Let's Review

I think the basic take-away is that really, not much has changed. Even when they acknowledge their bias, and especially when they actually articulate the contradictions internal to their "beliefs", they stay in the bubble.

Jordan Klepper - The Daily Show

We should prob'ly check in with some folks about that old bugbear "cognitive dissonance".

The Lincoln Project - Reed Galen and Dr Gale Tarvis

"...a personal, irrational fear of ever admitting error combined with the fear of being ostracized by the tribe..."

Today's Reddit

Iron Man is real

COVID-19 Update

35 States - no reported numbers for yesterday.

We Are The Stoopid Country, part ∞

WaPo:

The plea from Mississippi’s top doctor to a state grappling with the nation’s second-lowest vaccination rate seemed simple: Do not take ivermectin — a drug intended for treating worms in livestock — to prevent or treat the coronavirus.

Despite no scientific evidence that ivermectin is effective at preventing or treating covid-19, State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs was left baffled this week after one person was hospitalized for ingesting the horse dewormer medication to treat the virus — a “kind of crazy” act he likened to getting chemotherapy at a feed store.

“Please don’t do that,” he said.

Cases of people consuming ivermectin to treat the coronavirus in Mississippi are drawing alarm, with the state’s health department issuing an alert Friday warning people not to take the drug, saying the state’s poison control center has “received an increasing number of calls from individuals with potential ivermectin exposure taken to treat or prevent covid-19 infection.” Mississippi State Epidemiologist Paul Byers wrote in a letter to the MS Health Alert Network that “at least 70 percent of the recent calls” have been related to the ingestion of ivermectin “purchased at livestock supply centers.”

“Do NOT take drugs made for animals in any form,” the health department wrote on Facebook.

The spike in ivermectin use in Mississippi comes at a time when the state is suffering through what Dobbs described as “the worst part of the pandemic.” Mississippi reported more than 5,000 new covid cases Friday, bringing its seven-day average for new infections to 3,586, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. More than 1,600 people are hospitalized for the virus and about 450 beds in intensive care units are filled as of Saturday.

Dobbs, who has repeatedly stressed that vaccination remains “our best way out of this pandemic,” issued an order Friday threatening infected Mississippi residents with fines or possible jail time if they do not isolate at home.

The increase in cases has also affected children in the state, as more than 20,000 students, accounting for 4.5 percent of the public school population, have been quarantined for exposure to the coronavirus. Byers emphasized that Mississippi minors ages 5 to 17 are seeing the fastest growing number of coronavirus cases, with the highly transmissible delta variant hospitalizing young people at a high rate.

“We’re in as bad of a situation as we can be,” Byers said during a live-streamed meeting with the Mississippi State Medical Association.

Commonly used to treat parasites in animals, ivermectin has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat several forms of parasitic worms found in people. But the FDA and health officials have warned for months against using the drug to treat the coronavirus, saying its use can “cause serious harm.”

“There are approved uses for ivermectin in both people and animals,” Byers wrote in the letter. “Patients should be advised to not take any medications intended to treat animals and should be instructed to only take ivermectin as prescribed by their physician.”

The total number of cases related to ivermectin was not specified in the Friday letter. Byers noted that 85 percent of those who called the Mississippi Poison Control Center said they experienced mild symptoms. Some of the symptoms for ivermectin use among people include rash, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, neurological disorders, and potentially severe hepatitis requiring hospitalization.

“Animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans,” Byers said.

Dobbs and Byers did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

Just over 36 percent of Mississippi’s eligible-population is fully vaccinated, above only Alabama for the lowest vaccination rate in the nation. Dobbs acknowledged this week that the severity of the state’s health crisis was due to a “tsunami” in cases among the unvaccinated population that’s overwhelmed hospitals. Nearly 90 percent of covid-19 hospitalizations and 86 percent of deaths in the state have been among unvaccinated people, Dobbs said.

The discussion surrounding ivermectin has largely stemmed from anecdotal testimonies online of those who largely oppose vaccination and masking. On social media, some have falsely claimed ivermectin to be a cure and that they were “mostly symptom-free” after taking the drug. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security, previously told The Washington Post that ivermectin was “the new hydroxychloroquine,” referring to the malaria drug pushed by former president Donald Trump that proved ineffective against covid.

Ivermectin, which had been used in some countries in Latin America as a covid treatment, took off in popularity at the start of the year; the FDA said at least three people were hospitalized in February after taking the veterinary formulation. In places like Nevada, customers flocked to feed stores in search of the deworming drug to help fight against covid. Makenna LaFond, who works at Sierra Feed and Saddlery in Reno, recalled to The Post earlier this year what she’d have to tell people seeking ivermectin to treat or prevent covid, “No, that’s not for you. That’s for a 1,100-pound horse.”

