Twitter temporarily suspends Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for vaccine misinformation.

[Flarelaine]

So, does Twitter have some sort of 3 strikes and you're out approach to bans, or can we not just have her outright banned from spreading her brand of abject bullshit in one go?

I understand they have something along those lines.

[Lenonis]

Again, they choose to believe the misinformation. They aren't being duped. They see both sides of the info and choose the one that is bullshit. That is their fault. It is a choice to go with what they want to believe over what is fact. We have to stop not holding people responsible for choosing to be stupid.

Ok? This isn't an either or equation here. We can punish those who willingly spread misinformation that harms public health and have people who chose to believe this misinformation have to deal with the consequences of their choices.

EDIT - I see your later posts. It sure is confusing when you are spending a lot of energy talking about the dummies that believe nonsense in a conversation about trying to remove people's microphone when they spew nonsense.

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Anyone calling Trump and his base vindictive and spiteful should probably just look in the mirror because Democrats right now are every bit as bad.

When it comes to Covid you have to be a special type of person to try to "both sides" it.

[D3thray]

The problem is, top republicans think this exact same way. They don't think of how to make the US better and how they can tell their version of the truth. They are interested in taking anything that democrats do or say and finding ways to distort them so that they make democrats look bad. This has been successful politically, and it is also steadily destroying America.

Yes, the Democrats and Republicans are pretty much mostly interested in winning political points over the other. It’s been this way my whole life and as long as everyone else is entertained by the back and forth and doesn’t try to educate themselves it’ll stay that way. I don’t have much faith in that happening.

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Ok? This isn't an either or equation here. We can punish those who willingly spread misinformation that harms public health and have people who chose to believe this misinformation have to deal with the consequences of their choices.

EDIT - I see your later posts. It sure is confusing when you are spending a lot of energy talking about the dummies that believe nonsense in a conversation about trying to remove people's microphone when they spew nonsense.

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When it comes to Covid you have to be a special type of person to try to "both sides" it.

Both sides is just a shorthand for look at the context and the bigger picture. It matters and having a self-righteous attitude about it isn’t helpful.

[Paranoid Android]

MTG also attacked a reporter when asked about her being vaccinated. Of course this moron fired back saying its a violation of HIPPA. No idiot, the reporter is not your doctor or medical care.

The projection of the fascists' party when the dump on AOC's intelligence. When u look at Bobart, MTG, Gohmert. I could add more just on dumbest political takes, but that is the fascist party as a whole.

[beanman12345]

MTG also attacked a reporter when asked about her being vaccinated. Of course this moron fired back saying its a violation of HIPPA. No idiot, the reporter is not your doctor or medical care.

The projection of the fascists' party when the dump on AOC's intelligence. When u look at Bobart, MTG, Gohmert. I could add more just on dumbest political takes, but that is the fascist party as a whole.

Just believing HIPPA is a law should instantly disqualify someone from making laws.

[PACOX]

Just believing HIPPA is a law should instantly disqualify someone from making laws.

What do you mean HIPPA isn't a law?

[beanman12345]

What do you mean HIPPA isn't a law?

edit- many people probably think of HIPAA and just typo, no problem, The like of MTG actually think HIPPA is an actual thing though, which is why she was trending number 1 for like 6 hours straight the other day.

[PACOX]

Gothca. In practice a lot of people interchange HIPAA and HIPPA. When you see HIPPA you just think HIPAA. Never figured HIPPA was anything but a mistake and the people throwing it around were misinterpreting HIPAA.

[beanman12345]

Gothca. In practice a lot of people interchange HIPAA and HIPPA. When you see HIPPA you just think HIPAA. Never figured HIPPA was anything but a mistake and the people throwing it around were misinterpreting HIPAA.

Yeah, unfortunately though for these anti-vaxxer morons it's not a typo, it's bullshit to help propagate more bullshit.

[Lenonis]

self-righteous attitude about it isn’t helpful.

You say this without even an ounce of self awareness huh? "Both sides" is the epitomizes a self righteous attitude. Take your own advice.

[Levelfive]

The other issue is how much the pandemic has been politicized. Regardless of which way you lean, it's not hard to see just how much people have become radicalized over it. What disturbs me is the fact that the whole time that the Wuhan lab theory was treated like a racist conspiracy theory by the American left (and subsequently other nations as well), and anyone who believed in it was ostracized for it all out of spite for Trump. And what happens after Biden gets elected? Faucci gets caught with his pants down and now what was a "racist conspiracy theory" becomes an entirely plausible concept that is being investigated.

Anyone calling Trump and his base vindictive and spiteful should probably just look in the mirror because Democrats right now are every bit as bad.

