Infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci tore into Fox News host Jesse Watters on Tuesday morning for explicitly urging people to confront him with unproven right-wing accusations in public to create fodder for conservative media.
Continue reading “Fauci Goes Off On Fox Host Jesse Watters For Telling Young Conservatives To ‘Ambush’ Him”Rittenhouse Given A Hero’s Welcome At TPUSA Griftcon
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Hooray You Killed People
Right-wing darling Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted on all charges last month after fatally shooting two people at a Black Lives Matter protest, was a special guest who got his own theme song at conservative group Turning Point USA’s conference in Phoenix Monday night.
- A conservative journalist got booted from the event for asking Rittenhouse why he claimed to support Black Lives Matter:
Why Manchin Tanked Everything
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) griped on Monday that the White House staff had done something to piss him off, resulting in him tanking his negotiations with Biden over the Build Back Better plan. The senator refused to elaborate on his complaint, saying only that “they know the real reason what happened.” What happened, according to Politico and the Hill, was “incivility” (a Very Valid Reason for killing Democrats’ last major shot at combating climate change indeed).
- Last week, Manchin had reportedly asked Biden to keep his name out of the President’s upcoming statement on delaying BBB and was infuriated when the White House put out the statement with his name anyway. The senator then told White House staffers he was done negotiating, according to Politico.
- Manchin, who “believes in civility above all things,” saw Biden’s statement as “a breach of process,” according to Hill columnist Steve Clemons, who cited both the senator’s associates and the White House.
- But let’s go ahead and look at Manchin’s long history of opposing climate change policies as he rakes in more campaign cash from oil, coal and gas industries than any other senator in this election cycle–instead of pretending this is all just about the West Virginia senator’s Staunch Principles and the White House not being nice enough to him.
Manchin’s Counteroffer And Demands
Before he took an axe to BBB on Sunday, Manchin approached the White House with a $1.8 trillion counteroffer last week, according to the Washington Post.
- Manchin’s reported offer: universal pre-K for 10 years, an extension of the Affordable Care Act and scaling back spending on addressing climate change to between $500 billion and $600 billion.
- What Manchin wanted to cut: the child tax credit expansion, a key component of BBB.
- The West Virginia senator has privately told his colleagues that he believes low-income parents would waste the tax credits on drugs, according to HuffPost. He’s also reportedly said that people would use BBB’s proposed paid sick leave to slack off and go on hunting trips (????).
- Still, not all hope for BBB is lost despite Manchin’s stunt. The talks between the senator and Biden aren’t over, and the two men had a cordial conversation on Sunday night, according to Politico and the Washington Post.
Jan. 6 Panel Weighs Potential Criminal Referral Against Trump
The House Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation could lead to sending a criminal referral against Trump to the Justice Department for obstructing Congress when he tried to stop the 2020 election results from getting certified, according to the New York Times.
Alex Jones Sues Jan. 6 Committee
The far-right conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host, currently embroiled in legal trouble thanks to his lies about the Sandy Hook shooting, is dragging the House Jan. 6 panel to court to block it from obtaining his phone records and compelling his testimony.
- Jones argues that his documents were part of his “journalistic activity” and are therefore protected under the First Amendment.
- Jones is also planning on pleading the Fifth, according to his lawsuit.
Michael Fanone Resigns From The Force
D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, who was badly beaten during the Jan. 6 insurrection and became an outspoken witness of the attack, announced on Monday that he was resigning from the force and will officially depart on Dec. 31.
- Fanone will be a contributor on CNN, where he will discuss law enforcement.
- Fanone’s colleagues attacked him in private online chats for calling out MAGAland’s efforts to downplay Jan. 6, the officer told the Washington Post. He said he only has two officers he counts as friends left in the department.
Omicron Now Makes Up Nearly 75% Of New COVID Cases
The new COVID-19 Omicron variant that’s been exploding throughout the country now accounts for a stunning 73 percent of new cases in the U.S, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Biden is giving a speech today at 2:30 p.m. ET on how his administration will combat the variant, which will include:
- Expanding access to free testing by delivering rapid tests to people’s homes, which will begin in January, and by putting up new federal testing sites around the country, starting in New York City
- Offering extra relief to overrun hospitals by activating FEMA response teams to give them extra staffing and increase hospital bed capacity.
