Demings noted the state once had COVID testing sites throughout the region, which helped relieve the burden on local governments and also questioned why the governor hadn’t held a recent briefing on the virus.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings blasts DeSantis, expands COVID-19 testing, requires employees to wear masks amid omicron surge https://t.co/eH1xvM0Npt
The Senator claims school boards tell kids they are ‘oppressors.’
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott continues to project optimism about the electoral climate for Republicans, forecasting an “unbelievable” shift in school boards in 2022.
During an interview Wednesday morning on Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade Show, the Senator said there would be an “unbelievable number of school board changes this next year.”
Scott expects cultural backlash to prevail.
“Because parents are fed up with these school boards telling them that your kid’s oppressed or your kid’s an oppressor. That is so crazy,” Scott added.
Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, closed out 2021 trumpeting much of the same message he has all year, an expectation that critical race theory can be used to mobilize November voters.
“We’ve got to talk about it. But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s going to change. It’s going to change school boards all across this country,” Scott said in July on the Hugh Hewitt Show on the Salem Radio Network.
Scott added that he expects young conservatives to carry the argument.
“I gave a speech to Turning Point USA, 4,000 national college kids. They are revved up to make sure they get better school board members. That’s where that’s going to get fixed,” Scott added.
Scott offered a Senate resolution expressing opposition to critical race theory, an umbrella phrase covering the legal argument that structural racism continues to have institutional consequences.
“The far-left wants Americans to believe that our nation is inherently racist and bad. They want to discredit the values America was founded on. They’re wrong. We can’t stand by and allow ’woke’ liberals to divide our nation,” Scott said when he filed the resolution.
Florida students have been prohibited from learning about critical race theory, and Scott’s successor as Governor likewise promises it will be a wedge issue next year.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to use critical race theory and “mandatory masking” as litmus tests in traditionally nonpartisan school board races.
On a June episode of “Unfiltered with Dan Bongino,” DeSantis vowed to turn his “political apparatus” against school board candidates who oppose his educational reforms.
“Local elections matter. We are going to get the Florida political apparatus involved so we can make sure there’s not a single school board member who supports critical race theory,” DeSantis said.
Everything Senator Scott said is bullshit. The right has created a link between CRT and the true racist history of the US. The right has reinforced the idea that teaching history, the true history of slavery, is somehow abusing and oppressing white kids. To hell how the black kids have to face living with racism in their daily lives. The idea that somehow all of this now means white people are losing privilege, the majority, having to play fair because others are now the majority, that is what Sen. Scott is saying and what the Republicans will again run on. It worked for them in Virginia, will we let it work for them in the rest of the country? Scottie
From the inauguration through November 30, Tucker Carlson Tonight aired at least one claim undermining vaccines nearly every day it covered them
As the Biden administration kicked its COVID-19 vaccination campaign into full gear early this year, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight ramped up its own countercampaign to undermine efforts to get people vaccinated. In the first 10 months of the Biden presidency, host Tucker Carlson and his guests pushed a claim that undermined vaccines in 113 of 114 episodes with vaccine segments on his show — 99% — despite mounting evidence repeatedly supporting the efficacy of the vaccine.
According to Media Matters’ analysis, Tucker Carlson Tonight discussed vaccines in roughly 50% of all original episodes since Biden was inaugurated — and all but one of those episodes featured a claim that undermined vaccines or vaccination efforts.
Fox News’ overall coverage of vaccination efforts during this time was atrocious, but Carlson and his guests were among the worst culprits, constantly undermining the vaccines’ efficacy and safety. Examples include:
Claiming in July that the COVID-19 vaccine is killing people and the government and media are covering it up.
Throughout the Biden presidency, Tucker Carlson Tonight and Fox News have consistently undermined public health efforts to protect people from COVID-19. This constant anti-vaccine campaign has resulted in real-life consequences, as Fox News viewers are shown to be less likely to get vaccinated than other networks’ audiences.
As the country is still trying to overcome this virus, Carlson and Fox News continue to be big impediments toward reaching that goal.
Methodology
Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream and Kinetiq video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “coronavirus,” “virus,” “COVID,” “COVID-19,” “COVID 19,” “corona,” “pandemic,” or “outbreak” within close proximity of any variation of any of the terms “vaccine,” “immunization,” or “incoculate” or either term “vaxx” or “vax” from January 20 through November 30, 2021.
