Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on Thursday teed up a segment on the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” by seemingly criticizing the notion that such anti-vaccine activists are “fringe,” instead claiming their beliefs have gone “mainstream.”
Moments later, the program rolled footage of such demonstrators waving flags and signs boosting the crazed far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the belief that Donald Trump is fighting a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiliac cannibals.
During Thursday’s broadcast of The Faulkner Focus, Faulkner declared that “Canadians say this is old, we are getting bold” while discussing the most recent developments in the ongoing protest—largely spearheaded by truck drivers who refuse to get vaccinated—against the nation’s coronavirus guidelines and restrictions.
In recent days, Ottawa was essentially shut down when thousands of protesters descended upon the Canadian capital, all while loudly honking 18-wheelers created gridlock by blocking downtown streets. The mass demonstration, which began when some truckers objected to vaccine requirements for crossing the U.S.-Canada border, has since morphed into a rejection of all of the nation’s COVID-19 policies.
After noting that the “Canadian Freedom Convoy” recently blocked a border crossing into Montana, the Fox anchor then brought up the fact that Canadian leaders have denounced the violence and some of the hateful ideology associated with the protests.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to paint them all as a fringe group, but the mainstream is embracing them now! People from other nations with loud support,” the midday news host proclaimed.
She then followed this up with a montage of protesters saying they “are here for freedom” and that they want Trudeau to “give people their freedom back.” Faulkner then turned to Fox News correspondent Molly Line, who pointed out that the Ottawa chief of police has acknowledged they may call on the nation’s military to clear out the remaining protesters in the city.
While Line delivered her dispatch, and after she said the protests had driven “some city residents a bit crazy,” the network aired b-roll footage of a demonstration that prominently featured large QAnon flags and signs.
One sign featured the notorious QAnon slogan WWG1WGA, which is an abbreviation of their rallying cry “where we go one, we go all.” Additionally, protesters also waved a massive United States flag emblazoned with the letter Q.
Line wrapped up her reporting by observing that “there are international elements” to the protests now as it has “galvanized citizens on both sides of the border” and resulted in a GoFundMe page that has raised millions of dollars.
The Canadian police, meanwhile, have set up a hate crime hotline related to the pandemic protests after demonstrators racially abused a homeless shelter guard, harassed a couple with a Pride flag, desecrated memorials and statues with anti-vax messages, and were seen waving swastikas and Confederate flags.
PEARSON SHARP: More and more Americans are standing up and fighting back against the tyranny of the COVID conspiracy theory. Convoys of outraged truck drivers are sending a message loud and clear to cowardly leaders all over the world, from Canada to Australia and even here in the U.S., and that message is simple: Back off, or else. We, the people, will not tolerate this oppression any longer.
Young athletes are a prime group to be targeted by this deadly vaccine with 500% more soccer players in the E.U. dropping dead from heart attacks than one year ago — 500%. Who is actually braindead enough to think that this is just a coincidence, when Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine are known by the FDA to cause heart attacks. This is a pandemic of the ignorant, and it’s killing our country.
So, for all of you progressives and Democrats and radical leftists out there. Do us all a favor, please, and go get vaccinated. In fact, don’t stop there. Get double vaccinated, and be sure to get all your boosters. All three or four of them. Why stop there? If more is better— get five, six, get 10 boosters. All the rest of us sane, freedom-loving Americans are counting on you to get your injections. The survival of our country depends on it.
Sharp first appeared on JMG in December 2020 when he boasted about denying that Biden was the then president-elect.
He next appeared here when he called for executing “traitors” who deny that Trump really won the election.
Sharp’s videos were regularly posted to Trump’s official YouTube channel, back when he had one.
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.
“They are blood drinkers. They want people to die. They want to make money. They want to reduce the population.
“And of course, they see me as some voice that is standing against all this because why should The Daily Beast, why should Rachel Maddow, all these people do hit pieces on me?
“I would dare any one of them to lock me up in a room for one hour with them in prayer, and they will be on the floor slithering like snakes. They’re just writing about me.
“We’re gonna pray that them snakes come out of them very soon.” – Dr. Stella “Demon Semen” Immanuel, speaking on the show of far-right extremist Stew Peters, who has called for executing Fauci.
