“When you attack people rather than answer their question,” Tucker Carlson said non-introspectively, “they don’t trust you anymore, and they don’t trust the drugs you say they must take, and that’s a shame. We’re not attacking the vaccine. Never have. We don’t judge anyone who takes it, and we never will.”
Weeeeelllllll, that’s not true. Here are a number of times Carlson has attacked or made false claims about the vaccine, and those taking it:
Newly released emails from last August show Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx felt that Scott Atlas, the conservative radiologist from the Hoover Institution who ended up advising Donald Trump on the pandemic, was harming efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
From emails obtained by Buzzfeed News through a Freedom of Information Act request, Fauci and Birx sent a series of emails following the appointment of Atlas, who had publicly made statements doubting the spread and the severity of the coronavirus before joining the Trump team.
“I am more convinced than ever the dangers of Dr. Atlas’ views on the pandemic,” Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator at the time, wrote to Fauci and other top health officials in an August 21st email, eleven days after his appointment. She accused Atlas of “providing information not based on data or knowledge of pandemics — nor pandemic responses on the ground but by personal opinion formed by cherry picking data from nonpeer reviewed COVID publications.
BREAKING: @JennaEllisEsq announces she is leaving the Republican Party.
“Even if I stand alone for the Truth, I will stand for the Truth.” – Jenna Ellis
Watch the full segment here: https://t.co/hc88hn3Ytt pic.twitter.com/Kv29y1tyQI
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 12, 2021
Jenna Ellis is the former Team Kraken backbencher and co-star of some of Rudy Giuliani’s most ridiculous post-election press conferences, who recently was flagged by Facebook for associating with folks deemed “extremists” by their algorithm who as recently as Monday morning was on a crusade to have Ronna Not-Romney McDaniel fired as the party chair. I guess the party really isn’t big enough for the both of them, but I expected maybe a little bit more of a fight than this.
Tennesseean: “The Tennessee state government on Monday fired its top vaccination official, becoming the latest of about two dozen states to lose years of institutional knowledge about vaccines in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The termination comes as the virus shows new signs of spread in Tennessee, and the more-transmissible delta variant surfaces in greater numbers. Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the medical director for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization programs at the Tennessee Department of Health, said she was fired on Monday and provided a copy of her termination letter. It provides no explanation for her termination.”
“Fiscus said she was a scapegoat who was terminated to appease state lawmakers angry about the department’s efforts to vaccinate teenagers against coronavirus. The agency has been dialing back efforts to vaccinate teenagers since June. ‘It was my job to provide evidence-based education and vaccine access so that Tennesseans could protect themselves against COVID-19,’ Fiscus said in a written statement. ‘I have now been terminated for doing exactly that.’ Sarah Tanksley, a spokesperson for the health department, said the agency would not comment on the termination.”
Think they showed their IDs at the airport? https://t.co/vJKTlfB2Mt
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) July 12, 2021
This tweet reply was unlikely to have been written by anyone other than Jim Jordan, and we’re just going to operate under the assumption that he did, as Jordan is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and we only saw this because he had retweeted it. It’s also the kind of characteristically simplistic, one-dimensional rant a man of Jordan’s background yells at the TV when he sees something he doesn’t like while he’s watching Fox News. Or tweets.
To the point he’s attempting to make: This is not about voter ID. Texas Democrats do not have any chance in hell of overturning the state’s already existing voter ID laws at this point. National Democrats have already ceded the fight on voter ID, just to call the bluff from Republicans.
About 100 people of the 12.8 million Americans who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have developed a rare side effect, Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves, producing weakness and tingling in the extremities, the Washington Post reports.
While the occurrence of the complication is rare, the Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to be included with information about the vaccine. The agency, however, continues to recommend people get vaccinated, saying the benefits far outstrip the risks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which compiled the data on the development of the complication, noted that 95 people who developed Guillain-Barré syndrome required hospitalization. One person reportedly died, although the circumstances of the death were not revealed.
On Sunday, Mercy Hospital in Springfield announced that it was opening its sixth ward to care for coronavirus patients as the region deals with a surge in COVID cases, even as other areas experience fewer cases as vaccinations pick up, the Associated Press reports.
“Many local rural communities don’t have high vaccination rates,” Mercy Hospital Chief Administrative Officer Erik Frederick wrote. “They also don’t have a hospital. Get sick, come to Springfield. I think that’s getting left out of the narrative.”
Officials in the two major metropolitan areas in the state, St. Louis and Kansas City, have issued warnings that their regions will also experience a spike in cases and hospitalizations. St. Louis County Health Department reported a 63% increase in cases in the last two weeks.
