“As soon as possible. I’ll do everything I can to expedite it,” replies @SecYellen to @NPR about when we can see Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. pic.twitter.com/sLuoql0qly
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 16, 2021
Meanwhile, Fox News and its reporter Peter Doocy contine their campaign to kill as many Americans as possible…
Psaki to Doocy: Our biggest concern here and I frankly think it should be your biggest concern is the number of people who are dying around the country because they are getting misinformation that is leading them to not take a vaccine pic.twitter.com/rOwGDdf3dL
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2021
Analysis: Fox News’s embarrassing blunder in the White House briefing room https://t.co/E9TLgA9JtD
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 16, 2021
… I, like Doocy, was intrigued by where this number came from Thursday. I, unlike Doocy apparently, actually did 30 seconds of research on it. That’s all the time it took to find the publicly available study — which even has the number Psaki cited in its title, “The Disinformation Dozen” — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study was picked up by the likes of NPR and others in May.
Nor did anything in Psaki’s comments Thursday suggest that this was from some kind of government study or research project. But Doocy jumped from her factoid to not just assuming that it was, but also that this amounted to “spying” and that the “spying” was specifically done by the surgeon general’s office (perhaps because Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy appeared with Psaki on Thursday?)…
President Joe Biden said social media platforms such as Facebook ‘are killing people’ by allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to circulate https://t.co/yoIqhoS26D pic.twitter.com/5iw2AijpwG
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 17, 2021
Spanky
The fleas are back. Blech. Time to dose the cats again.
And why is that shit so expensive?
(A: Because they can.)
Spanky
Btw, how can Fox have an embarrassing blunder when they refuse to be embarrassed? Or even admit they’re wrong? If other journalists are embarrassed for them, that’s a problem.
MattF
This is, by far, the stupidest hot take I have ever seen. It appears to be serious.
Baud
@Spanky:
I blame Biden.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We’re back from our 3-day bus trip to Taliesin and various other touristy sites. Taliesin was good. Apparently it had fallen into disrepair a few years back but it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site and is being repaired. We also enjoyed our last stop, Galena, for the Grant stuff. Nine Civil War general came from there which shows you what connections can do. OTOH, House on the Rock in WI was loud, chaotic, and horrifying.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
BJ’s favorite pundit will be all over this on the next episode of Tucker Carlson.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Anne Laurie
It’s by (or ghosted for) Conrad Black, convicted felon & good friend of Donald Trump.
You see Black’s name, you don’t need to bother reading any attached material to know it will be specious… and stupid.
OzarkHillbilly
Ex-St. Louis Police Officer Gets Two Weekends in Jail, (3 years) Probation for Covering Up Beating
Her boyfriend got 52 months, the other 2 cops were convicted in a 2nd trial after their first one ended with a hung jury and have yet to be sentenced.
I bring this up for the sole purpose of quoting the closing paragraph:
In other news, water is still wet, fire is still hot.
The Thin Black Duke
Good morning, folks. I wanted to share my latest essay about The New Normal that the anti-vaxxers given to the rest of us. Although I really try not to indulge in torture porn, I hate what these dickwads did because it never had to go down like this. How did we equate wearing a piece of cloth over our faces to wearing a straitjacket? Maybe I should put a shot of Jim Beam into my next cup of coffee…
dmsilev
@MattF: Even assuming that Trump was capable of moderating himself (a huge huge assumption), his base loves the fact that he’s a performative asshole and everyone else hates his guts and won’t forget the years of performative assholishness, so who exactly would such a shift attract?
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Welcome back! It sounds like it was a fun trip. How did the Duolingo go?
Soapdish
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/108/935/cdf.jpg
Gin & Tonic
@Spanky: I don’t know about fleas, but we have lots of ticks here, and I can say that Simparica is a fucking miracle drug
ETA: Oh, you said cats, sorry.
Rileys Enabler
@The Thin Black Duke: I’d like to put that entire essay on a T-shirt and wear it around. Thanks for the read!
debbie
It’s very sad what hate does to a brain.
MattF
Good news for people who got a J&J shot.
