Opinion | Fact check: Is Kevin McCarthy a ‘moron’? <– fabulous .. Republicans don't send their best… https://t.co/HI7Kw7Ly0i
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 30, 2021
Dana Milbank would like you to know — Kevin McCarthy is making white guys in nice suits look terrible, which is exasperating to Dana Milbank*:
After Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy this week decried the House’s new face mask requirement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) replied with a considered response: “He’s such a moron.”
Mean! But if the dunce cap fits …
Such an incendiary charge by Pelosi demands a fact check: Is McCarthy, in fact, a moron? Let’s weigh the evidence.
The very day Pelosi called him a moron, McCarthy complained on the House floor that the latest mask guidance came from a study in India (not so) of an unapproved vaccine (also not so) that “didn’t even pass purr review.” Was he waiting for a litter of kittens to examine the data?…
The day after Pelosi called him a moron, McCarthy made yet more important points at another news conference.
On President Biden: “The president, we sat to met with, that we wanted to be — keep our path be energy independent.”
On a retired colleague: “Former liberal senator Barbara Boxer is now has the effect of being robbed in Oakland.”
On Pelosi: “She will go at no elms to break the rules.”…
Long before McCarthy became Trump’s “my Kevin,” he had a rocky relationship with the English language…
But does this make McCarthy a “moron”? There might be another explanation. I asked McCarthy’s communications director, Matt Sparks, if the leader has a speech disability (in which case I wouldn’t ridicule him). But Sparks made no such claim, instead calling my ongoing interest in McCarthy’s words “a bit sad and very odd.”
Alas, this leaves only one possible conclusion, which I deliver with no elms: Pelosi’s claim earns the rating “mostly true.”
*(Milbank may also be aware that his paper’s ‘Pinocchio fact checker‘ is a target of general scorn)
NotMax
FYI (WaPo links).
Also,
Keith P.
McCarthy has a raging case of “dumb eyes”.
dr. bloor
Coming tomorrow: will the sun rise in the east? Stay tuned to find out!
JMG
My son’s wedding in Brooklyn is a week from tomorrow. He got his first cancellation today, from the (delightful and super) wife of one of his best friends and groomsmen. She’s pregnant. Also got some emails asking “it’s outdoors, right?” It is and it isn’t. It’s in a boathouse, so there’s shelter from the storm but also plenty of room outside.
Jeffro
Mask-wearing is a reminder that the mask-mocking orange moron fucked up his handling of the pandemic so badly that ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden snuck into office. And that’s just unforgivable.
Mask-wearing means you believe in science, not Trumpov’s pronouncements all last year that ‘all is well’. And that’s just unforgivable.
Mask-wearing means you’re a pansy, not a he-man like Mr. Head-Airbrushed-Onto-Rocky’s body. So be a pansy if you must, but it means you forfeit your right to govern in any way…meaning that telling other people they have to wear a mask is a no-no. Lib pansies don’t tell trumpies what to do – that’s just unforgivable.
debbie
Day by day, word by word, Kev’s morphing into Fat Boy, just like Kafka’s cockroach.
debbie
@JMG:
Can they Zoom it for nervous friends, or is that too tacky?
Bex
@NotMax: Global Vision Bible Church. So much wrong with that whole concept…
Anne Laurie
@Jeffro: Walmart’s just announced that its managers will be required to get vaxxed, while workers will be required to mask up & ‘encouraged’ w/$150 bonuses to get vaxxed.
I’m guessing a lot of red-state holdouts are going to give in & get vaxxed, bitching & moaning the whole way. Like teenagers whose totally unreasonable parents insist on fetching them home from the party, just because some kids might’ve had a drink or six…
JPL
In GA we have seat belts, air bags, hands free cell phone calls, and many other regulations. Unfortunately masks aren’t one of them. freedumb
brantl
NotMax
@Jeffro
Lest we forget, Dolt 45:
January 22, 2020: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 26, 2020: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
“We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27, 2020: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
March 10, 2020: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
japa21
Is McCarthy a moron? Quite obviously, the answer is yes. Unfortunately for the country, most of the Republicans in Congress are even more moronic than he is.
brantl
@NotMax: I hope this works out exactly as it should. Ignorant twits.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: Wearing a mask also means that you didn’t like TFG’s Noble Peace Prize nominated performance as Evita on the White House balcony. And that’s just unforgivable!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I think the biggest thing is that mask wearing shows you’re one of Them, not one of Us. It’s all about proving you’re part of the group.
