Feds target Steve Bannon-linked company for the ‘unlawful spreading of COVID-19 misinformation’

Bob Brigham
April 19, 2021



Screengrab.

https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon/

 

Interesting that we didn't hear about this from @thinskin.

 

Ted Nugent Catches Coronavirus After Year of Telling Us the Pandemic Is All Fake
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ted-n...-telling-us-the-pandemic-is-all-fake?ref=home

 

Telling isn't it, the thinly veiled joy stumbler has every time he posts one of these "they doubted and then they got it" stories.

 

Twitter Memorializes One Year Anniversary of Trump’s Infamous Disinfectant Comments: ‘Happy Bleach Injection Day, For Those Who Celebrate’

https://www.mediaite.com/online/twi...bleach-injection-day-for-those-who-celebrate/

 

now we're celebrating the anniversary of propaganda?

 

Insider reveals behind-the-scenes scramble to stop Trump from rambling about miracle bleach cure

Brad Reed
April 23, 2021



Donald Trump and Dr. Tony Fauci (screengrab)


It's been one year since former President Donald Trump suggested that scientists investigate the possibility of injecting people with disinfectants to cure the novel coronavirus, and one former Trump official tells Politico that they saw that particular public relations train wreck coming from a mile away.

The former official, who insisted on anonymity in order to be candid, said they were wary of letting Trump talk at the daily coronavirus briefing on April 23rd, 2020 because he had just been briefed on how quickly disinfectant could kill the virus.

In fact, the official said they went so far as to implore fellow aides to stop the president from taking the podium.

"A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway," they said. "I actually argued that President Trump wouldn't have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did."

Another former Trump official tells Politico that many White House staffers secretly mocked Trump for rambling about the possibility of miracle bleach cures.

"People joked about it inside the White House like, 'Are you drinking bleach and injecting sunlight?' People were mocking it," the official explained. "It honestly hurt. It was a credibility issue... It was hurting us even from an international standpoint, the credibility at the White House."



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2652754425/

 

That rascal anonymous again, eh?

 

The only time Anonymous shows his head is when he is spreading some shit on some republicans.
He has to be a democrat.

 

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7, 2020.

 

Florida family may spend life in prison after ‘church’ sold bleach as COVID-19 cure

Miami Herald
April 25, 2021



Photo via Facebook

MIAMI — A federal grand jury brought charges against members of a Bradenton family nearly a year after they were arrested for selling bleach that they claimed to be a cure for the COVID-19 virus. Mark Grenon and his three sons — Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph — face several charges for peddling their “Miracle Mineral Solution” to customers even after the Food and Drug Administration refuted those claims and a court ordered the family to halt sales of the chemicals. Two of the Grenons, 34-year-old Jonathan and 26-year-old Jordan, were arrested last July when federal agents raided their home on Gar...

Read More

https://www.rawstory.com/florida-fa...n-prison-after-church-sold-bleach-as-19-cure/

 

Americans observe one year anniversary of the moment Trump and Kushner ‘washed their hands of the pandemic’


Jared Kushner and Donald Trump (Photo: White House)

"The hope is that by July the country's really rocking again" It was one year ago today. The Trump administration effectively announced it had done all it planned to do to control the coronavirus pandemic, declaring it essentially over and the recovery was here. At that point, more than 60,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. One year later, that number is closing in on 600,000 deaths. Calling it "a great success story," Jared Kushner told Fox News on April 29, 2020, “May will be a transition month, you’ll see a lot of states starting to phase in the different reopening based on safety guidelines that President Trump outlined in April. I think you'll see by June a lot of the country should be back to normal and the hope is is that by July the country is really rocking again."

https://www.rawstory.com/americans-...-trump-and-kushner-washed-their-hands-of-the/

 

COVID-19 deaths in US are 57% higher than official reports, study suggests


A new study released by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that more than 900,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 since the virus that causes it, SARS-CoV-2, entered this country a little more than a year ago. They also argued that more than 7 million people have died worldwide from the disease, more than twice as many as the official estimate of 3.24 million.

https://www.rawstory.com/deaths-2652928424/

 

The data is in -- and it's damning: States led by GOP governors had higher COVID-19 death rates in 2020

The Conversation
May 12, 2021



Ron DeSantis (WFLA/screen grab)
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a partisan divide has existed over the appropriate government response to the public health crisis. Democrats have been more likely to favor stricter policies such as prolonged economic shutdowns, limits on gathering in groups and mask mandates. Republicans overall have favored less stringent policies.

