Tuesday, August 23, 2022

The Fauci Boogeyman

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/fauci-gain-of-function-wuhan.html

At the Senate hearing, Fauci responded to Paul with what the NIH has maintained is a technically correct answer: that the institute never funded gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

But there remained one big sticking point. The experiment that was indirectly funded could actually have been classified as gain-of-function, according to several experts. That doesn’t imply that the research was bad or that EcoHealth experiments were necessarily too risky. It was a disagreement about terminology. But the flames of a conspiracy theory were fanned.

Right-wing commentators seized on the technical argument over a scientific definition to reach an absurd conclusion: that the NIH had directly funded the source of the pandemic, and that Fauci lied to the American public. Or as Tucker Carlson so incorrectly and ridiculously put it on Fox News in May: “The guy in charge of America’s response to COVID turns out to be the guy who funded the creation of COVID.”

Again, I must repeat: This is untrue.

Why they hate him: Dr. Fauci triggers the right because he reveals their deepest insecurities

 https://www.salon.com/2021/12/22/why-they-hate-him-dr-fauci-triggers-the-right-because-he-reveals-their-deepest-insecurities/

Dr. Fauci has been the favorite target of "who does he think he is"-style rants by pretty much every right-wing pundit and politician out there for over a year now. He's easily the most reliable hate object they've had since Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Those three are some readers — and that reliably triggers the bullying response in the Jesse Watters types. Despite all of their chest-thumping bravado, this knee-jerk hostility to those perceived as intellectually curious evinces a deep insecurity driving right-wingers.

Trump's Surgeon General Calls Hateful Reaction to Fauci Retirement 'Scary'

 https://www.newsweek.com/anthony-fauci-stepping-down-niaid-ted-cruz-jerome-adams-1736103

Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general from 2017 to 2021, tweeted on Monday: "Scary to see so many just truly hateful comments about Dr. Fauci in the wake of news of his retirement.

"Scary because what does the world look like when hard working, nation loving, and well-intended people say, 'nope—not gonna do public service... not worth the vitriol!'?"

Against this background, Fauci has been a Republican target throughout the pandemic. On the news of Fauci's upcoming departure, Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted: "Never in our nation's history has one arrogant bureaucrat destroyed more people's lives." He did not reference any examples.

Fox News Says Jesse Watters’ Words Were ‘Twisted Completely Out of Context’ After Dr. Fauci Calls For His Firing

 https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/dr-fauci-calls-on-fox-to-fire-jesse-watters-network-says-hosts-words-have-been-twisted-completely-out-of-context/496448/

“Now you go in for the kill shot,” Watters said, suggesting how members in the audience could confront Dr. Fauci and film the encounter. “The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming. This is when you say: Dr. Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab. The same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. You know why people don’t trust you, don’t you?”


Lara Logan, who compared Fauci to Mengele, says Fox News pushed her out

 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/09/lara-logan-fox-news-mengele-fauci-remark

The former CBS reporter Lara Logan, who compared Dr Anthony Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, has claimed she was “pushed out” at Fox News because the conservative network does not want “independent thinkers”.

The Problematic Position of Rage and Anger in Freud's Thoughts on Aggressivity

  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301717213_The_Problematic_Position_of_Rage_and_Anger_in_Freud%27s_Thoughts_on_Aggressivityhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/301717213_The_Problematic_Position_of_Rage_and_Anger_in_Freud%27s_Thoughts_on_Aggressivity


Freud basically interprets rage and anger as expressions of hate towards the father figure - a hate he defines in terms of the sadistic component of the libido

Social pressure to sin?

 Shabbos (118b) R. Jose also said: I have never disregarded the words of my neighbor's. I know of myself that I am not a priest, yet if my neighbors were to tell me to ascend the dais, I would ascend it. R. Jose also said: I have never in my life said anything from which I retracted.

Darchei Moshe (Orach Chaim 128:1)

כתבו התוס' פרק כל כתבי (שבת קיח:) לא ידעתי מה איסור יש בזר העולה לדוכן אם לא משום ברכה לבטלה שלכהנים אמרה תורה לברך עכ"ל. ומצאתי כתוב ע"ז ולפ"ז יכול הישראל לעלות עם הכהנים והם יברכו לרוב עם הדרת מלך מה טוב אכן לא נהגו באולי אשר אף בלא כהנים יעלו עכ"ל ועל דברי התוס' קשה לי דהא איתא בהדיא בכתובות פרק שני (כד:) דזר הנושא את כפיו עובר בעשה ואפשר דר"י לא קאמר אלא כשעולה עם כהנים אחרים אכל לבד הוא עובר בעשה וצ"ע:


'Threats to Democracy' Overtake 'Cost of Living' as Voters' Top Issue: Poll

 https://www.newsweek.com/threats-democracy-overtake-cost-living-voters-top-issue-poll-1735490

For the first time in recent months, registered voters in the U.S. say that the top issue on their minds is the threat facing democracy, according to a poll from NBC released Sunday. Previous NBC polls in March and May showed that the top issue on the minds of those surveyed was cost of living.