The Wuhan lab leak theory IS a racist conspiracy theory. What the WSJ reported was unsourced, unsubstantiated trash, but the way it works with the right is that mountains of evidence that are inconvenient to their narrative are never sufficient, but an unreliable whiff of possibility is iron clad confirmation of whatever nonsense they're peddling at the moment.

So I have some questions for people on the right, now that you once again have evidence that people on the left were right and telling you the truth all along. In the fever swamps of whatever passes for conservatism these days, people were convinced Trump would win by a landslide; and then, that the election would be overturned. They were convinced that covid was a hoax perpetrated by angry Democrats to hurt the economy and make Trump look bad. They were convinced that no one would even be talking about it the day after the election. They were convinced--and amused--that people getting vaccinated (the left) would die off in large numbers from the vaccine. They were convinced Democrats encouraging people to be vaccinated was part of an elaborate scheme to take away "freedoms" and "enslave" people. All completely, 100% wrong. All of it. Is there any point at which some part of you revises, and thinks, oh wait, if all of that is wrong, if we were wrong about every nefarious motive we ascribed (which is to say, projected) to Democrats, did they really want people to be masked and vaccinated for their own and everyone's safety all along? Do you ever wonder if all the other stuff you've been told about Democrats is also a lie? That maybe the right, which has almost nothing to offer 98% of the people and wants nothing more than to dismantle the social safety net and transfer the nation's wealth to the very richest and most powerful, was highly motivated to lie about Democrats, who DO have policy positions that benefit the vast majority of Americans? That maybe there's a possibility Democrats really do just want people to have a life saving vaccine, and a living wage, and health care, and the right to vote, and be able to marry the people they love, and extend the Constitution's guarantees to *everyone* and that it isn't, contrary to what the right has been telling you for all these years, a devious plot to secure votes from the poors (brilliant strategy, that ) and immigrants, and then, as someone said to me recently, with complete seriousness, murder millions of people because CRT and socialism? Like is there ANY point at which you evaluate everything you see before you, like, say, skyrocketing deaths almost exclusively among the unvaccinated, with FOX News and Steve Scalise suddenly pretending East Asia was never at war with vaccines, and think, hey, wait a minute....

No? No, I don't suppose so.

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I feel like being duped implies the "dupee" is unaware. That's not the case here. Its like going to a magic show. One isn't being duped by the tricks, they know they aren't real and are just illusions. If one walks out there thinking they witnessed real magic, then they weren't duped, they're just an idiot and believing it was real is 100% solely on them.

I'm not giving a pass to the grifters and opportunists, they are terrible and I hope they literally and figuratively burn. But no one is blaming the actual tens of millions of ass hats slopping up the bullshit while knowing its bullshit.

Agree 100%. You can't be sold something you aren't buying.

ETA: Actually, I want to follow up on this because it's crucial that people start acknowledging what this phenomenon really is because it's actual fascism. Which is why IT IS UTTERLY IMMATERIAL what the lie is or how crazy it sounds to the rest of us--all that matters is that they all say it together, in defense of the project. They're on board. That's the whole of it. That's why their "principles" rise and fall like sand castles; that's why there's no point in calling them hypocrites (aside from the fact that they don't give a shit, it's practically a non sequitur in this context). The particular form fascism has taken in this country is white nationalist Christianism. The left has to stop flattering itself and / or looking to excuse neo-fascist behavior and misidentifying the problem, that they're just gullible rubes. We can't successfully fight a problem we refuse to recognize, and we don't have all that much time.

http://waypointweichel.weebly.com/up...of_fascism.pdf

And as one example of stage 3 ("The only route to power available to fascists passes through cooperation with conservative elites. The most important variables, therefore, are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascists [along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the fascist leaders] and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate,") see: https://thebulwark.com/what-the-hell...ont-institute/

[Santti]

It 100% did come out of nowhere and it is being used as the latest ''boogeyman'' for conservative networks and circle-jerks. They always need something to be afraid of and/or mad at and CRT is just the latest in the conveyor belt of manufactured outrage and pearl clutching.

True. No fucking idea where this pushback against CRT came from, but it's not like this is a new phenomenon. We've seen this song and dance before. Whether it's gay right and cakes, trans bathrooms and sports, or gays in the army, and whatever.

Reminds me of the ever shifting "The Game" that's responsible for fucking up the young people.

[Ursus]

True. No fucking idea where this pushback against CRT came from, but it's not like this is a new phenomenon.

This tells you exactly where it came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critic...#United_States

Conservative lawmakers and activists have used the term "critical race theory" as "a catchall phrase for nearly any examination of systemic racism", according to The Washington Post. In September 2020, after seeing a piece on Fox News in which conservative activist Christopher Rufo denounced CRT, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agencies of the United States federal government to cancel funding for programs that mention "white privilege" or "critical race theory", on the basis that it constituted "divisive, un-American propaganda" and that it was "racist". Rufo's use of the term propelled the controversy into the mainstream; he wrote on Twitter, "The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory'."

