Ted Cruz is a sleazy liar: He should have stayed in Cancun

January 6 insurrection led by #TFG was sedition. Where was #CruzToLoose? He was hiding, that's where he was, while brave Capitol security and Washington DC police were saving his life.

Gotta love it that Dr. Anthony Fauci continues to be in the face of Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul!  #FauciStrong!

#CruzToLoose  Senator Ted Cruz has zero health care provider credentials. His sleazy political accusations made while trying to intimidate Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a respected medical scientist, are examples of a desperate scum bag Republican who is circling the  right wing extremism's drain.

#CruzToLoose should have stayed in Cancun, when he tried and failed to escape the Texas power grid failure. Who let Cruz back into the U.S.? Cruz was born in Canada!  Rafael Cruz, the father of Ted Cruz, was a Cuban immigrant to Canada!

FACE THE NATION echo report by David Edwards, published in RawStory:

Dr. Anthony Fauci responded on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested that he should be prosecuted for his role in the Covid-19 pandemic.

CBS host Margaret Brennan asked Dr. Fauci about the Texas (CruzToLoose!) senator's threat, during an interview on Face the Nation.

"I have to laugh at that," Fauci told Brennan. "I should be prosecuted? What happened on January 6, Senator?"

"Do you think that this is about making you a scapegoat to deflect from President Trump?" Brennan wondered.

"Of course," Fauci replied. "You'd have to be asleep not to figure that one out." 

"I'm just going to do my job," he added. "And I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying."

More about Dummy McCarthy and TFG handler - hearing his master's voice

Echo opinion letter published in the Bakersfield.com news, in the California community where Rep. Kevin McCarthy represents the district, in the US Congress. 

Although Rep. McCarthy is obviously elected by his constituents to represent them in Congress, the fact is, there are many opinion letters published in this Bakersfield news source that oppose his right wing points of view. This blog contains just one echo, in a series:

Dummy Charlie McCarthy is handled by his ventriloquist handler, Edgar Bergen. Surely, Rep. Kevin McCarthy obeys his master's #TFG's voice, just like the dummy that is apparently a member of his family.

#Insurrection! Jan. 6 happened. We all saw it. We witnessed the damage, saw the anger and heard the threats. Now, Steve Bannon, who is the sleaziest of all for stealing donations from citizens, is being protected by the Republicans? 

Worse, Kevin McCarthy is at the center of it. The election was not stolen. The ones screaming foul, this crazy set of Republicans, know what fake actions they are taking. It is severely damaging our country. No matter what side you are on, you can now feel the hate in this country. It is tragic, and is being promoted by #TFG Trump and dummy McCarthy. 

Why doesn’t McCarthy want an investigation into what happened on Jan. 6? 

All it is is an investigation.

McCarthy brought Trump, who spearheaded Jan. 6, back into the scene by his groveling. But, Trump was voted out! Well, get ready. McCarthy's “team” is now talking about replacing him as their candidate for speaker with Donald Trump! You don’t think it may happen? Just you wait. In case you forgot, Trump can't serve on any charity board. Geez, you could have had a V8!

COVID rates in McCarthy's district are ridiculously high. 

As a matter of fact, McCarthy should come in person and urge his constituents to save not only their lives, but those of their families, friends, and even your family. Vote for, not against, new roads, child and elder care. Do something positive for once.

— Mark Perttula, Bakersfield

Maine Writer:  #KevinMcCarthy needs a battery change! His brain must be reset.

Vaccine arithmetic 101: Vaccines are effective and free

Cases of ivermectin poisoning.

Echo opinion letter published in Tuscon.com

After reading about the use of Ivermectin (use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms, and head lice and skin conditions- used by #TFG cult to treat COVID), one opinion writer reflects growing up in Wyoming. 

Right Wing #TFG cult would rather pay for horse medicine! 

My Tweet:

Juliana L'Heureux@julianawriter
@FoxNews More evidence about #TFG cult are arithmetic challenged! These obsessed #AntiVaxxer people would rather pay average retail price for the useless anti-worm drug #Ivermectin taken by idiots is $107.99 but @pfizer @moderna_tx & @JNJNews is #FREEVaccine @CNN #VaccinesWork

Local ranchers used an array of veterinary medicines; antibiotics for infections, vaccines to prevent infection and anti-parasitics to deworm.

