Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Giving up is unforgivable.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

When I was faster i was always behind.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Repub Venality Open Thread: Rand Paul Is Pro-Virus

Repub Venality Open Thread: Rand Paul Is Pro-Virus

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Dr. Fauci didn’t actually use the phrase ‘two-bit grifter’, but you could see he was thinking it…

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49Comments

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    The big thing for me is the doublethink on display. On the one hand, COVID is a gigantic nothingburger, and we shouldn’t be taking the kinds of steps we’re taking to combat it. On the other hand, Dr. Fauci is responsible for millions of deaths from the pandemic. It’s unreasonable to believe both things, but unreasonable has never stopped the Republicans.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    From the morning’s open thread:

    204.
    SiubhanDuinne
    JANUARY 11, 2022 AT 11:13 AM
    Fireworks — again! — between Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci at a committee hearing. I’m sure the clip will be all over the news and internets later.

    I knew the minute it happened it was going to be A Story, and sure enough, it’s led almost every newscast and political Twitter account!

  7. 7.

    japa21

    Does anybody know what Paul was talking about when he accused Fauci of politically attacking top epidemiologist.

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    I got a fair amount of pushback here for criticizing the glacial pace of ambassadorial appointments by Biden and Blinken. Well, it gets worse, as they seem committed to appointing hacks when they bestir themselves to move the process.  George Tsunis, whose only apparent qualification is being a campaign donor, is nominated as Ambassador to Greece. In his last appearance before the Senate, when Mr. Tsunis was nominated by Barack Obama to be Ambassador to Norway, he beclowned himself so badly that he withdrew.

    If this were a country to which the US had a history of posting hacks, it would be one thing, but the current Ambassador is the very highly regarded career Foreign Service Officer Gregory Pyatt.

    I know the previous administration did not take diplomatic relations seriously, but I had hoped that would change.

  14. 14.

    Scout211

    Open thread, but slightly off topic. But really on topic regarding idiot Republicans, though.

    The USPS under DeJoy is just awful. I sent my daughter a box of N95s and KN95s on Friday and it took less that 24 hours to reach Seattle (which is less than 2 hours by truck to her house). Instead of being delivered to her house on Monday, it disappeared from tracking and then was finally scanned . . .  in AUSTIN, TEXAS!

    And oh yeah, we just got the Christmas card she sent to us . . . TODAY! Sigh. 

    There’s a lot of differing opinions here, but on Rand Paul and Postmaster DeJoy, I am pretty sure we all agree.

  15. 15.

    Dan B

    @Gin & Tonic: You’re not the only person upset with this appointment. But Rufus Gifford got the second in command at State and he seems great plus gay.  He’s got charisma in spades.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Don’t know whether anyone here watches Chris Hayes on MSNBC, but I understand Dr Fauci will be his guest sometime during the next hour to talk about (inter alia) his antler-locking today with Rand Paul and Roger Marshall.

  19. 19.

    Eunicecycle

    @Scout211: oh no, not Austin! Because I’m pretty sure there’s a black hole at the post office there. My son lives there and we have a terrible time mailing things to him. They disappear or are returned to us although the mailing is addressed properly. It’s bizarre.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Dan B: I must be missing something  – how do his charisma or his gayness get qualified Ambassadors nominated more quickly?

  21. 21.

    RaflW

    I’m certainly glad that Dr. Fauci has taken the gloves off.

    Unfortunately, I just don’t think the GOP is ever going to be impacted by any Joseph Welch “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” type moments.

  22. 22.

    bbleh

    No no, you see, Senator Paul is just asking questions, to which the American People deserve answers!

    I mean, if Dr. Fauci isn’t making millions of dollars personally by promoting a fake pandemic scare, well then let him prove it, out in the light of day where everyone can see, and not in his secret underground George-Soros-funded Big Pharma / Big Tech elitist hideout, along with Hillary Clinton and the Pelosi Squad!  (I’ve heard they’re holding JFK Jr prisoner there too!)

    Really, if everyone just drank their own urine, instead of paying Big Pharma for their Death Jabs (and don’t talk to me about how they’re free), then we wouldn’t have any of this to worry about!

  24. 24.

    RaflW

    @delk: Truth is a defense.
    I’m sure the civility brigade will pass out cold from the shock. But I also think that kabuki has lost its impact, what with Margarine Traitor Greene, CO’s Lorena Bobbitt (no, that’s not quite right, is it) and so on.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    The big thing for me is the doublethink on display. On the one hand, COVID is a gigantic nothingburger, and we shouldn’t be taking the kinds of steps we’re taking to combat it.