In a speech on September 17, 2020, Trump denounced critical race theory and announced the formation of the 1776 Commission to promote "patriotic education".

[Rennadrel]

The Wuhan lab leak theory IS a racist conspiracy theory. What the WSJ reported was unsourced, unsubstantiated trash, but the way it works with the right is that mountains of evidence that are inconvenient to their narrative are never sufficient, but an unreliable whiff of possibility is iron clad confirmation of whatever nonsense they're peddling at the moment.

No, it isn't racist in the slightest to say where a fucking virus came from, we've literally been doing that for generations. The Spanish Flu didn't start in Spain, they were just the first to figure it out and so it was called that. Middle Eastern Accute Respiratory Syndrome? SARS? Avian flu? Also, it's worth noting that 3 of the last 4 significant viruses were sourced from China. West Nile virus being the other, both COV-1 and COV-2 along with the bird flu all originated there. That's reality, and considering Fauci got caught funding gain of function research in China because it's illegal in America, there needs to be a lot more questions answered about how the virus got transmitted to humans because I just don't buy the story. But to me it's highly suspicious that the government of China has worked so hard to scrub any truth about the source of the virus from being discovered and refuses to let international investigators do their jobs.

I'm not sure how people refuse to want to connect dots here and would rather act like nothing bad happened, because we sure as hell know that the government of China are not our friends. And frankly even if the lab leak theory is true, it's not going to change the last almost two years. What's done is done, I just want people and governments to be held accountable. And I say this as someone who is vaccinated. We've been way too slow in responding to this pandemic and the variants now are just making things worse. I'm pro vaccine and frankly if people don't want to get it done, let them suffer the consequences of their choices. Isolate them from society at all costs.

[Elegiac]

No, it isn't racist in the slightest to say where a fucking virus came from, we've literally been doing that for generations.

Because previous generations were widely known for their political correctness and racial tolerance. /s

Calling diseases by locational names hasn't been an acceptable thing for decades.

[Levelfive]

No, it isn't racist in the slightest to say where a fucking virus came from, we've literally been doing that for generations. The Spanish Flu didn't start in Spain, they were just the first to figure it out and so it was called that. Middle Eastern Accute Respiratory Syndrome? SARS? Avian flu? Also, it's worth noting that 3 of the last 4 significant viruses were sourced from China. West Nile virus being the other, both COV-1 and COV-2 along with the bird flu all originated there. That's reality, and considering Fauci got caught funding gain of function research in China because it's illegal in America, there needs to be a lot more questions answered about how the virus got transmitted to humans because I just don't buy the story. But to me it's highly suspicious that the government of China has worked so hard to scrub any truth about the source of the virus from being discovered and refuses to let international investigators do their jobs.

I'm not sure how people refuse to want to connect dots here and would rather act like nothing bad happened, because we sure as hell know that the government of China are not our friends. And frankly even if the lab leak theory is true, it's not going to change the last almost two years. What's done is done, I just want people and governments to be held accountable. And I say this as someone who is vaccinated. We've been way too slow in responding to this pandemic and the variants now are just making things worse. I'm pro vaccine and frankly if people don't want to get it done, let them suffer the consequences of their choices. Isolate them from society at all costs.

You plucked the word "Wuhan" out of everything I said and pretended that was the crux of the argument. That tracks.

In any case, in addition to what Elegiac noted, the Wuhan lab leak theory IS a racist conspiracy theory, meant to shift focus and definitely blame from Trump's catastrophically incompetent, optics-driven "handling" of a pandemic that caused hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. And there's no point in pretending it was done in some race-neutral vacuum, given that this was the most and most openly racist and full of shit administration in modern history, so your credulity strains credulity. Your willingness to believe Tucker Carlson et al over people who have dedicated their entire lives to this work and might know more than the terminally mendacious fish stick heir about natural mutations versus engineered mutations is something of a tell to the rest of us. (That they--and you--have now latched onto yet another way to lie about and try to discredit actual experts is just icing on the racist conspiracy cake.) So under no circumstances am I going to be lectured about "reality" (lol) by someone who mainlines and regurgitates obvious propaganda. Especially when, if you genuinely had concerns, it would take you very little time to investigate whether it's true. (Spoiler alert: it's not.)

As to this: "there needs to be a lot more questions answered about how the virus got transmitted to humans because I just don't buy the story"... Dude. Viruses are contagious, and they jump species, it's a thing they do. It's a thing that keeps actual virologists, epidemiologists, and decent presidents up at night, which is why they had a whole team dedicated to it that Trump disbanded. So what Joe Armchair Virologist does and doesn't "buy" is the least relevant point I can imagine here. Your ignorance is NOT just as good as trained experts' knowledge. The fact that you've opted to be humored to the contrary all this time really just underscores the second half of my post.