Following misinformation from (snake oil sales!) conservative commentators and podcasts, many are self treating with an “off the shelf” dewormer, now resulting in overloading ER’s and ICU’s. Ivermectin apparently is effective on cattle, horses, jackasses and “delusional” elephants . 

After discharge from treatment, at least those users should be parasite free. But the rest of us, after an exasperating four years, see the continued side effects of the worst (stupidity!) parasite to ever infect America . Please be considerate of your fellow human being as we are all on this small planet together. Educate , Vaccinate and Vote !!!

Jonathan Schultz - Northwest side Tuscon Arizona

Ignore the former guy and focus on truth: Trumpmania is yesterday's news

Yesterday's News  "well traveling to the point that I, - I can't stop it -get so familiar- never get enough - talk about it all the time- just drop it..."

Echo Opinion | The Trump News Show Is Over and We’re All Healthier For It; published in POLITICO Magazine Fourth Estate, by Jack Shafer.

What have you been doing with your time? The numbers tell us that the average news consumer is watching a whole lot less cable news and has gone on a restricted online news diet. Over the past year, the major cable channels have lost from 34 percent to 43 percent of their audiences. The New York Times website lost almost 34 percent of total unique visitors between June 2020 and June 2021, and the Washington Post has seen a similar 27 percent drop in uniques over the same period. Nearly every online news leaderboard has taken a hit, whether they have paywalls or not: CNN.com, uniques down 20 percent; the Atlantic down almost 52 percent; Business Insider down 31 percent; POLITICO down 44 percent.

Outlets sometimes dispute the precision of external counts such as ComScore’s, but no one argues the downward trend isn’t real. There’s been no C-suite purge, however, because the mass defection of millions of eyeballs doesn’t equal a business crisis. That’s because the bulging ratings collected by cable news were a Donald Trump-related anomaly, helping to move advertising. The entire industry anticipated the decline whenever Trump left office. 

For Fox News Channel (ugh!) and CNN, the more lucrative and more reliable source of revenue has always been monthly subscriber fees paid by viewers through the cable company. 

For non-cable outlets, higher page-views related to Trump were difficult to monetize. 

Despite Trump’s prediction that the media business would croak without his agitations, we see the opposite. New hiring continues at the established outlets, coverage is expanding and acquisitions at high valuations continue. Robert Allbritton just sold his POLITICO properties, as you may have read, for more than $1 billion. (This might be a counter-intuitive strategy to control the liberal news outlets?)

What the drop-off actually signifies is that news readers and viewers have resumed their previous consumption habits after several years of gorging on news the way a drunk who crashes his yacht into the island of free pizza might scarf down a hundred slices of pepperoni.

Now that Trump Island is gone, news consumers have happily gone cold turkey. How many of us are actually that upset he no longer swamps the news flow? The drop-off has also benefited journalists, too, giving them a chance to dismount from the junk news treadmill they had been running. The market for news has miraculously right-sized itself, leaving us as well-informed as before and about half as crazy.

The causes behind the “great media crash” are self-evident. Last year was a campaign year, which always causes news consumption to spike. It was also the last year — barring his reelection in 2024 — of President Donald Trump. Trump was a one-man perpetual news machine, forever feeding reporters high-calorie, low-nutrition tidbits and serving dumpsters of coverable commotion, some of which was forgotten the day after it was reported. 

Remember when the White House promoted Melania Trump’s jewelry line or when Kellyanne Conway hyped Ivanka Trump’s clothing line? Sometimes #TFG would uncork two or three mini-scandals a day. The press corps was sometimes unable to discern which of his threats were empty (Would he torch North Korea, inject the ill with bleach or stop the election count?) because so many of the threats turned out to be full (He did have reporters banned from the White House, he did back the murderous Saudis to the hilt, he did impose a Muslim travel ban, incarcerate children and declare the 2020 election fixed).