Vote for Lawler?!

BS"D
Aug. 23, '22
Rabbosai, and all,

ONE flyer (attached), with the endorsement of the pro-To'aiva Log 
Cabin Republicans for [incumbent Assemblyman] Mike Lawler 
for Congress - with a little explanation in English/ Yiddish -
 IF PROPERLY distributed in time - could potentially turn the 
election against Lawler - 
especially in the Conservative Party Primary - 
if our experience years ago with our campaign against
 (subsequently disgraced) Assemblyman Ryan Scott Karben is any indicator.
Lawler had the temerity to post it himself -
 in the midst of a republican PRIMARY(!) - 
itself a testimony to the decrepit state of republican affairs:

Of course, Lawler earned his Log Cabin
endorsement, 
via his hard work for their cause:
Most people don't understand that the primary battle here is 
not for a seat in Congress, it's for the soul of the Republican Party. 
THAT is a battle we can win, G-d willing,, regardless of the outcome of this particular race, IF the GOP understands that we will not vote for their transgenderist, Trojan Homosexualist candidates. 
We always have alternatives, even it's a protest vote.

Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,

Executive Director,

Help Rescue Our Children

NathanAdvisors@gmail.com / personal account

USA: 845-642-1679* «» 

* for calls and texts, but not WhatsApp


Trump's PAC will fund his Smithsonian portrait, in an unusual move

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/trumps-pac-smithsonian-portrait-00053204

The $650,000 donation last month from the Save America PAC — an organization controlled by Trump himself — was unprecedented, as no other political action committee has funded a presidential portrait in the past, Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas said. An additional $100,000 was given by an undisclosed donor to support the portraits, she said.

The funds, which total $750,000, will go to the artists, events and other fees associated with the two Trump portraits.


Donald Trump's 'Delay Tactic' on Mar-a-Lago Likely Doomed: Prosecutor

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-delay-tactic-mar-lago-likely-doomed-prosecutor-1735862

In addition to Aronberg, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe has suggested that the chances of Trump's suit being successful are slim, describing the motion as "very strange" during an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid on Monday. Tribe said that the former president was "asking" to be prosecuted while pointing out that the motion was filed on behalf of "President Donald J. Trump" rather than on behalf of Trump as a private citizen.

"One of the amazing things that I agree with [in the filing]... President Trump—he still calls himself President Trump—should not be treated differently from any other citizen," said Tribe. "Finally, he gets that right. Any other citizen who took top-secret material to not just a private home but a resort, like Mar-a-Lago... would be prosecuted... he is sort of asking [Attorney General] Merrick Garland to prosecute him."

Tribe also said that the two-week delay in filing the motion was "quite strange" and echoed Aronberg's conclusion by saying "it's sort of too late to ask for some new special master."

Monday, August 22, 2022

‘We got rolled’: How the conservative grassroots lost the fight with Biden because it was focused on Trump

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/conservative-grassroots-biden-trump-00052983

In years past, it would have been a political Waterloo moment for Republicans: President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats racing frantically to finalize sweeping legislation to hike taxes on corporations and spend trillions on climate change and health care subsidies.

But instead of mounting a massive grassroots opposition to tank or tar the Inflation Reduction Act, conservatives and right-wing news outlets spent the past week with their gaze elsewhere: the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion.

Why Trump is the most pro-gay president in U.S. history

 https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-com-brett-trump-pro-gay-president-20200127-qz62atj34jcezj66elpfip7ige-story.html

Without a doubt, President Donald Trump is the most pro-gay president in history. As a matter of fact, Trump has been more openly supportive of gay rights than former President Barack Obama was when he was first elected in 2008, or President Bill Clinton during his eight years in office.


Log Cabin Republicans chair: LGBT Americans belong in Donald Trump's Republican Party

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/20/donald-trump-lgbtq-lgbt-gay-rights-republican-equality-column/5605491002/

It hasn’t always been this way. For years, the GOP generally stood against the inclusion of gay and lesbian conservatives. As one of the Republican National Committee's first openly gay members, and a longtime leader of Log Cabin Republicans, I've worked tirelessly alongside many friends and colleagues to pull the party into the future. Today, thanks in large part to the leadership of President Donald Trump, the party has delivered meaningful policy victories for gays and lesbians.