De-Bunk House

Where to come to put the Big Lies, disinformation, and misinformation to bed permanently in their Big Sleep. Keep in mind these words of wisdom, not from an "elite" but from a jazz musician.

While everyone has a right to his or her opinion, the people who are informed have more of a right.
-- Bill Dixon

This is where we can clear the air and the mind of histrionic hyperbole, deceptive delusion, crazy conspiracy, and pernicious propaganda that is undermining our ability to gather our thoughts into orderly informed opinions. The Reality Based Community is where democracy will be preserved and protected by the advocacy of its members who are unafraid of truth, unhampered by ambiguity, and untrammeled in range.

Go ahead and shine your informed light into the dark corners where muddy ideas hide. "Debunk" the false rhetoric, the fake messaging, and the deliberately mendacious misleading memes in our own fact-check thread as you see fit.

AstraZeneca Vaccine Safe

NYT

Despite reports of a small number of cases of dangerous blood clots in people who had received the vaccine, a review of millions of cases found that it does not increase the overall risk of clots, though “there are still some uncertainties,” said Dr. Sabine Straus, who heads the agency’s risk assessment committee.
(Snip)
While the vast majority of the roughly 20 million people in Europe who have received the AstraZeneca shot suffered no serious side effects, Dr. Straus said, there were a handful of troubling cases of cerebral venous thrombosis, blood clots in the brain that lead to hemorrhages, in patients who also had low platelet counts. The evidence, she said, is not conclusive as to whether it is related to the vaccine.

Evidence-Free Bartaromoism

Maria Bartiromo pushes Biden conspiracy theory: Obama is 'secretly running things behind the scenes."

President Obama is running his life as a private citizen like a retired executive should. He has no time to validate head-up-the-ass conspiracy theories by right wing eunuch-brains.

Unlike the Orange Shitegibbon who is trying to run for president as awkwardly and ineffectually as possible and is having an easy time of retaining his titles of Worst President Ever and World-Dominating Fool.

No, Trump Republicans, Suicides Did NOT Increase in 2020

Citing an alarming "outbreak" of suicides, ex-WH Occupant Trump and the current crop of Red State Governors have been lobbying hard for premature and thoughtless reopening of public facilities, businesses, and schools while COVID-19 remains a dire threat to the public health of the country.

With only 15% of the US adult population fully vaccinated and no one under 16 yet jabbed, those Red State governors and the Republican "leadership" have foolishly -- perhaps even criminally, in the case of DeSantis of FL -- opened the door wide to pestilence, stripped off people's masks, told them to congregate without regard to physical distancing, and spread mis- and disinformation about the threat of unmitigated exposure to virus. In their world, actual physical health must be sacrificed on the altar of fictitious mental illness.

"You're going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression," Trump said in a Fox News town hall. "You're going to lose people. You're going to have suicides by the thousands."

The day before the town hall, during a coronavirus task force briefing, Trump said, "I'm talking about where people suffer massive depression, where people commit suicide, where tremendous death happens… I mean, definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."

Lies then and lies now.

Americans who resisted dying for Trump's nose-diving economy by refusing to go to work in unsafe places in unsafe conditions, similarly refused to run off the cliff in lemming numbers to kill themselves for it, either. Rightly so, it turns out.

Wired wrote in Oct. 2020.

"In fact, suicide rates may even have declined. A preprint study released earlier this week found that the suicide rate in Massachusetts didn't budge even as that state imposed a strong stay-at-home order in March, April, and May."

Looking back on the year as a whole, the data prove Trump was making up the story without any evidence to confirm it. What Trump "knows in his gut" amounts to an accounting of how many cheeseburgers and diet sodas he consumes in a day. Period. Otherwise, he knows nothing and lies out of malicious self-serving motives.

In this case those lies could be criminal. Stay tuned.

#4–so 550,000 or so American covid deaths so far doesn’t qualify as ‘tremendous death’?

>5 lriley:
Talking by suicide. Not genocide.

Yep. You Were Right. It Was Never about the Economy

Trump Republicans were never and still aren't concerned about corporations and companies moving their HQs and jobs overseas. When they shop at WalMart, they're not looking for the union label, much less Made in the USA.

Trumpty-Dumbpties were and are, pure and simple, white-supremacist racists whose anger and hatred are focused on African-Americans, BLM, and Antifa. Their only motive for the near decade-long effort by them and mainstream Republicans to destroy Obamacare is because they hate that an African American president created an affordable health care plan that, in their view, was an "entitlement" for blacks and minority immigrants. In their eyes, Civil Rights and Voting Rights exist only to take their white privilege status away. In short, they are unrepentant and irredeemable white supremacists. Nothing more.

"We conducted focus groups in March with Trump loyalists in Georgia and Wisconsin and Trump-aligned, non-Trump conservatives and moderates in suburban and rural Georgia, Ohio and Wisconsin. It took a long time to recruit these groups because Trump voters seemed particularly distrustful of outsiders right now, wary of being victimized, and avoided revealing their true position until in a Zoom room with all Trump voters — then, they let it all out.
(SNIP)
"The moderates and non-Trump conservatives are just 30% of their party, but it makes clear how divided the Republican Party is. . ."

Democracy Corps report/memo here (pdf).

No, idiots. Covid-19 vaccine injections do not change you into another race.

Racism changes you into another race. Inhuman.

No, People. Biden Will Not Rip Your Whopper(TM) Out of Your Cold Dead Hands

Americans will continue to be able to kill themselves with animal grease consumed in its glorious variety of ways. Yum! And I hear, NASA scientists are working on a non-plant based beer for Kudlow to guzzle in order to avoid promoting socialism. It's expected to hit the market as soon as he gets sober.

“There is no effort designed to limit people’s intake of beef coming out of President Biden’s White House or USDA,” Vilsack said during a virtual briefing hosted by the North American Agricultural Journalists. “Sometimes in the political world, games get played and issues are injected into the conversation knowing full well that there’s no factual basis.”

