notably young versus old, natives versus immigrants.
The Nature authors underscore the irony of that outcome: “There was more emphasis on the protection of the ‘Swedish image’ than on saving and protecting lives or on an evidence-based approach.”
The lesson of the Swedish experience should be heeded by its fans here in the U.S. and in other lands. Sweden sacrificed its seniors to the pandemic and used its schoolchildren as guinea pigs. Its government plied its people with lies about COVID-19 and even tried to smear its critics.
These are features of the policies of the states that have been least successful at fighting the pandemic in the U.S., such as Florida — sacrifices borne by the most vulnerable, scientific authorities ignored or disdained, lies paraded as truth. Do we really want all of America to face the same disaster?
“A judge found Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in contempt of court Wednesday for failing to release documents related to a Republican-run review of the 2020 election,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday. “Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn determined the Rochester Republican and the Assembly as a whole adopted ‘a collective and abject disregard for the court’s order’ from four months ago to turn over documents sought by the liberal group American Oversight under the state’s open records law. She ordered Vos and the Assembly to turn over records within 14 days and to each pay $1,000 per day if they fail to do that.”
In Arizona, the Cyber Ninjas are being fined $50,000 a day.
“Bailey-Rihn in November ruled Vos and others had to release copies of emails, calendars and other documents about the election review. Vos produced some records but not others as he argued the requests should have been made to Michael Gableman, the former state Supreme Court justice he hired to oversee the election review,” the newspaper added. “Bailey-Rihn noted state law requires government officials to treat records from contractors like Gableman the same as their own records. That policy is meant to prevent officials from using contractors to evade their obligations under the open records law, she noted.”
Vos has approved spending $676,000 in taxpayer money on the Gableman investigation.
This is not a family in Ukraine. This is a picture of a family in the US trying to survive by living in a large old van. This is what some kids going to school deal with. This is why reducing free meals is so horrible. This is parents trying to work to keep their children fed and clothed yet can not afford the cost of housing in the US. In some areas rents rose by 66%. Yes that number is true. How can anyone deal with this? Why is the wealthy allowed to profit from the misery of families?
Republicans eliminate precedent all the time. SCOTUS wants to overturn decided cases like Roe v Wade. Why would the worst president of all time, who personifies obstruction of justice, benefit from precedent?
“The average citizen views today’s Supreme Court as highly politicized because we all saw what our politicians did to it. The Republican political hardball, and the brazen dishonesty that was used to justify it, Trumpified the court with three out of nine justices — one stolen from the first Black president, one rammed through just days before the 2020 election, and one with a surprise resignation. Now, no one is shocked that a court forged with such political bad faith is making bad decisions with nakedly political overtones.”
This illegitimate SCOTUS majority does not interpret laws. They abuse their power to impose their regressive, revanchist, theocratic will on a population that does not respect them, did not vote for them, and has no way at all to hold them accountable.
I don’t know how, but this has to change.
Just when you think the three new judges are the worst, Clarence makes sure you know he is horrible, too.
What the right calls sexual indoctrination is the idea that gay or trans people exist and are normal. The only parents the right wants to have a say are right wing maga parents, the rest of the parents get told to shut up. They are trying to win the culture war by making even the exposure to LGBTQ+ people illegal. Even though kids are exposed to straight couples and straight sexuality all the time. So it is not about the sexual indoctrination of kids, it is about the idea they hate anyone different from them and don’t want kids to know about them until they have been taught to hate them.
Because this is not happening! It is a lie and misinformation from those that are anti-trans or using it as a political wedge issue. Men are not suddenly deciding they are not good enough to win in a sport as a man so will up-end their lives and face unending discrimination to live their life as a woman so they can compete as a female to win. Where the fuck to start to explain how stupid this idea is. First if a guy is not good enough to win against male competitors it is doubtful that after they take the necessary treatments to qualify to play on a women team they would win there either. Second what guy who is a male gender is going to stop his entire way of life that makes him happy and start living in a way that will make life harder for him and could cost him his entire sexual enjoyment / life. How is he going to date the girls he likes if he is not the man he was but a girl like them? If he was in to men who liked men, they wont date him because he is a girl now. So he is giving up that. How about his family, are they OK with it? How about his political friends, if Republican he loses all them. This is why the idea of guys just claiming to be girls falls apart and is not happening. Think it through people. If it was a huge problem it would be happening every day in every sport, and it is not. If all the trans women were winning all the awards, setting all the records, and winning every event it would be daily news. But it isn’t because they are not. Look at the scores, look at the totality of the wins, look at the awards. Most often the trans person is working harder and has less support, and only sometimes wins. The records are still held by non trans women. It is simply bigotry. Sort of like when black people were allowed to play sport with white people. It was said white people couldn’t win anymore. Yet they do. They still play and they still win.
She declined to become entangled in verbal traps. Anything else? Yawn. The Cons. are pissed that she is much smarter than they are. The point is that her job isn’t to define things. Her job is to interpret and rule on the law when presented with evidence and arguments in court. Cases which come before the Supreme Court are not going to be simple ones. They will be cases which challenge the edges of established definitions. Asking a candidate to decide without first hearing the arguments in a particular case is basically asking them if they would like to disqualify themselves for the position.
Oh, haha, it’s totally the Fed’s fault, even though CEOs are BRAGGING about their record profits they’ve “earned” by hiking prices across the board for everything under the sun. The GQP is having a sh*tfit over gas prices. They would do the same if Biden did anything to stop Big Oil’s obscene profiteering. The same for every other issue today.
Sweden has done better than the U.S. and Britain against COVID, but worse than many other countries that imposed stricter lockdowns and much worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland.(Johns Hopkins University via Our World in Data)
Scottie's Playtime 
She declined to become entangled in verbal traps. Anything else? Yawn. The Cons. are pissed that she is much smarter than they are. The point is that her job isn’t to define things. Her job is to interpret and rule on the law when presented with evidence and arguments in court. Cases which come before the Supreme Court are not going to be simple ones. They will be cases which challenge the edges of established definitions. Asking a candidate to decide without first hearing the arguments in a particular case is basically asking them if they would like to disqualify themselves for the position.