On what passes as a conservative cable news network now, Newsmax host Rob Schmitt raised his views that vaccines are not part of the nature way of things, claiming that Mother Nature intends to wipe out humans and implying we should let it happen. In speaking with Dr. Peter McCullough from the Texas A&M College of Medicine
“One thing I’ve always thought, and maybe you can guide me on this because obviously I’m not a doctor,” [Editor’s note: “WHAT?!?! You gotta be a-kiddin’, right?] “But, wha–, I’ve always thought about vaccines and I always think about, just, nature and the way everything works.” [Editor’s note: EVERYTHING.] “An, an, and I feel like a vaccination in a we, we, weird way, is just generally just kinda going against nature. Like, if, if, if there is some disease out there, maybe it’s just an ebb and flow to life where somethin’s supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people and that’s just kinda the way evolution goes, vaccines kinda stand in the way of that. Um…. do you follow what I’m sayin’? Does that make sense to somebody in medicine?”
“The Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post. Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a GOP staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified. ‘What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,’ Riemer, a longtime GOP lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman on Nov. 28, referring to Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. ‘They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.'”
“The email from Riemer to Harrington came about six weeks before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and it shows that key figures in the party were privately disturbed by the false claims being made about the election by Trump and his supporters – even if they did not say so publicly. Riemer said Ellis and Giuliani were damaging a broader Republican Party push on ‘election integrity’ issues, according to the email. Riemer had led the party’s legal efforts for months ahead of and after the November election, particularly limiting the expansion of mail-in ballots. But Riemer was skeptical internally of some of the most conspiratorial theories and did not believe many of the claims from Giuliani and others about fraud, according to people who spoke to Reimer and discussed his views on the condition of anonymity because they were private conversations. Some Trump allies, including Giuliani, sought to have Riemer fired after learning of the emails, according to people familiar with the matter, but he remains employed at the RNC” – Washington Post.
Smiling House Dems fly off to DC on a private jet with a case of Miller Lite, breaking House quorum, abandoning their constituents, while the Senate still works. It’s my hope that Senate Dems report tomorrow to do what they were elected to do. We will vote on #SB1. #txlege pic.twitter.com/5Kcc4emNFg
— Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) July 12, 2021
Public health officials have identified summer camps in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Missouri and Kansas as the source of outbreaks of coronavirus in those regions, complicating efforts to reduce transmission of the virus in states that have relatively low vaccination rates, the Associated Press reports.
With the highly-contagious Delta variants now making up more than half of the new cases identified in the United States, the nation has seen the trendline for new cases jump about 60% in the past three weeks.
In Missouri, just 39.8% of people are fully vaccinated; in Texas, just 42.2% of people are. None of the states listed has a higher than 50% rate of vaccinations. Illinois leads those listed with 47.2% fully vaccinated.
Allen Weisselberg, the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization who was indicted on 15 criminal charges last week, is being removed by the company from positions he holds with many of the company’s subsidiaries, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Weisselberg was charged along with the Trump Organization itself for an alleged 15-year scheme to avoid tax payments for perks and other income he obtained. The income was given to Weisselberg as free rent on apartments, or payment for services to personal contractors made directly from Donald Trump or the company.
For the Trump Payroll Company, a business specifically named in the indictment, Weisselberg was the treasurer, director, vice president and secretary listed on incorporation forms in the State of Florida. At some point, Weisselberg’s name was removed and the positions went to Donald Trump, Jr.
CNN: “A US Capitol rioter who joined a white supremacist gang while in prison for attempted murder pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor related to the January 6 insurrection. The rioter, Michael Curzio, was sentenced to six months in jail but will be released Wednesday because he has been in jail since mid-January and will receive credit for time already served. ‘Mr. Curzio should be sentenced to the six-month statutory maximum,’ federal Judge Carl Nichols said at a hearing. ‘I am not in a position to be able to impose a longer sentence than that. I think that six-month sentence is appropriate here. Mr. Curzio will have, in two days, served that entire sentence.’ Curzio is now the second Capitol rioter to learn his fate. More than a dozen rioters have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing later this summer and in the fall.”
“It’s highly unlikely that other rioters who plead guilty to the same charge will receive the full six-month maximum sentence. Curzio’s case is unique, given his attempted murder conviction, and the fact that he has been incarcerated while awaiting trial since his arrest on January 14. Curzio, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully protesting inside the Capitol and agreed to pay $500 to repair damages to the complex. This has become the standard plea deal that the Justice Department has offered to many Capitol rioters who didn’t act violently.”
https://twitter.com/donaldjtrumpjr/status/1414672060018798594
“Today, Texas House Democrats stand united in our decision to break quorum and refuse to let the Republican-led legislature force through dangerous legislation that would trample on Texans’ freedom to vote. We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol. We are living on borrowed time in Texas. We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans – and all Americans – from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy” – Texas House Democratic caucus statement via Capital Tonight host Karina Kling.