We included segments when coronavirus vaccines were the stated topic of discussion or when we found “significant discussion” of coronavirus vaccines in multitopic segments. We defined significant discussion as two or more speakers discussing coronavirus vaccines with one another. We did not include passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker discussed coronavirus vaccines without another speaker engaging with the comment. We also did not include teasers for coronavirus vaccine segments scheduled to air later in the broadcast.
Within coronavirus vaccine segments, we analyzed claims from all speakers. We defined a claim as an uninterrupted block of speech from a single speaker. For host monologues, we defined a claim as an uninterrupted block of speech between quotes that were read or clips that were aired. We did not analyze claims within read quotes or aired clips unless a speaker in the segment positively affirmed any speech within either directly before or after reading the quote or playing the clip.
We deemed claims to be undermining vaccines if they described the vaccines as: unnecessary or dangerous; coercive, representing government overreach, or violating personal freedom or choice; or cynical ploys for political or financial gain. We also considered claims that dismissed the efficacy of vaccines; highlighted individual experiences with vaccine hesitancy; politicized vaccine distribution or deployment speed; criticized continued adherence to health measures; or suggested that vaccination efforts are a violation of civil rights, liberties, and freedoms or are a form of control.
Detailed methodologies for the data compiled in this report can be found here and here.
Dr Levine discusses why debates over trans rights are so toxic, and how the climate crisis will widen health disparities
Rachel Levine: ‘The health equity lens is critical as we fight for environmental justice.’ Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
This year has been excruciating for many Americans who have been battered by Covid, extreme weather disasters and political discord, but for one individual 2021 will be remembered for having propelled her into national prominence.
Rachel Levine has shattered not one but two major glass ceilings this year. In March, she became the first openly transgender person to win confirmation in the US Senate after Joe Biden nominated her as assistant secretary of health.
Then in October she was sworn in as the first openly transgender four-star officer as an admiral and head of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. At that exalted rank she gets to wear the blue uniform of the corps, which though non-military is one of eight uniformed services.
It’s been a heady 12 months, having been plucked from relative obscurity as health secretary for Pennsylvania on to the national stage. Levine’s meteoric rise is all the more impressive given how few openly trans federal officials there are in American public life.
In an interview, Levine told the Guardian that she was touched not only by the honour and privilege of her new roles, but also by the “profound responsibility that I take very seriously”.
She added that she would be looking to make an impact “both in terms of my advocacy through the LGBTQ+ community and also through the policy changes we can make across health and human services and the administration”.
As the new head of the 6,000-strong commissioned corps, tasked with leading the federal government’s response to a multitude of health crises, Levine now finds herself in the thick of several raging disputes. Most poignantly for her, as the highest-profile trans official in the country, she is at the centre of the debate around appropriate treatments for individuals considering gender transition, especially adolescents.
A graduate of Harvard and Tulane Medical School, she was trained as a pediatrician and specialized in adolescent medicine at Penn State. As such she has both personal and professional skin in the game.
Levine said her starting point when thinking about trans youth was how at risk they are. “Transgender youth are very vulnerable,” she said. “They are vulnerable to being bullied, to discrimination and harassment.”
Sensitive and supportive medical care has overwhelmingly positive outcomes, she said. “There is so much evidence that trans youth, when they are supported by their family and community and receive the standards of care treatment, they have excellent physical and mental health outcomes.”
By contrast, “trans youth who are not accepted, do not have support from family or community, do not have access to the standard of care treatment, have big mental health issues. So we need to empower transgender youth, we need to nurture them, not discriminate against them.”
In May, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced through its civil rights office that section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which bans discrimination on grounds of sex, would henceforth include sexual orientation and gender identity. The decision, which is being challenged by religious groups, requires health providers in receipt of federal funds to offer gender transition treatment.
Levine said a priority for next year would be to roll out that rule change across the nation. “We are going to work to promulgate and distribute that for health insurance throughout the US,” she said.
Much of the toxicity around the trans debate, Levine believes, is whipped up by partisan posturing. “A lot of this is political. There are those who are using these issues as wedge issues in the upcoming election.”
She has personal experience of being targeted by such hostility. Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, was rebuked during Levine’s confirmation hearing for his “harmful misrepresentation” of transgender surgery as a form of genital mutilation.
Jim Banks, a Republican congress member from Indiana, was temporarily suspended from Twitter in October for willfully misgendering Levine. In a tweet, he said: “The title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man”.