[Elegiac]

You plucked the word "Wuhan" out of everything I said and pretended that was the crux of the argument. That tracks.

In any case, in addition to what Elegiac noted, the Wuhan lab leak theory IS a racist conspiracy theory, meant to shift focus and definitely blame from Trump's catastrophically incompetent, optics-driven "handling" of a pandemic that caused hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. And there's no point in pretending it was done in some race-neutral vacuum, given that this was the most and most openly racist and full of shit administration in modern history, so your credulity strains credulity. Your willingness to believe Tucker Carlson et al over people who have dedicated their entire lives to this work and might know more than the terminally mendacious fish stick heir about natural mutations versus engineered mutations is something of a tell to the rest of us. (That they--and you--have now latched onto yet another way to lie about and try to discredit actual experts is just icing on the racist conspiracy cake.) So under no circumstances am I going to be lectured about "reality" (lol) by someone who mainlines and regurgitates obvious propaganda. Especially when, if you genuinely had concerns, it would take you very little time to investigate whether it's true. (Spoiler alert: it's not.)

As to this: "there needs to be a lot more questions answered about how the virus got transmitted to humans because I just don't buy the story"... Dude. Viruses are contagious, and they jump species, it's a thing they do. It's a thing that keeps actual virologists, epidemiologists, and decent presidents up at night, which is why they had a whole team dedicated to it that Trump disbanded. So what Joe Armchair Virologist does and doesn't "buy" is the least relevant point I can imagine here. Your ignorance is NOT just as good as trained experts' knowledge. The fact that you've opted to be humored to the contrary all this time really just underscores the second half of my post.

Folks that say shit to the effect of "I can't believe a natural virus could be so contagious and deadly" are really showing their privilege when it comes to having grown up in a world where a lot of the most lethal and infectious diseases have either been eradicated or have long established treatment protocols.

It's also showing they weren't paying attention for the past two decades because we've had repeated warnings of the risk of a major zoonotic event taking place in the context of rapid urbanisation and climate change, no lab leak required. But again; claims of malfeasance are entirely intended to shift blame rather than to take responsibility.

[Bodakane]

Folks that say shit to the effect of "I can't believe a natural virus could be so contagious and deadly" are really showing their privilege when it comes to having grown up in a world where a lot of the most lethal and infectious diseases have either been eradicated or have long established treatment protocols.

It's also showing they weren't paying attention for the past two decades because we've had repeated warnings of the risk of a major zoonotic event taking place in the context of rapid urbanisation and climate change, no lab leak required. But again; claims of malfeasance are entirely intended to shift blame rather than to take responsibility.

What's even more stupid, is that world of privilege was achieved through education, science and vaccines, yet many or even most of the people that are incredulous about a powerful naturally occurring disease, refuse to listen to that education & science about vaccines now.

Darwin was an optimist.

[Levelfive]

Folks that say shit to the effect of "I can't believe a natural virus could be so contagious and deadly" are really showing their privilege when it comes to having grown up in a world where a lot of the most lethal and infectious diseases have either been eradicated or have long established treatment protocols.

It's also showing they weren't paying attention for the past two decades because we've had repeated warnings of the risk of a major zoonotic event taking place in the context of rapid urbanisation and climate change, no lab leak required. But again; claims of malfeasance are entirely intended to shift blame rather than to take responsibility.

This is a really good point: anyone who thinks it's nefarious-scheme levels of "suspicious" that novel viruses are cropping up in China and anywhere else with high population density and increasing habitat encroachment / destruction rather than a damn near statistical certainty isn't in a position to responsibly opine. One way to tell if you are voluntarily susceptible to having your ignorance exploited is if you hear standard phrases from the scientific community like "can't rule anything out" and latch onto it as definitive proof.

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What's even more stupid, is that world of privilege was achieved through education, science and vaccines, yet many or even most of the people that are incredulous about a powerful naturally occurring disease, refuse to listen to that education & science about vaccines now.

Darwin was an optimist.

This is another depressingly good point.

[Corvus]

What's even more stupid, is that world of privilege was achieved through education, science and vaccines, yet many or even most of the people that are incredulous about a powerful naturally occurring disease, refuse to listen to that education & science about vaccines now.

Darwin was an optimist.

Bread and circuses basically. Just like the Roman Empire got soft and rotted internally, the same seems to be going on here. Previous generations had to scrape and fight but current ones (and that isn't just the millennials) have never had a challenge. Bad as the pandemic is, it is still not as tough as previous generations have had to deal with.