And there's plenty of right wing blockhead saps who will take up their 2nd Amendment to defend the false claims of their favorite-for-the-moment shyster politicians and blithering bobble-heads.

In reality, Biden last week set a broad goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030. But he did not detail any specific targets for the farm industry, which accounts for about 10 percent of emissions, primarily from fertilizer, livestock and manure.

Any person with an ounce of common sense knows that culling cattle wouldn't put a dent in the greenhouse gas problem. OTOH, stifling the toxic emissions of the Boe-Boes of the world would just about solve all the climate change problems facing us.

The sensible program to adopt in re animal methane dumping is one the Biden Administration policy is pursuing in that regard -- (limiting) emissions from livestock production could be addressed by innovations like feed additives or methane capture technology.

Sounds encouraging. But I wonder why nothing is being done to "capture" and contain the crack-pot Q-tards?

Sorry, Swiss Cheese Heads, It's a Lie

From the NY Post to Faux News, the Malevolent Murdoch Media is desperate for this lie to get traction. Instead, it's getting debunked. What is this lie you cheeseheads without holes may well ask. It's this:

The lie. . . said that taxpayers were purchasing a copy of a children's book written by the vice president to give to migrant children applying for asylum.

I don't know about you, Packer fans, but this tax payer hasn't a clue what book that might be. (If it isn't for sale on Amazon it doesn't exist, right?) But if it comes in a "Welcome to America!" kit for kids along with a toothbrush, soap, and a clean pair of underwear -- GOOD!

Oh, if you should meet up with that hillbilly knucklehead goober GOPer senator from AR, Tom Cotton-for-brains, who is an avid spreader of the lie, resist the temptation to put another hole in his Swiss cheese head. One more and he'll be a man without a country.

Are We There Yet?

For the last 40 of so years I've read story after story of the campaign by conservatives and particularly evangelicals who have campaigned to dumb down America by attacking expertise, maligning elitism, and undermining academic study among the young. Well, I guess the Resistance is going to have to admit defeat and throw in the towel. We have scraped what must be the bottom of the barrel.

How do I know this? Because surely NO ONE can imagine anyone could have a stupider "serious" question than Orange County CA supervisor, Don Wagner had of Dr. Clayton Chau, the county's chief public health officer and director of the Orange County Health Care Agency. (Yes, Virginia there is such a thing as a "stupid question" despite what you've heard to the contrary.)

"Is there any intention of tracking folks?" (supervisor) Wagner asked.

(Dr.) Chau indicated there was no intention of that, and Wagner returned to baseless conspiracy theories about that topic.

"We heard about an injection of a tracking device," Wagner said. "Is that being done anywhere in Orange County?"

Chau did not immediately respond, and then the microphone picked up his audible laughter.

"I'm sorry, I just have to compose myself," Chau said after a pause. "There is not a vaccine with a tracking device embedded in it that I know of that exists in the world, period."

No need to ask where "we" heard such outlandish crap. And I'm proud of Dr. Chau for laughing out loud in the idiot's face.

No quarter to be given for ideologically based deliberate ignorance.
____________________________________
UPDATE 4/29/21: Not withstanding Minority Leader McCrazy's reassertion of the conspiracy nonsense following Pres. Biden's address last night on Faux News. The Neo-Burger Wars is still fake news.

Contrary to Tim Scott's (R-SC) Rebuttal, America United in Approval of Biden Presidency

CNN polls people who watched president's address to Congress. Results:

71% who watched say Biden's speech left them feeling optimistic
73% Biden's proposals will move country in right direction

Among Republicans, the share saying Biden's policies would move the country in the right direction grew from 13% pre-speech to 27% post-speech, while among independents, that percentage rose from 61% to 73%.

86% say Biden handling of pandemic is right direction
74% say ditto on racial injustice
72% say ditto on economy
70% on gun laws
70% on taxes
65% on immigration
68% said Biden has had the right priorities so far as president
64% said the proposals he outlined in the speech were about right ideologically
58% said that Biden made the right amount of outreach to Republicans in his speech

Bad news for Republicans is good news for America!

Lyin' Liar Republican Senator Gets Slapped with Truth

While not a crazy-ass conspiracy theory, this fantasy whopper is "only" an out and out lie. From the forked tongue of WY Sen. Barrasso comes this calumny.

"Only six percent of the money goes to bridges and things, with the balance of the $2 trillion spending plan aimed at projects like "electric cars."

"Back up, Bozo," Martha Raddatz told him in her professional persona.

"The six percent for roads and bridges figures you and other GOP leaders have cited has been fact-checked multiple times. The total amount for what you have called traditional infrastructure, roads, bridges, rails, waterways, public transit is more than 25 percent of the Biden plan. Do you want more?"

Answer came there none.

Maria Bartiromo, "Someone Told Me!"

Under the heading of: When you've got nothing, make up fake news.

"It seems like the cartels are really winning and making big money here. . .Someone told me this week that they're making $400 million monthly. I mean, the numbers, because they're charging $4,000 a head, they're taking 2,000 people a day into America.

"And the group from China told them that they paid $50,000 a head. And by the way, these were scientists and doctors and engineers from China."

Fox News host added: "You have to ask, why the CCP is sending these people through the border, obviously they don't want to be noticed.

Slow down there, maties. Aren't the Trumpty-Dumbpty fake news decriers the ones who demanded the NYT and WaPo name their anonymous sources? Well, Maria? Well?

And how does the host of this air-head know that the CCP is "sending" these people through the border? Who's his inside informant? Or, is "host" his CCP code name?

See, anyone can play.

Biden is going to make you go to college.

Probably socialist college.

Be very afraid.

Crazed 2nd Amendment-er, Ignoramous 1st Amendment-er

Lauren, "Boe-Boe Bobblehead," Boebert threatens legal action against parody websie, a la Devin Nunes' "Mad Cow Caper." She. . .

claimes a parody website launched in January 'needs to be taken down' because it used photos that 'are copyrighted property of the U.S. Federal Government' and Boebert's congressional office."