Baud
@NotMax:
They’ll be fine cuz Jesus don’t want ’em.
NotMax
The ‘show’ must go on.
Spanky
I would argue that Kevin McCarthy is not a moron.
The dude’s an imbecile. Tops.
Steeplejack (phone)
Speaking of morons . . . vaccine resistance explained in very simple terms.
NotMax
@Baud
Picturing Jeebus doing the Nelson Muntz laugh.
//
Mike in NC
The Bozo from Bakersfield is a piece of work.
Another Scott
One for Not Max. [Bah, it’s supposed to show the 4th picture.]
(via Cory Doctorow via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
guachi
Jennifer Rubin reads Doug J’s NYT PitchBot Twitter feed. I wonder if she’s ever read BJ itself.
Spanky
@guachi: Absolutely, so look sharp!
sab
@Steeplejack (phone): Vaccine resistance now makes sense to me. Sheeple.
MagdaInBlack
Nice word play on one of my favorite songs, AL ?
prostratedragon
@debbie: I need to reread that story — it’s been decades. As I recall, it was as if Gregor was the last to glom on to a long, well-known fact.
Major Major Major Major
Might do an open thread later tonight with a link back, might not, but wanted to remind folks about the informative post I did a month ago about how to interpret “the majority of infections were among the vaccinated.” Don’t fall prey to the base rate fallacy! https://balloon-juice.com/2021/06/27/mrna-vaccines-work-well-against-the-delta-variant/
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
You’re not the boss of me.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
Also a reminder that you don’t slurp the Soviet shitpile’s fat, orange, fascist ass unlike all of the Dump-humping trash.
Ten Bears
*(Milbank may also be aware that his paper’s ‘Pinocchio fact checker‘ is a target of general scorn)
A victim of Evalyn Wood, first glance I saw fart checker …
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Do you remember off the top of your head when the orange shitstain started bellowing “Hoax!”?
Origuy
Olive and Mabel at the Olympics
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Ewww.
No need to go back and look at that picture of ribs from last night as an appetite restorer.
;)
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
One half second after his butt was slapped at birth?
:)
More seriously, no, don’t rightly recall a precise time.
NotMax
@NotMax
No = Now
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I’ve heard the guy enough to believe he does indeed have some kind of speech or learning disability. But of course he could never say so, nor could his staff, because I’m their eyes, any kind of disability is shameful and weak, and must be hidden.
James E Powell
Okay, now do Fact Check: Is Kevin McCarthy an ‘asshole’?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Baud! may fall prey to the base rate fallacy.
dmsilev
The Post has a story about vaccine holdouts who, faced with Delta, have changed their minds and gotten their shots. A few of the anecdotes:
West of the Cascades
Milbank still has much penance to do for his “Mad Bitch” video with Cillizza, but his writing and ability to mostly have his eyes open have improved tremendously since the latter left for CNN.
Ken
See, you don’t have to hit people upside the head with a 2×4 to get their attention. Just fill their lungs with necrotizing tissue.
Brachiator
All indicators point to YES.
Earlier this week I read a news story where McCarthy claimed that the Democrats’ mask advisory was not “following the science.” However, as far as anyone can tell, his objections have about the same factual foundation as Trump’s dumb ass claims of election fraud. That is, zero.
hells littlest angel
Milbank really has grown since the days of “Mouthpiece Theater.” Really. He has become a good journalist.
Baud
Via Reddit
https://i.redd.it/0rfmqkbptee71.jpg
Kristine
@Origuy: I love Olive and Mabel.