“Then, they would buy, like, six tubes of it,” she said.

My wife and I got covid-19. Our doctor prescribed a medication used to treat parasites in livestock.  (part of the horror story in Brazil)

The FDA, National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization have warned people against using the drug for covid-19 treatment and a March study published in the medical journal JAMA found that ivermectin does not speed recovery in people with mild cases of the disease. Pharmaceutical giant Merck, an ivermectin manufacturer, has also said it did not support the drug’s safety and efficacy for covid treatment.

On Saturday, the FDA re-upped its warning, tweeting: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

The drug has found a national audience in conservative circles. Between March and this month, Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham promoted the use of ivermectin as an alternative covid treatment to millions of viewers on their prime-time shows. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was suspended from YouTube in June for posting a video touting ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for covid-19.

Recently, reports of ivermectin use among unvaccinated people have sprung up in states besides Mississippi. The family of Phil Valentine, a conservative radio host in Tennessee who was unvaccinated and using ivermectin, was “elated” to hear his listeners are getting vaccinated after he was infected with the virus; Valentine died Saturday, according to the Associated Press. In Chalmette, La., 62-year-old Darleen Asevedo died of complications from covid-19 on Aug. 14. Her daughter, Kortney, told WAFB that her mother was unvaccinated and taking ivermectin.

“Every single person has given me different information of what she should have done, what she should have took,” Kortney Asevedo said through tears. “Everybody’s wrong.”

Doctors in Southern states are still urging patients to get vaccinated and not take any unproven forms of covid treatment. Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake medical center in Baton Rouge, told the WAFB that while she has used ivermectin to help treat parasitic worms in people, the science shows Americans looking for a coronavirus treatment that’s not the vaccine need to come to terms with the ineffectiveness of the deworming drug.

“We have to let it go,” O’Neal said. “We’ve tried lots of things during this pandemic, some have worked, some have not. Ivermectin doesn’t work.”

A Video

Must be Monday

Booed In Alabama

Mo Brooks gave a fiery speech on January 6, exhorting the crowd to kick ass and take names, because of course the election was stolen and they needed to storm the Capitol in order to "stop the steal".

Now, Mr Brooks is running for the seat of retiring Senator Richard Shelby, and he knows the bullshit they've been peddling is wearing thin and that it's possible he could be headed for prison about this time next year (I said possible - not likely), and he'd better start getting some things straightened around.

Anyway, another thing this change in direction is meant to accomplish is to get the rubes to stop reminding everybody of the failed coup attempt that he helped instigate.

(Notice how quiet Mike Lindell has been since that cluster fuck in South Dakota almost 2 weeks ago.)

Lie lie lie, then deny deny deny, then lie lie lie again.

• "What you heard is not what you heard."
• "What you saw is not what you saw."
• "Listen only to me because only I can steer you to the promised land."

Mo Brooks had a featured spot at Trump's rally in Alabama last night, and when he floated the proposition that the rubes need to unhitch themselves from the previous pack of lies in order to support him in the brand new set of lies that he'll be pimping in his run for the Senate, they booed him.

I guess Brooks and his fellow Daddy State travelers are finding out that the Ship Of 50 Million Fools is a lumbering hulk that doesn't exactly turn on a dime and hand you 9 cents change.

Republicans keep creating these monsters. And every time, they seem unable to understand that once the latest version of the monster is loose, it's even harder for them to control it.

COVID-19 Update

This was not the usual weekend slump - this looks like a big fuckin' fail.

30 states reported no numbers at all for yesterday.

Newsweek:

Former President Donald Trump was booed by his own supporters during a rally in Cullman, Alabama Saturday night after he encouraged the crowd to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"I believe totally in your freedoms, I do, you gotta do what you gotta do, but I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good," he said, drawing boos from the crowd of supporters.

"That's okay, that's alright," Trump continued, brushing off the disapproval. "But I happen to take the vaccine. If it doesn't work, you'll be the first to know. But it is working. You do have your freedoms, you have to maintain that."

A growing number of Republican leaders have urged voters to get the coronavirus vaccine as the highly contagious Delta variant sweeps through most parts of the U.S., driving up cases, deaths and hospitalizations in a new phase of the pandemic.

Here's a clip. Notice the equivocation: "Take the vaccine - but don't take the vaccine, because freedom."

Also, the lies:

We developed a vaccine in 3 months. And then more equivocation - but it's OK cuz it's all good even though you should be extremely skeptical because it was rushed and it's experimental and it's not been fully approved, and one contradiction after another.

Daddy State Awareness

The Daddy State lies to us as a means of demonstrating their power.

The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.

Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

THEIR GOAL IS TO DICTATE REALITY TO US.