MomSense
@MattF:
Conrad Black is a name I haven’t heard in a very long time. Best to ignore him.
The Thin Black Duke
@Rileys Enabler: Thanks. I think all of us feel like we need to go Full Frontal Howard Beale sometimes.
germy
Biden is winning over rose twitter, one account at a time.
A thread:
MomSense
@germy:
Those fuckers. They were too busy with their Kamala is a cop to pay attention when she was proposing it as a candidate.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
It is indeed a very stupid hot take. The byline says Conrad Black, which explains it all..
The Thin Black Duke
@germy: This is why the GOP is terrified. Enacting progressive policies like the Child Tax Credit totally negates the “both parties are the same” nonsense. No, the crazies will never give an inch, but the people out there with empty pockets and empty bank accounts who aren’t empty-headed will see that it makes a big difference which party is behind the steering wheel of the House, Senate and Presidency. There’s a reason why Mitch is making noises about a deal. (Of course the turtle is lying through his beak. Thankfully, Biden is ignoring him)
germy
leeleeFL
@Baud: So, we’re not blaming Obama anymore? Thank FSM! That was exhausting! Thanks for the heads-up!
Elizabelle
@germy: Ms. rose twitter:
LOL. What’s up with that? And then, in her very next tweet:
Because Democrats need to be pushed to do anything, by rose twitter.
The self importance of this one. It burns.
leeleeFL
@OzarkHillbilly: and, BS still smells bad?
dave319
Hey, Joe! Yeah, Joe Biden, over there! You Are The F*cking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. If you guys have missed the Big Lesson of Trump since 2016–i.e., lead with action, no matter how outrageous to the Village, and let the midget-mind media catch up to you, while succeeding in bending the terms of attention span in your direction–then you guys have failed all those folks who busted their asses to get you elected.
Yeah, Cucker Fox and F*ckbook ae killing people, you’re dead-on 100% correct, Joe. Now convene a presidential media moment–no Q&A, chattering classes, no bothsiderism, no fearful timid centrist Sister Mary Tut-tut squeaking, just “Y’all shaddup and listen”-and use the awesome power of your office to call these evil MFs out directly . Launch a Presidential commission to fight the spread of disinformation simultaneous to Nancy Smash forming a select committee of her own.
Walk. Chew gum. Lincoln did a ton of governing with his other hand while prosecuting the Civil War .
The Thin Black Duke
@Elizabelle: Reminds of of the type of people I would see at condo association meetings. Loud, obnoxious, and constantly bitching about the shit that needed to be done. Did these annoying empty barrels getting in the way ever do anything> Of course not. But they always knew who was doing it wrong.
leeleeFL
@dave319: Wow, who crapped in your cornflakes this morning?
The Thin Black Duke
@dave319: Too much coffee, dude?
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: Thanks, shared on my political feed.
Cameron
different-church-lady
@debbie: Assumes gray matter not in evidence.
The Thin Black Duke
@WereBear: Thanks. By the way, my Beloved (The Fat White Duchess) loves visiting your place.)
different-church-lady
@germy: All you have to do to make Rose Twitter happy is give out money.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Me too!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole: I kept my Duolingo streak going! The trip was fun. There were only 9 of us on a giant bus which lessened the annoyance factor considerably.
If you can see FB, here’s a link to the site belonging to the building I live in. Mr DAW and I are in the first two pictures on the top left. You can see how small the group is and how large the bus is.
zhena gogolia
@dave319:
Oh, go to hell.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MattF: There are big words and numbers in that link. Judging by the title, I assume the immunity is long lasting. Is it stronger than the 60 something percent they quoted at first?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Do any jackals have experience with breast biopsies? How painful is it during and after?
germy
@different-church-lady:
Yes. I’m also happy with the child tax credit, even though my kids are fully grown and taller than me now.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@MomSense: No one better tell them that the monthly, fully-refundable child tax credit was one of Kamala’s signature policy proposals during the primary campaign…
dave319
One criticism of Joe accompanied by one big praise of Joe, from LGM’s review of Rebecca Traister’s piece in NYMag:
“But you have to move forward the best you can. Biden has certainly learned. As we’ve stated many times around here, Biden is a politician’s politician, which means he moves with the party. That hasn’t changed now that he is the party leader. In the 90s, Biden would have been as awful as Bill Clinton. In the 20s, he has the most progressive economic program since Lyndon Johnson. That’s because the grassroots has moved and pushed him hard. Keep on pushing!”