WTF Read Of The Day
“Think Santa Is Busy? Ham Sniffers Are Pushing Their Noses to the Limit” – The Wall Street Journal
Maryland Gov. Hogan Tests Positive For COVID
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), a cancer survivor, announced yesterday that he got a positive result during his regular COVID-19 testing routine but is “feeling fine.”
Trump Gets Booed After Saying He Got Booster
The crowd at Trump and disgraced ex-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s Dallas event didn’t respond well to the ex-president admitting he got the COVID-19 booster shot (listen to a flustered Trump insist only a “tiny group” booed):
The COVID-19 spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department jumped on the video. “Be like President Trump, and get your booster shot,” he tweeted.
A Circus Of Cringe
Seriously, can someone tell me what’s going on at this Turning Point USA griftcon here?
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Twilight of Delta
These numbers almost beggar belief. But here they are. According to a Monday CDC report, 73% of COVID infections in the US are now Omicron. Specifically, that was the percentage for the week ending December 18th. The rate of growth of new cases in the New York City metropolitan area has been mind-boggling. So extremely high percentages of Omicron here don’t surprise me at all. (I’ve heard informally that the rates here are roughly 90%.) But nationwide it almost beggars belief, even though we’ve seen comparable trajectories in the UK and Denmark.
Here’s the chart from the CDC …
Continue reading “Twilight of Delta”Where Things Stand: In Tucker’s World, Insurrectionists Were Just Hanging Out In ‘Their Building’
Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his recent appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix as a barely-veiled soft pitch for his new “documentary” about Jan. 6, a highly produced mashup that nods toward nearly every conspiracy theory about that day festering in the far-right corners of the internet.
Carlson gave a speech at the conservative youth event, regaling the audience with a colorful anecdote about 26th U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt’s proclivity for going out to the White House lawn to speak with American citizens during his presidency … 120 years ago.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: In Tucker’s World, Insurrectionists Were Just Hanging Out In ‘Their Building’”Jan. 6 Panel Asks Member Of Congress For Info For The First Time
The Jan. 6 Committee asked Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) for information about the attack on the Capitol and the Big Lie on Monday. It’s the first time that the committee has publicly turned its investigation of the insurrection towards a sitting member of Congress.
Continue reading “Jan. 6 Panel Asks Member Of Congress For Info For The First Time”The Sausage Making: Even Moderates Are Pissed At Manchin
Your intermittent briefing on negotiations over the reconciliation bill.
As Democrats reckon with Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) newly aggressive opposition to the reconciliation bill, even moderates are realizing that he put them in an impossible position.
Continue reading “The Sausage Making: Even Moderates Are Pissed At Manchin”Jayapal Calls On Biden To Do As Much As He Can Through Executive Action, Citing Manchin’s ‘Lack Of Integrity’
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called on President Joe Biden to use executive action as a last resort in the face of Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) “lack of integrity” after he announced his opposition to the President’s signature Build Back Better reconciliation bill.
Continue reading “Jayapal Calls On Biden To Do As Much As He Can Through Executive Action, Citing Manchin’s ‘Lack Of Integrity’”Inside the Manchin Blow Up
We’re getting a bit more sense here of the final blow up that led to the demise of the BBB. Apparently the real blow up was that the White House put out a statement last week in which the President said he believed he was making progress on finalizing a Build Back Better deal with Joe Manchin. The key apparently was that he named Manchin specifically rather than Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema or Manchin and the rest of the caucus or whatever else.
Continue reading “Inside the Manchin Blow Up”Blue Dog Democrat Announces Retirement As Dems Stare Down Grim 2022
Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) announced Monday that she would not be seeking another term in Congress after just five years years on the job.
Continue reading “Blue Dog Democrat Announces Retirement As Dems Stare Down Grim 2022”Gloomy Economic Forecasts Follow Manchin’s Build Back Better Blowup
Economic forecasters are downgrading predictions for the United States’ GDP growth in 2022 following news that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will oppose the Build Back Better reconciliation bill in its current form.
Continue reading “Gloomy Economic Forecasts Follow Manchin’s Build Back Better Blowup”