As political scientists and public health scholars, we've been studying political responses to the pandemic and their impacts. In research published in the summer of 2020, we found that “sub-governments," which in the U.S. means state governments, tended to have a bigger impact on the direction of pandemic policies than the federal government. Now, as data on last year's case and death rates emerge, we're looking at whether the political party in the governor's office became a good predictor of public health outcomes as COVID-19 moved across the country.

Looking at states' COVID-19 case and death rates, researchers are finding the more stringent policies typical of Democratic governors led to lower rates of infections and deaths, compared to the the pandemic responses of the average Republican governor. In preparation for future pandemics, it may be worth considering how to address the impact that a state government's partisan leanings can have on the scope and severity of a public health crises.

Comparing responses by Democratic and Republican governors
To compare and chart our state-by-state COVID-19 policy stringency data, we've developed our “Protective Policy Index." To calculate this index, we took into account the types of policies state governments adopted over the course of the pandemic, such as school closings, lockdowns and mandatory mask mandates. We combined the adopted measures for each state over time to calculate the index. Higher values of the index indicate states adopted more stringent measures.

When we charted the policy responses of Democratic and Republican governors between May 1 and July 31, 2020, they revealed that heading into May, states led by Democrats generally took more stringent measures than those led by Republicans. Over the next eight weeks or so, as Democratic-led states began to slowly reopen, they continued to maintain more stringent measures on average than Republican-led states. By July, Democratic governors began to roll back their reopenings amid some signs of a new pandemic wave, while Republican-led states largely maintained the same level of stringency.

With that information established, we could begin to explore whether there was a relationship between COVID-19 policy stringency in different states, and their rates of pandemic cases and deaths.

According to a study released in March, both case and death rates were higher on average in states led by Republican governors during the second half of 2020. The first map represents rates of COVID-19 cases between June 1 and July 31, 2020 as reported by the CDC. The second map represents CDC estimates of excess mortality rates – the number of deaths above the average norm – between June 1 and August 31, 2020. The taller spikes indicate higher case and death rates.

Next, to study the relationship between the stringency of a state's pandemic responses and its rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, we mapped each state's rating on the Protective Policy Index to the same CDC data. The results show that more stringent policies were generally associated with fewer cases and deaths.

All of these findings, in conjunction with those of our own research, suggest that amid the current deep divide in U.S. politics, it's possible to forecast public health outcomes based on whether a state is led by a Republican or a Democrat. For large chunks of time in 2020, states led by Republicans overall had higher average case and death rates from COVID-19, in part due to their state governments adopting less stringent policies to quell the virus. It is important to note, however, that not all states fit perfectly into this pattern. For example, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, adopted relatively stricter measures and this likely led to better health outcomes.

America's polarized health care politics
The differences we discovered between red and blue states in our analysis did not surprise our team. After all, a partisan divide over health care in the U.S. existed before COVID-19. During President Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s, there was a clear and growing partisan divide over health care reform. During President Barack Obama's administration, Democrats supported the Affordable Care Act and the federal government's response to the H1N1 virus, while nearly all Republicans opposed both measures.

We already know that partisan divisions over health care in the U.S. can worsen public health. For example, despite the evidence that the ACA has had a positive effect on individual health care outcomes, Republicans have consistently fought against it. Republican-led states that chose not to adopt Medicaid expansion have not experienced all the positive benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

For example, states such as Texas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi that have not expanded Medicaid have the largest relative percentage of uninsured residents in the country. In some Republican-led states that did opt for Medicaid expansion, it was adopted with new restrictions. This has ultimately led to worse outcomes.

These long-established partisan divisions have also influenced Americans' polarized views of the government's proper role in addressing the pandemic. This divide grew so wide during 2020 that at some points it was as if people were living in alternate realities based on their partisan leanings. At times an American's political affiliation indicated whether or not they would acknowledge even that a pandemic was really happening.

Where we go from here
Now that mass vaccination against COVID-19 is underway across the country, Americans have hope that life will soon get “back to normal." But until enough people are vaccinated to halt the spread of the virus, public health officials are warning that we are not quite there yet. They are encouraging states to maintain some restrictions that slow the spread of the virus, especially considering that there are more contagious variants spreading across the country.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that differences between Republican and Democratic officials on health policy have had life-or-death consequences during the pandemic. But recent history suggests that in the next public health crisis, governments across the U.S. may once again focus more on politics than on policies grounded in the best available science. Experience also suggests that even when this leads to bad health outcomes, Americans aren't likely to rethink the partisan divide over health care.



[Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Julie VanDusky-Allen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University and Olga Shvetsova, Professor of Political Science and Economics, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://www.rawstory.com/the-data-i...by-gop-governors-had-higher-19-rates-in-2020/

 

Maggie Haberman Blames Trump, Pompeo for Media Dismissing Lab Leak Theory

 

Oklahoma AG Mike Hunter Resigns After Questions Over Alleged Affair: Report
‘PERSONAL MATTERS’

Jennifer Adams
Breaking News Intern

Published May. 26, 2021 3:35PM ET

Office of the Oklahoma Attorney General
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced that he is resigning on Wednesday just days after he filed for divorce from his wife, The Oklahoman reports. “Regrettably, certain personal matters that are becoming public will become a distraction for this office,” he said in a statement. “The office of attorney general is one of the most important positions in state government. I cannot allow a personal issue to overshadow the vital work the attorneys, agents and support staff do on behalf of Oklahomans.” The divorce follows reports of an alleged extramarital affair with another state employee, which the newspaper said it confirmed Tuesday night. In his divorce filing, Hunter specified that he and his wife Cheryl faced “irreconcilable incompatibility.”

Hunter had served as the state’s attorney general since 2017, and was expected to run for the position again in 2022. He had been involved in a number of the state’s policy work, including the amending of criminal jurisdiction in Eastern Oklahoma.

Read it at Oklahoman


https://www.thedailybeast.com/oklah...ions-over-alleged-affair-report-says?ref=home

 

Stockbridge City Councilmembers call on embattled colleague to resign (ajc.com)

Two more members of the Stockbridge City Council called on Elton Alexander, the city’s mayor pro tem, to resign because of his involvement in a lawsuit that cost the Henry County community $1.7 million.

At a Friday press conference that ended in a shouting match between supporters and opponents of Alexander, Councilmembers LaKeisha Gantt and John Blount said their embattled colleague needs to go.

Alexander has been censured twice, they said, had a letter of caution placed in his file and faced six different ethics investigations since joining the governing body in January 2016.

The councilmembers said they’ve seen enough after last week’s settlement of the lawsuit, in which Alexander was accused of harassing the owner of a local barbeque restaurant because the proprietor would not comp the councilman’s $60 meal.

Gantt pointed to his 2019 deposition in the harassment lawsuit, in which the mayor pro tem was questioned about accusing the barbecue restaurant owner of being a sex offender, whether he was told the accusation was untrue and that he should stop repeating it.

Gantt also said Alexander agreed in the deposition that he has used fake names online to criticize his opponents, especially on a Facebook page he oversees, “Because We Care Henry County-Atlanta South.”

“He created these accounts to stir up, as a devil’s advocate, things that are going on here in Henry County,” she said.

Alexander is a despicable, by the way.​

 

With the exception of Hawaii this is also something Trump must be blamed for. His constant lies about COVID 19, his rejection of medical science, and turning COVID 19 into a partisan issue results in his cult followers refusing to get vaccinated.

Eight states see rise in new COVID-19 infections

Eight states are experiencing a rise in new COVID-19 infections, according to data compiled by John Hopkins University.

Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, Utah and Wyoming have all seen cases rise in the past two weeks, John Hopkins reported.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, all of those states have lower than average vaccination rates, other than Hawaii. The average vaccination rate per state is 43 percent, according to USA Today

https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...ht-states-see-rise-in-new-covid-19-infections

 

Wait.
We were told biden/harris already fixed the covid thingy, you know, that trump messed up.

Turns out, we were lied to.
Again.

 

It couldn't have been worse than what Trump actually did when his administration allowed people to return from Europe but they were not ready for the influx. So they weren't tested for COVID 19 and were packed shoulder to shoulder in over crowded airports for hours. Treasonous conservative/Republicans scream China China China trying to blame the pandemic on them. But it places like New York the first cases of COVID 19 actually came from Europe where there were no travel restrictions.

Trump Wanted to Send COVID-Infected Americans to Guantánamo Bay, Book Says

Former President Donald Trump was so frightened that rising coronavirus cases would hurt his polling numbers that he suggested a group of infected Americans being brought home from Asia should be sent to Guantánamo Bay. “Don’t we have an island that we own?” Trump reportedly asked aides in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic. “What about Guantánamo?” The story features in Nightmare Scenario, a new book by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, capturing the chaos of the Trump White House as COVID-19 hit. The pair report that Trump was incensed that official testing was boosting case numbers and shouted at Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: “I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?” “Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar responded, referring to the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. According to the Post, the book suggests that the president’s own infection was “far more serious than officials acknowledged.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...mericans-to-guantanamo-bay-book-says?ref=home

Read it at Washington Post