Wendy Bell, Tone Deaf

Today, Brother Jon tweeted:

Racist 3-%er, Wendy Bell, has thoughts on Olympic athlete Gwen Berry and it’s just what you’d expect.

P.S. touts appearance on joke of a network, @newsmax, safe space for racists and three percenters. pic.twitter.com/Bmc5cMqxqF

— JON (@JonInPGH) June 28, 2021

In case you need an update on what's going on, this is what's happening with Gwen Berry:

For the past week, they’ve played the national anthem one time a night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.

On Saturday, the song happened to start while outspoken activist Gwen Berry was standing on the podium after receiving her bronze medal in the hammer throw.

While the music played, Berry placed her left hand on her hip and shuffled her feet. She took a quarter turn, so she was facing the stands, not the flag. Toward the end, she plucked up her black T-shirt with the words “Activist Athlete” emblazoned on the front, and draped it over her head.

And this is what it looked like:

Now let's look at a transcript of Wendy's rant.

And you're going to pooh on the American flag? You know at some point in this country we have to call a spade a spade...

Ok, let me stop you right there, Wendy.

Regardless of the what's in the rest of your discussion of African American athlete and activist Gwen Berry did you really just use that phrase?

Do you not know the racist connotation of that noun?

How do you not know the racist connotation of that noun? 

And if you did know why would you use it?

Just how tone deaf are you?

That's right. You're this tone deaf:

But there is HOPE. And Joe and I caught a glimpse of it Saturday night. A young, African American teen hustling like nobody’s business at a restaurant we took the boys to over at the Southside Works. This child stacked heavy glass glasses 10 high and carried three teetering towers of them in one hand with plates piled high in the other. He wiped off the tables. Tended to the chairs. Got down on his hands and knees to pick up the scraps that had fallen to the floor. And he did all this with a rhythm and a step that gushed positivity. He moved like a dancer with a satisfied smile on his face. And I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He’s going to Make It.

So you're that tone deaf.

The Pittsburgh Pirates Must Be So Proud - John Rich Edition

A day or so ago my friend Ginny tweeted:

I love you, @Pirates, but I just keep getting angrier and angrier. Allowing this is an insult to every AHN worker and volunteer you partnered with to distribute vaccines, and doing this during Pride month as well? I’m so disgusted. https://t.co/d4iln8O1Cb

— Virginia Montanez (@JanePitt) June 26, 2021

Today, my friend Sue posted this: 

The very same week that we witnessed two huge acknowledgements from professional athletes of their status as gay folx. The very same week, the Pittsburgh Pirates social media team decided to laud their upcoming fan concert this Thursday, July 1, 2021 featuring known homophobe and anti-vaxxer, John Rich of Big & Rich. Let’s go bucs?

I haven't been to a Pirate game in years and I had to look up who "Big & Rich" were in order to start digging into this mess.

Apparently, Big and Rich are an award winning Country Music duo with lotsa record sales, lotsa CMA and ACM awards. Can't speak for Big, but Rich ain't big on smarts.

First, there's John Rich's (he's the "Rich" of "Big & Rich") mistreatment of Country Star Chely Wright some time ago. Take a look at this from Access Hollywood: 

John Rich has responded to a story told by Chely Wright in her new book, 'Like Me,' that some might argue paints him in a very unflattering light. Chely, who recently came out to PEOPLE, tells 'Access Hollywood' that when John (with whom she had performed in an Opryland show years ago) asked her point blank if she was gay, she lied to avoid embarrassment.

"[John] said, 'You're not gay are you?'" Chely recalls. "I said, 'No, John, I'm not.' He said, 'Good, thank God.' And that began a spiral for me ... I had a meltdown shortly after that."

Chely revealed to 'Today' that she nearly committed suicide over the secret life she was living, admitting that she "had a 9 millimeter gun in my mouth."

There's a bit more at Today:

Wright said she got hit over the head by the rumors in 2005 when confronted by country singer John Rich, half of the million-selling duo Big & Rich.

“John said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to hit this gay thing head on, you’re not gay, are you? If you are, people won’t have it. It’s sick, it’s deviant; it’s unacceptable to country music fans.’

A few years later, he kinda sorta walked back the sick deviant unacceptable quotation:

I would never pass judgment on any friend of mine. I feel awful that, at this time in Chely’s life, my decade old comment — ‘Good, thank God’ — was taken the wrong way. I was clumsily trying to express my relief that even a country boy like me had a one-in-a-million chance of having a beer with a woman as talented and attractive as Chely. For years after that conversation, Chely invited me to perform at charity events. In all that time, I wish she would have said something directly to me before the book’s publicity tour, especially since some of the comments attributed to me in the book are not mine. But I am happy for her and only wish her the best in her personal and professional life.

You'll note that he did not say that what he said was wrong only that it had been taken the wrong way.

And then please note what he said he was trying to say: That it was good news that Wright was straight because it meant that maybe she'd go out for a beer with someone like him. 

Ooo. Dreamy.

Didn't he say that he said that "the gay thing" is sick and deviant and unacceptable? Doesn't that mean that anyone gay is sick deviant and unacceptable?

When did he walk back that?

What John Rich said was not an apology.

And even if he did successfully address his mistreatment of Chely Wright there's still this her book:

John was a guest on a conservative talk show shortly after our "talk" in his car, and when asked on his stance on gay marriage he said: "I think if you legalize that [same sex marriage], you've got to legalize some other things that are pretty unsavory. You can call me a radical, but how can you tell an aunt that she can't marry her nephew if they are really in love and sharing the bills? How can you tell them they can't get married, but something else that's unnatural can happen?

