According to the Republican Party, sending lawmakers running for their lives and chanting about hanging the Vice President is simply “legitimate political discourse.”
Democrats must take this threat seriously — before there's no democracy left to protect. pic.twitter.com/zxpWATTXcq
And yet rather than spend money fixing the electric system to ensure that the power stayed on, Abbot instead shifted state money to pandering gimmicks like finish building the wall on the border. In fact the big money donors from the fuel and energy industry gave large donations to stop any requirements that Abbot had talked about implementing to keep the power on. Now again in winter with freezing temperatures the power is again going off. They made no effort to fix the very issues that happened before and were told would happen again. Seems they care far more over their personal finance than the health and welfare of the people that elected them
Maybe we should retire the phrase "saying the quiet part out loud," on the grounds that there is no longer any quiet part.
Conservatives are about submission. Their kids will rebel one day.
Kids have no problem wearing masks. It’s the parents who can’t think of others.
What is horrifying is the change in the Republican party that went from saying “Better dead than Russian red” to praising Putin and supporting Russia. Russia under Putin is still as authoritarian as it was under communism. Russia under Putin is still as much an enemy to the US and democracy as it ever was.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
This cartoon author is one of the right wing misinformation cartoonist normally but in this case I agree with her. The Chinese government has shown they will crack down on anyone who says what they don’t like even if done by the athletes. The big scandal in the comment section of the page is over Nancy Pelosi saying the athletes should be care and watch what they say to keep themselves safe, and she blasted the Olympic committee for picking China to host them. The right wing commenters can not seem to understand why she said these things and are attacking her at the same time they are attacking China. So it doesn’t matter what she said, the fact is them must scream in anger about anything she says.
Oh boy the right wing media is on fire over trying to make Whoopi the worst racist ever. Why? Because she is a left leaning black woman. They are drooling to attack her, it is a dream come true for them.
Sen. Rand Paul said Republicans would subpoena Fauci if they win the Senate in the mid-terms.
Paul and Fauci have engaged in bitter exchanges at Senate hearings.
Paul has pushed unsubstantiated claims that funds approved by Fauci may have helped create COVID.
Sen. Rand Paul said that Republicans will subpoena chief White House medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci if they take control of the Senate in the mid-term elections.
The Kentucky Republican is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. He stands to be nominated as chairman of the panel if Republicans win the Senate in November, securing him the power to launch investigations and issue subpoenas.
“If we win in November, if I’m chairman of a committee, if I have subpoena power, we’ll go after every one of [Fauci’s] records,” Paul said during an interview with anti-vax podcaster Lisa Boothe.
“We’ll have an investigator go through this piece by piece because we don’t need this to happen again.”
Paul, a physician, and Fauci have clashed in a series of heated exchanges in Senate hearings.
Paul, often trafficking in conspiracy theories and disinformation, has criticised Fauci on measures he has advocated to contain the virus.
His attacks have focussed on Fauci’s tenure as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and often rely on speculation that funding Fauci approved to a lab in Wuhan, China, may have been used to create the coronavirus.
The origin of the virus has not been established, with China blocking attempts to investigate the source of the pandemic. Many experts believe that the theory it originated in a lab is spurious and it most likely originated in nature, though others say it is plausible.
At hearing last July, Fauci said “you do not know what you’re talking about” to Paul, and accused him of “lying”, after the senator tried to draw connections between research in China partly funded by NIAID and the coronavirus.
Paul had at a hearing earlier in the year accused Fauci of indulging in “theater” by wearing a mask after having gotten vaccinated, and Fauci responded that vaccines don’t offer protection against all variants.
Fauci has become a hate figure for some on the right, with many Republicans rallying around opposition to federal government measures to control the virus.
Some Republican supporters have embraced fringe anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories about the virus.