For those fellow crazed Republicans who only know one amendment to the Constitution, accepting the truth of the following facts could prevent you experiencing the sting of humiliation felt by the two above mentioned.

According to Denver-based First Amendment attorney Steve Zansberg, the demand for Morton to pull down the site doesn't hold up to legal scrutiny.

"The federal government cannot own copyright in any works created by any federal agency or congressional office (such as the official photographs taken for members of Congress)," Zansberg told Colorado Politics.

"Second, no human could reasonably mistake the parody website as an actual communication originating from Rep. Boebert's office or from her personally. Such parody sites are fully protected speech," he said, adding that in short, Boebert "does not have a legal leg upon which her threatened claims can stand."

We're only here to de-bunk.

BAMBOO BALLOTS FROM ASIA -- OH MY!

Latest News: China or Asia elected Biden by sending 40,000 filled in ballots to AZ and (somehow!) "stuffing them in" and that's why the Republican auditors are photographing them to see if they are made of paper with bamboo in it.

And the Great Bamboo Ballot Hunt has been part of the GQP audit since the beginning. No wonder it's taking forever to "find me some votes."

I am not making this up. But like whoever did, I could, if my imagination were that of a crazed Trumpty-Dumbpty. Instead I'm here to prick another conspiracy balloon Republicans have launched to try to make their Cult Leder president.

On Wednesday, audit liaison John Brakey told a reporter from the local CBS affiliate in Phoenix that the audit team was checking to see if 40,000 Biden ballots were smuggled into Arizona from Asia by checking the paper’s fiber to try to detect bamboo:

“There’s accusations that 40,000 ballots were flown in and stuffed into the box and it came from the Southeast part of the world, Asia. And what they’re doing is to find out if there’s bamboo in the paper,” Brakey told Dennis Welch of CBS5 News.

. . .because “people in Southeast Asia…use bamboo in their paper processing” and “this is part of the mystery that we want to un-gaslight people about.”

This completely unsubstantiated mad theory was initiated in the brain of

. . .election fraud gadfly named Jovan Pulitzer, who Slate’s Aaron Mak reported earlier this week is supporting the work of Maricopa audit firm “Cyber Ninjas.”

Pulitzer is a professional (?) treasure hunter but is best known for his invention of the "greatest crap gadget" in world history -- the "Cue Cat." It's a bar code scanner.



And then, there's this: . . ."the reality is that with Pulitzer and CEO Logan (of Cyber Ninjas) now in total—and secret—control of those ballots, the 'chain of custody' for Maricopa’s election documentation has been completely compromised."

Did you see that? Cyber Ninjas! You don't suppose that the Republicans' own auditing company is the agent who secretly smuggled in the bamboo ballots in order to sabotage the AZ election so that it could "discover" the election fraud that would make Trump president again, do you?

OK, maybe I've been doing the debunking business a little too long and got carried away. Regardless, I know one thing is true.

Ultimately, unintentionally, totally without knowing it, and in the true spirit of the Republican theme of "unintended consequences," the Bamboo Ballot conspiracy has been a GQP bullet to their own foot.

“From a legal standpoint, chain of custody, ballot integrity has been so destroyed by a lack of procedures that moved into evolving procedures” Matthew Masterson, a former senior cybersecurity advisor at the Department of Homeland Security, said in the same briefing. “You can’t reestablish that chain of custody and integrity after the fact. So, from just a legal standpoint, I don’t know how you can establish proper chain of custody, evidence standards, anything for a court, or otherwise, it’s gone.”

In essence, the AZ ballot audit has been a colossal waste of time then, hasn't it? Meaningless. Empty exercise. One long gloreious piss into the wind. In short, another typically Trump ^uck up.

Congratulations, MAGARats, who bought and paid for the so-called "audit" with your donations to Steve Bannon's fraudulent "Stop the Steal" grifter scam. You've been punk'd. AGAIN!

No, Right Wingers. People Aren't Refusing To Take Jobs Because of $300 Gov't. Checks

Lindsey Graham and others in the GOP blame the lack of applicants for jobs and return of re-hires on the $300/week government unemployment bonus above what states pay.

“I told you weeks ago that in Florida I hear from small business everyday that they can’t hire people because the government is paying them to not go back to work,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted on Friday.

Oh, because "I told you so, it's true," Marco? Hardly. Show me the evidence! Let's listen to the informed opinions of actual economists instead of the political propaganda of proven idiots.

Here are the reasons for April's low employment numbers.

* Parents - particularly mothers - cannot work because closures or shortened hours at schools and daycare keep them home to watch their kids.

* Would-be workers remain concerned about health risks amid a pandemic still claiming about 700 American lives daily.

* Stock market gains have given some older workers the cushion to retire.

* Some younger workers are finding jobs in new fields, shrinking the labor pool for the industries they left behind.

* Many employers need to fill jobs requiring skills that sidelined workers may not have.

* Employers complain that enhanced unemployment benefits and other government aid are keeping workers on the sidelines, content to collect a check rather than work for a living. Data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed more than 16 million people are still receiving some form of unemployment benefit, now more than a year into the pandemic.

"We recognize that the labor supply has been affected by the pandemic... (but) are seeing little evidence though that enhanced unemployment benefits are currently affecting Americans' willingness to work," Whitehouse spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.

Because business owners want to blame lazy potential worker doesn't mean they're right. What we do have evidence for explaining the "reluctance" in the work force lies squarely with employers who. . .

1. Forced workers to work in unsafe conditions during 2020, i.e. meat packing industry, which led to tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases anddeaths..

2. Refused to provide or support childcare facilities or costs for parent workers, while demanding employees report to the workplace instead of working from home, or that they "man up" and provide childcare from their wages.

3. Paid themselves obscene salaries and have made themselves wealthier by successes in the stock market combined with tax dodging without passing any profit advantages to the 9-5 workforce in terms of raises or childcare benefits, for example.