He also tried to walk this back as well:

My earlier comments on same-sex marriage don’t reflect my full views on the broader issues regarding tolerance and the treatment of gays and lesbians in our society. I apologize for that and wish to state clearly my views. I oppose same-sex marriage because my father and minister brought me up to believe that marriage is an institution for the union of a man and a woman. However, I also believe that intolerance, bigotry and hatred are wrong. People should be judged based on their merits, not on their sexual orientation. We are all children of God and should be valued and respected. [Emphasis added.]

Just because your bigotry is Bible-based doesn't mean it isn't bigotry. But he's right: intolerance, bigotry and hatred are wrong. He just doesn't think that he's intolerant or bigoted or hateful.

And if that weren't bad enough, there's his non-LGBT+ ignorance:

Wearing a mask after having the vaccine is nothing but pure Theater. Fauci is invested in our submission. He is a liar.

— John Rich (@johnrich) March 19, 2021

And:

Hey ⁦@BradPaisley⁩ So does getting/not getting the jab determine if I’m a Patriot or not? Please expand on this...

Brad Paisley: 'Patriotic Thing' to Get Vaccinated https://t.co/rLQ88xiY7r

— John Rich (@johnrich) June 19, 2021

His views on the safety of the vaccines are evident a tweet or two later:

Show me ONE long term study on the vax. I’ll wait...

— John Rich (@johnrich) June 19, 2021

Meanwhile, in reality:

Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.

An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%.

And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.

And:

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the vaccine is so effective that “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.” She called such deaths “particularly tragic.”

So is not pushing everyone to get the vaccine. The Pittsburgh Pirates must be so proud to have contracted such an enlightened soul as John Rich to perform for them.

Anti-LGBT+ and Anti-vaxx all under one tragic cowboy hat.

So proud.

Wendy Bell, Confirmed Anti-Vaxxer

This might be a bit of a trip so get in a comfy chair, pour yourself a nice glass of tea (hot or iced, sweetened or not, your choice) and settle in for a bit.

A few days ago, on her Facebook page, Wendy posted this:

That link on the bottom leads here - to the Children's Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaxx source for notoriously dangerous anti-vaxx material.

Here's how it begins:

Schools and universities are considering mandates now. Today, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that there is  ‘likely’ a link between heart inflammation and Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines.  During the meeting, the committee members acknowledged 1,200 cases of heart inflammation in 16- to 24-year-olds, and said mRNA COVID vaccines should carry a warning statement. Overall, the officials emphasized that the benefits of COVID vaccines outweigh the risks. Physicians and other public commenters strongly disagreed accusing the CDC of exaggerating the risk to young people of COVID, and minimizing the risk of the COVID vaccines.

Compare and contrast this with some actual reporting from a real news source, the Washington Post: 

Federal health officials said Wednesday there is a “likely association” between two coronavirus vaccines and increased risk of a rare heart condition in adolescents and young adults, the strongest assertion so far on the link between the two.

Data presented to advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adds to recent findings, most notably from Israel, of rare cases of myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — predominantly in males ages 12 to 39, who experience symptoms after the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Most cases have been mild and have taken place several days to a week after the second shot, officials said. Chest pain is the most common symptom. Patients generally recover from symptoms and do well.

There have been 1,226 reports of myocarditis out of about 300 million mRNA doses administered in the United States, as of June 11, according to Tom Shimabukuro, a CDC vaccine safety official. Of those, 267 were reported after the first dose and 827 after the second, and 132 reports did not indicate which dose.

Adding:

With virus variants increasing, and adolescents and young adults making up a greater percentage of covid-19 cases, unvaccinated teens and young adults are far more likely to contract the disease. Getting covid-19 puts someone at far greater risk of heart inflammation and other serious medical problems than the risk of getting myocarditis from vaccination, they said.

Ah, something the anti-vaxxers (like Wendy) chose not to tell you.

So here's the "choice" that they're is presenting you. You can take the vaccine and run a very small risk of myocarditis (where "Patients generally recover from symptoms and do well.") or avoid the vaccine and run a greater risk of Covid-19 (with all of its far more serious health complications). Reminder: 600,000 Americans have already died of this - countless more suffered (and are still suffering from it).

Here's the statement from the CDC regarding the meeting:

As physicians, nurses, public health and health care professionals, and, for many of us, parents, we understand the significant interest many Americans have in the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, especially for younger people. Today, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met to discuss the latest data on reports of mild cases of inflammation of the heart muscle and surrounding tissue called myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination among younger people.

The facts are clear: this is an extremely rare side effect, and only an exceedingly small number of people will experience it after vaccination. Importantly, for the young people who do, most cases are mild, and individuals recover often on their own or with minimal treatment. In addition, we know that myocarditis and pericarditis are much more common if you get COVID-19, and the risks to the heart from COVID-19 infection can be more severe.

The vaccines are safe and effective, and they prevent COVID-19 illness. They will help protect you and your family and keep your community safe. We strongly encourage everyone age 12 and older who are eligible to receive the vaccine under Emergency Use Authorization to get vaccinated, as the benefits of vaccination far outweigh any harm. Especially with the troubling Delta variant increasingly circulating, and more readily impacting younger people, the risks of being unvaccinated are far greater than any rare side effects from the vaccines. If you get COVID-19, you could get severely ill and be hospitalized or even die. Even if your infection is mild, you or your child could face long-term symptoms following COVID-19 infection such as neurological problems or diminished lung function.

By the way, the statement was co-signed by:

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)
  
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
• American College of Physicians (ACP)
• American Heart Association, American Hospital Association (AHA)
  
• American Medical Association (AMA)
• American Nurses Association (ANA)
• American Public Health Association (APHA)
• Association of Public Health Laboratories
• Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
  
• Big Cities Health Coalition
• Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
  
• Infectious Diseases Society of America
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)

Wendy, I do have a question for you: Don't you know any cardiologists who can explain this to you?