So Republican 101 normal behavior, when in power attack and try to destroy anyone who you dislike. The right hates Dr. Fauci because they cannot discredit him, he points out their misinformation and lies. I hate that this is the Republican idea of governing. How does this help the country? Why vote them into office if this is their goal? Remember that Rand Paul is making big money on Covid treatment drugs, and he fud raises off his attacks on Dr. Fauci. So he is putting his personal profit ahead of saving lives.
“I fought the Law (and the law won). Please, please play that one,” joked one.
Former President Donald Trump may have found his true calling: DJing at Mar-a-Lago, cranking up “amazing” music, and busting loose until the very “late evening.”
That’s what he promised he’ll be doing Friday and Saturday in a statement sent to Mar-a-Lago members and shared by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Critics groaned, imagining an endless loop of Trump’s rally favorites, like (ironically) “YMCA.”
He'll be playing all the hits including… Steal Away (the election version) Hoax I Don't Care (the Melania remix) Two Fine People (on both sides) Don't Stop Me Now (a duet with Merrick Garland) and, of course, the Russian National Anthem
Propelled in part by the wildly contagious omicron variant, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit 900,000 on Friday, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000.
The two-year total, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Indianapolis, San Francisco, or Charlotte, North Carolina.
The milestone comes more than 13 months into a vaccination drive that has been beset by misinformation and political and legal strife, though the shots have proved safe and highly effective at preventing serious illness and death.
“It is an astronomically high number. If you had told most Americans two years ago as this pandemic was getting going that 900,000 Americans would die over the next few years, I think most people would not have believed it,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
He lamented that most of the deaths happened after the vaccine gained authorization.
“We got the medical science right. We failed on the social science. We failed on how to help people get vaccinated, to combat disinformation, to not politicize this,” Jha said. “Those are the places where we have failed as America.”
Just 64% of the population is fully vaccinated, or about 212 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nor is COVID-19 finished with the United States: Jha said the U.S. could reach 1 million deaths by April.
Among the dead is Susan Glister-Berg, 53, of Sterling Heights, Michigan, whose children had to take her off a ventilator just before Thanksgiving after COVID-19 ravaged her lungs and kidneys.
“She’s always cared more about people than she did herself. She always took care of everyone,” said a daughter, Hali Fortuna. “That’s how we all describe her: She cared for everyone. Very selfless.”
Glister-Berg, a smoker, was in poor health, and was apparently unvaccinated, according to her daughter. Fortuna just got the booster herself.
“We all want it to go away. I personally don’t see it going away anytime soon,” she said. “I guess it’s about learning to live with it and hoping we all learn to take care of each other better.”
The latest bleak milestone came as omicron is loosening its grip on the country.
New cases per day have plunged by almost a half-million since mid-January, when they hit a record-shattering peak of more than 800,000. Cases have been declining in 49 states in the last two weeks, by Johns Hopkins’ count, and the 50th, Maine, reported that confirmed infections are falling there, too, dropping sharply over the past week.
Also, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has declined 15% since mid-January to about 124,000.
Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter. And they are on the rise in at least 35 states, reflecting the lag between when victims become infected and when they succumb.
Still, public health officials have expressed hope that the worst of omicron is coming to an end. While they caution that things could still go bad again and dangerous new variants could emerge, some places are already talking about easing precautions.
Los Angeles County may end outdoor mask requirements in a few weeks, Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
“Post-surge does not imply that the pandemic is over or that transmission is low, or that there will not be unpredictable waves of surges in the future,” she warned.
Despite its wealth and its world-class medical institutions, the U.S. has the highest reported toll of any country, and even then, the real number of lives lost directly or indirectly to the coronavirus is thought to be significantly higher.
Experts believe some COVID-19 deaths have been misattributed to other conditions. And some Americans are thought to have died of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes because they were unable or unwilling to obtain treatment during the crisis.
The Rev. Gina Anderson-Cloud, senior pastor of Fredericksburg United Methodist Church in Virginia, lost her dementia-stricken father after he was hospitalized for cancer surgery and then isolated in a COVID-19 ward. He went into cardiac arrest, was revived, but died about a week later.