Consequently,

4. People have learned that they can work more efficiently and affordably from home and are not going to return to an office environment without salary increases and needed benefits, like childcare support.

5. Wise younger workers took advantage of education and training opportunities to make them job ready in a different field or for a more advanced job, or have saved and planned to start their own businesses over the past year.

6. Millions of Americans are long-hauler COVID survivors and are probably unable, due to incapacity, to return to the work force in their past positions or in traditional workplace formats.

Those are facts. And we have the evidence for it, if incomplete, as is the case for #6. Where there's no evidence to back up a contention, then it's pure bunk that will be de-bunked here.

Unless and until Republicans can demonstrate the data backing up their political propaganda that $300/wk is keeping people at home, I'll keep my extinguisher aimed at their backsides.

I can't imagine this will pass--or go unchallenged in the courts if it does--but wow!

Michigan GOP lawmaker floats bill to register, fine 'fact checkers'
Beth LeBlanc, Craig Mauger | May 11, 2021

Lansing — A Michigan lawmaker who's been at the center of efforts to question the 2020 election introduced a bill Tuesday that would require "fact checkers" to register with the state.

Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, wrote the legislation, which was co-sponsored by eight other Republican House members, about five months after Maddock floated the idea of licensing fact checkers on Twitter.

The "Fact Checker Registration Act" defines a fact checker as someone who publishes in print or online in Michigan, is paid by a fact-checking organization and is a member of the International Fact Check Network.

The network is a reference to the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network, a unit launched by the journalism group in 2015 to train and develop best practices in fact checking, Maddock said.

The bill requires qualifying fact checkers to file proof of a $1 million fidelity bond with the Secretary of State's office, which will be tasked with developing the "form and manner of registration and filing."...

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/11/michigan-gop-lawmaker...

-------------------------------------------------
Discussed at https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1392309757537574912
Daniel Dale is CNN fact-checker.

The Secret's in the Sauce

Unfortunately for the Deluded Despicables, Biden has nothing to do with the lack of sauce at Chick-Fil-A restaurants. But according to Lyin' Ted Cruz, "Joe Biden is destroying America." (Referring to the sauce shortage.)

Of course, since Cruz is the king of hyperbolic exaggeration that amounts to lying, what might be his weak attempt at humor is lost on the run-of-the-mill mindless MAGARats who are willing to believe any scurrilous nonsense emitted from any Trumplicans pie-hole.

For your entertainment scan their over the top reactions here.

#20–I try to avoid things that are bad for me and right wing chicken is one of them.

Claim: Death rate among COVID-19 vaccinated people is significantly higher compared to unvaccinated population

BIGLY FALSE

As of April 15, 2021 5,800 of the 75 million fully vaccinated people have caught Covid. Of those 5,800 breakthrough cases, only 74 have died, and 396 -- 7% -- of those who got infected after they were vaccinated required hospitalization. according to the CDC.

But those facts haven't stopped a Louisiana GOP state representative who claimed she knows of doctors who are warning people who receive the COVID-19 vaccine can get "very very sick" and die from it. "It being died from COVID, or "it" being the vaccine?

"Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Denham Springs Republican, claimed her doctor's friend, who is also a doctor, told patients not to take the COVID vaccine because they could get "very very sick and possibly die from it."

Unnamed "doctors." Unverified sources. Ambiguous "it." Why understand science and credentialed source material when gossip is so much easier to believe because it doesn't require reading comprehension but appeals to your prejudices against government and sound public health policies?

>22 Limelite: Thanks, my next door neighbor died from covid just a few weeks ago - she was younger and healthier than me.

>23 DugsBooks: So sorry to hear that. It's shocking, still, when people die who need not have, had the pandemic actually been scientifically addressed over a year ago.

I don't know how to characterize about 30,000 new cases a day nationwide. But the figure has been steadily declining; more than 1/3 of the population is fully vaccinated; 48% has had at least one dose; and the decline in hospitalizations and deaths over the last two weeks has averaged a double figure drop.

In pandemics, as in war, the tragedy is someone will be the last to die. Take care and make sure it's NOT you.

No, emails to Fauci don’t show early agreement that virus was man-made
Jon Greenberg |June 2, 2021

If Your Time is short
One email to Fauci from a credible researcher noted the possibility of an engineered virus, but said more work was needed.
Other emails came from less credible voices and cited no evidence.

...Our ruling
A Facebook post says, "Fauci's fellow scientist could tell early on that the (coronavirus) looked manufactured."

The only email that came close to matching that claim noted that while some evidence suggested the virus might be man-made, more work was needed and that opinion could change. The email presented a possibility — a starting point for more research — not a conclusion. The man who wrote that email concluded that the virus developed naturally in a scientific journal article in March 2020.

We rate this claim False.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jun/02/blog-posting/no-emails-fauci-d...

Fauci much?

No, emails to Fauci don't show early agreement that virus was man-made
PolitiFact

Viral Posts, Pundits Distort Fauci Emails
FactCheck.org

Fact check: Missing context in claim about emails, Fauci's position on masks
USA TODAY

Fauci email misrepresented as evidence masks are ineffective against Covid-19
AFP Factcheck

Fact check: Fauci's emails don't show he 'lied' about hydroxychloroquine
USA TODAY

Republican Fails Didn't Stop w/ Trump's Exit

Attacking Pres. Biden with lies about his mental fitness isn't working;
Attacking Dr. Fauci with lies about his emails isn't working;
Attacking VP Harris with lies about her book distribution isn't working;
Attacking Hunter Biden about his laptop vis a vis Ukraine business and Pres. Biden's "knowledge" of so-called corrupt business dealings continues and needs debunking.

TRUTH: Hunter Biden's laptop reveals that the "secret meeting at Cafe Milano wasn't the clandestine scandal that the New York Post made it out to be. (In re The April 16, 2015, cooked up "secret" dinner scandal, later lied about (again) in the 5/26/21 NYPost newspaper.)

