Top News: GOP Officially Defends Jan. 6 Insurrection as 'Legitimate Political Discourse'

 

February 04, 2022 Top News GOP Declares Deadly Capitol Attack 'Legitimate Political Discourse' "January 6th was not 'legitimate political discourse'—it was a violent insurrection on our Capitol," Rep. Pramila Jayapal retorted. "I didn't know if I'd make it out alive. Some didn't. We cannot let the GOP whitewash what happened." by Brett Wilkins 'Major Breakthrough': South African Scientists Replicate Moderna Vaccine "We didn't have help from the major Covid vaccine producers, so we did it ourselves," said Gerhardt Boukes, chief scientist at the South African company Afrigen. by Jake Johnson Warren Warns 'Corporate Vultures' Are Circling Medicare on Biden's Watch The Massachusetts Democrat said Biden "must shut down the Direct Contracting model," a Trump-era ploy to privatize Medicare. by Jake Johnson 'I Remember WMDs in Iraq': Reporter Calls Out US Official on Russian Intel Claims "You just come out and say this and expect us just to believe it without you showing a shred of evidence that it's actually true," said Associated Press reporter Matt Lee. by Jake Johnson MORE NEWS Opinion Now Is the Time to Electrify the US Postal Service Fleet The postal service truck could become America's favorite electric vehicle, if the Biden administration plays hardball. by Adrian Martinez Means Testing Will Ruin the Expanded Child Tax Credit Restrictive means tests keep Americans poor, sick, hungry, and homeless. It's time to debunk the tired old lies they're based on. by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Shailly Gupta Barnes MORE OPINION Common Dreams PO Box 443 Portland, ME 04112 United States

RSN: FOCUS: Bess Levin | Donald Trump Jr., World-Renowned Moron, Urges Vaccine Protests as Omicron Poses "Very High Risk"

 

 

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FOCUS: Bess Levin | Donald Trump Jr., World-Renowned Moron, Urges Vaccine Protests as Omicron Poses "Very High Risk"
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "If there's one important lesson people should have learned over the last five years, it's to never listen to a Trump ever again."

Dr. Don thinks Americans should stop being “sheep” and fight the one thing protecting them from serious illness and death.

If there’s one important lesson people should have learned over the last five years, it’s to never listen to a Trump ever again. Probably the best example of this lesson can be found in Donald Trump and company’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic which, as a reminder, included lying to the public about how serious the virus was, putting the president’s son-in-law in charge of the government’s response, politicizing mask-wearing, and regularly holding super-spreader events. To listen to anything a Trump has to say about the disease at this point would be like listening to a proctologist’s advice after they were found to have performed a series of simple surgeries that left patients shitting out of their mouths. And yet, for some reason, people with the last name Trump still think they're eminently qualified to make medical recommendations on the matter.

Speaking to Fox News on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. took a break from taunting NBA players behind his computer screen to rage against vaccine mandates. Praising protests in Europe, the ex-president’s namesake said Americans should be fighting back against the one thing giving us a chance of ever ending the pandemic his father so royally botched. “You don’t hear about what’s going on as it relates to the riots in Europe on a daily basis now against the vaccine mandates, because our media wants to block that out,” Trump Jr. claimed falsely. (In fact, European protests have been extensively covered by, among others, The New York Times, ABC News, and The Washington Post.) “They’re going to make sure that you never hear about it because they don’t want you getting these kind of ideas that freedom may actually still exist in some parts of the world. Europe is pushing back and America’s sitting there like sheep like, ‘Oh this is great we’ll just go along with’ what these guys who have gotten nothing right in the last two years tell us. It’s absolute insanity.”

Does Junior realize that two years ago his father was president? Sadly, the jury is out there. Where the jury isn’t out is on the matter of the effectiveness of vaccine mandates, which are very much working, both in the U.S. and in Europe, and on the effectiveness of the vaccines when it comes to preventing seriousness illness and death; as of September, unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their fully vaccinated counterparts.

Don Jr.’s call for people to rise up against one of the most important tools we have to fight COVID-19 comes amid the threat of the new omicron variant, which the World Health Organization has labeled a variant “of concern” and said poses a “very high global risk.” In the last few days, the U.S., Britain, the European Union and other nations imposed travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa, but experts believe they may be too late. (On Sunday, Canadian officials announced that two cases of the variant had already been detected in Ontario.)

Saturday, of course, wasn’t the first time Don Jr. had something uniquely stupid to say about vaccine mandates. In August, he lashed out at the Biden administration for its vaccine push, writing, “Next they’re going to waterboard you till you get vaccinated.” His online store, the shopping destination of choice for assholes, is currently selling apparel that read, “Powered by Natural Immunity” and “My Science Is Better Than Yours.”