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/07/personnel-is-policy
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
While being a white man.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@The Thin Black Duke: Good essay. I saw a post on Kos yesterday about growing anger toward the unvaccinated. On this trip I just took, almost no one was masked. That was fine on the bus. We’re all vaccinated. But I saw tons of young people especially without masks.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “Stewardess, I can read science words… oh wait, I don’t read biological words.”
I’m a little lost in the jargon and I’m not sure how they measure efficacies like that 60% number. What they’re measuring is antibody response, and the number they’re measuring is something called “titer”. I have no idea how to interpret any of that, but the numbers that jump out at me are:
Also they are talking about a one-dose J & J (10 participants) vs two-doses (10 participants). I didn’t know there was a two-dose J & J.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
No. You get the efficacy number by comparing how many vaccinated people get infected to how many unvaccinated people get infected. To make up some numbers, supposed you have a study with 10,000 vaccinated people and 10,000 people who got the placebo. 5 vaccinated people get sick and 100 people who got the placebo. Because the vaccine reduced infections by 95% (from 100 to 5) it’s considered to be 95% effective.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Thanks. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one who failed to take it in.
OzarkHillbilly
@leeleeFL: Who do you think we blame for Biden?
The Thin Black Duke
@Dorothy A. Winsor: High density environments increase the risk of infection. This isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact. Damned if I know why some folks find this so hard to understand.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: One of those very types survived the Surfside collapse, and is now making “poor me, what are you going to do for me?” noises when, if memory serves, he was one of the firebrands who refused to pay and questioned everything. Aggressively. Very curious if correspondence and the minutes of the board meetings will ever come out. Some of those condo owners doomed themselves and others to their fate.
Always looking for a silver lining: the dangers of condo board management are fatally apparent — in this case, it seems the board tried to do the right thing. A lot of members quit over the years, out of frustration. It was some of the owners who would not cooperate. Absentee or in the rubble? To find out.
Elizabelle
@dave319: Have you met our pie filter?
MomSense
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I had a needle biopsy. It was unpleasant but my girls are dense. I don’t remember it being too bad after, but it was awhile ago.
CarolPW
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve had 2 – no pain at all during and minimal afterwards. Aspirin- rather than Percocet-level pain. I was awake for both, but they are perfectly happy (and some prefer) to knock you out for it if you want.
Good luck.
ETA – mine were cut the lump out biopsies.
laura
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: yep, right here, just had one a couple of months ago. The needle biopsie did not hurt, but the post procedure was tough. the attendings used a tremendous amount of pressure on the site to minimize the potential for swelling. Swelling is bad. Swelling equals pain. But it felt like they took turns standing on one foot on my breast. It was a benign lump and I chose to have it removed instead of monitored. I hope this is helpful info. Get the biopsy, knowledge is power.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Antibody titer is a standard way of testing to see whether a vaccine is successful at producing neutralizing antibodies. They have antigens (the things antibodies are supposed to recognize) from the disease, and they test to see how many antibodies from your blood bind to them. Obviously more binding is better. In this case, it looks as if the antibody levels took almost two months after vaccination to reach their peak and then declined modestly after that. They are still plenty high after 8 months, so the antibody response is still protective after that long. The rate of falloff suggests it will probably stay high enough for a good long while.
They also looked at cellular immunity by seeing how many helper (CD4+) and cytotoxic (CD8+) T-cells responded to the viral protein. Cellular immunity is a kind of second-line response. If your body is challenged by virus, the antibodies can bind to it and keep it from ever getting into your cells. If that’s ineffective, e.g. if you are exposed to so much virus there aren’t enough antibodies to bind it all, cellular immunity takes over. Cytotoxic T-cells kill cells invaded by the virus before it has a chance to reproduce, and Helper T-cells rally the rest of the immune system to fight the disease. A strong cellular immune response means any case is more likely to be mild or asymptomatic rather than moderate or severe.
