Month: April 2021

Calculate 2% of 350,00. Answer: 7,000.

That number — 7,000 — is the number of deaths every single day from COVID in India based on a rough but reasonably accurate world average COVID mortality rate of 2%.* The equivalent of two 9/11’s every day. And that is an underestimation.

Now, multiply 7,000 x 7. Answer: 49,000

That number — 49,000 — is the minimum estimated number of deaths every single week from COVID in India if the current rate continues. And again, that is an underestimation.

I did the calculations this morning and nearly collapsed from the horror. Then I thought of the mentally ill adults in Beverly Hills who accost children and fill their heads with the lie that COVID is a scam. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the sheer stupidity, paranoia, and malevlolent entitlement such actions betray.

Please, please, get vaccinated if you haven’t already. And please, please, don’t for even one second coddle those twisted, selfish people who refuse to do so out of some idiotic “principle.” Millions have already needlessly died. And don’t let those off the hook who are perfectly fine with millions dying provided they’re not required to wear a mask. It is simply nuts.

*Currently, India’s mortality rate is reported at slightly over half the world average. That is about to change for the worst given that India’s health system is on the verge of becoming completely overwhelmed.

CNN’s Gabby Orr did a deep dive into Trump’s life in Mar-a-lago as he plots his revenge and his comeback:

Most Mondays and Tuesdays, former President Donald Trump skips golf to confer with aides about the week ahead.Together they decide which Republican candidates he will meet with at his office — a converted bridal suite above Mar-a-Lago’s 20,000-square-foot ballroom — and whether they deserve his support. Often, he’ll ask for updates on his leadership PAC and political operation, or spend hours chatting by phone with a coterie of old friends.Far from a conventional post-White House retirement, Trump’s first 100 days out of office illustrate a man who has preferred plotting the next chapter of his political career to planning his presidential library, recruiting MAGA-aligned Republican primary challengers to writing a post-presidential memoir. Whereas his predecessors disengaged from politics for months after leaving office, Trump has turned the same political warfare that defined his presidency into a full-time retirement hobby as he weighs a full return to the spotlight with a potential comeback presidential bid in 2024.

“He didn’t play by the rules as President and he’s certainly not going to as an ex-President,” Newsmax CEO and longtime Trump pal Chris Ruddy said.

More than a dozen Trump aides, confidants and allies who spoke with CNN — many of whom were granted anonymity to candidly discuss his post-presidency — say the former President, who remains bitter about his defeat in the 2020 election, has nevertheless come to enjoy his status as a GOP kingmaker, relishing his ability to disrupt races or elevate pro-Trump figures against dissenters inside the party. Others noted that he is yearning to return to the White House and claimed that his efforts to build a post-presidential political machine are principally aimed at supporting that goal.

Most days of the week, Trump begins with 9 a.m. tee times at his namesake golf course 15 minutes from his home. He usually plays 18 holes, but he sometimes stays for the course’s full 27, followed by a leisurely lunch at its clubhouse with a rotating cast of friends. These days, friends say, he avoids the buffet.

Trump then conducts candidate interviews or meetings with his staff back at his oceanfront resort until 7:30 p.m. before joining his wife, Melania, for dinner on Mar-a-Lago’s bustling terrace. In recent weeks, the couple has dined with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Callista, who served as US ambassador to the Holy See during the Trump administration, and former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who remains a close friend.

“Right now, he’s doing a very good job sustaining his movement in case he does decide to run,” Gingrich said.It took Trump several weeks to get settled into his post-White House life.

Apparently, because he was pretending he actually won the election there weren’t many preparations done for his move to Florida. For a while he had some GSA aides, paid for by the taxpayers, to help him but they never provided them any phones or computers to do any work. Soon he was joined by a bunch of hacks to help him with his revenge planning. Names like Scavino, Lewandowski and Bossie showed up to do a little grifting. And Trump started making calls.