At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was the chair of the World Food Program, a fundraising arm of a humanitarian effort in the United Nations. Rick Leach was the president at the time and he explained that the now-president dropped by the meeting briefly to see Alex Karloutsos, who was known as Father Alex during his service as a leader in the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States. Biden had just spoken at the White House Greek Independent Day Reception, his official schedule read.

"He and Karloutsos are personal friends who have known each other for 40 years," the Washington Post explained. "Karloutsos's wife, Xanthi, is on the board of the Beau Biden Foundation, which fights child abuse. (Beau Biden, who had an aggressive form of brain cancer, died a few weeks after this dinner.)"

Biden is a Roman Catholic and has worked with the Greek Orthodox Church throughout his life, earning the Patriarch Athenagoras Humanitarian Award in 2015.

Gee, Republicans, can't we even have friends?

I’m not a fan of Biden’s but the Republicans attacks on him have been pretty much missing the mark since he became POTUS. He’s been relatively popular with the populace. They seem to be scoring better against Fauci but Fauci is an 80 year old medico who isn’t running for anything and who has historical links to both parties. I don’t see their hatred of Fauci becoming a difference maker in the voting booth.

MAGAs seem to need boogeymen/red-meat to hate/motivate them.
FL Gov De Santis gave Fauci a trial run at big concert in Panama City: " Florida chose freedom over Faucism."
Faucism...too sophisticated play on words for R base to handle?

The other objective, though, is to threaten and otherwise 'cancel' election officials, public health authorities, researchers such as Hotez who speak out...

Jeebus! NO!! COVID-19 Vaccines Are NOT Magnetic

One of the latest brainless myths from the anti-vax GQPers is that people who have been vaccinated can keep magnets fixed to their foreheads, which the unvaccinated can not do. This fairy tale originated from a physician! Dr. Sherri Tenpenny claims people become magnetized due to "magnetic vaccine crystals."

In the first place, few crystals are magnetic. Of those few, almost all are so weakly magnetic, they would not be able to affect ferrous material outside the body. Finally, no explanation is offered how such strongly magnetic crystals could have been introduced into the biologic vaccine in the first place. I doubt magnetite or iron-nickle are included in the formulation, even as a preservative ingredient.*

Today, in an excess of delusion, a nurse testified in support of Dr. Tenpenny. WARNING: Do not read if your brain is overloaded with scientific education and logical reasoning. (Or if you have hung spoons from your nose and know how that's done.)

"Yes, vaccines do harm people," the nurse testified, as flagged by the Ohio Capitol Journal's Tyler Buchanan. "By the way, I just found out something when I was on lunch, and I want to show it to you. We were talking about Dr. Tenpenny's testimony about magnetic vaccine crystals, so this is what I found out.

"I have a key and a bobby pin here," she said, pressing a key against her chest until it sticks. "Explain to me here why the key sticks to me! It stick to my neck, too."

The key does not, in fact, stick to her neck in several attempts, and she then goes for the much lighter bobby pin.

"So if someone can explain to me, that would be great," she says, as the bobby pin falls away from her skin after a moment. "Any questions?"

TRUTH

Small items (ferrous and non-ferrous) will briefly stick to skin due to the waxy sebum that mammals secret from their sebaceous glands, and not necessarily proof that vaccines contain magnetic crystals.

*"All ingredients for the Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Moderna and Janssen vaccines have been made publicly available, and none of them contain high enough amounts of any substance that would attract a magnet."

>30 Limelite: Who was it that said “a sucker is born every minute’? Reminds me of treatment systems I’ve seen installed in household water systems. Magnets are mounted on the outside of the copper inlet pipe to catch iron that is present in some well waters.

Unlike the field of electromagnetism, kooks apparently attract kooks.

(Yes, I knowingly wrote "field".)

>31 2wonderY: Ah nice. I think they are sold here as calcium dissolvers. I'm sure they work just as well as iron catchers :-)

https://www.billigvvs.dk/activ-antikalk-bolig-afkalker-til-34-roer-27-28mm-22384...

Fact check: Boebert falsely claims liberals have 'legalized' knowingly spreading HIV
Daniel Dale | June 16, 2021

Washington (CNN)Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, known for her outspoken right-wing views, tweeted last week: "The same liberals that legalized knowingly spreading HIV are now pushing Americans to take COVID tests or show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants. No. We're not playing your games."

...States' changes to their HIV laws have come in response to criticism from activists, doctors and public health experts who have argued that laws criminalizing sexual activities and other behavior by people with HIV are a discriminatory and harmful relic of the homophobic AIDS panic of the 1980s. Far less was known about HIV back then, and today's highly effective HIV medications, which can sharply reduce or even eliminate the risk of sexual transmission, were not yet available.

...More than 30 US states had laws criminalizing HIV exposure (in various ways) as of 2020, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that "many state laws are now outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV."

Since Boebert did not respond to a request for comment, we're not certain who she was talking about when she alleged that the same liberals who supposedly legalized the knowing spread of HIV are also "pushing Americans to take COVID tests or show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants."...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/16/politics/fact-check-boebert-legalized-hiv-covid-r...

TRUMP CONCEDES!!!

Yes, Qewpies, your Fearful Leader, the Orange Shitegibbon has finally confessed that the BIG LIE is a BIG LIE. You can hit your disbelief switch and turn it off because he admitted that JOE BIDEN is the president in his concession speech to Sean Hannity last night during his interview. As reported by Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC,

"Donald Trump finally conceded tonight, he delivered the concession speech. He did. Yes. Not making this up. To Sean Hannity on that hour. Here's how it went. It's not the traditional form. First of all, Sean Hannity said to him, more than once, began questions with, 'if you were still president.' And Donald Trump did not correct him. Donald Trump went on and said words. I'm not going to say he answered the question, but he said words after the question mark. More than once: 'If you were still president.' And then towards the end of the discussion, Donald Trump actually said this about Joe Biden. 'I want him to do well.' Now that is — that's in every concession speech. 'I want him to do well.' I mean, that's it. That — there it is. The concession speech."