Rudy Giuliani Law License SUSPENDED (And There's A Pennsylvania Connection!)

By now, we've all seen the news:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former top federal prosecutor, New York City mayor and lawyer to a president, had his law license suspended after a New York court ruled on Thursday that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while fighting the results of the 2020 election on behalf of Donald J. Trump.

And:

The New York State appellate court temporarily suspended Mr. Giuliani’s law license on the recommendation of a disciplinary committee after finding he had sought to mislead judges, lawmakers and the public as he helped shepherd Mr. Trump’s legal challenge to the election results. For months, Mr. Giuliani, who was Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, had argued without merit that the vote had been rife with fraud and that voting machines had been rigged.

In its 33-page decision, the court said that Mr. Giuliani’s actions represented an “immediate threat” to the public and that he had “directly inflamed” the tensions that led to the Capitol riot in January.

Lotsa stuff in there. I'll let you read and reread it a few times before we move on to that decision.

Ok, so here we go.

We find this in the document:

In making this motion, the AGC primarily relies on claims that respondent made false and misleading factual statements to cast doubt on the reliability of the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joseph R. Biden was constitutionally certified and then inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. We find that the following false statements made by respondent constitute uncontroverted proof of respondent’s professional misconduct. 

Respondent repeatedly stated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more absentee ballots came in during the election than were sent out before the election. The factual “proof” he claimed supported his conclusion was that although Pennsylvania sent out only 1,823,148 absentee ballots before the election, 2,589,242 million absentee ballots were then counted in the election. This factual statement regarding the number of ballots mailed out before the election was simply untrue. The true facts are that 3.08 million absentee ballots were mailed out before the general election, which more than accounted for the over 2.5 million mail-in ballots that were actually tallied. Notwithstanding the true facts, respondent repeatedly advanced false statements that there were 600,000 to 700,000 fabricated mail-in ballots, which were never sent to voters in advance of the election. Respondent made these false claims during his November 8, 2020 radio program, Uncovering the Truth with Rudy Giuliani & Dr. Maria Ryan, during a November 25, 2020 meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during a December 2, 2020 meeting of the Michigan House Oversight Committee, during his December 17, 2020 broadcast of the radio show Chat with the Mayor, and he repeated it during an episode of Steve Bannon's the War Room: Pandemic podcast on December 24, 2020.[Italics in original.]

Did you catch the part that might be particularly of interest to Pennsylvania's voting public?

I'll reprint it:

Notwithstanding the true facts, respondent repeatedly advanced false statements that there were 600,000 to 700,000 fabricated mail-in ballots, which were never sent to voters in advance of the election. Respondent made these false claims ...during a November 25, 2020 meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania...

Now do you see it? 

That would be this meeting:

At the request of Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Adams/Cumberland/Franklin/York), the Senate Majority Policy Committee is holding a public hearing Wednesday to discuss 2020 election issues and irregularities. The hearing will feature former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

You can read about it here. 

So the stuff that Rudy spewed at Doug Mastriano's hearing got him into so much trouble that his law license was suspended.

Wow.

Will State Senator Doug Mastriano be commenting on this?

 

Wendy Bell, Debunked By Proxy In Some Michigan Republicans

From the NYTimes:

A committee led by Michigan Republicans on Wednesday published an extraordinary debunking of voter fraud claims in the state, delivering a comprehensive rebuke to a litany of accusations about improprieties in the 2020 election and its aftermath.

The 55-page report, produced by a Michigan State Senate committee of three Republicans and one Democrat, is a systematic rebuttal to an array of false claims about the election from supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. The authors focus overwhelmingly on Michigan, but they also expose lies perpetuated about the vote-counting process in Georgia.

And from the report we can read:

Attorney Matthew DePerno was retained by an Antrim County resident to pursue legal action against the county and the state regarding the results of the election. Mr. DePerno has subsequently released various reports, videos, and statements regarding the election results, presenting the ASOG report, as well as work by Dr. Douglas Frank and Jeff Lenberg, as primary pieces of evidence. The Committee closely followed Mr. DePerno’s efforts and can confidently conclude they are demonstrably false and based on misleading information and illogical conclusions. In one recent video, Mr. Lenberg demonstrated how a hacked machine will incorrectly count ballots (reporting it on the official results printout) and how a hacked computer will show inaccurate results. However, neither of these demonstrations shows the explanation given by the clerk is untrue, nor do they explain how the actual official results sheet did not match the inaccurate unofficial results. Most critically, it does not explain how the hand recount verified the official results reported by the tabulators on election night. They simply proved hacked machinery will perform incorrectly. This is not evidence machines were hacked, and it is certainly not evidence that machines that performed correctly were hacked.

Do we recognize a few of those names from Wendy Bell's rogues gallery?

Why yes. Yes we do; hot-shot Attorney Matthew DePerno and math super-genius Dr Douglas Frank.

This is what the report from the Republican-led committee in Michigan had to say about Wendy's favorite number cruncher:

Dr. Frank has also worked independently of Mr. DePerno, appearing in various other reports and programming. He claimed his findings of patterns in voting demographics and results, along with disparities between census, registration, and ballot totals in given areas were conclusive evidence of a complex computer hack and conspiracy to manipulate vote counts around the nation. This theory, like Dr. Shiva’s, alleged the installed “algorithm” switches or steals votes just enough to succeed while not being enough to raise suspicions. However, Dr. Frank’s conclusions are not sound for several reasons. Census data is not recent, and people do not only move away (as he frequently contends) but others do move into an area. Coupled with same day registration, the notable red flags he spotted in the data are easily explained, e.g. young people do not vote as readily as older citizens, people’s movements create disparities between registrations and the census, etc. The patterns he sees are not unexpected or unusual to elections or human behavior in general. His theories depend on the ability to hack into the tabulators before or during and/or at the end of the election. Many of the counties he and others identified as having been hacked do not even have modems or make any online connection to submit results. Those that do, do not connect the modem, which is physically separate from the Dominion tabulator, until after the polls are closed and the tabulators have printed the official results.