In addition to such politically laden hatred, Levine thinks that fear plays a large role in driving much of the transphobic agenda. “People fear what they don’t understand and have experience of. I’m hoping that my appointment, and my being open and out and working for the nation’s public health, will lead to less fear and more acceptance. That’s my goal.”
How does she cope with the virulent personal attacks? She said that as a pediatrician, treating sick children, she learned how to compartmentalize.
“I sublimate that. I take those challenges and I throw them into my work, and it motivates me even more.”
The transgender debate is just a small part of Levine’s daily workload. There is no shortage of health crises piling up on her desk, not least the gathering storm of Omicron and the resultant battle to get millions of Americans boosted.
Within the fight against Covid, Levine said she was especially ardent about addressing the health inequities that have been exposed by the pandemic. “Covid-19 like nothing else has shown the depth and breadth of health disparities in the United States, particularly among individuals of color,” she said.
She is also passionate about directing the resources of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps towards dealing with the health consequences of the climate crisis. As the crisis deepens, she said, the US is likely to be affected by the spread of vector-borne diseases such as those carried by mosquitoes.
Already vulnerable communities are being assailed by extreme weather conditions. Life-threatening heatwaves have been found to disproportionately affect communities of colour.
Levine highlighted the plight of many agricultural workers. “Farmworkers shouldn’t have to risk their health, even risk dying, due to extreme heat just to put food on their family’s table,” she said.
“Minimum-wage workers shouldn’t have to decide between cooling their homes with electricity or paying for medication. Families across the country shouldn’t have to worry about safe drinking water.”
Levine said that as the dangers of the climate crisis gather pace, the role of federal government was to help vulnerable communities build resilience. “The health equity lens is critical,” she said, “as we look at climate change and fight for environmental justice.”
I want to thank Ali for sending me the link to this article. Scottie
I went to Catholic school where I was told I was BORN IN MORAL DEBT TO GOD so I think it’s okay if all schoolkids learn that the people who did slavery in America were white?
Those who stoke hatred, pollute our planet, and undermine our democracy are counting on our cynicism and waiting for us to throw our hands in the air in resignation.
Which is why we have to keep up the fight even when feeling deeply discouraged.https://t.co/Eih8MWkQIn
Ever notice how the deficit is suddenly a big problem when working people are in need, but it isn’t even mentioned when we pass a $768,000,000,000 defense budget? Funny how that works.
God forbid we give 3% less to the military and save humankind.
What is the point of throwing $768 billion at the military when there's no war, at a time when millions of families are going hungry — and continue to lack the care they need to survive, let alone thrive? https://t.co/3eOE2K367S
We need to remove capitalism and capitalist goals from government and government policy.
FOX is not news, they are not journalists. They are propagandists for predetermined narratives.
Instead of admitting they backed a loser, conservatives make losers the hill they die on.
Patriarchy wants submission.
I gotta say, CDC’s new isolation guidance probably couldn’t have come at a worse time.
I understand the science behind the decision, but ending isolation without a testing requirement makes zero sense to my admittedly non-medical brain. https://t.co/qXiy3bJ0tZ
Far too many people / groups are desperate to get another military action going. How can they justify ever increasing defense budget and killing anything that helps the public if there is no fighting? Scottie
I wish this was true, the public might get its needs met. No the ones that control the media, all the media, is corporations. Very large companies that have merged and leveraged all the media in the US. That is why main stream media always sides with ideas that promote wealth going to the upper income class and keeps the government from serving the public. Scottie
It is normal to work on bring back up bills that fail if the party in charge wants them. What the right can not seem to accept is that other people have their ideas and wants also, and those people, who out number the negative right, want the items in the bill. The big money doesn’t want the people to have what is in the bill, and so the corporate media pays right wing cartoonist to make cartoons that insult and belittle the BBB bill. Scottie
Doesn’t work that way when they run out of hurricane names. The just start a new list. Scottie
Another in a series of throwing out any RW trope, hoping it would stick. Say no to masks and vaccines and then blame Joe for the ongoing pandemic. What an insightful plan… for those who chose to be blind. Scottie
The right wing media keeps repeating a lie knowing their viewers will never check to see it is a lie. Nothing has changed at the border, the US has not been invaded, the hoards of brown people have not taken over the Southern US locking up all the white people. Scottie
For the last eighty years Republican administrations have been behind most American sponsored regime changes across the globe with disastrous consequences. It figures they are finally turning their attention to the United States. US armed services are so well funded that they have to HUNT AROUND for things to do with all that largess. Scottie
For something that is like a cold it sure is putting a hell of a lot of people in hospitals who are very ill and dying. I know the maga refuse to look around the US and in their minds the US is the best country but someone should clue them in the rest of the world is dealing with this also. Is their Covid actions Biden’s fault also? Scottie
The operators of the park see it as their duty to make sure “that the true history of the South is presented to future generations,” according to the website.