She had planned to be by his bedside, but the rules barred her from going to the hospital.
“I think it’s important for us not to be numbed. Each one of those numbers is someone,” she said of the death toll. “Those are mothers, fathers, children, our elders.”
When the vaccine was rolled out in mid-December 2020, the death toll stood at about 300,000. It hit 600,000 in mid-June 2021 and 700,000 on Oct. 1. On Dec. 14, it reached 800,000.
It took just 51 more days to get to 900,000, the fastest 100,000 jump since last winter.
“We have underestimated our enemy here, and we have under-prepared to protect ourselves,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We’ve learned a tremendous amount of humility in the face of a lethal and contagious respiratory virus.”
The latest 100,000 deaths encompass those caused by both the delta variant and omicron, which began spreading rapidly in December and became the predominant version in the U.S. before the month was out.
While omicron has proved less likely to cause severe illness than delta, the sheer number of people who became infected with it contributed to the high number of deaths.
Ja said he and other medical professionals are frustrated that policymakers are seemingly running out of ideas for getting people to roll up their sleeves.
“There aren’t a whole lot of tools left. We need to double down and come up with new ones,” he said.
COVID-19 has become one of the top three causes of death in America, behind the big two — heart disease and cancer.
“We have been fighting among ourselves about tools that actually do save lives. Just the sheer amount of politics and misinformation around vaccines, which are remarkably effective and safe, is staggering,” Sharfstein said.
Protesters in Charlotte joined demonstrations nationwide Saturday rallying against restrictive anti-abortion laws in Texas and advocating for reproductive rights. The group gathered in First Ward Park for the uptown Charlotte rally and march. HANNAH LANGHLANG@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM
North Carolina isn’t exactly considered a champion of reproductive rights.
So it may come as a surprise that North Carolinians can now get hormonal birth control without a doctor’s prescription, thanks to a law initially passed last year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
The law, which went into effect Tuesday, allows pharmacists to dispense birth control pills and patches without the signature of a patient’s physician, removing a significant, unnecessary barrier that prevents many people from obtaining hormonal contraception.
It almost sounds too good to be true — and it very well may be.
The law is clear that people will now be able to obtain birth control without a prescription, but it’s less clear whether their insurance will still have to pay for it.
Under the Affordable Care Act, most insurance plans are required to cover FDA-approved contraceptives with no out-of-pocket costs when prescribed by a health care provider. That provision significantly reduced the cost of birth control for many, but faced strong objections from conservatives. The Trump administration later undermined that mandate by allowing for broad religious and moral exemptions, which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld in a 2020 ruling.
But the requirement doesn’t seem to apply to contraceptives dispensed without a prescription — meaning that those who would benefit from getting birth control without the added trouble of a doctor’s visit might still be shackled with the burden of paying for it. Without insurance, the birth control pill can cost as much as $600 a year, an expense that is unmanageable for many people.
Since the law only went into effect this week, the state health director hasn’t yet provided specific guidance — otherwise known as “standing orders” — that instructs pharmacists how to carry it out. That guidance should come quickly in order to clarify whether or not birth control dispensed without a prescription will result in co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs.
In other states where birth control is available without a prescription, such as California, the law was written to specifically mandate coverage for both prescribed and non-prescribed contraceptives. But North Carolina’s law doesn’t include such a provision.
It’s not for lack of trying. Rep. Julie von Haefen, a Wake County Democrat, introduced a bill that would have specifically addressed the affordability aspect. In addition to empowering pharmacists to dispense birth control without a prescription, House Bill 817 would have required insurers to cover both prescription and nonprescription contraceptives. Unfortunately, the bill did not gain any traction in the Republican-controlled legislature.
“I’m not sure if the bill drafters of the other bill that ended up passing really thought through whether that would affect the health care coverages, because it’s not technically a written prescription from a doctor,” von Haefen said. “The reason I did my bill was mostly to eliminate the co-pays for any kind of hormonal contraceptives.”