People familiar with these interactions said Trump has regularly called Conway, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for messaging and political advice or to complain about Biden and Democratic leaders. And when outside advisers started warning him in March that his post-presidential operation — particularly his methods for vetting candidate endorsements — appeared disorganized, Trump hauled in another longtime ally, Florida-based GOP strategist Susie Wiles, to instill order.

A person close to Trump who fielded multiple disgruntled calls from the former President in his first few weeks out of office said it took him several weeks to overcome the isolation he felt after hundreds of his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6 and he was thrust into a political exile. After he arrived at Mar-a-Lago following a low-key sendoff at Joint Base Andrews the morning of Biden’s inauguration, this person said Trump would talk about forming a third party and complain that Republicans, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, couldn’t wait to get rid of him — noting that his focus was on the past, not the future, which contributed to the early chaos in his post-presidential operation.

“Most people would leave the White House relieved to have the weight of the world lifted off their shoulders, but for him it was a reality that took some time to get used to. Those first few weeks, it was not an easy transition,” said the person close to Trump.

That’s because he’s out of his mind. Bu apparently his coterie of sycophants convinced him that he needed to concentrate on 2022 and he began to engage in retribution in earnest.

The former President already had a laundry list of prospective primary challengers lined up to take on his foes inside the party. But privately, he was working the phones to recruit more.

In Georgia, he encouraged GOP Rep. Jody Hice to launch a bid to unseat Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who repeatedly rejected Trump’s baseless claims of rampant voter fraud in the state and is currently cooperating with state investigators as they investigate a January 2 phone call in which then-President Trump asked Raffensberger to find the votes needed to flip the state into his column. In Ohio, where Trump has yet to bestow his blessing on one of the several Republican candidates running to fill outgoing GOP Sen. Rob Portman’s seat, the former President reportedly grilled four of the contenders at his Palm Beach golf club before a fundraiser last month.Aides say Trump is still on the hunt for a primary recruit in Georgia’s 2022 gubernatorial race due to his dissatisfaction with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s handling of the 2020 results in his state.

They note he is also vetting challengers to Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the only Senate Republican facing reelection next fall who voted to convict him after his second impeachment trial earlier this year. He has plans to target the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him and are hoping to hang on to their seats in the upcoming midterm elections, as well.

And they all file down to Mar-a-lago for that bootlicking ritual they all seem to love. But Trump doesn’t like the summer heat in Florida and he’s decamping to New jersey, upsetting some of his aides:

Next month, these proverbial pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago will end as Trump escapes the hot Florida summer to relocate to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The move has frustrated some allies who view his Florida resort as an ideal access point to wealthy Republican donors in the area — including former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who former Trump aides starting their own political outfits have solicited for financial support — and who are wary of the old friends Trump will encounter during his stay up North.

“A lot of his aides and allies thought Florida was going to be the center of the Earth for the next two years, and now he’s up and out of there,” said a former senior administration official. “His Bedminster club is much more closely knit, and you really never know who’s going to show up.”

People familiar with his plans said Trump will continue to host meetings at Bedminster, where he conducted many of his interviews for Cabinet posts during the 2016 presidential transition and where the conference rooms and office space may create an environment that is more conducive to his post-presidential planning. The New Jersey venue will also serve as the backdrop for lengthy interviews of which Trump is the subject, as he continues meeting with journalists who are penning books about his presidency and already completed first-round interviews at Mar-a-Lago.

The big question hovering over everything is whether he plans to run again. Let’s just say I will be shocked, gobsmacked, beyond surprised if he doesn’t. The man lives for revenge. Taking out some congressman simply cannot match defeating Joe Biden in 2024. He won’t be any older than Biden is now and he thinks of himself as being 35.

But the cult is getting antsy. If Deal Leader doesn’t run again, there is a long line of wannabes who need to know:

Some Trump allies are hoping this summer will provide clarity about the former President’s 2024 ambitions and his plans to assist candidates he’s already endorsed, or who he plans to, ahead of the midterm elections in November 2022.

