Continuing The Fight (updated)

It should be hard to imagine a government led by people who think we have a right to Twitter but not healthcare.

It isn't hard to imagine that at all. Not here in USAmerica Inc.

Twitter shut down President Stoopid's account recently because of his insistence on using it to spread the "election fraud" bullshit, and now Amazon has stepped up by kicking Parler off their web services platform because:

And of course, the Q Cucks Clan have reacted with their usual cool and aplomb.

Buzzfeed:

Amazon's suspension of Parler's account means that unless it can find another host, once the ban takes effect on Sunday Parler will go offline.

Amazon notified Parler that it would be cutting off the social network favored by conservatives and extremists from its cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News. The suspension, which will go into effect on Sunday just before midnight, means that Parler will be unable to operate and will go offline unless it can find another hosting service.

People on Parler used the social network to stoke fear, spread hate, and coordinate the insurrection at the Capitol building on Wednesday. The app has recently been overrun with death threats, celebrations of violence, and posts encouraging “Patriots” to march on Washington, DC with weapons on January 19, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an AWS Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across the social network violated its terms of service. Amazon said it was unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate calls for violence and hate speech would be effective.

“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms," the email reads. "It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the suspension.

In a post on Saturday evening following publication of this story, Parler CEO John Matze, who did not return a request for comment from BuzzFeed News, said it is possible the social network will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch."

Update - as of this morning, Parler is homeless.

Radicalization is big business. This shit will always be with us because there's always a double digit percentage of wackos out there who need to live in their fantasies, and there will always be cynical manipulative assholes looking to monetize the crazy.

We can't set ourselves up to fail by insisting that any given way of thinking is illegal, so we have to make it plain that there's a big difference between thought and action. 

We also have to insist on understanding the 1st amendment.

We can only push the culture forward and let the loonies know their deliberate ignorance and  abhorrent behaviors won't be tolerated in a civil society.

They won't be employed. and they won't be invited to the neighbors' for dinner, and they won't be welcome at the tailgates until they learn how to mind their manners.

COVID-19 Update

World

New Cases:   728,068 (⬆︎ .81%)

New Deaths:    12,494 (⬆︎ .65%)

The world will prob'ly exceed 100 million cases and 2 million dead by the end of this week.

USA

New Cases:   249,694 (⬆︎ 1.11%)

New Deaths:      3,238 (⬆︎   .86%)

USAmerica Inc will go over 400,000 dead in about a week's time.

The vaccination roll-out has been what we should've expected from Team Stoopid, but it's starting to pick up, even if just a little.

So...

WaPo:

At least 6.7 million people have been vaccinated in the U.S. 22.1 million doses have been distributed.

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require a follow-up shot three or four weeks after the first dose. The CDC is not yet reporting information on people who have received the follow-up shot. Information displayed at this time on allocations and vaccine administrations are all for the first shot only. Additional allocations have been set aside for the second doses.

Most states have adopted CDC guidelines and are prioritizing health-care workers and nursing home residents and staff. Next up are frontline essential workers, including first responders, teachers, day-care staff, grocery store workers and prison guards, and adults 75 and over, the latest CDC federal guidance recommends. Third in line are those with preexisting conditions such as diabetes, heart problems or obesity, and adults between 65 and 74. The National Academy of Sciences and a CDC advisory committee spent several months crafting recommendations that would stop the spread of the disease and offset health inequities.

States have discretion in setting their own vaccination priorities. Some are prioritizing people who received placebos in completed vaccination studies, or are vaccinating the elderly before a bevy of first responders.

Executives at Stanford Health were criticized for putting themselves ahead of front-line workers. And politicians from the White House and the Congress to governors’ suites around the country are getting vaccinated, despite not being on top of official priority lists.

As of 01-10-2021

An eMail

This is a mailing list message I got yesterday from one of my Senators, Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Mike:

So many of you have reached out — while the Capitol attack was going on and in the days since — to ask how I am and express your deep concern over what you saw happening. Rather than respond briefly to each, I thought I would write up my thoughts to share with you all.

January 6th re-proved a very old lesson about human nature: character is destiny. America trusted its most important post to a moral defective. Some thought he would grow into the job, or moderate his behavior under the weight of responsibility. That is just not how life works. In all but a very few cases, an adult will behave as she or he has behaved throughout life. In this sense, the set of outrages of the last few years — culminating in a 2020 marked by mismanaging a pandemic thus occasioning unnecessary death and then the violence and racism at the Capitol — is a completely logical ending to a very sad chapter in American life.

A second human nature lesson is this — the presence of evil is constant, but the success of evil depends upon a key variable: the degree to which people choose to be bystanders. We over-analyze why the President has such a devoted base of supporters. I am more focused on this fact: An awful lot of smart, educated people chose to be bystanders in the last years and that allowed a pathetic and insecure leader to do things that most of us thought unimaginable in this great nation. The bystanderism started with the tens of millions of Americans who just sat things out in 2016, not able to see the danger that was so clearly before us. And it has sadly continued everywhere, most visibly in Congress. I have lost count of the number of my Senate colleagues who, though privately worried, went along with the unacceptable because they wanted a tax cut, or a judge they liked, an invitation to golf or to avoid a primary challenge. And now some finally awake to the wisdom of the Gospel lesson: "what doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"

And then there are lessons about our nation, humbling lessons. We like to pat ourselves on the back and embrace the notions of "American exceptionalism" or America as "the indispensable nation." Any truth to these notions resides in what we do rather than who we are. We cannot just claim honors for ourselves without doing the work to justify them. When we are true to our values, we approach becoming exceptional and indispensable. But when we are not, self-congratulation is unjustified and hollow, even ridiculous.