Uh, Wendy? Will you be offering an explanation for this appearance by Attorney DePerno from last December? Or this one from a month or so ago? Or about this appearance by Dr. Frank from a few weeks ago?

Your election "experts" have been de-experted and their "facts" are no longer credible. Neither are your arguments built upon them, sorry.

Aw, someone’s got a frowny-face. Better luck next time! 

I'm sorry if this makes you sad, Wendy Bell but as you've said numerous times, "Facts don't care about your feelings."

It's A Wednesday And That Means One Thing: Wendy Bell Is Lying

Last night, Wendy Bell tweeted:

It’s now abundantly clear the Biden Administration is a clear and present danger to America’s most precious population: its children. https://t.co/JnvCYk4U7m

— Wendy Bell (@WendyBellPgh) June 23, 2021

But, let me ask a question: Is that the complete context of the Press Secretary Jen Psaki's answer?

No. And this is where Wendy is lying.

Let's go to the official record. Immediately preceding the "game plan" question, Psaki said this:

But we also are honest about where we need to continue to redouble our efforts.  And that’s among people who are 18 to 26.  That is a small — relatively small demographic of the country, but one where there needs to be continued work.  And we’re going to use every tool at our disposal to push for that. [Emphasis added.]

That's the "young people" they were discussing, Wendy. Not "it's children" as you misled your twitter followers with. Or do you really think that a 24 year old is a child?

And why is this demographic so important?

There's this from the AP:

More than 70% of Americans age 30 or older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the White House said, even as President Joe Biden is set to fall short of reaching his goal of giving a shot to the same percentage of all American adults by Independence Day.

The Biden administration is releasing the new data Tuesday showing it expects to reach 70% of Americans age 27 or older with at least one shot by the July 4 holiday. A White House official said it is now redoubling its focus on vaccinating younger Americans age 18-26, who have proved to be least likely to get a vaccine when it’s available for them.

And is the vaccine safe for 18 to 26 year olds?

Yes.

It's the fear-mongering of anti-vaxxers like Wendy Bell who are the clear and present danger to the general health of the population. The more people who believe her the greater the chance the virus has to mutate. And perhaps into one that can get around the current vaccines, causing even more damage.

Wendy Bell, the Angel of Death.

Wendy Bell Misuses VAERS Numbers. Again.

Oy, Wendy!  Again with the VAERS numbers!

We've danced this dance before, haven't we?

There's a reason why you get flagged by the FB fact checkers every time you misuse the VAERS numbers.

It's because you're misusing VAERS numers, Wendy.

How do I know?

Glad you asked.

Here's the CDC's disclaimer regarding the VAERS numbers:

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.

How do you miss it? If you were actually searching through the CDC website for this data, you'd have to click through an acknowledgement of the above disclaimer. This one:

It's actually from the same page as the text I copied.

But you're not doing that, are you Wendy? You're not getting your VAERS numbers directly from the CDC/VAERS webpage, are you?

You're getting it from this page, aren't you? 

The National Vaccine Information Center and according to the Washington Post, it's the nation's oldest anti-vaccine advocacy group.

Don't look now, Wendy. But I think your anti-science, anti-vaccine bra strap is showing.

In any event, this is old news. Wendy posts VAERS numbers, gets flagged as "misleading" by the Facebook fact checkers, snowflakes on about being unfairly tagged as a "science denier" (which she totally is) and then does the same thing in a day or so.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Ah, the classics.

Wendy Bell Was Right - She DID Get Fact-Checked!

From Friday:

And if you go to her FB page now you'll see this below the two BS Board images:

Which then leads to this:

Did the mail-in vote count (2,589,242) in the presidential election in Pennsylvania exceed the actual number of ballots sent to voters (supposedly 1,823,148) and were 1,126,940 votes "created out of thin air"? No, that's not true: The Pennsylvania Department of State's website for election returns shows that about 2.6 million mail-in ballots had indeed been counted as of November 27,2020. More than 3 million voters had requested mail-in ballots as of the October 27, 2020 deadline, according to a news release the same day from Governor Tom Wolf's office. The 1,823,148 number appears to be the number of mail-in ballots requested for the June 2, 2020 primary election in Pennsylvania, not the November 3, 2020 election.

And so on. We've been here before. Blah-blah-blah. Yadda-yadda. (I mentioned the bisque.) 

But this got me to wondering, just how often HAS 3 Percenter Wendy Bell, the Angel of Death been factchecked (present company and Facebook excluded)?

Let's go see.

05 29 21 - Science Feedback: 

SOURCE: Wendy Bell, Wendy Bell Radio, 24 May 2021  

DETAILS

Inadequate support: Death reports in the U.S. VAERS database contain unverified information and cannot demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccines caused the death of recipients.
Lack of context: The rate of COVID-19 survival alone is insufficient to estimate the risks of the disease. Even if a person only had mild symptoms, COVID-19 infections can lead to long-lasting effects after recovery, such as fatigue, cognitive issues, and tissue damage.

04 18 21 - Politifact:

In a recent video posted to Facebook, conservative commentator Wendy Bell complains about people who wear face masks, and around the 1:07-minute mark, says: "You’re afraid of a freaking virus that has killed less people than the damn flu?"

And:

We rate this claim False.

04 02 21 - Factcheck.org:

A conservative talk radio host recently told her listeners that because of a change in death certificate procedures specific to COVID-19, “there is a huge chance that COVID death numbers are exaggerated, to the tune of 94%.”