Immanuel last appeared on JMG when she declared that reciting the name of Jesus in prayer will reverse your COVID vaccination.
Immanuel is one of the most widely followed anti-vax nutbags and among her acolytes is Florida Surgeon General Joseph Lapado.
A teacher was caught making racist remarks to an Asian couple in California, a TikTok video shows. Now she has been fired from her job at a Christian school in Temecula, the school said.
And her husband, a city worker for Coronado, has been placed on leave, according to a statement from the Coronado city manager.
The Asian couple was shopping in Newport Beach when they say the teacher and her husband began making anti-Asian comments about the two, according to an Instagram page that reshared the now deleted TikTok video.
The unidentified Asian American couple said they were shopping at Fashion Island when the Millers walked by them, made eye contact, and said, “Ooh. COVID is gonna get you.”
The white couple allegedly continued to talk loud enough for the couple to hear, saying, “Those Chinese spreading COVID.”
They continued their rant when another Asian American family walked by, the couple who recorded the video told @jackfroot. “Go back to China,” they allegedly said. “Stop spreading COVID.”
Republicans would have you believe they are ‘tough’ on terror. They are, in fact, not tough.
Trump released over 5000 Taliban fighters, deserted our Kurdish allies, and abandoned American military bases, weaponry, and equipment to hostile foreign interests.
US Conservatives and Russians are both trying to dismantle American democracy
Lindsey went all in for Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. Non-stop bad faith. Never forget.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat
Thinking things through isn’t their strong suit
Pass this on to your ‘both sides’ Putinists.
So… 250k gives you the *option* to *purchase* a 2 night stay at Mar-a-Lago.
The desperation runs from the right wing media to find anything to pin on Biden is driving them crazy. They think centralist Joe is following socialist Sanders. Have you seen the things Biden endorses right wing people, he is not being led by Sanders anywhere.
The right wing wants to paint Dr. Fauci as lying to the people. Why? Because their Doctors that push Ivermectin and other things that doesn’t work on Covid are lying or crazy. The head doctor of frontline doctors Stella Immanuel has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. She is a pediatrician not a virologist or immunologist. But they believe her over a Immunologist because she says crazy shit they also believe.
At CNN, they hold their own accountable, while at Fox, they give them bonuses and promotions. Somehow because the CEO was having an affair with a vice-president executive in the company and did not report it he felt because he broke the rules he enforces he should resign, and did. Fox did not have anyone in high position that had the same integrity. But that some how makes CNN sinking? Get real.
While she was wrong in what she said I don’t think there was any malicious intent. I think she was trying to express a point about inhumanity and was not fully versed in the mentality of the Nazis. She apologized with a real apology, not some fake one that put the blame on the victim.
So these people believe infecting others and being 97 times more likely to die from the virus is freedom? What about their responsibilities to their fellow humans? I guess it is freedom to not care for others or how what you do effects them. Seems pretty selfish to me, and if that has been the principle we wouldn’t have had a nation, fought a war to end slavery, joined a war to fight fascism, and so much more that takes the idea that doing something for the good of others even if it costs you personally is worth while.
There is no war on police. There is a war on bad actions by police. There can be no defending police that shoot unarmed people, that torture and beat black people for no reason, police that kill believing they are entitle to do so. There is a movement to adjust the duties and role of police to end militarized policing and return policing to community based serve and protect. It really is that simple. There is no reason to have the police act as an occupying army.
Nice cartoon, but late to the game. See the rate of inflation has slowed. Food prices are stabilized or coming down. The Fed and most economists think that inflation was caused by Covid resulting having to shut down the economy and then the fantastic reopening of everything. Like trying to run a whole swimming pool through a small funnel. But sadly many corporations took advantage and engaged in price gouging also.
Debts and Deficits only seem to matter when Democrats are in the White House. Get the corporations and all the rich to pay their FAIR share. That stop in the 1970s. The lower and middle class can’t make up for that crap. Debts and deficits matter if payments can’t be made on them. The U.S. economy has been growing during my lifetime and it hasn’t been an issue.
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 