No stolen election, no "I won!", no denial of reality. A complete debunk executed by the creator of the lie, himself.

PUTIN BLOWS UP CONSPIRACY BIDEN MENTALLY WEAK

Trumps bromantic partner, Vladimir Putin testifies to President Biden's mental fitness after yesterday's summit -- something he never accused Donald Trump of possessing. Guess the Russian leader is announcing his break-up with the Orange Shitegibbon. How will Putin-loving Trump supporters feel now that their Russian Hero has thrown their Boi overboard? Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the door on. . .speculation that his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden was too old to go toe-to-toe with him. . . Here's what the Russian leader had to say about the American leader, 10 years his senor.

“The image of President Biden that our, and even American, media present has nothing to do with reality,” Putin said in response to a Russian senator’s question if the U.S. president was suffering from what she called “dementia.”

“Biden’s a professional, you have to be very attentive with him so as not to miss anything. He doesn’t let anything get by, I assure you,” Putin, 68, said in televised comments.
(SNIP)
During coverage of the summit in Switzerland, the country’s main 24-hour news channel repeatedly observed that while Putin spoke from memory, Biden had note cards.

“We all do that,” Putin said
(SNIP)
Biden. . .is “collected, knows what he wants to achieve and does it adroitly,” Putin said.

Guess that leaves right wing nut jobs who spread lies that Pres. Biden is suffering dementia when the symptoms of same point to the Orange Shitegibbon being the ga-ga one, will only have this to say, "Well, shut my mouth."
______________________________________________________
P.S. Think seeing Biden meet Putin in Geneva Summit and this had anything to do with Trump's concession speech?

Fact check: Stacey Abrams does not own 16% of election staffing agency in Georgia
McKenzie Sadeghi | June 30, 2021

The claim: Stacey Abrams owns 16% of a firm that counted ballots in Fulton County

...Real America's Voice News...former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones...conservative radio host John Fredericks...

...Company is 100% owned by CEO
Atlanta-based Happy Faces Personnel Group provided temporary staffing services for Fulton County for the 2020 election, as well as for previous years, but Abrams does not own 16% of the company.

"Happy Faces has been privately held for the full 25 years we have been in operation as a family-owned business, and we have not had reliance on any outside funding," Happy Faces CEO Michael Hairston told USA TODAY in an email.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/30/fact-check-abrams-not-p...

Republicans seem to have lost their lyin' juju -- their mendacity is like weak tea compared to what it was around the election and post election. And the lies themselves don't seem capable of drawing breath before they're snuffed out and rendered incapable of getting around the world three times before the truth gets out and crushes the life out of them.

The conservative media's popular support for amplifying misinformation is past its prime, barely surviving on viewer-strapped Faux News. Even Trump worshipers of '16 and '20 have literally turned their backs on the Liar-in-Chief, not hanging around for the final paroxysm of Trump's twisted truth grifting rally.

Could it be the gulled public has awakened to the breeze blowing across their hollowed out pockets and emptied out wallets? Is it, like with most outrageous TV entertainment, the sparkle is off the star? Could be.

But I'm betting that the short 6 months of Biden in the White House is the most effective agent without being an iota like the empty-suit showman who preceded him that is having the biggest impact. Biden's popularity sits steady at a whopping at 60%; he's shoved significant popular legislation down the throats of the disarrayed Republican Congress critters; he has outmaneuvered all the would-be scandal dirt thrown at him; he has enjoyed huge success abroad, repairing the damage wreaked by the Orange Menace; he spit in Putin's eye and broke up his bromance with his predecessor; and he has performed well while fulfilling the much needed roles of the First Foe of COVID and the Consoler-in-Chief.

Just what the people really want: A return to sanity and effective government aligned with The People

No. MTG Does NOT Represent America

Tallapoosa, Georgia -- Marjorie Taylor Greene's Home Turf:

- Population is 93.5% white
- Crime is 26% higher than the US average, the chances of being a crime victim is 1 in 32
- Per capita income is $21,774, 27% lower than the US average
- Unemployment is 11%, 144% higher than the US average
- School test scores are 41% lower than the US average
- Tallapoosa school rating is an "F"

Which explains quite a lot about her supporters, doesn't it?

>39 Limelite: A true product of her environment!

>40 mamzel: ...and the perfect environment for her product...

>40 mamzel:, >41 alco261: You should have heard my evil laugh when I discovered those statistics. Nasty!

Not So, Idjit

The Biden effort to initiate door-to-door COVID vax workers in an outreach effort to get the vaccine shy to undergo jabs that likely would save their lives is NOT an attempt to steal your Bibles, thumpers. Where did that bit of silliness gain life? At CPAC, natch. Courtesy of one of a plethora of Republican scuzzworts, namely, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC).

In a glittering example of incredible 'what ifism' here's what the Tar Heeler spouted. . .

"The thing about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing — and then think about what those mechanisms could be used for. They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles."

Yes, this is the kind of verbal puffery that passes for argument among right wing-dings these days. "Common sense is a plot to take away your ____________!" Fill in the Hair on Fire blank with a noun.

Science and Government Are Not Responsible for Your Deaths

It's getting nearly impossible to keep up with the wild-eyed segment of the population whose endless figments of imagination catch hold so quickly by mindless Trump cultists. Let's shine a light into the foggy corners of Covid Conspiracy Factory Prime and bring a little illumination to bear.

I Am Legend's plot line is not a cryptic message to anti-vaxxers that the COVID vaccines available will turn them into zombies. 1) It wasn't even a vaccine that did the dirty in the movie. It was a virus! Ding! Ding! Ding!

2) There are NO such thing as zombies; therefore, there exits NOTHING that can turn you into one. Sorry, vaccinated people, if you thought that was your path to Hollywood stardom in the Will Smith sequel.

3) Remember, there have been ZERO, that's 000000. . .infinity, deaths caused by the vaccine in the entire world. None of the vaccinated are undead from it, either. On the other hand, 99% of the deaths from Covid are among the unvaccinated. Is this what MAGArats call "owning the libs"?