But Jillian Riley, the North Carolina director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said that birth control dispensed by a pharmacist could still be covered by insurance due to a different state statute that requires reimbursement when services normally covered by a person’s insurance policy are performed by a different licensed health care provider.
Surprisingly enough, making hormonal birth control more accessible is something that has enjoyed a fair amount of Republican support over the years, particularly at the national level.
It was a big talking point for U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis when he first ran for office in 2014, as well as for a handful of other Republicans running in battleground states. It’s even an issue that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz famously — and strangely — agreed on back in 2019.
What Democrats and Republicans don’t agree upon, however, is who should pay for it. While the GOP appears to support measures that make birth control more available, the party has been less enthusiastic about making sure everyone can afford it.
That’s a problem, because affordability and accessibility go hand in hand. If the state health director decides that the law, as written, does not require insurance companies to cover the cost of birth control without a prescription, lawmakers should quickly craft stronger legislation that ensures contraception is both affordable and accessible for all North Carolinians.
Today’s “The Daily” treats inflation as entirely a natural consequence of stimulus checks, etc – rather than a choice by corps with record profits. @mikiebarb@RBReich: “Slowing the economy will hurt the most vulnerable… reduce corporate market power.”https://t.co/Gq4HtzeEOi
Conservatives want to cancel non-white humanity. Conservatives want to cancel elections. Conservatives want to cancel the separation of church and state.
GOP: gaslight, obstruct, project
NEWS: The Jan. 6 select committee has subpoenaed for the phone records of Arizona GOP chair KELLI WARD and her husband Michael.
Both signed false Electoral College certificates and sued Pence as part of pressure campaign.
The above is about politicians in Kentucky trying to shield / block reports of bad actions done by cops and other political groups from the public and to make it easier for utilities to raise rates on customers with less input. Just jack prices for profit.
This is disgusting persecution of a woman who served her time. There is no justification for any of this. https://t.co/eGc9GBIcGU
You will typically get far less jail time, if any, by participating in an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol than you will by registering to vote after you were informed you were allowed.
No grey area here. Simply a black and white issue.
If this six year old could stand the discomfort of walking through crowds of shouting angry people screaming obscenities and throwing things at her, knowing that if they were allowed they would hurt her, then white six year olds can learn of her, what she did, and why.
"It's okay to murder children if you think they're bad" is incredibly immoral and evil. ffs. https://t.co/qqKFHsvBSd
What crimes! Oh the made up ones in Rudy’s mind? The right wing fever dream of Hunter being the worst being on earth? Oh Hunter used drugs. Have they seen the videos of Donnie Jr? He is clearly tanked up off his ass on something. The right did not care about Donnie Jr illegally hunting animals in other countries, they did not mind Ivanka getting an unheard of number of trademarks from China in a short time frame when China wanted things from tRump, they don’t mention that Jared couldn’t get a security clearance because he was such a risk but tRump gave him one anyway. Hunter Biden is an adult, he is not in the WH, he is on the WH payroll, he is not an unofficial advisor to the president. But the right needs desperately to find something to hit Joe Biden with, so they reach for the personal struggles of his son. Great people.
The right wing is preoccupied with crime as it again causes fear. Be afraid, be very afraid is the mantra of the misleading right wing media. Fact is urban crime is down, rural crime is up, and all crime is still far below historical levels. What is the rights solution to crime. Not to see what causes crime and fix it, nope. The right wants more militarized police officers to aggressively occupy the lower incomes and non-white people. They want more people in for profit prisons to do slave labor for the corporations. They want to cut any government assistance programs that would help curb crime such as after school programs and to cut any diversionary programs that help rehabilitate people as that might cost the wealthy a few bucks in taxes. And they blame democrats even though that is not the truth because they want the white people to be afraid and misinformed so they vote Republican.