Trump has played coy about his desire to seek a second term — declining to either rule out a bid or commit to running — while promoting Republicans who are widely seen as strong contenders themselves for the party’s nomination. In a March 22 appearance on “The Truth with Lisa Boothe,” Trump said the GOP has “a pretty deep bench” of possible contenders and went so far as to name-check Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

He’s testing them to see how loyal they are. They were all smart enough not to say anything that could make him turn on them. Just in case.

His noncommittal posturing has frustrated some allies, who worry he is blowing an opportunity to take control of the GOP early on and opening the door for other presidential hopefuls to forge relationships with his supporters.

“It’s important to have a field-clearing exercise sooner rather than later if he’s going to run, otherwise some of these other guys are going to start getting momentum,” said the former senior administration official.

Indeed, some rumored 2024 contenders have been laying the groundwork for their own potential campaigns with appearances in states that will play a critical role in the Republican presidential primary and general election: Former Vice President Mike Pence will deliver his first public address since leaving office in South Carolina this week. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Iowa in March, also appeared virtually at a fundraiser last month for New Hampshire Republicans. And both DeSantis and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley are due for appearances in Pennsylvania and Iowa, respectively, in the next two months. Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina have also made recent stops in Iowa — or plan to in coming months — fueling speculation about their presidential ambitions.

They’d better bet careful…

Meanwhile, people are trying to make him do something other than wreak revenge. I don’t think it’s going to work:

Other Trump allies have urged him to fine-tune his post-presidential messaging, which has featured ruthless attacks against Republican Party leaders and incumbent GOP officeholders and only recently drifted into regular criticism of the Biden administration. They say the vengeance-driven strategy he has deployed so far is unlikely to be helpful in the long term and ignores what they view as layup opportunities to target Biden and Democratic leaders over issues like immigration, taxes and identity politics.

“I think the radicalism of the Democrats is going to rebound enormously to Trump’s benefit and he would be better off to focus on the Democrats. He has enough friends to go after disloyal Republicans,” said Gingrich.”He should take the higher position and focus on larger domestic issues and international crises,” added Newsmax CEO Ruddy.

Lol. Trump take the “higher position?” Please.

While aides say Trump has recently been paying more attention to Biden’s agenda and policy decisions — last week he issued a statement criticizing Biden’s timeline for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan and told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the surge of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border could “destroy our country” — the former President’s focus remains primarily on himself.

“He hates being off the A block,” said a person close to Trump, using a term that refers to the lead segment in a cable news program. “He’s really thinking of running again in 2024 just to get back to that.”

He’s apparently not watching as much TV as he did when he was president. Think about that. But he yearns to be back in the White House where he is on the TV 24-7.

The person close to Trump’s operation said that while his TV consumption has declined since he left office — a byproduct of him no longer being surrounded by televisions in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One — he still reads The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post each morning and regularly marks up articles about his achievements or policies to send to aides and advisers.

And when an unflattering story pops up, he is quick to pick up the phone to complain to friends.

And yes. He’s getting ready to rally:

Recently, Trump has initiated discussions about resuming the signature MAGA rallies that fortified his nascent political movement in 2016 and continued throughout his presidency. While he has vowed to travel to Alaska to campaign against Murkowski and is said to be interested in hosting campaign events for some of the candidates he’s already endorsed, aides said the logistics are still being worked out but that he could resume rallies as early as May.

“It will definitely be different in terms of the setup, but we got really good at planning these events in 2020, so we will probably use a lot of those same vendors again,” said the person close to Trump’s post-White House operation.

Feel the magic.

The piece catches up with the kids. Javanka are laying low in their 30 million dollar estate in Florida. Jared phones in some of his stellar advice from time to time and Ivanka is being a “hands-on mom.” Melania is going to the spa all day and Junior and Kimberly are trusted advisers. No word on Eric and Lara.

Trump has to be the center of attention and now that he’s seen what it’s like to be the most famous man in the world he’s not going to give it up easily. Unless something external interferes I think he will run in 2024. It’s hard for me to imagine how he could rationalize not doing it.