    Rand Paul and the other right wing idiots have been pushing the “Covid is nothing, we should just return to normal” nonsense since forever. They will continue to do so in hopes of people getting tired of Covid and getting tired of attempts to fight it. Ultimately, they want to get rid of or neutralize public health officials.

    Quebec, for example, recently saw the resignation of their chief health official:

    Quebec’s public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda has resigned after serving as the province’s top health official throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Arruda submitted his resignation in a letter to Premier Francois Legault Monday, which the premier accepted, according to his office.

    In the letter, Arruda said he gave the best of himself as he helped lead the province’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, but that recent comments about the credibility of his and his team’s advice have “eroded the public’s trust and adhesion.”

    It doesn’t matter to these dopes how many people die or suffer from Long Covid. And so, they will keep bringing pointless challenges to Fauci and the CDC.

    On the other hand, Dr. Fauci is responsible for millions of deaths from the pandemic. It’s unreasonable to believe both things, but unreasonable has never stopped the Republicans.

    The right wing nut jobs will play this down or link it to some insane conspiracy theory that suits their purpose.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @japa21: Does anybody know what Paul was talking about when he accused Fauci of politically attacking top epidemiologist.

    Back in October 2020 — when the pandemic was in full spate and there were no proper vaccines — three Radical Free-Thinking Scientists published their Great Barrington Declaration, basically claiming that if ‘we’ would just lock up all the Olds and the Cripples for a few weeks or months, the Youngs could go back to their pre-pandemic freedoms and the magic of Herd Immunity would become universal salvation.  This document was signed by ‘thousands’ of ‘important scientists’, only some of whom were obvious frauds like Dr. Hugh Jarse, Chief Epidemiologist at Fekk U.

    The people actually trying to quench the pandemic reacted to this with the predictable anger & outrage, and of course some of their private messages were selectively edited & leaked.  It’s clear in hindsight that the Geenyus Plan was bullshit on stilts, but its very existence has become a magical talisman, especially among glibertarians like Young Prince Rand — if only we’d had the clearsighted WILL to let the takers & eaters die quickly, think of the Galtian paradise we’d now share!

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I got a fair amount of pushback here for criticizing the glacial pace of ambassadorial appointments by Biden and Blinken. Well, it gets worse, as they seem committed to appointing hacks when they bestir themselves to move the process.

    I had not been paying attention to this process. But it seems to be a game of nonsense and double nonsense pushback by GOP asswipes. From a December 15 story,

    President Joe Biden announced two high-profile diplomatic nominations on Wednesday, tapping Caroline Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, to be his envoy to Australia and Michelle Kwan, the world-famous figure skater, to be ambassador to Belize.

    The announcements were the latest chapter in the Biden administration’s ongoing effort to install American ambassadors overseas, an effort that has been effectively halted in the Senate by two ambitious Republicans, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

    Hawley seems to want to punish Biden for Afghanistan.

    Apart from this, there is a long practice of some cushy ambassadorships (UK, France, Luxembourg) going to big donors or other VIPs.  Deputies and other folk would be foreign service veterans.

  29. 29.

    Eolirin

    @Gin & Tonic: I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the nominated Ambassadors were mostly ceremonial postings and that the career staff did all of the actual work anyway?

  30. 30.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    Paul knows just when to start to talking over Dr. Fauci.  It’s like we have a Congress where half the members are all Joe McCarthy.

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Brachiator: Hawley and Cruz cannot delay a nomination that is not even submitted, as in the case of Ukraine and a host of other countries. And Greece is not typically a country to which a clown is nominated.

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    @Anne Laurie:

    … basically claiming that if ‘we’ would just lock up all the Olds and the Cripples for a few weeks or months, the Youngs could go back to their pre-pandemic freedoms and the magic of Herd Immunity would become universal salvation.

    And in the meantime, in the real world, protection of immuno-compromised people will be an ongoing challenge, even if Covid becomes extremely mild, because it is not going to magically just disappear.

  33. 33.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Eolirin: Most US Ambassadors are career Foreign Service Officers. Yes, countries such as the UK or Japan will get a friend or donor, but most don’t.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Hawley and Cruz cannot delay a nomination that is not even submitted, as in the case of Ukraine and a host of other countries. And Greece is not typically a country to which a clown is nominated.

    I am not really disagreeing with you. However, if the GOP nitwits are going to continue to block nominations anyway, their antics will make things worse.