Vaccine skeptics and anti-​maskers are sucking down horse paste promoted by Trump's 'demon sperm' doctor. (Natch.) Ivermectin doesn't even "cure" viral infections in horses. It's equine worm medicine; it's sheep dip (scabies); and it's a swine and cattle dewormer. If you have scabies, you can get an ivermectin compound formulated for humans and dosed for humans, after getting an Rx from your doctor.

So, please stop raiding rural tractor and feed & seed stores, and stop demanding it from your Walgreen's pharmacist. Pharmacies don't carry farm animal meds, only human being meds. You are a human being, aren't you? You ought to know that. If you don't, let me put it this way. After you suck down an entire tube of ivermectin, don't leave your bathroom for days! Oh, and have your local Poison Control Emergency Number handy. On reconsideration, someone else will have to make the call for you. Look in the mirror, folks, if you feel tempted to take the ivermectin route to immunization. If it looks like a human, talks like a human, and walks upright on two legs, chances are it's a human being.

Lordy! There ARE Spines!

At least one Republican senator, Bill Cassidy (R-LA), debunked four items of misinformation that the far-right is spreading about the bipartisan infrastructure bill. "The Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act is a historic investment in our nation's infrastructure. But there's a lot of misinformation out there. Let's clear it up." In a moment of courage that Americans should hope is not fleeting he released the following tweets today.

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D.
@SenBillCassidy

First, this is a HARD infrastructure bill—$110 billion for roads and highways; $65 billion in grants for broadband deployment; $55 billion for water infrastructure, which includes sewage and drainage system improvements;

$47 billion for resiliency; $40 billion for bridges across the country; $25 billion for airport improvement projects such as terminal expansions, assistance with planning, rebuilding runways, improving lighting, and funding air navigation facilities;

$23 billion for state Drinking Water and Clean Water Revolving Loan Funds; $15 billion to remove lead service lines; $17 billion for Army Corps of Engineers infrastructure projects; $10 billion for Ports and Waterways;

$3.5 billion for flood mitigation; $3.5 billion to clean up Superfund sites, America’s most contaminated areas; $1.5 Billion for Brownfields Grants to revitalized blighted properties.

Second, this bill is FULLY PAID for. We always said CBO wouldn’t give us credit for half of our pay-fors. We repurpose $53B in unused Unemployment Insurance, for example. Congress already allocated the money but CBO doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s a fiscally responsible bill.

Third, Critical Race Theory is NOT in this bill, never has been. Equity is not a catch-phrase for CRT. Language in this bill DOES NOT change current anti-discrimination laws at all.

Fourth, there is NO MILEAGE TAX in this bill. What you are hearing is about a study to figure out if such a fee would even be possible for issues like electric cars driving on our streets without paying the gas tax like the rest of us. It does not implement a new tax.

Bless me! I've lived to see the day when I would quote a Republican in order to debunk MAGArat lies and a Q-publican disinformation campaign by Trump Cultists. How long before Trump threatens this guy with doom and destruction?

>44 Limelite: 3) Remember, there have been ZERO, that's 000000. . .infinity, deaths caused by the vaccine in the entire world.

That's not true. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/cdc-says-28-blood-clot-cases-3-deaths-may-be-lin... says 3 deaths linked to the J&J COVID vaccine; I think if you look worldwide, there may be another couple handful. It's a tiny number compared to the number of vaccinations and COVID-19 deaths, but let's be truthful here.

>46 prosfilaes:

I wish your citation were a little more direct. It's describes a consequence that could easily result from an underlying precondition. What we need to know in order to conclude a single cause of these deaths is the "mechanism" by which the J&J formulation or manufacture process could produce the event. What first leaps to mind is it leads to platelet suppression. Ancillary, is the physiological response of blood to clot (chemically, I'm guessing) while platelets are low. But such effects would be produced in a far more general population sample if the vaccine alone is the cause. Because people of all races, ages, and genders possess the same physiological methodologies for clotting and platelet production functions.

I'm also confused by the absence of a clear explanation why cerebral hemorrhage presented in just under a third of the TTS cases, but not all. Blood clots and simultaneous hemorrhage confuses the picture and ability to understand what's at work here. On the one hand, clotting is a blood function, while hemorrhage is an artery/vein wall disruption. And if they go hand-in-hand, then shouldn't ALL the patients demonstrate the same events?

At present, the phenomenon merits more rigorous investigation. At the least, hormonal action seems likely at play (Red Flag: in association with hormonal birth control, which are known to cause vascular incidents in a very small percentage of patients.), considering the demographic most impacted. And the statistics, being so small, suggest that an underlying and undetected or diagnosed irregularity in the patients existed. Otherwise, we wouldn't see the syndrome concentrated in such a narrow, highly specific, sample of the total population if this were the direct result of the vaccine. The cases suggest that something among the sufferers was outside the "normal range" of health beforehand, or may be linked to the hormonal birth control they happen to be on.

If either possibility proves to be the case, then the vaccine (purely) didn't kill them; a combination of unanticipated or unforeseen factors were comorbidities, falling into the cause of death category of "died from incompatible drug interference and complications of a blood disorder."

So, I will stand by my statement that the vaccines -- as sole cause of death -- have zero mortality rates. Until proven otherwise.

>47 Limelite: https://www.who.int/news/item/19-05-2021-statement-gacvs-safety-johnson-johnson-... is another cite.

So, I will stand by my statement that the vaccines -- as sole cause of death -- have zero mortality rates.

Scurvy as sole cause of death has zero mortality rate; in fact, every single death due to scurvy is due to a rare (in mammals) mutation breaking Vitamin C synthesis. Cancer as a sole cause of death has zero mortality rates; so-called cancer victims die due to heart failure.

I'm disappointed; the simple fact is that people given the J&J or AstraZenca vaccines develop a fatal syndrome that is not seen otherwise, e.g. in people given mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. It is rare in people taking those vaccines, and doesn't always cause death. But to ignore it is to ignore the truth in service of our own desires.