A new park honoring the over 15,000 soldiers involved in the Confederate war effort is now open in North Florida.
Kirby-Smith Confederate Park is located in Lincoln Villas in the Northeast Jacksonville area. The park is visible from the I-295 west beltway, and features Confederate flags, statuary and placards.
The park’s website claims that the Confederate flag in Kirby-Smith Confederate Park flies in honor of all Confederate soldiers. The owners of the park see it as their duty to “see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations,” according to the website.
The park is run by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, specifically, Kirby-Smith Camp #1209, the self-proclaimed most active camp in the Sons of Confederate Veterans organizations. The property was donated by the family that owned the land to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
On its website, the camp describes itself as a strictly a patriotic, historical, educational, benevolent, non-political, and non-sectarian entity bound by its by-laws and governed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Constitution.
According to the Kirby-Smith Camp #1209’s website, the organization believes that school books, movies, television programs and press falsely portray Southerners as rebels and traitors who fought to preserve slavery, misleading our children and millions of Americans ignorant of history.
However, the Civil War, fought by between the Union in the North and Confederates in the South, did arise out of disputes over slavery and states’ rights.
The opening of the park comes amid a national cry for the removal of statues and symbols that celebrate the Confederacy, with many people saying that it promotes and honors a movement that revolved around slavery.
Others say the removal of such statues and artifacts is erasing history.
Last month, the bill that would have led to the removal of the Women of the Confederacy monument in Springfield Park was withdrawn.
The motion passed by a 12-6 vote at a Jacksonville City Council meeting.
Two proposals to postpone the city council’s vote to a later date also failed. The first vote to table the bill until March 2022 failed by a 3-15 margin. A second proposal to postpone the vote until May 2022 failed by a 6-12 margin.
The bill was expected to fail after several city council members publicly voted against it in committee meetings.
In response, City Councilman Matt Carlucci and the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville called for the vote to be postponed until a later day.
The removal of the statue was estimated to be $1.3 million, according to the bill. However, Councilman Garrett Dennis proposed an amendment that would reduce the cost of removing it to $99,000. That amendment also failed.
Kirby-Smith Confederate Park is located at C63W+72 Lincoln Villas, Jacksonville, Florida. Click here for details.First Coast News has reached out to the Sons of the Confederates for a statement.
Texas has run out of its supply of monoclonal antibodies, and infusion centers in the state will be unable to offer the treatment until more shipments are sent out in January.
Infusion centers in Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, San Antonio and The Woodlands have all gone through their supply of sotrovimab, the only antibody treatment believed to be effective against the omicron variant, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said on Monday.
The agency said infusion centers in Texas will be unable to offer the treatment until “federal authorities ship additional courses of sotrovimab to Texas in January.”
“Other monoclonal antibodies have not shown to be effective against the Omicron variant, which now accounts for more than 90 percent of new cases. The infusion centers will continue to offer those antibodies as prescribed by health care providers for people diagnosed with a non-Omicron case of COVID-19,” the Texas commission said.
A “limited supply” of the recently approved oral antiviral drugs — one from Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and the other from Pfizer — will soon be available in Texas, the agency added, noting that the supply of these drugs is also regulated by the federal government.
Health officials began stockpiling doses of sotrovimab this month after studies showed that it was effective against the highly transmissible omicron variant.
On Dec. 17, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released distribution determinations for sotrovimab, allocating 2,694 doses for Texas. The department said at the time that the government’s supply of the antibody treatment was “extremely limited” and additional units would not be available until the week of Jan. 3.
HHS recommended reserving sotrovimab for use in the highest risk outpatients, including patients over the age of 65 and those who are immunocompromised.
But vaccines and boosters are in full supply and are ready. Scottie
Schmeck is also hoping for an invite to Mar-A-Lago. The money beg launched for him yesterday on a Christian crowdfunding site has so far raised $6125. Twitter wags have been pressuring Oregon outlets to find out why he left the police force.