Meanwhile, who’s running the Trump Organization? What’s happening with that?

1) So I want to tell a quick personal health story. It has the moral. The moral is please please please please please get your Covid shot.

2) I am vaccinated, but I've been sick the last several days. For a while, the docs thought it might be Covid.

The reason why they thought this is that I have an autoimmune disorder that is controlled with immunosuppressive drugs. The vaccine might not have fully "taken" in me.

3) The good news is that it's not Covid. We now think it's a bacteria infection. I'm on antibiotics now. I'm going to be fine.

My symptoms were also very mild, as far as Covid goes, so I never thought I was going to die or something. But here's the thing.

4) I can't tell you how soul crushing it is to contemplate the possibility that you may never achieve Covid immunity — that you will literally spend the rest of your life knowing that every time you travel, or step into a restaurant, or go to a party, that you could get it.

5) If a potent mRNA vaccine hadn't been enough to bolster my immune system against Covid, then I'd have no guarantee that the vaccine PLUS having a previous infection would protect me either.

6) My wife and I spent the last two days having some very dark conversations about how maybe it won't be safe for us to travel. We never thought this would kill me. But we did think that I might have to deal with a new Covid infection every 4 months or so.

7) Now ask yourself if you know anyone who might have a compromised immune system — a mother or a husband. A friend or a colleague. A beloved teacher.

8) There are people throughout this country quietly fearing that they could have to spend the rest of their lives in a somewhat milder version of 2020 — weighing every outing against the risk of getting sick. Imagine fearing that this was your forever state.

9) The only thing that can protect those people is herd immunity. They need enough people around them to be vaccinated that they can live their lives in safety.

10) Anyways. I had a scare. It's over now. Looks like my vaccine took.

Please get vaccinated. Other people aren't so lucky.

Originally tweeted by Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) on April 27, 2021.

Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) jumped into the crowded 2022 North Carolina Senate race this morning pledging to crush the “liberal agenda” with a monster truck, pass a little capitalism and a big heap o’ freedom, and keep the country from turning into a “woke, socialist wasteland.” With Donald Trump’s help.

This Budd’s for you, and he wants you to know he owns a gun store.

The open seat will be vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr. Former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker are already in the Republican primary.

You have to see the video to believe it.

Apple just announced it would build its $1 billion East Coast hub in the Research Triangle and bring 3,000 tech jobs with it. Just not by Nov. 2022. Still, good luck with the lefty-crushing, Ted.

The Democratic U.S. Senate field also got more crowded yesterday:

Cheri Beasley, the first Black woman to be North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice, launched her 2022 Senate campaign on Tuesday, seeking to break another barrier as the state’s first Black senator.

Beasley, 55, has won two statewide judicial elections: for the court of appeals in 2008 and for the Supreme Court in 2014. In 2019, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed her to lead the state’s highest court but she lost her 2020 election to serve a full eight-year term by 401 votes.”

For too many families across North Carolina, the doors of opportunity have been closed,” said Beasley in a video. “They’ve been left behind and ignored for too long. I’m running for Senate because it’s time for that to change.”

Beasley got a recent mention as possible Biden pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. Four other Democrats have already announced, including former N.C. state senator Erica Smith (who lost the 2020 primary to Cal Cunningham) and state Sen. Jeff Jackson.

Beasley has a sterling reputation and believes North Carolina voters have attention spans long enough not to need monster trucks, dogs, and guns to hold their attention.

Bill Busa (DocDawg at Daily Kos) tweets, “I’m starting to like Democrats’ odds in the NC senate race this year. As [Budd’s] campaign video illustrates, Budd, Walker, and McCrory are forced into an atavistic race to the bottom, each driven to prove he’s the most toxic trump-humper. This stuff doesn’t play in the burbs.”

An independent autopsy of Andrew Brown Jr., 42, shows sheriff’s deputies in Elizabeth City, N.C. shot the Black man in the back of the head, killing him while he was driving away. Four other bullets struck his right arm. Deputies were at his home one week ago to serve a search warrant and to arrest Brown on felony drug charges.