Today's Tweet

I will blow my own horn, thank you very much

Sovereign citizens are extreme libertarians - radical individualists demanding fealty to their twisted ideas of being freed from self-governing principles - which disguises their true desire simply to escape being held accountable by invoking a magic spell of civic invisibility. https://t.co/U1fg1bxKtk

— e'Ville Mike (@eVilleMike) August 21, 2021

This Month

It started in USAmerica Inc more than 400 years ago.

ACLU of Virginia:

In August of 1619, a group of captive Kimbundu-speaking people from the kingdom of Ndongo landed in Virginia at Fort Monroe, brought against their will by white settlers. They were the first documented Africans brought to Virginia.

It is crucial that we remember all history, not just the history that makes us comfortable.

Hereditary life-long enslavement - some of the effects of which persist to this day.

We have lots of work to do, which makes for plenty of good trouble we can get into.

"Conservative" "Thinking"

Hugh Hewitt never disappoints - we can always count on him to pimp some of our favorite "conservative" lies.

Like this:

For 20 years, the sacrifices made in Afghanistan were part of keeping the homeland safe.

Allow me to suggest an edit:

"For 20 years we've heard the lie that tries to link safety at home with funneling trillions of tax dollars to defense contractors for overseas military adventures - which fosters the various layers of corruption (foreign and domestic) wherever large piles of cash are made readily available, which in turn makes it nearly impossible to accomplish the stated objective."

Yes, we should stay appropriately engaged in the world, but engaging in "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan - "fighting them over there" - has led us to neglect the rising threat of terrorism posed by our very own brand of homegrown terrorism right here in USAmerica Inc.

The GOP has been in the process of attempting a coup not unlike what the Taliban has been attempting in Afghanistan. This little screed wouldn't have anything to do with stuffing Jan6 down the memory hole would it, Hugh?

That, and a little projection, intended to shift the criticism from Trump - who set all this shit in motion - to Biden, who's now trying to keep America's promises and make it work.

Hugh Hewitt, WaPo: (pay Wall)

America has lost a war, and the consequences will be terrible. Yes, this happened in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, but it is not easy to find a precedent in our history for a calamity such as that unfolding in Afghanistan, where thousands of Americans — the exact number is uncertain — are suddenly stranded far from home with no simple avenue for escape.

Events have left many Americans in a state of collective shock. The video of an infant being passed from family members over concertina wire to U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport illustrated the profound desperation that is sweeping Afghanistan, and elicited an awareness that we have betrayed much and many in the past week.

We can be proud of our warriors and still be deeply ashamed of our country.

The Pentagon suggested Thursday that if Americans in Afghanistan — mostly contractors and nongovernmental aid workers now — could get to the airport in Kabul, their safe passage home was likely. The Pentagon did not explain how Americans were to get safely to the airport. The president tried again Friday to give similar reassurance and guidance to the trapped — and failed again. He told the world they would get home. He gave no guidance on how they could get to the airport.

This is unacceptable. Is there really no alternative to simply hoping for the best? “Trust me and the Taliban?” Really?

Then there are sensitive questions about President Biden’s capacity to deal with fast-moving events. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) commented early in the week that the president appeared “shellshocked.” On Friday, Biden played his favorite loop in the East Room, promising to bring Americans and our loyal Afghan allies home — but not really explaining how. He is stubbornly attached to his inner narrative and won’t budge from it.

Questions about Donald Trump’s temperament and capacity dogged his entire presidency. To age, as candid older men and women will freely confess, is to slow down from previous capacity, to grow fixed in opinions and habits. Biden is our president, and we only get one at a time, but we can ask that everyone around him make doubly sure he is getting everything older Americans routinely need as they age — particularly unpleasant advice when they don’t want to hear it.

Maybe especially when they don’t want to hear it.

The broad unease about the president’s ability to adjust to quick changes in facts on the ground is genuine, and the fact that he finally allowed four reporters to ask questions on Friday about his decision-making did not allay that unease.

The families of every American abandoned to the tender mercies of the Taliban deserve a president who is accessible and commanding, not one who seems uncertain or half-withdrawn. CNN’s Clarissa Ward, reporting with incredible courage from Kabul, should not be Americans’ best source of information on conditions at the Kabul airport. It should be the president, but his answers on Friday did not help him much or set many minds at ease.

This is very much a disaster of choice, not inevitability. The questions are many: What did the president not know about the political landscape in Afghanistan — and for how long has he not known it? What options did he solicit? Which did he decline? What advice did he reject?

It is also necessary to ask: What signal does this send to an increasingly aggressive China and Russia, and will they act on that signal? What does this mean for the perilous situations in Taiwan and Ukraine? And how did the United States get blindsided again?

For 20 years, the sacrifices made in Afghanistan were part of keeping the homeland safe. That shield has dropped. The president again insisted on Friday that we have over-the-horizon abilities. But, as one reporter asked Biden, if we didn’t see the collapse coming, how can we be confident that we will see the next attack on the homeland coming?