    But clearly, the Democrats also want to take care of their friends.

    George Tsunis is President Biden’s top choice as the new ambassador to Greece as of Friday afternoon. Tsunis is a personal friend of the US President.

    Once proposed by former President Obama to be an ambassador to Norway, the businessman, whose family is from Nafpaktos, is said to be a personal choice of powerful Democratic philhellene senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

    This guy is also a big Democratic party donor.

    Also, I see that when Obama was trying to get ambassadors approved, Norway went 23 months without an ambassador.

    The whole process stinks.

  36. 36.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Brachiator: Maybe Norway went 23 months because Barack Obama nominated a wildly unqualified donor who embarrassed himself before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and withdrew?

    Is it OK to point out that the Biden administration is mis-handling a critical process here on B-J?

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    This Covid related story is interesting:

    The Canadian province of Quebec will charge a health tax to residents who are not vaccinated against Covid-19.

    Quebec, which has seen the highest number of Covid-related deaths in Canada, is currently struggling with a surge in cases.

    On Tuesday, the premier announced that it would be the first in the nation to financially penalise the unvaccinated.

    Only about 12.8% of Quebec residents are not vaccinated, but they make up nearly half of all hospital cases.

    I bet this would make Rand Paul howl.
     

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Brachiator: Once proposed by former President Obama to be an ambassador to Norway, the businessman, whose family is from Nafpaktos, is said to be a personal choice of powerful Democratic philhellene senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

    Bob Menendez. That explains a lot

  39. 39.

    Unique uid

    I think my doctor signed onto that Great Barrington Declaration. I’d been sort of laid back about it, but I had an appointment last week. I called up several days prior to try to convert to video meeting (high covid numbers…). The scheduler said that “No, Joe doesn’t do that tech stuff”. I ended up just totally cancelling.
    I’m thinking I should look for a new doctor…

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic: ​
     

    Is it OK to point out that the Biden administration is mis-handling a critical process here on B-J?

    Again, you are picking a fight with someone on your side. Is it OK to provide some context?

    I agreed with you that the Greece nominee is primarily a Biden buddy.

    I personally know a foreign service veteran who was pointlessly delayed when Obama tapped him for an assignment and who was given a super shitty slot under the Trump regime. He was justly rewarded later by Biden with something that acknowledged his talents.

    But yeah, some of Biden’s picks are not good. But they are also part of an long tradition of rewarding friends. Hell, Reagan’s choice for ambassador to Mexico was former actor John Gavin.

  43. 43.

    Scout211

    @Unique uid:

    I’m thinking I should look for a new doctor…

    I would be thinking the same thing If I were in your situation. Finding a new doctor is not always an easy thing to do but it could be worth it.

  44. 44.

    Citizen Alan

    @Cacti:

    Rando’s neighbor should put up a go fund me page that just says I’m the guy who punched Rand Paul.  Is it make a million dollars.

  45. 45.

    dopey-o

    @Unique uid:  I called up several days prior to try to convert to video meeting (high covid numbers…). The scheduler said that “No, Joe doesn’t do that tech stuff”. I ended up just totally cancelling.

    I’m thinking I should look for a new doctor…

    If your doc can’t manage to do Facetime or Zoom, he probably isn’t up to speed on aerosol spread or infectious diseases.

    My sister had to postpone a much-needed surgery because her surgeon didn’t subscribe to all that ‘contagious virus’ stuff. When he died on a ventilator, he left a wife and 4 kids bereft.

    You definitely want a new doctor. Your first conversation might start with their views on hand washing and germ theory, then move up to  contagion and exponential spread.

  48. 48.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:

    @Baud:

    Double think? They don’t seem to be able to actually think at all. Bullshit, scream(or what is it that little kids do, shrill bullshit?) stomp their wittle feets, and cry for their daddy, SFB, now that they can do. As others are saying, they claim Dr. Fauci, is both responsible for and doing nothing about the same problem. They say and repeat this in the same sentence. Their logic is totally no logic whatsoever, more commonly known as pure fucking bullshit.

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    The whole process stinks.

    I can’t disagree. But. What does an ambassador actually do? My understanding is that they are a communication point between countries. And depending on the country they may have a tougher job than that, but most do not. I would ask how many presidents in the last 50 yrs has filled positions any faster than Joe Biden? I don’t know the answer but I’d bet this isn’t far away from the norm, one way or the other.

    I believe it’s just one more point to draw bullshit negativity upon President Biden.

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