No more than four seconds elapsed between the arrival of Pasquotank Sheriff’s deputies at Brown’s home and shots being fired, new video obtained by CNN shows.

Lawyers for the family say body-camera video* shows both of Brown’s hands were on the steering wheel (NBC News):

“Of course, we don’t know the specifics of what happened, and we haven’t seen video,” said Keith Taylor, a 23-year veteran of the New York Police Department who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. “But if you have someone fleeing away from law enforcement and if there is no weapon or threat of a weapon, then what is the justification for ending that person’s life?”

The FBI announced it has opened a civil rights investigation into the killing.

Yet another police killing in the wake of recent conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd might suggest not only bad police training is at fault but a kind of cultural muscle memory.

Chauvin took his time choking Floyd in 2020: 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Cleveland police in November 2014 shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice within two seconds of arrival. Police took four seconds or less with Andrew Brown.

Police killings in the U.S. are attracting international attention.

An international coalition of human rights experts from 11 countries released a 188-page report in March in response to a string of police killings. The US-based National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Lawyers Guild, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers characterized the killings as “police murders” and violations of rights under international law:

From the evidence adduced at the hearings regarding the widespread and systematic killing and maiming of unarmed Black people who posed no threat of death or serious bodily harm to police or others, based on systemic racism, the Commissioners find a prima facie case that Crimes against Humanity have been committed.

The Guardian summarizes other accusations the commission levels at the U.S. for:

• violating its international human rights obligations, both in terms of laws governing policing and in the practices of law enforcement officers, including traffic stops targeting Black people and race-based stop and frisk;
• tolerating an “alarming national pattern of disproportionate use of deadly force not only by firearms but also by Tasers” against Black people;
• operating a “culture of impunity” in which police officers are rarely held accountable while their homicidal actions are dismissed as those of just “a few bad apples”.

The commission report concludes the U.S. operates two systems of justice, “one for white people and another for people of African descent.” It calls on the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague to open an investigation.

Resistance is futile

But not only does the U.S. refuse to recognize the ICC, U.S. police departments resist even local civilian oversight, the Washington Post reports. Albuquerque police thwarted efforts of a civilian review board to hold them accountable to the city:

Over four years, police had fatally shot 20 people, including a mentally ill Hispanic man struck three times in the back outside his home. Justice officials discovered a pattern of unconstitutional and excessive use of force, and a civilian oversight office that had “simply been too forgiving of the department’s use of deadly force.”

Federal authorities demanded a wide range of reforms from the city — including a new civilian oversight agency with greater authority.

But many in Albuquerque fought change at every turn: The police union sued to block the new agency and later demanded the resignation of an agency board member who pushed to tighten the police department’s use-of-force policy. The city council took four years to give the agency stronger subpoena power for its investigations. And veteran police officials pushed back against efforts to increase scrutiny of the department’s use of force, creating a backlog of investigations that has prevented the agency and its board from completing their reviews of most fatal shootings.

The Post’s review of “audits, misconduct complaints, emails, lawsuits and interviews with dozens of current and former officials” found this is a pattern across the country.

A pattern of authoritarian abuse. A pattern of “callous disregard” for human life (CBS News):

A New York City jail supervisor was charged Monday with criminally negligent homicide in the death of a detainee who hanged himself on her watch last in November. 

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said jail captain Rebecca Hillman showed “callous disregard” for Ryan Wilson by ordering officers not to perform potentially lifesaving measures and leaving him hanging in a locked cell for about 15 minutes.

Ryan Wilson, 29, was Black, held on a robbery charge, and upset he had been moved to a different housing unit over an altercation with another inmate:

He told the officer he would hang himself unless Hillman let him out of his cell and — after waiting 10 minutes for her — he did, prosecutors said.

Hillman told other inmates that Wilson was “playing” and ordered a subordinate jail officer not to enter Wilson’s cell because she thought he was faking, prosecutors said. Hillman called for non-emergency backup and ordered the cell door locked while she went on her rounds, prosecutors said.