NotMax
@Brachiator
And when they showed up for their bad street theater rigamarole at the jail this week, they were masked.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
One of the best explanations of base rate bias, with nice graphics, can be found here:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-infected-are-vaccinated
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Via the ACJ: Fulton elections takeover would make history
I don’t know what these fucks hope to accomplish. Fulton is a Democratic stronghold. Do they seriously think people won’t notice or just roll over if they try hinky shit?
NotMax
@Brachiator
Mr. Base Man, you’ve got that certain somethin’
Mr. Base Man, you set those numbers jumpin’
To you it’s easy when you go 1-2-3, d-d-be -bop-a-bop
(voice: You mean be -be -BOP-p-p-bop bop bop…)
Yeah!
.
Percysowner
@Major Major Major Major: I’m vaccinated the ONLY reason I worry is that I take care of a 3 year old granddaughter and she can’t be vaccinated yet. The one worry I have is that I will get COVID, be fine but give it to her and she might not be fine. So masks indoors from here on out.
Plus, I’m planning to break out my masks every flu season from now until forever.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
At this point it’s mutated into a fund raising mechanism rather than a policy with any sort of even tenuous toehold on reality.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Did you see the Ohio action alert in the sidebar(computer)/bottom(mobile) that Watergirl put up?
dmsilev
@Ken: Via the FTNYT, Some in Missouri Seek Covid-19 Shots in Secret, Doctor Says
Ken
If they knew what HIPAA actually said, they wouldn’t worry.
Though it might be something of a giveaway if they wind up in an “I only am escaped alone to tell thee” scenario.
NotMax
@dmsilev
“How’d it go today?”
“Not too bad. we got five Lone Rangers, four Grouchos, three Harpos, two Alfred E. Neumans and one Lena the Hyena.”
dmsilev
@Ken: No kidding. Do these people think there’s a public Vaccine List that is published to Facebook every Friday afternoon or something?
Actually, the right analogy to use is abortion clinics. Oh so many right-wing hypocrites out in front protesting, and then quietly sneaking themselves or their daughter in through the back door when needed. But that doesn’t count, because reasons. Also, note how the anti-vaccine people have stolen the “my body, my choice” slogan.
Danielx
@mrmoshpotato:
I may never eat again.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Relating to Israel and base rates, it sounds as if some of the doom and gloom about the vaccine not protecting well against Delta based on Israeli data was based on a flawed interpretation. As the article you linked to points out, to calculate the effectiveness of the vaccine, you need to compare the percent of cases who were vaccinated divided by percent of the population vaccinated to the percent of cases among the unvaccinated divided by the percent of the population that’s unvaccinated.
In the real world this can be trickier than it sounds because neither the vaccination rate nor the transmission rate are constant across the country. If you use the national figure for the percentage of the population that’s vaccinated but the biggest outbreak happens to be in an area with an atypical vaccination rate, you’ll get your numbers wrong.
For example, suppose the national vaccination rate is 70%, and you see that 70% of the sick population is unvaccinated. Grinding through the numbers, you’ll figure that the vaccine is something like 82% effective. But if the biggest outbreak is in an area with higher than average vaccination rate, so that the virus is seeing an average of 80% vaccinated people, the actual number would be closer to 89% effective.
It sounds as if this is exactly what happened with the Israeli data. It just happened that the biggest outbreak was in an area with higher than average vaccination, so the calculations based on the national rate were underestimating the effectiveness of the vaccine. Naturally, antivaxers- and media people looking for sensational headlines- seized on the Israeli data and ignored the data from elsewhere that suggested the vaccines are still very effective against Delta.
raven
Co-Ed track!
Jeffro
@NotMax: yup
And wasn’t it in early Feb 2020 that he told Bob Woodward that he’d been briefed, and it was a “highly contaigious, airborne virus”?