In the same Fox interview, Jr. criticized Biden for…not curing cancer. “He was also going to cure cancer, if I remember correctly, Dan,” Trump Jr. told Dan Bongino. “Remember that? Everyone was, ‘Oh, that’s great, we should definitely elect him.’ I haven’t seen much movement on that.”

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Moderna CEO Says Vaccines Likely Less Effective Against Omicron
Tom Westbrook, Reuters
Westbrook writes: "The head of drugmaker Moderna said COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as they have been previously, sparking fresh worry in financial markets about the trajectory of the pandemic."

The head of drugmaker Moderna said COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as they have been previously, sparking fresh worry in financial markets about the trajectory of the pandemic.

"There is no world, I think, where (the effectiveness) is the same level . . . we had with Delta," Moderna Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview.

"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I've talked to . . . are like 'this is not going to be good.'"

Vaccine resistance could lead to more sickness and hospitalisations and prolong the pandemic, and his comments triggered selling in growth-exposed assets like oil, stocks and the Australian dollar.

Bancel added that the high number of mutations on the protein spike the virus uses to infect human cells meant it was likely the current crop of vaccines would need to be modified.

He had earlier said on CNBC that it could take months to begin shipping a vaccine that does work against Omicron.

Fear of the new variant, despite a lack of information about its severity, has already triggered delays to some economic reopening plans and the reimposition of some travel and movement restrictions.

READ MORE

 

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Mike Flynn warns the world of dark forces putting vaccines in your salad dressing

 

This article explains where the idiocy originated - growing vaccines for future use....and some Dim Wit shared....

From the RochesterFirst.com story linked in the tweet:

Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they’re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines — which could also survive at room temperature.

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking to accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/22/2053787/-Mike-Flynn-warns-the-world-of-dark-forces-putting-vaccines-in-your-salad-dressing?detail=emaildkre

For a brief period, Michael Flynn was the actual national security adviser to an actual U.S. presidential administration. He left in disgrace (i.e., was fired) after lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Ultimately, he was fired by Donald Trump. For being a liar.

Let that sink in for a moment. Trump fired a guy for telling one lie. That’s a little like Jeffrey Dahmer ratting out a fellow grocery shopper for stealing a grape in the produce aisle.

Anyway, after being unceremoniously cut loose, Flynn became a hero of the bonkers far-right, and he’s still plying his trade as a purveyor of pernicious piffle. The latest? Well, if you laid down a big bet on “the libs want to put vaccines in your salad dressing because they hate our freedoms,” well, you’re about to be a very wealthy individual.

FLYNN: “Somebody sent me a thing this morning where they’re talking about putting the vaccine in salad dressing. … And I’m thinking to myself, this is the Bizarro World, right? This is definitely the Bizarro World. … These people are seriously thinking about how to impose their will on us in our society, and it has to stop.”

Yes, this is very much the Bizarro World. You sure got that one right, Mike.

Of course, this story wasn’t concocted out of whole cloth. As is typical with these sorts of wild assertions, there may be a kernel of truthiness to Flynn’s dystopian fever dreams:

From the RochesterFirst.com story linked in the tweet:

Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they’re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines — which could also survive at room temperature.

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking to accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.

So great news, right? While it appears this technology is a long way from coming to fruition—assuming anything comes of it at all—it would be a great way to encourage vaccination, especially among the needle-phobic (like, for instance, me). Who wouldn’t rather tuck into a hearty and delicious bowl of romaine (with croutons!) than tromp into a doctor’s office for a needle jab?

But, naturally, if you’re predisposed to thinking the government is out to get you—and to get that Bill Gates Windows patch into you by any means necessary—your mind is naturally going to gravitate toward the serial depredations of killer salads.

But how many people will see the original story Flynn’s cockeyed comment was based on? How many will understand that if the government—which regularly inspects our food—wanted to poison us, it could readily do so? Besides, if the government wanted to ensure Trump supporters got the vaccine, the last place they’d put it is in a salad. If he’d said they’re looking into dosing nougat or Keystone Light, I’d be more inclined to believe this.

But then, where’s the fun in spreading rumors that the government cares about you and wants to save your life? Especially when you can trash well-meaning scientists and researchers more than you already have?

That said, if Flynn is right and the government does want to spike my salad, I’ll take the pomegranate vinaigrette. And please don’t skimp on the kalamata olives, or I’ll send it back.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.