The saturation Trump coverage was justified journalistically — a rogue and unpredictable chief executive is a very dangerous thing, and if he uses the Constitution as a kitchen towel you’ve got to call him on it. 

Preserving a record of Trump’s transgressions was essential, so let’s not quarrel with the volume of coverage. But, in retrospect, once Trump had self-stereotyped himself as a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel and a crybaby, few of us had to read beyond the headline and first paragraph to get the message. We let the Trump Show become delicious breakaway entertainment, served in round-the-clock installments, like a bundle of your favorite Netflix serials. The more we read about Trump, the more we wanted to read about him, and the more we looked forward to the conveyor belt of books about Trump steered our way. We bolted down so much Trump news it’s a wonder readers and viewers livers didn’t grow so enlarged you could make human foie gras from them.

We’ve been indoctrinated since grade school to believe that partaking the news was essential to citizenship, democracy and our American way of life: Study the issues! Debate the issues! But nobody ever told us that a thing that’s a nutrient at one dosage can become a poison when quintupled. During Trumpmania, billions of man-hours were needlessly burned reading and viewing Trump stories that could have better gone toward gardening, parenting, reading, hobbying, drinking, sexting and even sitting on the porch doing nothing. Each of us could have learned a foreign language or learned to play guitar instead of reading about him from day to night for four years. We really should have known better. Guy DeBord (Society of the Spectacle) and Daniel Boorstin (The Image) warned us in the 1960s that our appetite for mass spectacle would make us a target for political extremism if somebody appeared who knew how to use the media and exploit it. Trump appeared, he made for excellent copy and we all got hooked.

Having been towed to the depths by the news binge, we have only now surfaced to reorder our priorities. First, we must never forget the way we let Trumpmania upend our media diet and turn us all into fatted hogs. When Trump returns — or the next Trump uses his attention-grabbing methods — we should be prepared to resist his caterwauling. Somebody should create a browser add-in that would remind us when we’ve over-partaken of the news. 

Moreover, CNN could add a product disclaimer to its programs noting that over-watching TV news can mess with your mind and that TV is only safe when taken as directed. I kid, but only a little. Like Facebook and YouTube, TV news narcotizes its clientele. Because we know the media can’t — and shouldn’t — show restraint in its coverage when it covers norm-flouting politicians, it’s up to us to know when to turn away.

If Trump deserves major blame for boosting viewership, Joe Biden should get some credit for relieving us of our 24/7 news duties. You don’t have to be a Biden fan to appreciate the way his conduct has reduced national political news from the totality of existence to something more like a companion. 

If anything, Biden has downplayed his role in the national drama to levels just below perception. Had we not bolted from Afghanistan, how much would we be reading about him? Sometimes I Google “the name of the president of the United States” to remind me who occupies the White House.

Ask anybody who has successfully lost weight, and they’ll tell you the first task is portion control. To push the metaphor, go ahead and fill your plate with all the news you like, but use a nine-inch plate from the 1950s instead of a modern 13-inch platter. 

And as you read, consult your sense of satiety and act accordingly.

One reason for the decline of the New York Times uniques is the newspaper ended its distribution deal with Apple News in June 2020. But its decline is still consistent with other outlets. 

Juice my email numbers with messages to Shafer.Politico@gmail.com. My email alerts have a weight problem. My Twitter feed never turns its TV off. My RSS feed can’t read.

Hello #TFG: Just so you know- Mexico never paid for the wall

Say whaaaa?  "Mexico will pay for the wall" ??? IDTS

The former guy's cult are deaf to his evil list of lies. 

The atmosphere is thick with misinformation.

Echo opinion published in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Hoyt Purvis: The Big Lie?

And it might be said that #TFG cultist environment is permeated with misbelief.

The Big Lie

Misinformation is evident in campaign attacks and criticism by the pro-Trump forces and their lack of regard for the truth – a notable example being what many are calling the "big lie." Fabricated claims and exaggerated boasts are commonplace.

Recall #TFG Trump's frequent assertion that he knows more about taxes than anyone else. Now, of course, Trump and some of his financial cadres are facing tax-related legal difficulties. 