That’s false. It’s based on a flawed report whose authors also have penned related claims for an anti-vaccination organization.

Wendy Bell, the radio host, made the claim in a March 25 episode of her Pennsylvania-based show. The show was streamed live on Facebook in a video titled, “Has the CDC skewed Covid Fatalities?” It has been viewed more than 34,000 times.

11 03 2020 - Reuters:

Radio host Wendy Bell posted on her Facebook page ( here ) that “thousands of Pennsylvania voters in York, Lebanon, and Dauphin counties” had received the quarantine letters. “Do you believe the Wolf administration is attempting to silence voters -- hours before the most important election in American history?” she asks. Other iterations of the post can be found here and here .

These quarantine letters are not new, and so do not mention voting or Election Day, but they do direct people to self-quarantine in their homes.

11 03 20 - USAToday: 

Conservative commentator Wendy Bell claimed Monday that the Pennsylvania Department of Health sent letters to “thousands of Pennsylvania voters” demanding they quarantine for 14 days after an uptick in cases. She said that there is no proof the people who received the letters were exposed to the virus – and that those people can’t vote in person on Election Day, supposedly at risk of arrest.

She claimed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration played a role in the letters.

And:

The claim that Pennsylvania officials are “attempting to silence voters” exposed to COVID-19 by telling them via letter they can’t vote in person is FALSE. Letters have been sent to coronavirus-exposed Pennsylvanians since the beginning of the pandemic, and the letters make no mention of the election.

11 02 20 - The AP: 

Conservative commentator Wendy Bell falsely claimed Monday that the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is attempting to "silence voters" by ordering people who were potentially exposed to the coronavirus to stay home on Election Day.

Wendy? Ms Bell? You were once a respected local journalist, right?

Right.

How does it feel for you to be negatively fact checked by the likes of such heavy-hitting news organizations as AP or Reuters?  Or moderately-hitting news organizations like USAToday? Or by both major news-based fact-checking sources?

That's gotta sting, right? Just a little?

If it doesn't it should.

Juneteenth

The Emancipation Proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

The order read by Major General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1865:

General Orders

     No. 3.

          The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

               The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

          By order of Major General Granger

The Thirteenth Amendment To The U.S. Constitution: 

Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

From The Congressional Research Service:

Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. It is also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrivedin Galveston,TX,and announced the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery. Although the Emancipation Proclamation came 2½years earlier on January 1, 1863, many slave owners continued to hold their enslaved peoplecaptive after the announcement, so Juneteenth became a symbolic date representing African-American freedom.

Juneteenth

 

Wendy Bell, Election Misinformer. Again.

Can't Wendy Bell do better any than this?

That was a rhetorical question, of course. As I've been debunking her for a while I have the answer: No, she can't. She can not do any better than this.

This morning, Wendy posted this on her FB page:

Let's get the old business out of the way, Wendy. Chiropractor Nepute has been debunked a number of times. He ruined his medical credibility was gone long long ago. Were you to take a look at the tag FB left on your "talk" you'd see this:

Do quinine and zinc prevent COVID-19, and will Schweppes Tonic Water help? No, neither are true: A chiropractor in St. Louis posted a video in which he touted a quinine and zinc combination as a preventative measure for coronavirus. He also claimed Schweppes Tonic Water contains quinine and will prevent COVID-19. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have stated that there is no cure or vaccine for coronavirus.

This was from last April. Nepute gets flagged by Facebook (and YouTube, for that matter) because he's been spreading COVID-19 misinformation for a while. Covid misinformation hurts people and probably has killed a few of them. That is, I suppose, what they're afraid of.

You should be so proud of yourself to add the name "Wendy Bell" into that deplorable mix. So so proud.

Anyway - I see you've moved onto/returned to a golden oldie: election misinformation.

I'm a fighter, too. So let's do this.

Here is your first board of bullshit:

What makes debunking Wendy Bell so easy (and I probably shouldn't give it away but here goes) is that she's very specific with her numbers. For example:

1,823,148 Mail-in ballots out.

Now how many pages on the interwebs can there possibly be regarding Pennsylvania election results and that specific number? How easy is it to find any of them?

This page, for example. Here's the set-up:

Echoing President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud, Mastriano tweeted an image purportedly showing “Pennsylvania official votes (@11/24 8 PM)” broken down by candidate and vote method. The text below reads: “Pennsylvania reports having mailed out 1,823,148 ballots, of which 1,462,302 were returned. Yet total mail-in voters number 2,589,242? From where did the extra 1,126,940 votes come?”

(You'll note that the source of the number is the treason-adjacent State Senator Doug Mastriano. Huh. Interesting.)

But take a look at that! Wendy's numbers right there in a Reuters Fact-check from December 1, 2020.

And this is what they found 6 months ago, Wendy:

The posts’ figures for 1,823,148 mailed out and 1,462,302 mail-in ballots returned correspond with Pennsylvania’s data for this year’s primary elections, held on June 2, 2020.

And their verdict:

Mixing numbers from the 2020 primary and general elections, this claim that there were 1,126,940 “extra” Pennsylvania mail-in votes counted in the general election is false.

Facts are stubborn things, Wendy Bell. Isn't this embarrassing for you? Once an accomplished journalist caught using old debunked information by a guy sitting at his kitchen table working on his second cup of coffee?

Then there's this part:

21,000 confirmed dead people voted

Really, Wendy? Confirmed?

This was fact-checked last November.:

[T]he claim is misleading. It’s based on a lawsuit filed by a conservative organization called the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which regularly brings voting-related lawsuits against states.

The case was filed on Oct. 15, about two weeks before Election Day. It alleged that more than 21,000 voters registered in Pennsylvania were dead and asked that the court order the state to remove them from the rolls before the election.