About 15 minutes after Wilson hanged himself, Hillman ordered the door unlocked and allowed officers inside, prosecutors said. He had a faint pulse and was dead by the time medical personnel arrived, prosecutors said.

Loveland, Colo. police last summer roughed up Karen Garner — 73, white, five-feet tall, eighty pounds, suffering dementia — while arresting her for suspected shoplifting. She was tackled, handcuffed, and hog-tied.

As she sat weeping in a cell for hours with an untreated arm fracture and dislocated shoulder, officers sat nearby reviewing body-camera footage:

“Ready for the pop? Hear the pop?” the officer who initially handcuffed Garner can be heard saying, referencing the moment he injured her shoulder.

The nearly one-hour booking cell video released Monday shows two Loveland Police Department officers who participated in Garner’s arrest fist-bumping each other while discussing the incident. At one point, they are joined by another officer as they mock and praise the arrest, which they claimed “went great,” while referring to Garner as “ancient,” “senile” and “flexible.”

“We crushed it,” one of the officers says.

There is more. And it is vile.

* Update: A judge has ruled that body camera video will not be released to the public.

Question: What message were you sending by wearing a mask outside alone? pic.twitter.com/pjtVNdN2fb

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 27, 2021

It was a shit question, answered perfectly.

I guess we know where Tucker Carlson got the idea to harass school children for following the rules. This was from a couple of weeks ago. You’ll notice that they used the “child abuse” claim that Carlson suggested anti-mask psychopaths accuse parents of masked children of. Sick, sick stuff:

A group of anti-mask protesters gathered outside a Beverly Hills elementary school, urging young children not to wear face coverings.

In a series of videos posted to Twitter by Samuel Braslow, a reporter from the Beverly Hills Courier, the maskless group of adults is seen handing out flyers and business cards to children as they leave Hawthorne Elementary school.

The protesters are also holding signs that read “Let the children breath” and “Masks = child abuse.” 

At hawthorn elementary school in Beverly Hills, where a small group of anti-maskers has gathered with signs and flyers to protest public safety measures. They are telling passing children not to wear masks. pic.twitter.com/hsZvrRXNdP

— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) April 21, 2021

“I’m positive you hate that mask,” one woman shouts at a child in one of the videos. “And it smells bad!”

Another man is captured telling a kid: “No one likes the masks, so I don’t know why you’re wearing them.” 

Braslow also reported that the organizer of the protest, a woman called Shiva Bagheri, started arguing with one of the children after it told her that masks work.

“You think it does because they told you that, sweetheart … it’s called propaganda,” Bagheri reportedly tells the child, which then responds by sticking his tongue out at her

I like that kid.

The reporter also posted a photo of one of the flyers that protesters were distributing to the children. It listed cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease as a few of the “health consequences” caused by masks.

There is no evidence linking cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease to face coverings.

Hawthorne Elementary School Principal Sarah Kaber had alerted parents before the protest on Wednesday. In an email, Kaber said the protest was expected and that officials decided to add extra security that day, according to The Independent.

“We support every person’s constitutional rights when on public property,” Kaber wrote in the email, according to MSN. 

“To ensure this afternoon remains peaceful, we have support here from district leadership and Beverly Hills Police Department. We ask for your support in de-escalating and disengaging with any heightened feelings in order to make our students feel calm and safe,” she added.

Staff worked to keep the students away from the protesters as much as possible, as seen here where a staff member pulls a kid away from the group. pic.twitter.com/rPTNtp6NAt

— Samuel Braslow (@SamBraslow) April 21, 2021

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to lying, Joe Biden is a rank amateur compared to Donald Trump:

In the wake of a presidency in which lie-telling was a key feature, preliminary results on dishonesty are in for President Joe Biden.

Biden made 67 false and misleading statements in his first 100 days in office, according to a report Monday from The Washington Post’s fact checker. That compares to 511 such comments from his predecessor Donald Trump in his first 100 days.