I remember saying, in the weeks after the November 2016 election, that the next years would be a stress-test of American democracy. And that has been the case every day. Virtually all basic values and our institutions have come under attack from within. Have we passed the test? It might be too early to say for sure. But our democracy has survived the test.

My overwhelming emotion on January 6 was anger — that our Capitol was attacked and people died needlessly. But as I walked to work the next morning, there was a beautiful sunrise. I thought about the massive engagement of everyday citizens after 2016 in elections and activism. I thought about the historic turnout in the November 2020 election and then again earlier this week in Georgia. And I grew hopeful that we are rejecting the disease of bystanderism to begin a new chapter on January 20th.

That chapter is not written and its outcome is not a function of words or institutions. It is dependent on us. But the sweep of our history shows that painful periods are often followed by times of great progress. I am an optimist about our next chapter.

-Tim

Today's Tweet

Here we gooooo! (Sound on.) pic.twitter.com/GXRujf1VnC

— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) January 9, 2021

Wait - What?

Donald Trump fired up his crowd last Wednesday, and sent them up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building.

It can come as no surprise to anyone that along the way, a good part of that crowd turned into a lynch mob, loudly voicing their intent to hang VP Mike Pence.

Mike Pence has so far decided he's not going to say or do anything about it.

What are we missing here?

Today's GIF

Podcast

First tho: The Death Of Irony, Part ∞

From a local news station in Australia.

Woman trampled in Capitol riots had 'don't tread on me' flag

A woman trampled to death during the riot at the US Capitol had been carrying a flag reading: "Don't tread on me".

Rosanne Boyland, 34, was killed in the crush when a few rioters started pushing people, her friend Justin Winchell said.

"They basically created a panic, and the police, in turn, push back on them, so people started falling," Mr Winchell said.

"I put my arm underneath her and was pulling her out and then another guy fell on top of her, and another guy was just walking (on top of her).

"There were people stacked two-three deep…people just crushed."

Paramedics desperately tried to revive her but were unable to.

Another "patriot" martyred to the cause.

Driftglass has dubbed the shit that went down on Jan 6 "The Incel Insurrection."

The Professional Left Podcast, Episode 580:

Send 'em some love

Mail a check payable to:

The Professional Left Podcast

PO Box 9133

Springfield, IL 62791-9133

COVID-19 Update

World

• New Cases:   831,760 (⬆︎ .94%)
• New Deaths:    14,907 (⬆︎ .78%)

USA

• New Cases:   306,449 (⬆︎ 1.38%)  🏆 NEW RECORD!!
• New Deaths:      3,969 (⬆︎ 1.06%)

To date (since Mar 3, 2020) we've averaged 1,208 dead Americans per day.

The trends in our overall averages are looking pretty bad.

The reporting on COVID-19 Cases and Deaths varies from place to place. I settled on Worldometer because the presentation is a little simpler and the Johns-Hopkins site was a little harder to navigate.

So anyway, nobody's arguing about the fact that we went over 300,000 new cases for the day yesterday.

And nothing points up the total shittiness of Qult45 than the simple fact that they're so busy trying to kill American democracy that they're paying no attention at all to the problem of COVID-19 killing 1 American every 72 seconds.

WaPo:

U.S. surpasses 300,000 daily coronavirus cases, the second alarming record this week

The United States on Friday surpassed 300,000 daily coronavirus cases, the second alarming record this week. The number, which roughly equates to the population of St. Louis, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, comes about two months after the country reported 100,000 coronavirus cases a day for the first time, and one day after more than 4,000 people died from the virus, also a record.

NYT: (pay wall)

Biden Plans Coronavirus Vaccination Blitz After Inauguration

The incoming Biden administration plans to set up federally run mass vaccination sites and to release all government-held vials, rather than hold some back for second doses.

In a sharp break with the Trump administration, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. intends to release nearly all available doses of the coronavirus vaccine soon after he is inaugurated, rather than hold back millions of vials to guarantee second doses will be available.

The decision is part of an aggressive effort to “to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,” the Biden transition team said on Friday. The vaccination plan, to be formally unveiled next week, also will include federally run vaccination sites in places like high school gyms and sports stadiums, and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.

The president-elect has vowed to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” during his first 100 days in office.

The decision to release the vast majority of vaccine doses set off a sharp debate among public health experts. The two vaccines that have received emergency approval each require two doses, and the Trump administration has so far been holding back about half of its supply to ensure that booster doses will be available for those already inoculated.

The announcement by the incoming Biden administration sets the clearest benchmark yet for front-loading shots, then distributing them as they become available. Officials at Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program, had noted that doses would stop being sequestered after the first few weeks of rollout. Both the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, and Warp Speed officials were critical of the president-elect’s decision on Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration — whose advice Mr. Biden has pledged to follow — has spoken out strongly against changing the dosing schedule, as some other countries have opted to do, calling such a move “premature and not rooted solidly in the available evidence.” Some public health experts fear that second doses would be delayed by the decision.

But others called it a smart measure and said it was imperative to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible — so long as the second doses are not delayed. The Biden team said it was confident that the supply would be enough, and that Mr. Biden would invoke the Defense Production Act if necessary to bolster the supply of second doses.

“The president-elect believes we must accelerate distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,” said T.J. Ducklo, a spokesman for the Biden transition team.

The announcement that Mr. Biden intends to free up extra doses coincided with a letter from eight Democratic governors — including Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, both of whom have clashed with President Trump — imploring the current administration to release all available doses to the states as soon as possible.

Today's Pix

click

Today's Parody

Randy Rainbow - Sedition Redux