The federal judge hearing the case declined to do so.

Instead, Judge John Jones III cited PILF’s questionable methodology in developing its purported list of ineligible voters, its decision to file the suit at the “eleventh hour,” and the fact that Pennsylvania’s system for stripping deceased voters from the rolls appears to work.

So, not confirmed. How did you miss this, Wendy? 

How much more embarrassment do you feel right now? That's two very big blunders on your badass BS board, isn't it Bubala?

Let's take a look at the second big ass badass board of BS:

Would this be the same "Douglas Frank" that's been given a "Pants on Fire" verdict by Politifact for doing this exact same thing in Michigan?

(Spoilers: YES, it is!)

This is how wrong he was in Michigan:

David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, called the allegations in the pleading "fantastical."

In an email to PolitiFact Michigan, Becker explained that such a conspiracy would have had to be carried out by thousands of people and leave behind a mountain of evidence: meddling with the voter file, extra ballots that couldn’t be explained, voters who tried to vote but couldn’t because someone else had cast their ballots and audits confirming tabulators were tampered.

"There is literally zero evidence of any conspiracy, involving thousands of people, in any state," including Michigan, Becker wrote.

So if it was not just wrong but "pants on fire" wrong in Michigan, why would he try anyplace else?

Did you know he's been peddling the same BS in Colorado?

With similar results:

Dr. Douglas G Frank has been giving presentations claiming he’s uncovered an algorithm that can precisely replicate turnout in each of Colorado’s counties during the 2020 election. Unfortunately, every single one of the underlying data points he presents is wrong. He may as well be analyzing March Madness scores for all the relevance his data has to the Colorado Election.

Wendy, if your mathematician, frankly, has been shown to be wrong in Michigan AND Colorado, why would you think he's right in Pennsylvania?

Wendy, surely you can think of better ways to spend your time. Perhaps reading some George Will?  William F Buckley? Irving Kristol or Gertrude Himmelfarb?

Do those names mean anything to you?

Meanwhile, Outside

From the climate experts (aka "the scientists") over at NOAA: 

The May 2021 global surface temperature was 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F). This value tied with 2018 as the sixth warmest May in the 142-year record. May 2021 was also the 45th consecutive May and the 437th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.

And:

The three-month period of March–May 2021 was the eighth highest in the 142-year record for the globe at 0.82°C (1.48°F) above average. The March–May period is defined as the Northern Hemisphere's meteorological spring and the Southern Hemisphere's meteorological autumn. For the Northern Hemisphere, as a whole, the March–May period was the sixth warmest such period on record with a temperature departure of +1.06°C (+1.91°F). Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere had the 11th warmest autumn on record. Although the Southern Hemisphere had an above-average autumn temperature, it was the coolest autumn since 2013.

And:

The January–May 2021 global surface temperature was also the eighth warmest such period on record, with a temperature departure of 0.77°C (1.39°F) above average. Although the year-to-date global surface temperature was above average, this was the smallest temperature departure for January–May since 2014. Looking ahead, the year 2021 is very likely to rank among the ten warmest years on record, with less than 2% chance to rank among the five warmest years on record, according to a statistical analysis done by NCEI scientists.

Yes, the vaccines are working. Yes, the COVID numbers (at least in the US of A) are coming down. Yes, there's something resembling "normal" out there.

But it's still warming up.

 

Wendy Bell, Serial COVID Misinformer

As if we needed any more evidence for her mendacity.

Wendy Bell is now promoting another COVID-19 misinformer to her adoring throng. Take a look.

Were you to find yourself at Wendy Bell's Facebook page, you'd find this:

Oh, Wendy. Now you know that isn't the whole story, don't you? Not even a large part of it, right? You've left out some very important parts, haven't you? You know that he's not being sued by the FTC for his support of those "remedies" but rather for something else, right?

Before we go any further, let's take a step back to explain what's going here:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking unprecedented action against what it says is deceptive marketing of purported COVID-19 treatments.

The FTC has charged St. Louis-based chiropractor Eric Nepute, DC, and his company Quickwork with violating the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act by marketing products containing vitamin D and zinc as proven to treat or prevent COVID-19, the agency said in an announcement.

Dr. Eric Nepute - not a medical doctor and certainly not an epidemiologist but a chiropractor.

Ok, let's do this.

Here is the letter the FTC sent to Dr Eric in May of last year:

Dr. Nepute: 

This is to advise you that FTC staff has reviewed your website at the URL https://www.neputewellnesscenter.com/ in May, 2020. We have also reviewed your social media pages at the URLs https://www.facebook.com/drericnepute and https://www.facebook.com/neputewellness/, where you advertise products and services including chiropractic care, intravenous vitamin therapy, and Vitamin D supplements. We have determined that you are unlawfully advertising that certain products or services treat or prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

And in the letter later (or later in the letter if you prefer - some might like the former, I prefer the latter) we find:

It is unlawful under the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 41 et seq., to advertise that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made. For COVID-19, no such study is currently known to exist for the products and services identified above. Thus, any coronavirus-related prevention claims regarding such services are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.

You must immediately cease making all such claims. In addition to the claims identified above, you are also advised to review all other claims for your products and services and immediately cease making claims that are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.

See that, Wendy? They say he's "unlawfully advertising" stuff as COVID-19 treatments that have no scientific support. That's the offense. It's his deceptive advertising and not his support of the zinc and Vitamin C as COVID treatments.

You understand the difference, right? 