And who could forget "Mexico will pay for the wall" and many further examples. Trump also grossly exaggerates the size of crowds at his rallies. After leaving the White House, Trump and some close allies continue to repeat and rely on unfounded claims, particularly related to the 2020 election.

They insist that Trump won, despite no evidence to support those claims. Indeed, there is near unanimity among local and state election officials that Trump lost. And there is nothing to indicate "mass election fraud" as Trump has argued, even though local and state officials, his own attorney general and large numbers of judges, some of whom he appointed, have ruled against Trump and his backers.

Trump has said 86 election-related lawsuits have been filed. He also alleges his First Amendment rights have been violated by social media companies, accusing them of censoring him and other conservatives, of exhibiting terrible bias. In most cases, the cases have been quickly dismissed.

Trump and many supporters are trying to whitewash the violent melee at the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6.

Meanwhile, internal GOP politics is more and more confusing -- and, as Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says, perplexing. Or, as we might say, bewildering.

All of this takes us in a puzzling direction when you factor in conflicting reports and analysis, disputed numbers and different perspectives. There are, of course, the hard-core Trump supporters who take his word as gospel and will not entertain any alternative ideas.

Many are reluctant or unwilling to take precautions – for example, wearing masks when appropriate. Generally, the U.S. has adequate information, equipment and supplies. However, Arkansas now ranks at or near the bottom among states in percentages of vaccinated individuals.

What is especially bewildering is the large number of eligible citizens who refuse to take advantage of "free shots," with inoculations now readily available without charge. Arkansas's Republicans Governor Asa Hutchinson's administration has even offered incentives such as fishing licenses and lottery tickets, but they were not effective.

Hutchinson says the most powerful incentive is the reality that if Arkansas does not significantly increase its rate of vaccinations, "we won't be getting rid of covid-19 and its spinoffs anytime soon."

Hutchinson points out that a month ago, the state was on a positive track, but then began to stall at about 40 percent. He said the number of active cases was declining and he and many others were optimistic about a "return to normalcy." Hutchinson notes that this was when the Delta variant began to have significant impact and was continuing to accelerate.

As Arkansas finds itself at or near the bottom of various national rankings, it is particularly distressing to see it in this listing.

Hutchinson has recently become the go-to-guy for national media and is a regular commentator and spokesman for Republicans.

Whether Hutchinson can hit that mark will be a significant indicator of the future and of the Republican Party -- and his own future in state and national politics and in the Republican Party, with some touting him as moving away or "distancing" himself from Donald Trump.

Again, the internecine conflict could tell us a lot about where the Republican Party is headed.

These baskets of "perplexing-bewildering" issues are overflowing and commanding attention. 

Some of those issues become entangled with partisan politics, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan or the disputes over voter rights.

In recent days, #TFG Trump doubled down on "voter fraud", while speaking in Dallas at CPAC, a conservative conference. 

President Biden and his team are, of course, aiming at increasing the number of those who are vaccinated to prevent COVID spread, but they are also dealing with a wide range of topics that can shift the focus to terribly troubled areas already devastated by the pandemic, including the ransomware threats, the recent assassination in Haiti and the battles over You Tube, Facebook and Twitter.

Is Trump-driven politics so weighty and important that it overrides all other considerations? (P.S. Maine Writer: Ugh! Former Guy Fatigue: #TFGF.)

Meanwhile, Fox News must do some "real news" investigative reporting to find out what happened to Trump's Big Lie, about how Mexico would pay for the border wall.

Lock Up the Former Guy #TFG

Echo Letter to the Editor, Published 20 Feb 2021: "Lock Trump up!"

Jake Pickering published in The Daily Independent* newspaper.

Former Guy Donald Trump incited a deadly insurrection against the U.S. government, according to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

 January 6, attack on the US Capitol building by a pro-Trump #TFG mob, 

January 6, was a disgrace!  American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism... Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor, they tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth, because he was angry he had lost an election... There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it... This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing President who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out...”

Lock Trump up!

From Jake Pickering in  Arcata, Calif.

*Ashland, Kentucky