The Post’s fact checkers characterized the Biden era as “a return to a more typical pattern when it comes to a commander in chief and his relationship with the facts — one that features frequent spin and obfuscation or exaggeration, with the occasional canard.”

The team analyzed Biden’s every speech, interview, tweet or public statement, following the same methodology as the database that tallied more than 30,500 false or misleading claims over the course of Trump’s four years in office.

The Post made several notes on the difference between the two presidents.

Biden has spoken around 40% fewer words than Trump had by this point in his presidency. His public remarks are typically prepared, in contrast to Trump, who was known for his lengthy, stream-of-consciousness-style speeches. 

Biden has also tweeted considerably less than his predecessor and tends not to repeat his false claims if they’ve been fact-checked and shown to be false. 

Two of Biden’s falsehoods have earned the Post’s “Four Pinocchio” rating, designated for “whoppers.” He claimed several times that Georgia’s GOP-led election law will end voting hours early. It won’t. The other is Biden’s claim that federal government contracts awarded to foreign companies went up by 30% under Trump, when in fact it was likely much less.

[…]

The fact-checking analysts noted that when Biden made exaggerated claims, he would often amend his wording in subsequent addresses in apparent response to news coverage.

Trump’s tally grew at a dramatically faster rate as his presidency progressed. Toward the end of his term, he was making around twice as many false claims a month as he did in his entire first year in office. On Nov. 2, the day before the election, Trump made 504 false claims in a day, nearly the same amount he made in his first 100 days.

After what we saw over the past five years, Biden’s “lies” don’t even seem like lies. It’s more like he was briefed incorrectly on some obscure detail. And at least he has the decency to stop saying it once the media points it out. Trump just doubled down.

Meanwhile, Fox and the rest of the right wing media is enjoying this:

They didn’t mention the comparison with Trump. Of course.

It just never ends. On the day the CDC relaxed the guidelines for mask wearing outdoors for the fully vaccinated, we see this nonsense. It isn’t just Tucker Carlson’s despicable direction to his followers to confront people wearing masks and demand they take them off because it makes them “uncomfortable” (and report parents as child abusers for putting masks on their kids) we have people like this:

By the time Kristen Meghan Kelly, a 38-year-old Michigan mom and self-described “health freedom advocate,” hit record on her phone’s camera, the confrontation outside the Hudsonville School Board meeting was in full swing.

In a 22-minute video from April 15 that has been shared widely on Facebook, Kelly explains that she’s been denied entry to the public meeting despite what she says is a “medically recognized” disability and PTSD diagnosis that prevents her from wearing a mask. When another parent questions that explanation, she switches tack and launches into a “science”-based assault on masking.Advertisement

“I am actually an exposure scientist,” Kelly says to the other parent, who’s off-screen.

“Oh, an exposure scientist,” the parent can be heard saying, as she laughs.

“Yes, I’m an industrial hygienist, and I actually travel around the country testifying in front of governors. I’ve opened up Texas and North Dakota,” Kelly says.

If Kelly has her way, she told The Daily Beast, she’ll also further loosen COVID-19 restrictions in her own state of Michigan—despite a raging outbreak that is testing the state’s hospital system and threatening the lives of more young people than ever before.

“We’re not going to stay silent,” Kelly said.

Although parents at the school board meeting may have laughed off her credentials, Kelly has enjoyed an increasingly robust platform in anti-mask circles in recent weeks. And this activism, public health officials fear, could cause big problems—especially in Michigan, which has become the country’s worst COVID hotspot.

While Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been criticized for bowing to political pressure and allowing indoor activities such as dining and sports—that experts say likely fed the current surge—her administration has been steadfastly in favor of masking requirements. Last week, the state extended its mask mandate until at least late May and expanded it to require children age 2 and over to wear masks.

“Mask use continues to be critically important right now. It’s proven to be effective and it’s proven to be safe,” said Marcia Mansaray, a deputy public health officer in Ottawa County, where Kelly lives.