Jeffro
@NotMax: this is excellent (seriously)…may many, many more institutions, attractions, and venues follow suit
Jeffro
@Steeplejack (phone): the morons are in the comments/replies…good god…
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
I don’t think what’s going on in Atlanta is mostly about fundraising. It’s about taking over so they can manipulate the election. They say it’s because Atlanta has had problems with elections, but those problems are a result of lack of resources, not failed leadership. Now they want to kick out the local leader and install their own person who can deliberately sabotage the local elections. Just watch. If they succeed in taking over, lines in minority areas will get even longer than they are now, and lines in White areas will disappear.
Delk
Oh thank god that 18 year old is still a republican. I was worried that I would not have been able to fall asleep tonight.
NotMax
@Jeffro
21st century iteration of “Show us your Lark pack!”
:)
Elizabelle
I was so relieved to find out Dana Milbank had penned the “Is Kevin McCarthy a moron?” article. Because I feared it was fact-checker Glenn Kessler, another type of moron.
Benw
This evening I made my wife and I a caprese salad with the first large tomato this summer (we’ve been getting ripe cherry’s for a couple weeks) and fresh basil from the raised planter. It was great!
raven
@Benw: They are getting close to being done here.
Jeffro
@mrmoshpotato: I can’t believe I haven’t heard/seen/read more “find another way to act out/show your loyalty to trumpov/tell the world you’re a special snowflake” commentary.
Seriously.
Find another way, you fucking virus-spreading morons. I’m prepared to wear a mask however long it takes for Covid to cull this particularly stupid herd.
Danielx
@NotMax:
You have totally dated yourself, not that I don’t applaud. I do shudder at what disguise attempts may look like in SW Missouri.
trollhattan
Reminder from the Valley: Devin Nunes exists solely to make Kevin McCarthy look smart. Okay, less dumb.
NotMax
@Danielx
May as well continue the dating.
Wife to husband: “You’re going as Margaret Dumont?!”
:)
Jeffro
Btw, my family and I are just about to wrap up a long road trip through Arizona and Utah, and right now, we’re seeing mask-wearing under 10% indoors, easy. It is almost horrifying to watch. People genuinely look at us funny at rest stops, or when I pop in to pick up takeout. LIKE I CARE.
(Side note: we’ve been staying in AirBnbs and cabins, getting takeout or cooking in our rentals, have been wearing masks even for simple 5-minute rest stops, using lots of hand sanitizer, etc. I have minimal worries about our health going forward, knock on wood. But these people – do none of them follow the news??? Or care about their health and that of their kids?)
Oh and side note #2, while I’m at it: today I saw a new Asshole Banner flying from a pickup truck driving down the main drag in town. Picture a medium-blue background with a white outline of the Confederate flag on it. Now add a bright blue “Blue Lives Matter”* stripe to that. Covered ALL the bases, I guess. Sad!
*except Capitol Police lives, of cours
ETA: just Googled it and “confederate blue line flag” is what I’m referring to. I’m surprised it doesn’t have some sort of subtle orange spray-tan highlight to it or something
debbie
Twitter-watching Sinema acting out behind Portman, I am convinced she’s secretly Andrew Giuliani’s lost twin sister.
Danielx
@debbie:
Now that’s just totally cold.
Accurate, but cold.
Benw
@raven: nice! We’ve got a bunch more close.
I could’ve picked this one a couple days ago – it tasted great but was so ripe it was hard to slice!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: A lot of good that’ll do him: he’s still got the same face.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
With respect to the media, I think the major problem is that too many reporters and their editors are bad at math. This problem is exacerbated by the long, steady decline in newspapers and magazines, which has seen the layoff or forced retirement of veteran business and science journalists. Anti vaxxers are often math ignorant people with axes to grind.
This is a pervasive issue which makes it harder for the general public to make sense of important issues such as vaccines.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Male version, but makes me muse back to Ma Kent’s sage quip at about 1:30.
;)
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Coming back to your point about crappy reporting, I think this NBC news story on “breakthrough cases” is misleading and leans toward scare mongering.
