As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
Karen Tumulty sees a potential benefit from The Loon Ranger finally wearing a mask in public:
The praise that Trump got from his campaign staff for belatedly covering his face is the kind of positive reinforcement that any parent who has ever tried to toilet train a stubborn toddler knows well.
His campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted a photo of Trump in his mask and added a hashtag: #AmericaFirst. Erin Perrine, a spokeswoman, blasted out another image on her Twitter feed and added: “Rocking a mask like a boss.” From Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign, came yet another with the prediction: “Joe Biden is finished.”
If such fatuousness is what it takes to get the president of the United States to behave as a role model during a deadly crisis, go for it.
Maybe some of his supporters will begin to understand that the virus has no ideology. Our smartest scientists are still learning about this disease, and their recommendations have evolved over the past months. Eventually — and let’s hope it is soon — there will be a vaccine. But for now, sensible policies such as social distancing, frequent hand-washing and, yes, covering our faces are the best means we have for protecting ourselves and others and for stemming the spread of the novel coronavirus to the point where the economy can reopen and stay that way.
Will the covidiots follow the lead of their cult leader, The Loon Ranger? Tune in next time for another exciting episode of "The Loon Ranger Rides Again."Perhaps now that Trump has put on a mask, we may see fewer of those videos that are popping up all over social media in which customers are having temper tantrums in Costco and Target, claiming their freedoms are under assault by store policies that mandate masks. Maybe more people might even start wearing them to the superspreader campaign rallies that Trump remains determined to hold.
He's #1:
The notion that Trump would exceed 20,000 claims before he finished his term appeared ludicrous when The Fact Checker started this project during the president’s first 100 days in office. In that time, Trump averaged fewer than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.
Mehdi Hasan discusses the "cancel culture" charge being thrown against the left and sees... hypocrisy:As of July 9, the tally in our database stands at 20,055 claims in 1,267 days.
... Donald Trump has embraced “cancel culture” his entire life. I cannot think of another politician, or public figure, who has spent more time trying to “cancel” critics than the thin-skinned former reality TV star in the Oval Office. Over the years, Trump has called for the boycott of leading U.S. brands such as Macy’s, Apple, and Harley Davidson, among others, because they displeased him in one way or another. He forces those around him into nondisclosure agreements and then threatens them with legal action if they dare speak out against him — including his own niece Mary, whose forthcoming tell-all book the president is desperately trying to … cancel.
This approach has only been amplified since he came into office, a period that has found him publicly and repeatedly trying to cancel both social media companies (“We will strongly regulate, or close them down”) and network news channels (“Challenge their license?”) while calling for prominent journalists who have upset him, such as Chuck Todd and Jemele Hill, to be fired. (In private, Trump has gone much further: according to his former national security adviser, the president wants some journalists to be “executed.”) [snip]
So ignore the hysterical attacks on “cancel culture” from the right. Not only because they are a distortion of the facts and endless talk of a leftist “cancel culture” mob is a “joke” and a “con,” as Osita Nwanevu has documented in the New Republic, but because they are a product of bad faith and brazen hypocrisy.
"Cancel culture for me, but not for thee." Hasan brings plenty of receipts to the table.Right now, in 2020, here in the United States, we have an anti-free speech, authoritarian egomaniac sitting in the White House, backed by a cultish political movement steeped in grievance politics, constantly cracking down on critics, dissenting voices, and unpopular opinions. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have never stood against “cancel culture.” To the contrary, they embody it.
A prime recent example of this is the #Goyaway boycott movement, started after the CEO of Goya Foods, Bob Unanue, gave racist pig man Donald "Rump" Trump a tongue- bath at a White House event on July 9:
The CEO of @GoyaFoods is at a White House event saying we're
"blessed to have a leader" like Trump.
Make your shopping decisions accordingly. pic.twitter.com/lLHSz4mEUV— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) July 9, 2020
Vox's Zeeshan Aleem explains what boycotts like these represent:
Unanue’s right and capacity to express his ideas about the president — or any other matter — remain intact even if profit margins at Goya, a multibillion-dollar company, take a hit due to pushback from boycott campaigns. Instead of free speech, the core issue is the social consequences that accompany taking a political position in a highly polarized political climate. [snip]
For Unanue — the leader of a brand that “represents nurture and community and family and most importantly the kitchen” for Latinx Americans, according to Arellano — to endorse a president who has caused that community, and other communities of color, so much pain brings many a great deal of distress. Not only because Unanue said Trump himself was “incredible,” but because with his praise, Unanue seemed to endorse the president’s damaging policies. [snip]
Unanue remains free to express his political opinions. He took advantage of this freedom at the White House, and again on Fox News. What he’s witnessing with a boycott is not an agenda to prevent him from speaking his mind, but a rejection among a vocal set of fellow citizens of the ideas and endorsements he’s chosen to align himself with.In a truly evil Trumpian move, the White House is trying to discredit the top infectious disease expert in the midst of an out- of- control coronavirus pandemic:
The White House is seeking to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, as President Donald Trump works to marginalize him and his dire warnings about the shortcomings of the U.S. coronavirus response.
In a remarkable broadside by the Trump administration against one of its own, a White House official said Sunday that "several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things." The official gave NBC News a list of nearly a dozen past comments by Fauci that the official said had ultimately proven erroneous.
Among them: Fauci's comments in January that the coronavirus was "not a major threat" and his guidance in March that "people should not be walking around with masks."
You can't find a bottom with these vicious sociopaths. Let's hope Dr. Fauci doesn't take the bait and go.It was a move more characteristic of a political campaign furtively disseminating opposition research about an opponent than of a White House struggling to contain a pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 people, according to an NBC News tally.
Finally, take a look at Infidel 753's link round- up, because it seems to us it keeps growing every week with evermore links to great posts around the Internet. Bookmark his blog while you're at it!