After digging a little deeper, we find this is from the FTC Complaint against our good Doctor of Chiropractic: 

Defendants [Dr. Nepute and Quickworks, LLC] sell nutritional supplements containing Vitamin D and zinc, among other products. Recently, Defendants have been advertising their Vitamin D and zinc products—including “Wellness Warrior Vita D”, “Wellness Warrior Zinc”, and others—on social media and the internet as drugs capable of treating, or preventing COVID-19. Defendants even claim that their products are more effective than the available COVID-19 vaccines. Defendants lack valid factual or scientific bases for these claims, which are frequently accompanied by equally unsupported assertions regarding the applicable science. In short, Defendants are selling their products by disseminating misinformation, exploiting fears in the midst of a pandemic, and posing a significant risk to public health and safety. [Emphasis added]

Have you gotten the point here, Wendy? 

Evidently they're also saying that Nepute violated the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act.

But Wendy, maybe you think that the law itself is unfair, right?

So, let's look at that, shall we?

This is what the FTC has to say about the act:

For the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declared pursuant to section 319 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 247d), this Act makes it unlawful under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act for any person, partnership, or corporation to engage in a deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce associated with the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID–19 or a government benefit related to COVID–19. The Act provides that such a violation shall be treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice prescribed under Sec. 18(a)(1)(B) of the FTC Act.

If we dig even deeper, we find that the COVID–19 Consumer Protection Act is part of HR 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. (It's page 2094 of that PDF, if you wanna go see it. The text matches with the FTC says about it.)

But maybe, Wendy, you might be thinking it was some sort of lib'rul, big guv'ment socialistic legislative overreach that Biden, Schumer, Pelosi and AOC secretly forced upon you and your chiropractic friend.

Um, no.

It was signed into law on December 27, 2020. Tell me, who was president then?

It passed the Senate on December 21, 2020 by a vote of 92-6. Tell me, who controlled the Senate then?

Wendy, given all of the above, do you really think Dr Nepute was sued for supporting "natural" remedies to COVID?

Wendy Bell, Mayor of Mendacity.

Uh-Oh. State Senator Mastriano's Election Misinformation Is More Deeply Entwined

As we read in Forbes: 

The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, was the direct result of a continuous drumbeat of disinformation starting before the Presidential elections in the U.S. in 2020, and continuing past the event itself. That flow of disinformation came largely, but not exclusively, through social media.

This includes the lie that there were more votes than voters in Pennsylvania - a lie spread by State Senator Doug Mastriano, who was able to witness first hand the fruits of his labors.

Anyway, back to the lie.

Today we read this from our friends at WITF:

A letter from Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano that includes numerous false claims about Pennsylvania’s 2020 election has surfaced in a U.S. House committee’s investigation into the causes of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Democratic-led committee released a trove of emails that show Trump allies trying to pressure the Justice Department to look into baseless or disproven election-fraud claims. That effort supported a wider goal of overturning or invalidating election results in several swing states, including Pennsylvania.

Mastriano’s Dec. 28 letter, addressed to then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, repeated many of the false claims he and other Republican state senators had entertained at a Nov. 25 Senate Majority Policy meeting that featured Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

This is the letter in question:

Electoral irregularities are real and prevalent in Pennsylvania. Sadly, despite evidence, our Governor and State Department Secretary refuse to investigate.

My letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue. pic.twitter.com/SeCDmRDUux

— Senator Doug Mastriano (@SenMastriano) December 29, 2020

You'll probably notice that Twitter has already flagged it with:

This claim about election fraud has been disputed.

And, as WIFT notes:

Many of the roughly 18 claims in the five-page letter had already been proven wrong by then, or were debunked after Mastriano wrote the letter.

Here's how Mastriano's letter made it into the Trump treason mix. From WITF:

Nonetheless, the newly-released emails show private attorney Kurt Olsen, who the New York Times reports advised Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on a lawsuit that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn election results in states like Pennsylvania, cited Mastriano’s letter as “additional justification” for the Justice Department to present a similar suit to the Supreme Court. Olsen said that approach would ensure the claims would be “immediately investigated and not swept under the rug.”

That would be page 151 of the trove of email:

 And it's printed out in full (p. 153-157)

But if you look very carefully at the bottom of Olsen's document, you'll see this:

You might have to click on it to read it - sorry.

It's the URL for Olsen's source of the letter, this piece by Jim Holt at GatewayPundit.

But look at the piece's timestamp:

By Jim Hoft
Published December 30, 2020 at 7:52am

Now look at the timestamp on Olsen's email to Donoghue:

December 30 2020 at 10:40:22 AM EST

If I am reading this correctly, Holt's piece at the Gateway Pundit was just under 3 hours old when Olsen forwarded it to Donoghue.

Here's the second paragraph of Holt's piece:

The most damning evidence against Democrat fraud in the state is the fact that 205,122 more votes were counted in the state than the number of people who voted!

Too bad the AP debunked it the day before:

CLAIM: There were 205,000 more votes than voters in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. 

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. This analysis is based on incomplete data, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.  

THE FACTS: A misleading claim about election results from a group of Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania is circulating widely on social media a week before Congress meets to reaffirm Joe Biden’s decisive presidential win.

So Kurt Olsen's research extends to that morning's Gateway Pundit but NOT the day-old Associated Press fact check of the same information. 

Good to know.

Yesterday Was A Monday - And Mondays Are The Days Wendy Bell Misinforms (Along With All The Other Days)

Wendy really needs to vet her "information" sources better. She keeps on making the same mistakes over and over again. It does not help her credibility.

See what I did there? I made a funny.

It's funny because Wendy Bell has no credibility.

Anyway, after blaming area flooding on the bicycle roundabouts in her neighborhood, Wendy Bell misinformed her adoring public on not one but two BS boards.

That's twice the bullshit.

The first BS:

You'll note that she's still treating the VAERS data as definitive even though it is not. It even says so on the VAERS database:

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.