SFAW
@leeleeFL:
If you had been paying attention, you’d know/recall that Biden is just a figurehead, and that it’s really Obummer who’s controlling him from behind the curtain.
Or is it Soros? Or Hitlary? I can never remember which Spawn of Satan is controlling Sleepy Joe these days.
SFAW
@The Thin Black Duke:
Thanks.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
All of them, Katie.
kindness
I don’t watch Fox so I’m not sure how they edit Doocy’s segments. Must be good editing because he gets pantsed hard every day by Psaki. My rose colored glasses make me miss the era of Walter Cronkite where Republicans felt their opponents were loyal opponents, not the enemy. Our media is failing us as a people.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
You’ve just described New York City!
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I just returned from my weekly errand running. I was one of very few masked shoppers. Screw ’em. Too many new cases not to be concerned.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Dorothy A. Winsor: you say that about house on the rock. next, will you say it about the most famous graduate of west milwaukee high school, liberace?
(i will not stand for this scandalous talk of my fair state.)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@MomSense:
@CarolPW:
Thanks. I think it’s the needle kind. The doctors are being very cautious not to be either alarmed or say “it’s probably nothing” even though it’s probably nothing. I’m doing my best to be the same to just be supportive and not scared, but we’re both tiptoeing around this conversation this weekend and looking a little haunted. Biopsy is a scary word.
The mammogram itself is very painful for her, and the followup was even worse than the routine one.
The Thin Black Duke
@debbie: I’m a South Bronx guy. Don’t ask me how I wound up living in Massachusetts. Too many Red Sox hats around here. Grr.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose: Have you been to House on the Rock???
Gvg
Well, we had been planning a garage sale for 2 weeks from now and we just called it off. My sister the hospital doc reports this week every hospital in north Florida is full of Covid. Two weeks ago her hospital had 1 covid patient. Monday they had 4, Tuesday they had 15 and had to send more to other hospitals. They have lots of staff out sick. She says a third of the employees out sick were vaccinated. Until this week they hadn’t seen a single case in a fully vaccinated person. Also people getting from outdoors close to other people. A cousins nurse friend at a different hospital went from 2 or 3 to 45 covid this week but they were all unvaccinated.
I tried to get things done shopping and all because I knew we would have another wave. Our idiots elected are incapable of learning about go slow, be cautious, don’t try and wish away problems, do the work. I am kind of furious, can you tell?
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: How my grandmother can be an express train: Have wheels
Wyatt Salamanca
Peter Doocy is, hands down, the dumbest goddamn member of the White House Press Corps. This fucking clown is a disgrace to journalism and the first amendment every time he opens his mouth. The apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree because his dad is a goddamn moron as well. I don’t envy Jen Psaki having to deal with this breathtaking buffoon on a daily basis.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve had two needle biopsies. The first a couple of decades ago with no local anesthetic before hand and it was painful. The more recent had a local and no pain at all during the procedure. In both cases there was considerable bruising afterwards and discomfort hat lasted maybe a week. Best wishes for a good result.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Galena’s Congressman, Elihu Washburn, was a political ally of Abraham Lincoln, and was a staunch advocate for Grant and other local officers. Grant had lived in Galena only two years when the war started, and the Congressman hardly knew him. Washburn knew officers who served with Grant, though, and they were impressed by him. When Grant received his promotion to Brigadier General, he is said to have remarked, “This is Washburne’s doing.”
After the Battle of Ft. Donelson, Grant’s thick headed commander Halleck removed Grant from command under vague charges. Illinois officers protested to Washburn, who took the matter up with Lincoln. Lincoln told Halleck basically to put up or shut up, and Grant was restored to command shortly before Shiloh.
Later in the war, Washburne was one of many urging Lincoln to make Grant commander-in-chief, and he helped pass legislation authorizing the rank of lieutenant general. Lincoln then appointed Grant to the position.
