Surprised? I would hope that this puts him in the category of Alex Jones and normal people stop dealing with him as if he’s a serious person. But I’m not getting my hopes up. This is on par with Donald Trump and the MAGA crazies so I think that’s just the way things are in our political culture: Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer portion of raucous booze and fart-filled dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street. “COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people.
Uncategorized
This piece by David French in the NYTimes makes the point that the right’s bully strategy as exemplified by Donald Trump and Elon Musk is predictably creating a backlash. I think this is a particularly apt observation: Any form of domination and bullying will create a backlash, and that backlash will gain particular momentum when the bullies are both aggressive and absurd — and that’s exactly the world that both Trump and Musk built. When I watch the world’s richest man take “Catturd” seriously, traffic in conspiracy theories and interact with a menagerie of right-wing trolls, these words come to mind: Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Who can forget when the legal team of the president of the United States, including Rudy Giuliani, promoted its alleged examples of voter fraud at a landscaping business in Philadelphia almost adjacent to a crematory and a porn shop? The only thing that keeps one from laughing at episodes like this one, and at Musk’s juvenile tweets, is the depressing realization that both Trump and Musk possess immense power and maintain loyal followings in the tens of millions.
Back in 2004 I recall a lot of complaints when the Dean campaign had a lot of young out-of-state volunteers coming in to Iowa to canvass for their guy. They wore orange wool hats and t-shirts, making them stand out in a crowd, and the locals were not impressed. It was, I thought, a lesson learned by everyone. But at least the Deaniacs were true believers. Guess who’s doing it again not even ten years later. And this time they’re just random people being paid to do it: With his foot on a front porch of a stately home in Charleston, S.C., a canvasser for a $100 million field effort supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vented on July 7 about a homeowner who he said had told him to get off his lawn. Speaking on his phone while wearing a T-shirt with “DESANTIS” in big letters and a lanyard representing the Never Back Down super PAC, he used lewd remarks to describe what he would tell the homeowner to do to him.“And I’m a little stoned, so I don’t even care,” he added, holding materials and appearing to wait for another homeowner to come to the door.
He’s such a God-fearing man… The evangelicals seem to love his agenda more than the Republicans running for office: One by one, Republican presidential hopefuls took the stage at this year’s Family Leadership Conference for one of their biggest opportunities so far in this cycle: The chance — without Donald Trump in attendance stealing the show — to win over religious conservatives in Iowa, a state increasingly seen as key to having a shot at winning the nomination. And one by one, they were met with Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly turned to his favorite topics. Mike Pence sparred with Carlson on January 6 and Ukraine, with the conversation getting noticeably tense as the former Fox News host repeatedly pressed him over claims that the Ukrainian government “has arrested priests.” “I just told you I asked the religious leader in Kyiv if it was happening. You asked me if I raised the issue and I did,” Pence replied after one lengthy back and forth about Ukraine.
And making the same mess he always makes I’ll just leave this here: Six questions for Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, the former Democratic senator from Connecticut who later became an independent, is a co-chair of No Labels, a centrist group that is working to secure ballot access for a potential third-party “unity ticket” in next year’s presidential race. The group describes the effort as an “insurance policy” to prevent President Biden, former president Donald Trump or any other candidate who doesn’t embrace its agenda from being elected if the group sees a path to victory. Lieberman will appear in New Hampshire on Monday with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who’s mulled running for president next year as an independent. We talked with him about whether he wants Manchin to run and how he deals with Democrats who fear that No Labels’ efforts will hand the election to Trump. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. The Early: What’s the message No Labels will be trying to deliver in New Hampshire?
He still had no legal right to overturn the election Raw Story caught legal expert Ryan Goodman on CNN last night making a very important point: One of the most important elements for special counsel Jack Smith to establish in order to charge former President Donald Trump in connection with the plots to overturn the 2020 presidential election, is to establish his intent — something he is attempting to do with his new interviews with Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner. But crucially, New York University law professor and former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman told a CNN panel on Thursday, that does not mean Smith has to prove Trump didn’t truly believe that the election was stolen from him. “The best possible evidence they can get — and we don’t know exactly whether Jared Kushner or Hope Hicks gave them this — is Donald Trump acknowledging that he knows he lost,” said former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. “It’s one thing to be told by certain people that he lost, because there were other people telling him he did not lose.
Oh Gov. DeSantis? While you are conducting a “war on woke” your state has a serious problem: In places like California, Louisiana and Florida, insurers are balking at covering problems made worse by the climate crisis. The problem got worse for the Sunshine State this week, as Farmers Insurance Group served notice it would no longer be in the business of home, auto or umbrella coverage there, per the Orlando Sentinel’s Jeffrey Schweers. This affects 100,000 Florida homeowners. Ten other companies had already left “in the midst of the state’s relentless insurance crisis, which has caused premiums to skyrocket by 100% or more in some cases. Property owners are bracing for a 40% increase this year,” Schweers reported. California, at least, is doing everything it can to deal with climate change.
SAG-AFTRA and the WGA’s strike is happening in LA and NY and it does my heart good to see that all the showbiz unions are showing solidarity on the picket lines today. And it’s not just IATSE and the others, it’s also the Teamsters and the Teachers unions picketing with them. We need more of this. As we await the impending UPS strike which could happen any time now (and severely impact the economy) maybe the Big Money Boyz on Wall Street and the rest of the 1% should take stock and recognize that the pay structure in America’s business is fucked up. In a time of big profits and full employment, workers are going to flex their muscles and it’s long overdue. If business and industry are smart they’ll recognize that they are going to have to share the wealth — these massive CEO salaries are a disgrace. Everyone knows that the world is changing with new technology and nobody is quite sure where it’s going. But that’s no excuse for these rich assholes to pocket vast sums of money in the meantime while crying poor to the people who produce their product. Workers are getting fed up with that kind of bad faith.
They want to help airlines hide the true cost of their tickets again. This is just stupid: Price transparency on airline tickets could be a thing of the past, as House Republicans push to roll back Obama-era rules that prohibit airlines from advertising anything but their all-in prices, including all required taxes and fees. But Democrats and consumer watchdogs are sounding alarms, saying the change would be a gift to airlines, who could hide the true cost of airfare behind links or fine print — and increase their profits by getting consumers to spend more. “This is a bad idea,” said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League. “Price transparency makes it easier for consumers to comparison shop. … We don’t want to have to do algebra and advanced trigonometry to figure out what it costs.” The Republican provision was tucked into a huge Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization package, one of the few bills considered a must-pass this Congress, by members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
As crews continue to search for an aggressive sea otter that’s been caught on video stealing surfboards, the Monterey Bay Aquarium speaks out on its “interesting history.” “This otter was born in captivity up at UC Santa Cruz. It was not bred in captivity, but its mother was in the wild and had to be re-captured. And when they captured the mother, she was pregnant,” said Kevin Connor with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Subsequently, the sea otter pup — tagged 841 — and its mother were taken to the aquarium to be examined and cared for. The pup was released in June 2020 after it was found to be healthy and old enough to survive in the wild. “We have certain standards for release. They need to be a certain weight. They need to demonstrate they can feed themselves and that they can survive in the wild. Certainly, if an otter is displaying behavior when it’s with us, that says release may not be the best option that would get evaluated by Department of Fish and Wildlife,” said Connor. The mother was determined to be unfit to stay in the wild and was taken to another aquarium.