>44 Limelite: >48 prosfilaes:

I'm with prosfilaes here who has sufficiently covered the overstatements in point 3 of #44. A further issue is the reference there to the vaccine. We post here in our spare time and sometimes late in the day, and allowances for that are sensible. At this point, however, I'm going to remind everyone that there are multiple vaccines produced by various manufacturers and each needs to be evaluated separately. This is not to say in any way that I think any of the major vaccines is even fractionally as risky as the virus itself.

1) No one is denying anything.

2) Point taken "the" vaccine being misleading; I do mean the J&J, specifically, but remember that clots were first associated with the AstraZeneca formulation.

What I'm saying, awkwardly at best, is there is insufficient evidence to leap to a conclusion that the vaccine is the sole reason these women died. Prosfilaes is supporting my argument as well, pointing out that other medical deaths are not straightforward, although I can't agree that cancer deaths are all a result of heart failure. One could counter-argue that no, all deaths are caused by a cessation of brain activity. Both are fallacious by reductio ad absurdum

People with terminal lung cancer die of suffocation; metastatic breast and prostate cancer patients die by metastatic brain cancer displacing healthy brain tissue responsible for various organ functions, as well. People with cancer even die from the treatments intended to keep them alive -- chemo poisoning, especially in cases where the patient has comorbidities.

People with terminal COVID can die of suffocation,or of catastrophic organ failure resulting in uremic poisoning, or heart failure, or stroke, ultimately. But they all died because coronavirus overwhelmed their immune systems and produced a multitude of cascading effects incompatible with life.

We're not filling out death certificates here. We're talking about why otherwise healthy people die when COVID-19 is what made them ALL sick to begin with, and, we mustn't forget, killed them relatively quickly. No one with severe COVID that is life-threatening is surviving for a year or more in that state of ill health, on or off a respirator. A multitude of stage 4 metastatic cancer patients live long enough to die of something else more than a year later, and not just from heart failure.

Again, the precise demographic of 30-ish fertile females being those primarily associated with the TTS cerebral clot and hemorrhage are highly likely taking oral hormonal regulators to prevent pregnancy or correct menstrual conditions. These meds have known links to deaths cause by the same as that described being caused by vaccine.

At least investigate if the patients were taking hormone therapy. Drug interaction is a common occurrence, thankfully, usually not fatal. At least acknowledge that it would be the cause of death if there is a harmful drug interference between vaccine and The Pill. But to hold that it's only "the" vaccine in that demographic being the cause of their deaths seems too facile without further investigation, IMO.

>50 Limelite:

Fair enough.

What a Gas!

Republican senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa is pretending to something that doesn't exist and never existed with her "cow tax amendment" to the Biden Tax Plan. A disincentive is being applied to the nation's biggest industrial methane polluters, not cattle. Methane is 80% more powerful as a cause of Global Climate Change than CO2 and we all know that cows produce a lot of it. But nowhere near as much as the gas/oil industry does, which the tax provision is aimed at with new federal methane requirements.

But facts aside, Joni Ernst is attempting nothing more than a political stunt to make a hill of beans out of a nonentity with her anti-cow tax sob story (she's a farm girl and Dems are attacking her roots!). That tactic is called proposing a "message amendment" in order to appear pro-aggie to her farm constituency watching her on CSPAN by creating a fantasy moment of dysinformation and fake news.

No one is coming to take your cows away.

"Bonkers Busters" -- Name Change for This Thread Needed?

To quote an Obama Era Deplorable, "You lie!"

There are people walking among us without a brain in their heads. Their cranial roofs are nothing more than awnings over empty space. Here is a video based on a "story my father told me" that has not an iota of truth from start to finish. NO MILITARY PILOTS QUIT EN MASSE OVER VACCINE MANDATES For crap like this video there needs to be a "cremated" setting on the Liar Meter, way beyond "pants on fire."

Maajid the liar should feel sorry for himself, not the Taiwanese. What a sorry waste of a brain cavity.

No, Republicans. Trump Did NOT Win AZ

Trumpty-Dumbpties will be heartbroken to learn that the fraudit committed conducted by the so-called firm, Cyber Ninjas (HQ Sarasota County FL -- the world leader in producing conspiracy theories. FACT) has determined that the Orange Shitegibbon is an even BIGGER LOSER in the Maricopa County Arizona recount.

"In fact, the hand recount for Biden exceeded the county's tally by 99 votes, while Trump received 261 fewer votes than the official results," KJZZ reported.

"The hand count shows Trump received 45,469 fewer votes than Biden. The county results showed he lost by 45,109," The Arizona Republic reported.

No wonder it struggled to hide its results for weeks after the audit. And who are the suckers stuck with the bill?

Is that all? Deliciously, NO!

Texas is next.

They weren't only stuck with the bill for the *ahem* audit but also replacing all the voting machines they got their sticky fingers on.

>55 mamzel: Especially for you!

Trump's Texas 'forensic audit' already in chaos as officials admit they don't know what they're doing.

New Phizer Oral Drug Is NOT 'Suspiciously Similar' to Ivermectin

Sorry right wing nut job conspiracy theorists. This drug will not get rid of your intestinal parasites. Stick to the real thing, Ivermectin. If we're lucky, though, Phizer's new pill may have beneficial side effects, like helping people with other viral-caused diseases like AIDS and hepatitis. Stay tuned.

Pfizer is not developing a version of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, according to fact-checkers and medical professionals.

A new oral drug being produced by Pfizer is not a repackaged version of the antibacterial medication often used to prevent parasites in animals, according to PolitiFact, Snopes and Full Fact. While the drugs share similar functions and effects, this does not mean they are identical or interchangeable, according to fact-checkers. Pfizer’s new oral drug “is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism,” according to a statement from the company.

– Pfizer told Snopes that the new drug is “designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.”

– Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that the two drugs “are extremely structurally different” https://twitter.com/i/events/1443672091320979475