VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Half of Americans Call Jan. 6 Suspects ‘Political Prisoners.’
Plus:
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
TO BE FAIR, HE MAKES A LOT OF THOSE: Joe Biden Just Weakened His Cyber Redline With Russia. That’s A Mistake. “Since cyberspace attack on all US targets was already illegal, the list moves US redlines higher, to allow for more criminal activity, since the list implies *other than these targets,* the United States won’t even consider inflicting unacceptable costs for illegal Russian attack on US territory. Toothless indictments – yes; counter cyberspace attack — no. By not defending them, President Biden and his national security advisors are erasing these international norms and redlines. Under international law, you defend norms and sovereignty by *physically defending them,* not by abandoning them.”
#REFUNDTHEPOLICE: Austin Hits All-Time Homicide High. “Higher crime rates in Austin are a direct results of a homeless policy that lured more transients to Austin, of police budgets that were cut so more taxpayer money could be diverted to leftwing activists, and of a Soros-backed county DA that has installed a revolving door to put dangerous criminals back on Austin’s streets without prosecuting them.”
TO BE FAIR, SHE’S NEITHER TERRIBLY SMART NOR TALENTED AT POLITICS: Kamala Harris Uses Anti-Vax Messaging to Justify Vaccine Mandates.
THE ATLANTIC: Are Pandemic Hospitalization Numbers Misleading Us?
The study found that from March 2020 through early January 2021—before vaccination was widespread, and before the Delta variant had arrived—the proportion of patients with mild or asymptomatic disease was 36 percent. From mid-January through the end of June 2021, however, that number rose to 48 percent. In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease.
This increase was even bigger for vaccinated hospital patients, of whom 57 percent had mild or asymptomatic disease. But unvaccinated patients have also been showing up with less severe symptoms, on average, than earlier in the pandemic: The study found that 45 percent of their cases were mild or asymptomatic since January 21.
Just like any other successful virus, COVID-19 is becoming more contagious but less dangerous — unlike Joe Biden’s diktats to “combat” it.
Plus this from Matt Margolis:
There are some drawbacks to the study, however. Patients in the VA system are not representative of the U.S. population, as the VA patient populations tends to be older, with few women and no children. The VA also has a policy to test every patient for COVID, while this is not a policy in all hospitals. The study does show, however, that “the introduction of vaccines strongly correlates with a greater share of COVID hospital patients having mild or asymptomatic disease.”
If anything, using older patients would skew the results towards the studied cases being more serious than the national average. The study’s numbers then might be even more encouraging than they appear at first glance.
BUT THE NARRATIVE! COVID-19 vaccine boosters unnecessary for most, say FDA advisers reportedly resigning over issue.
Unlike our military brass during the lead up to Biden’s bungled bugout from Afghanistan, at least people at FDA are resigning in protest.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: COVID Panic Merchants Might Want To Try Not Lying. “I’ve also heard anecdotal evidence from acquaintances in the medical profession who work in hospitals about rather expansive interpretations of what constitutes a COVID patient for the records. None of this is proof of complete systemic rot, of course, but it’s obvious that there are some flies in the truth ointment.”
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt.
The program, known as “cross check” or “XCheck,” was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists. Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process, the documents show. Some users are “whitelisted”—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.
At times, the documents show, XCheck has protected public figures whose posts contain harassment or incitement to violence, violations that would typically lead to sanctions for regular users. In 2019, it allowed international soccer star Neymar to show nude photos of a woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his fans before the content was removed by Facebook. Whitelisted accounts shared inflammatory claims that Facebook’s fact checkers deemed false, including that vaccines are deadly, that Hillary Clinton had covered up “pedophile rings,” and that then-President Donald Trump had called all refugees seeking asylum “animals,” according to the documents.
A 2019 internal review of Facebook’s whitelisting practices, marked attorney-client privileged, found favoritism to those users to be both widespread and “not publicly defensible.”
“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. It called the company’s actions “a breach of trust” and added: “Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences.”
It’s their platform. They can do whatever they like. Act accordingly.
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Matt Margolis: Biden Isn’t Even Pretending His Vaccine Mandate Is About COVID. “The White House doesn’t care about protecting immigrants in this country from COVID. Heck, they don’t even care about Americans getting COVID from immigrants. We’ve known for months now that COVID-positive immigrants have been coming in through the border and then brought into the interior of the country by the Biden administration.”
Stacey Lennox: This Finding About COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects in Teens Are Troubling. “Any society willing to place burdens on children to make adults feel better has lost its collective mind.”
Yours Truly: Here’s the Real Reason Ben Stein Was Suspended From YouTube. “Stein and his panelists may publically exude their bellyfeel for COVID vaccines or vaccine mandates, but to debate those issues could encourage dangerous wrongthink among the proles or Outer Party members.”
NOT THE HERO WE DESERVE BUT MAYBE THE ONE WE NEED: Worried Dems Taming Tax Hikes After Joe Manchin Opposes. “Tax hikes are as American as soccer, stroganoff, and Apple Tarte Tatin — and now have feckless Dems wondering if one of their own will let them get away with jacking taxes up ever higher.”
RECALL: San Fernando Valley residents have trouble casting recall ballots.
At El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills, some voters say they were told the computers showed them as already having voted, even though they had not.
West Hills resident Estelle Bender, 88, said she was far from the only person who was being told incorrectly that they had already voted.
In addition to friends of hers who experienced the issue and two other women outside the polling place, Bender said that inside, “the man next to me was arguing the same thing.”
Bender said she filled out a provisional ballot and “left really angry.”
Bender added that, to her knowledge, many of those affected by this issue are self-identified Republicans, and she’s suspicious.
“I’d still like to know how I voted,” Bender said.
I have a guess.
PEOPLE OF ALL RACES WERE MURDERED THAT DAY: Washington State High School Cancels 9/11 Tribute for Being ‘Racially Insensitive.’
JOANNE JACOBS: Philosophy prof resigns from ‘social justice factory.’ “The university ‘has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division,’ Boghossian writes.”
JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO CIVILITY: Pro-Abortion Protesters Plan to Terrorize the Kavanaugh Family at Home.
WHAT’S SO AWFUL ABOUT PEACE, LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING? One Year Ago The Abraham Accords Were Announced. Biden Stopped Their Growth.
CHANGE? Virginia Gubernatorial Race Heats Up as McAuliffe and Youngkin Vie for Votes. “Polling suggests the race leans in McAuliffe’s favor by anywhere from 8-10 points, though some believe it’ll be closer due to President Joe Biden’s falling popularity.”
CHANGE? Andrew Yang, Democrat Who Endorsed Joe Biden, To Start New Political Party. “It’s unclear whether Yang has already left the Democratic Party — which he identified with during his rise to prominence — or what role he sees the new party playing in politics going forward.”
It’s clear to me, even though I don’t agree with Yang on much of anything.
Nationally, Democrats are in complete thrall to their craziest supporters and more corrupt and incompetent leadership, and Yang doesn’t seem to be crazy, incompetent, or corrupt.
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