CarolPW
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Compared to mammograms my biopsies were pieces of cake – but I had small boobs and small lumps.
Bill Arnold
@The Thin Black Duke:
All the Republican noises/moves about making a deal since Biden was inaugurated have been delaying moves, in part to buy time which in turn buys an increased probability that the Senate power will shift due to death or incapacity (which could go either way, to be clear).
It’s loathsome behavior on their part. Not in the same category of evil as their pro-Pandemic(/mass death) moves for political gain, but still loathsome.
jackmac
@MattF: It’s typical nonsense by the disgraced “Lord” Conrad Black who spent time prison for various counts of fraud. That’s all you need to know.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Protect yourself from the lying unvaccinated ?
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My husband was also horrified by House on the Rock. Because I like kitschy trashy weirdness, I kinda liked it…once. It was damned pricey when we went, which was early ’90’s.
Orange is the New Red
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: biopsy was painless due to numbing shot. Sore a bit after, but not a big deal at all.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
I know how that feels, I lived in Boston before moving to NYC. I had to remain very low-profile when the Bruins played the Rangers because I loved the Bruins. Lots of side eye.
Villago Delenda Est
Doocy is a douche. Who could have ever imagined that? He’s got all the qualities of your standard Villager vermin (lazy, stenographer, entitled, arrogant) coupled with an ideological bent that Goebbels would approve of. Plus, he’s his loathsome father’s son.
Villago Delenda Est
@dave319:
Shorter dave319: “He’s not Bernie! Waaaaah!”
Elizabelle
@jackmac: And, Donald Trump pardoned the deplorable Conrad Black. The Guardian, 16 May 2019:
Got to say, cannot argue with that title. Only thing that might improve it is apostrophes around President.
Old Dan and Little Ann
According to the right, doocy “owns” Psaki every news conference.
Baud
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
The right is a living McNaughton painting.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Dorothy A. Winsor: yes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Of course, the exact opposite is true. The other day the rest of the press corpse laughted at Jen’s first response to Douchy’s idiotic question. “Welcome back!”
planetjanet
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I have had no pain at all with the procedure. One site is slightly numb, but it does not bother me at all.
Zelma
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Re needle biopsy, I’ve had more than my share. The most painful part is that they flatten the breast the way they do with a mammogram. At least, that’s what I experienced. Not fun! The needle part you don’t feel. I am so glad I never have to have a mammogram again. (Or wear a bra.)
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Baud: Which one?
All of them, Katie.
Jerzy Russian
@The Thin Black Duke:
In my case, I have started to put coffee in my Jim Beam.
J R in WV
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I assisted Wife during her biopsy some years back, and just asked her about her experience.
During the procedure she was fully medicated and out, so zero pain during.
Also she reports no pain worthy of mentioning afterwards on our way home from the outpatient event. Her path report was also negative.
We hope this bit of information helps you relax some.
J R in WV
Actually, I had a needle biopsy myself, with local anesthesia the procedure didn’t hurt at all, afterwards my right nipple was V tender for a couple of days, but nothing you would need medication for. Probably near 20 years ago. Bandaid on after, maybe a few drops of blood, Very low impact, really.
trollhattan
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Psaki has yet to successfully defend herself against, “I know you are, but what am I?” Advantage, Doosey.
TriassicSands
@Baud:
Why Tucker may have his newest “greatest scandal in his lifetime. Lucky boy.
TriassicSands
@MattF:
Conrad Black, convicted of felony fraud, sentenced to 42 months in prison, and pardoned by the world’s greatest champion of truth, justice, and the American way, Donald J. Trump. This idiot gave up his Canadian citizenship so he could accept a British peerage. What a piece of work.
Mike G
Fox Doocybag, the Next Generation
dave319
@zhena gogolia: Oh, no, after you. I insist.
dave319
Uh, no. But, by all means, clap. if you must.
Kayla Rudbek
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: it hurts, although I was able to go walk around outside afterwards (after stopping for painkiller on the way home). But I was decidedly not up to moving very fast. My advice: a very supportive and/comfortable bra, and bring your painkillers with you and take them before you get into the car to ride home.