The consequences seem to be causing Putin to have some second and third thoughts on invading. I wouldn’t mock Biden too hard on that front. He is pulling the world along with idea of sanctions if Putin invades. As for the minor incursions that was because there are already small groups of Russian military in the Donetsk. Biden did not want the misleading right wing media opinion hosts such as Hannity to use that to push the US into actions that would be premature. There are some Republicans wanting Biden to sanction and move aggressively against Putin now such as Lindsey Graham because that would force Putin to act and we would have the war Graham’s donors want.
The consequences seem to be causing Putin to have some second and third thoughts on invading. I wouldn’t mock Biden too hard on that front. He is pulling the world along with idea of sanctions if Putin invades.
Robert Kennedy has made a fortune fighting against vaccines, as the chairman of an anti-vax charity and with a new bestselling book.
His anti-vax crusade is paved with gold.
Robert Kennedy Jr., who rails against vaccines of all types, has pocketed nearly half a million dollars a year from charities he runs and stands to earn millions more from his best-selling screed trashing pandemic czar Anthony Fauci.
His biggest haul came from the anti-vax organization Children’s Health Defense, which paid him $345,561 as chairman in 2020 — a raise of more than $90,000 from 2019, according to the group’s latest tax filings.
This after the 68-year-old lawyer and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy paid himself nothing in 2016, when he joined the Georgia-based non-profit, which aggressively campaigns against inoculating children against COVID-19 and other diseases.
He also took home $116,683 in 2019 as president of the Riverkeeper Alliance, the environmental charity he founded in 1999 that aims to clean up the Hudson and where he heads the board of directors. That’s down from his $226,000 salary in 2018, according to the group’s most recent returns.
The diatribe is amassing millions in revenue, selling nearly 390,000 hardback copies at $32.50 each, according to NPD BookScan, plus 185,000 e-books and 142,000 audio books since its Nov. 17 release, said Tony Lyons, who heads Skyhorse Publishing Inc., the book’s publisher. Skyhorse just ordered another 150,000 print copies.
Authors typically receive 20 to 30 percent in royalties on hardcover sales, which would translate to a windfall of $2.5 million to $3.8 million for Kennedy, plus additional money from any advance and e-book sales, but it’s not clear how much the author has earned.
Whatever his total take, the square-jawed scion is giving his cut to Children’s Health Defense, according to Rita Shreffler, the outfit’s spokeswoman, speaking on behalf of Kennedy.
Anti-vax organization Children’s Health Defense paid Kennedy $345,561 in 2020 — a raise of more than $90,000 from 2019.AP
Kennedy has long opposed vaccines, and has publicly lobbied against their use in children — a controversial stance that’s gotten him kicked off Instagram and into trouble with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.
“It is criminal medical malpractice to give a child one of these vaccines,” he railed at a California anti-vax event last year. (Kennedy has said he got interested in the subject in 2005 after a mother told him her son contracted autism from the mercury in a vaccine, a claim that scientists have debunked.)
Hines said she was appalled by a speech he gave last week at the Lincoln Memorial, where Kennedy implied that those who oppose vaccines are being persecuted more severely than Anne Frank, the German teen who hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam before being sent to her death at Auschwitz.
In a recent speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Kennedy said that those who oppose vaccines are being persecuted more severely than Anne Frank.Bloomberg via Getty Images
“Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he said. “Today, the mechanisms are being put in place to make it so that none of us can run and none of us can hide.”
Kennedy was slammed for the comparison by Hines, his third wife, who stars on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive,” Hines wrote on Twitter. He’s also been ripped by Kennedy family members.
Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines (left), blasted her husband on Twitter for his comments.JOHN NACION/startraksphoto.com
Kennedy has since apologized in a tweet to his more than 400,000 Twitter followers.
Last year, he was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British non-profit that tracks conspiracy theories and misinformation across the globe.
Robert Kennedy has made a fortune fighting against vaccines, as the chairman of an anti-vax charity and with a new bestselling book.
Scottie's Playtime 