Finally, given the president’s argumentative and defensive speech Monday, refusal to take questions after a threadbare deflection speech Wednesday, the confused and confusing sit down with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and his halting do-over performance Friday, the Biden-friendly legacy media must press to learn what is happening behind the scenes. ABC News’s refusal to release the entire unedited tape of Stephanopoulos’s midweek interview with the president is unacceptable. The same degree of scrutiny that fell on every Trump move must follow this president.

At moments of national calamity, we all need to be respectful of our common citizenship, but difficult discussions must be had in public, and the president especially must be available and accountable to the people he has so long wanted to lead. This is not, as the president and his team may imagine, another sort of campaign crisis to be endured and overcome in a few news cycles. The oldest president ever must keep his circle expanding and information flowing in, with truth-speakers close at hand. And he must meet with the press again and again as the crisis unfolds.

BTW #1: The idea's been floated that Biden tried to convince Obama to get us out of Afghanistan pretty much the whole 8 years he spent as VP. That story will emerge at some point as people start to dig into the history of the first two decades of "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire".

BTW #2: In case you've missed it, "conservatives" have also been pimping the bullshit that Tom Cotton is their best bet for the 2024 GOP nomination. Look for more of this as we go, and especially be on the lookout for the Press Poodles to say things like "Well, that Tom Cotton guy has some common sense stuff goin' on yada yada yada".

Ya heard it here first, kids.

COVID-19 Update

Another day, another opportunity for dog-ass Republican governors to lie about the pandemic, as Florida and Iowa post no numbers for yesterday.

And today's wrinkle illustrates for us the simple fact that everything is interconnected.

WaPo:

Orlando urges residents to conserve water because of surge in covid hospitalizations

Liquid oxygen, used in hospitals and water treatment, is in short supply as more critically ill patients need respiratory therapy.

Orlando officials called on residents Friday to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars for the next two weeks so that supplies of liquid oxygen used in water treatment can be preserved for hospitals grappling with a surge of coronavirus patients.

The region has faced shortages of liquid oxygen as people critically ill with covid-19 stream into hospitals in need of respiratory therapy. The demand has become so high that the city’s water regulator warned that water quality could falter if consumers do not cut back.

“If we are unable to reduce water demand, hospital needs continue and the supply remains limited … water quality may be impacted,” Linda Ferrone, chief customer and marketing officer at the Orlando Utilities Commission, said in a statement. “But, we believe that will not happen if everyone does their part to conserve water.”

The city’s announcement highlights the far-reaching consequences of the spike in hospitalizations being driven by the fast-moving delta variant, which is sickening tens of thousands of people daily in Florida alone. It presents a stark warning to other communities around the country where infections have strained health-care systems and caused shortages of medical supplies not seen since the worst waves of the pandemic.

Florida’s hospitals are treating more than 17,000 patients with covid-19 — with more than 3,550 of those in intensive care, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data. Supplies of liquid oxygen have run low in some places as hospitalizations have risen. Doctors and nurses give oxygen to patients who need help to breathe and to help stave off the damage covid-19 can cause in the lungs.

In Orlando, the city’s water regulator uses liquid oxygen as part of its process for removing foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide from water pumped in from the Lower Floridan Aquifer.

In August, Florida hospitals were struggling to get their hands on oxygen supplies in part because there were few truck drivers available who were qualified to transport it, Bloomberg News reported.

“It’s critical that we continue to work together and each one of us do our part, as we have done throughout this pandemic, to mitigate the impacts the virus continues to have on our community,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement Friday. “While this is another new challenge, I know that as a community, working together, we can overcome it with the help of our residents and businesses.”

Nicole Ray, a spokeswoman for Orlando Health, a major health-care provider in the region, said Friday that the company’s network of hospitals had an adequate supply of oxygen and didn’t expect the increased demand to have “any impact on patient care.” To help the city, Orlando Health is planning to conserve water across its system, she said.

“These measures will have a minimal impact to the operations of our health system and will be continuously evaluated and adjusted as needed to ensure the best use of our resources according to the needs of our patients,” Ray said in an email. “Our team members and medical staff continue to handle this surge, not unlike a year ago at this same time, in a professional and exemplary way and remain ready to serve the residents of our community.”

Orlando officials said residents and business owners should immediately halt all nonessential work involving water, including watering lawns, washing vehicles and pressure washing until supplies of liquid oxygen have been replenished. They are not asking people to reduce their use of water for cooking, bathing or drinking.

Customers should prepare for the conservation measures to last “at least two weeks,” the utilities commission said in an FAQ, while cautioning that the timeline could change. “This is difficult to determine with certainty because it is tied to the number of covid-19 patients being treated in hospitals with oxygen.”