Kelly, of course, disagrees. But unlike most conservative anti-maskers who completely dismiss the pandemic, she’s leaning on a compelling personal story, some acknowledgment of basic facts, and, most of all, what she describes as nearly two decades of experience as an industrial hygienist, a field that focuses on ways to protect employees from hazardous substances at work.

“The science,” she told The Daily Beast, “is on my side.”

Leading scientists in her field are not, and expressed serious concerns about Kelly’s activism and how she was portraying the profession.

“Face coverings are a proper public health measure that mitigates the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. And if you’re not wearing anything across your nose and mouth, you’re only contributing to the generation of particles that are floating around in a room,” Laurence Svirchev, a certified industrial hygienist with the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the primary educational arm of the industry, told The Daily Beast.

“It’s not a difficult concept to understand,” Svirchev added, echoing many months of public health guidance across the world.

Larry Sloan, CEO of the AIHA, where Kelly has held an emeritus membership, told The Daily Beast that the vast majority of the AIHA’s 8,000-plus members “believe that face coverings are one important strategy for reducing risk.”

“It is very dangerous,” Sloan said about the way Kelly links her activism to the field of industrial hygiene. “I think it is undermining the science of industrial hygiene.” (Kelly responded by calling Sloan’s statement “shocking and disturbing,” arguing “it goes against the whole field of industrial hygiene.”)

[…]

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, industrial hygiene occupied a relatively obscure corner of workplace safety. But according to Sloan, the problem of containing COVID-19 has made this industry “relevant everywhere” practically overnight.

Kelly has capitalized on that relative obscurity and sudden relevance—as well as COVID’s evolving science—to carve out a niche for herself as an expert for anti-maskers hungry for arguments that back up their desire to ignore mask mandates.

“Because, I know. Masks don’t work. Because it’s my job. It’s my job,” she tells the other parent in the video. “That’s fine. And do you want to know who does want to hear my opinion? Attorneys, who I help with their cases

It’s not about the science. She’s barely qualified. This woman is a right wing extremist. Not that it wasn’t already obvious:

Kelly is not a certified industrial hygienist, which she told The Daily Beast was “a personal choice” (credentialing is not required to register as an industrial hygienist with the AIHA). Instead, Kelly, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in occupational safety and health, describes herself as a “senior industrial hygienist,” something Sue y, it’s a living., a managing director at the American Industrial Hygiene Association, told The Daily Beast is “not a real thing.”

Hey. A gal’s gotta make a living. I’d imagine she’s making some good coin being a “scientist” opposed to mask wearing in a pandemic.

We are in a crisis in this country that goes way beyond COVID. It’s a gullibility crisis. I know PT Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute” but honestly, I think it’s contagious.

Don’t throw away your mask. But if you’re fully vaccinated you don’t have to wear one very time you leave the house:

Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus no longer need to wear masks outdoors if they’re walking, running, hiking or biking alone, with members of their household, or if they attend small outdoor gatherings, federal health officials announced on Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped short of telling those people that they could shed their masks altogether in outdoor settings — citing the worrying risk that remains for transmitting the coronavirus, unknown vaccination levels among people in crowds and the still high-caseloads in some regions of the country.

Federal health officials and President Biden were announcing the updated advice on Tuesday, linking the news with the administration’s public campaign to get most American adults vaccinated by summer and trying to offer reassurances that some semblance of normal life can return.

But the C.D.C. is maintaining advice on other safety measures, saying vaccinated adults should continue wearing masks and staying six feet apart in large public spaces, like outdoor performance or sports events, indoor shopping malls and movie theaters, where the vaccination and health status of others would be unknown. And they still should avoid medium and large gatherings, crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, officials said.

Maybe this will incentivize some people to get vaccinated. But I doubt it. Anyone who was dutifully wearing a mask in order to protect themselves and others is already either in process or fully vaccinated. But maybe some will relent and just get it done now. Every attempt to get people vaccinated is good.