It notes that the percent of breakthrough cases is tiny based on available data, “… less than .08 percent of the 164.2 million-plus people who have been fully vaccinated since January, or about one in every 1,300.”
But the story goes on to make this pointless statement:
In the absence of any data, it is impossible for any definitive conclusion to be drawn at all. But I am sure that some people would read “likely higher” and imagine that there might be a larger problem with breakthrough cases.
But a reasonable hypothesis would be to think that with more total data, the percent of breakthrough cases would remain extremely small.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/breakthrough-covid-cases-least-125-000-fully-vaccinated-americans-have-n1275500
NotMax
@NotMax
Just for fun, the newest version of the trope.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Keith P.: the last gqp yung gun standing is an empty barrel.
h/t philandering racist gen. john kelly.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@West of the Cascades: nah. it was crazy bitch beer, & fuck those guys.
two wankers in blaze orange like a parody of the parody “second week of deer camp” by da yoopers.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Elizabelle: glenn kessler, glenn reynolds, glenn greenwald, glen beck — four idiots enter, four idiots break their necks tripping on their shoelaces.
Ken
@Brachiator: Offhand I’d think that if nine states didn’t report, the denominator should be reduced by the number vaccinated in those states, rather than inserting speculation about what the missing numbers might be. But I don’t have training as a science reporter.
Sister Golden Bear
@Anne Laurie:
Agreed. Although with the reports of red staters disguising themselves to get vaxxed, I suspect some of them will be secretly happy to have an excuse to get the shot. Not that they’ll ever publicly admit so.
Richard
@Jeffro: that is where i live. I hope you were careful. We have some of the lowest vaccination rates in USA, outside of the southern hotspots. When i go to the grocery, maybe 10 out of a hundred are even wearing a mask.
I think they just got brainwashed by fox news. I think they just got tired of dealing with all these changes and have decided to go with daddy trump. My neighbor has been brainwashed.
Everyone is still dealing with this. We took a few weeks to get haircuts and walk around as before. Now it seems that it is not over yet. Our cases are doubling every week.
Richard
@Jeffro: also, that “back the blue ” flag is popular, especially in Hurricane and Washington. What does it mean? Are they dangerous? What blue are they backing? These are questions.
NotMax
@Richard
“Smurfengers, assemble!”
opiejeanne
@Ken: I took a quick look at Facebook just now and spotted my husband’s cousin and her husband at a Beach Boys concert in Camden County, Mo, at the Ozarks Amphitheater, sitting with at least six other people, sitting really close together. I figure they are vaccinated and I hope their buddies are too, but it’s very worrying.
marklar
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose:
It’s just more of the ‘g’ effect…Gaetz, Gohmert, Greene, Gosar, etc.
Steeplejack
@opiejeanne:
Speaking of the Beach Boys, here’s a nice version of “Don’t Worry, Baby” with Lorrie Morgan that I found recently.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Paired with Kathy Troccoli, “I Can Hear Music.”
Soprano2
@Ken: Yep, they were demonstrating in front of Mercy hospital here in Springfield yesterday when I went to see my mom. They’re mad because Mercy has mandated vaccination. An employee at Cox, our other large hospital, said they’re getting people from Mercy who don’t want to get vaccinated, but she said their mandate is coming.
Soprano2
@dmsilev: I bet these are smaller towns where they’re afraid the shot giver will tell people they got it. People don’t have much of a sense of privacy in these towns.
Soprano2
@Danielx: Disguises here probably look like they do everywhere else. We also wear shoes, and most of us have indoor plumbing. ??
NotMax
@Soprano2
No state pride affinity for Rush Limbaugh costumes?
//
(dons goalie mask to avoid injury from bric-a-brac being hefted in this direction)
Jørgen
Ooh, another Traffic fan!
Zinsky
Milbank’s column is precious. It isn’t being mean to call conservatives “morons”, if they can’t speak English or convey a single rational position. Thanks for sharing, Anne!
Just Chuck
@Soprano2:
For all their incoherent screeching about HIPAA, that right there is an actual HIPAA violation…