The earlier reporting had left it unclear whether or not enough of the Texas House Dems had signed on to go on the lam for an extended period, this statement confirms their plan is in motion.
“The US Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt on 1/6 was not part of the security detail for a specific member of Congress, a law enforcement official tells me, refuting Trump’s claim from over the weekend” reports CNN National Security correspondent Zachary Cohen.
Cohen’s referring to the Orange Nero’s Sunday closed loop interview with Q-curious Fox host Maria Bartiromo, in which Donald almost verbatim regurgitated the claim Maria posed as a question.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: “The decline in White evangelicals’ numbers has sown desperation and increasingly anti-democratic political sentiments. ‘Notably, the declining population shares are most acute among the Republican Party’s most stalwart supporters, White evangelical Protestants, who have declined steadily from 23 percent of the population in 2006 to 14.5 in 2020,’ Jones explained. ‘With 84 percent of them voting for Trump, there are few new voters to be gained.’ Instead of trying to reach out to new voters, Republicans choose to ‘drive down the votes of the growing number of Americans who are not White and Christian.’ Hence, their ‘big lie’ that the election is stolen and their ensuing crusade to suppress voting.”
“The sense of panic among White evangelical Christians also fuels the long-standing animosity toward racial justice that is prevalent in their communities. Just as they erected thousands of Confederate statutes during post-Reconstruction to reassert White dominance, they once more seek to distort history in service of white supremacy. Their current mission to rid schools of critical race theory (CRT), which is not actually taught in public schools, echoes a similar effort to mis-educate children about slavery. Jones noted, ‘Well into the 20th century, they donated history books with Confederate sympathies by the hundreds to schools and libraries, sponsored essay contests based on these slanted sources, and even developed a ‘[United Daughters of the Confederacy] Catechism,’ designed for children to memorize questions and answers reflecting the Confederate version of the causes of the Civil War.’ Our politics have fallen victim to the primal scream of once-dominant White evangelicals. Having failed to capture the hearts, minds and souls of a majority of Americans, these communities are turning against democracy. They prefer an authoritarian theocracy to a multiracial society in which they are a distinct minority. And that, candidly, is a threat to our democracy and to the notion of equal justice under the law.'”
Pic by now former Lincoln, Nebraska Burger King general manager Rachael Flores, who told KLKN the entire staff quit together after working for weeks without air conditioning in a 90 degree kitchen at the location. Flores also told the station the place was chronically understaffed, but you know that’s not on the franchisee, or the Burger King corporation, it’s Biden’s fault because people don’t want to work if the government’s paying them not to. Doesn’t matter that these folks can’t actually collect unemployment benefits because they quit, it’s still socialism. Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore can explain it. They’re pretty smart. They might even throw us a curve ball and call for eliminating capital gains taxes as a remedy for the predicament facing this Burger King’s owners.
https://youtu.be/CWXcGBOJemU
[Background here from Law.com, also check out live analysis from Akiva Cohen. Sidney Powell and Lin Wood are present, so this ought to be good.]
The federal judge hearing the arguments in a motion seeking sanctions against lawyers Lin Wood, Sidney Powell and Howard Kleinhendler–the attorneys in the failed “Kraken” election fraud cases–said the trio failed to undertake “minimal due diligence” before submitting information to the court, Law.com reports.
Lawyers for the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan have filed a complaint with the court to sanction Wood, Powell and Kleinhendler, whom the city and state say filed the lawsuits strictly to undermine the public confidence in the November 2020 election.
“There is a responsibility, there is a duty that counsel has to ensure that when you’re submitting a sworn statement in support of your case, actually presenting it as evidentiary support for your claims, that you have reviewed it, that you have done some minimal due diligence,” U.S. District Judge Linda Parker of the Eastern District of Michigan said.
“Texas Democrats are walking out to deny Republicans a quorum, which will prevent the passage of their elections bill, the trans bill, their bail bill, and everything else. They will have to leave the state for weeks. The last time they did this was in 2003” reports CNN analyst Jessica Huseman, adding “I spoke to Beto O’Rourke at the Texas Capitol yesterday, he said that he hoped if Democrats walked they’d go to DC and sit on the steps of the Capitol, forcing their federal counterparts to walk by them, realizing they haven’t done enough to help.”
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