U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) is demanding the media hold the Democrats’ “feet to the fire” and find out “how many” Democrats in the House and Senate “are willing to say whether or not they’ve been vaccinated?”
When told by a reporter every Democrat in the House and Senate is fully vaccinated, Jackson wanted “evidence.”
The press, especially CNN, has kept a running tally for months of every member of the House and Senate and their vaccination status. Continue reading.
Analysis: Top Trump supporters keep casting doubt on Covid-19 vaccines. Ahead of next year’s midterms, that means missing a chance to give Trump credit.
WASHINGTON — As the delta variant of the coronavirus courses through the American bloodstream, the Republican Party can’t make up its mind about vaccines.
Former President Donald Trump has said that people should get inoculated but also that he wants to respect their right to choose not to. For the most part, he’s been as reluctant to urge vaccinations as his political base has been resistant — perhaps leery of crossing his own voters, even though deaths are higher in traditionally conservative regions.
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged Americans to get dosed this week and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., released a photo of his injection, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was suspended from Twitter for spreading misinformation that played down the risk of the virus, which has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S. Continue reading.
An Alabama doctor has revealed heartbreaking details about her recent conversations with patients dying from COVID-19, amid a surge in cases caused by the Delta variant in the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the nation.
“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID,” Dr. Brytney Cobia wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.
“A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” Cobia added. “They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.” Continue reading.
GOP candidate for governor Scott Jensen is slated to participate in a virtual event with a group that strongly questions COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness and was founded by a doctor arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Simone Gold, a physician who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, tweeted on Mondaythat Jensen is among speakers for a July 27 livestream hosted by her group.
“Don’t miss the critical information you need to navigate the deception and confusion of the Chinese Coronavirus lockdowns and the derelict public health response,” an event flyer says. “Content will include brilliant and ethical doctors speaking truthfully and delivering the verified science and data.” Continue reading.
Thanks to a roaring economy, plunging joblessness and a consumer spending spree, it probably won’t come as a surprise that the COVID-19 recession is officially over.
We didn’t know this, formally, however, until July 19, 2021, when a group of America’s top economists determined that the pandemic recession ended two months after it began, making it the shortest downturn on record.
As an economist who has written a macroeconomics textbook, I was eagerly waiting to know the official dates. This is in part because I recently asked my Boston University MBA students to make guesses, and we all wanted to know who was closest to the mark. While many of my students ended up nailing it, I was off by a month. Continue reading.
As the coronavirus’s Delta variant rips through conservative communities, most Republicans remain reluctant to confront vaccine misinformation and skepticism in their midst.
WASHINGTON — As the coronavirus surges in their states and districts, fanned by a more contagious variant exploiting paltry vaccination rates, many congressional Republicans have declined to push back against vaccine skeptics in their party who are sowing mistrust about the shots’ safety and effectiveness.
Amid a widening partisan divide over coronavirus vaccination, most Republicans have either stoked or ignored the flood of misinformation reaching their constituents and instead focused their message about the vaccine on disparaging President Biden, characterizing his drive to inoculate Americans as politically motivated and heavy-handed.
On Tuesday, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican who said he had received his first Pfizer vaccine shot only on Sunday, blamed the hesitance on Mr. Biden and his criticism of Donald J. Trump’s vaccine drive last year. Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, said skeptics would not get their shots until “this administration acknowledges the efforts of the last one.” Continue reading.
Life expectancy in the United States dropped by a year and a half in 2020 — a continuation of a worrisome decline that was observed in the first half of last year as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the country, according to federal data released Wednesday.
The decline, which is the largest seen in a single year since World War II, reflects the pandemic’s sustained toll on Americans, particularly the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on communities of color. Black Americans lost 2.9 years of life expectancy while Latinos, who have longer life expectancy than non-Hispanic Blacks or Whites, saw a drop of three years. There was a decrease of 1.2 years among White people.
“It’s horrific,” said Anne Case, a professor emeritus of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. “It’s not entirely unexpected given what we have already seen about mortality rates as the year went on, but that still doesn’t stop it from being just horrific, especially for non-Hispanic Blacks and for Hispanics.” Continue reading.
Ex-Fox News Reporter Rips Tucker Carlson: ‘Leading Lemmings To Their Own Slaughter’
Former Fox News reporter Carl Cameron on Monday called out Tucker Carlson’s doubtful diatribes against COVID-19 vaccines, saying his ex-colleague at the conservative network was “gaslighting” viewers for ratings and revenue.
“It’s about ratings and ratings ultimately become revenue, and that’s the name of the game,” Cameron told CNN’s “New Day” about personalities on Fox and other hyperpartisan media outlets that have questioned the shots. Vaccine resistance has now become a GOP rallying cry, even though the shots have been shown safe and effective.
“Whoever gets the most clicks on social media, makes the most money, gets the most fame, gets the most attention and that type of activity is not journalism,” Cameron continued. “It’s not news. It’s gaslighting. It’s propaganda.” Continue reading.
A White House staffer and an aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tested positive for the coronavirus this week, officials confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday.
Neither individual had close contact with President Biden or Pelosi, officials said, but the cases reflect the ongoing threat of the virus to lawmakers, administration officials and their staff as coronavirus cases spike across the country.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters there had been other positive tests among White House staffers, though she did not provide details on how many or when they happened. Continue reading.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday escalated his ongoing feud with the nation’s top infectious diseases doctor Anthony Fauci about the role the National Institutes of Health (NIH) played in funding controversial research in Wuhan, China.
The two traded barbs during a tense exchange, triggering a shouting match in which Fauci accused Paul of lying in order to further his agenda.
During a Senate Health Committee hearing about the federal COVID-19 response, Paul said the NIH funded illegal gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which created a highly dangerous and transmissible virus able to infect humans. Gain-of-function is a controversial method where researchers make a pathogen more infectious, often to develop more effective treatments and vaccines. Continue reading.