It's simply absurd to think that Wendy Bell hasn't seen the VAERS disclaimer.  She's been to the database a number of times, she must've seen it, right?

Given all that, she's misinforming her public by not telling them what the VAERS disclaimer itself says about the VAERS data.

Then there's the second plate of BS:

This is where Wendy Bell mined this "information" for her BS: The Georgia Star News.

I've never heard of them, have you? Luckily, Newsguard has done some work on them: 

The Georgia Star News is owned and operated by privately held Star News Digital Media, Inc., according to the site. Star Digital News Media was founded in September 2018 by conservative radio hosts Michael Patrick Leahy and Steve Gill and Tea Party activist Christina Botteri, according to a company press release.

"And who is  this Newsguard?" you might ask. Well, I have an answer for you:

NewsGuard was launched by a team of experienced journalists, including the former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, the founder of the American Lawyer and CourtTV, and former top editors at Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Chicago Tribune.

NewsGuard’s team includes a wide range of journalists and editors from diverse journalistic backgrounds in the countries in which we operate—currently, the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy. (NewsGuard has rated all the news and information websites that account for 95% of online engagement in each country.) Learn more about NewsGuard’s team.

NewsGuard’s team believes in transparency and accountability, so in addition to our team, all of our investors and advisors are disclosed prominently on our website.

And NewsGuard has some interesting things to say about the Georgia Star News. For instance, this:

Georgia Star News does not typically conduct original reporting. Instead, the site summarizes news reports from other right-leaning publications or cites interviews and social media posts from Republican politicians and conservative commentators. The site’s aggregated content frequently advances misleading and unsubstantiated claims, particularly in its coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

And this:

Because GeorgiaStarNews.com routinely publishes unsubstantiated claims, NewsGuard has determined that the site does not gather and present information responsibly.

And so on.  So on the one hand, you've got a transparent organization made up of journalists and editors and on the other an organization founded by rightwing radio hosts and a Tea Party activist that parrots unsubstantiated claims from other conservative "news" sites.

Who's more likely to be telling the truth?

My guess is that your answer will very closely correspond to whether you've been vaccinated. Or if you believe the Big Lie about the 2020 election. Or if you doubt evolution.

Wendy Bell, Climatologer-ist

For those not living in Pittsburgh, let me just frame this Wendy discussion with this bit of news:

A strand of “nearly stationary” storms slowly moved its way across southwestern Pennsylvania Sunday, leaving hail, downed trees and power outages in its wake. A severe thunderstorm watch was canceled around 7:45 p.m. after it was put into effect for most of Western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, Bethel Park and Monroeville.

Parts of Wexford recorded almost an inch of rain in 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

Which, of course, triggered Wendy Bell into this Karen Rant on twitter:

I’ve lived in Point Breeze for 18 years. Nothing like this had ever happened - until Mayor Bill Peduto decided our intersection needed a “roundabout” for cyclists.
Thanks, Bill. You suck. (Hey, liberal neighbors. You still happy with your votes? Still Ridin’ with Biden?) pic.twitter.com/QOjm73qgqQ

— Wendy Bell (@WendyBellPgh) June 14, 2021

Surprisingly, this was answered by Mayor Bill Peduto:

It’s true. Since we’ve adopted “complete street” standards that have proven record of making neighborhood streets safer, Pittsburgh has been experiencing record number of 50 year & 100 year precipitation events, record landslides & flooding associated with them. Roundabouts, yep. https://t.co/3LCbOn1x69

— bill peduto (@billpeduto) June 14, 2021

Of course that boil, that oozy plague sore, Ryan Deto, was on the case before I could fire up blogger and blog about Wendy's climate expertise:

Did she think that the roundabout is like a bath plug, and there was a big drain in the middle of the road before? She knows that it was just asphalt before. Imagine being this desperate to bring up Biden in this tweet. What has happened?

— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) June 14, 2021

Heck yea! What Ryan said! What happened? I mean Wendy left out some pretty obvious reasons why her intersection was flooded this weekend:

• The Trilateral Commission
• Vatican II
• Black Lives Matter/Antifa
• Fluoride in The Drinking Water
• The Cigarette Smoking Man
• The Deep State
• The Pfizer/Moderna/J&J Experimental "Vaccines"
• George Soros

I mean it's clear as day, right?

Senator Pat Toomey RESPONDS!!

It's been a while since my last weekly letter to Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey. 

It's been even longer since his last response.

Here's how I summed things up back then:

Remember when I was mailing a letter every Tuesday to Pat Toomey? Remember when I thought it might at some point make a difference?

Yea, good times (keeping your head above water, making a wave when you can).

And while I can't say this is return to a job after a temporary lay off, I can say that the good Senator responded to one of my emails.

I emailed his office from his website after this happened:

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey missed Friday’s vote over a proposed Congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as the legislation failed due to Republican opposition.

In an email following the 54-35 vote, Toomey’s office said the Zionsville resident was absent because of a family commitment. CNN reported Toomey was one of nine Republicans not to cast a vote.

“Had he been in Washington, Sen. Toomey would have voted in favor of the motion to proceed to the January 6th commission legislation with the expectation that the Senate would consider, and Sen. Toomey would have supported, an amendment that addresses Republican concerns about partisan staffing and the duration of the commission,” said Steve Kelley, Toomey’s communications director.

In may email, I may have communicated my profound disappointment in his decision to skip the vote while, at the same time showing support for the legislation. I may have pointed out that since he's not running for re-election, he didn't have to fear being primaried from the Trump mob. 

I may have called him a political coward.

Recently, he responded. This is the email in full:

Thank you for contacting me about the National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act (H.R. 3233).  I appreciate hearing from you.

On January 6, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate met in joint session to certify the votes of the Electoral College. While Congress was trying to fulfill this constitutional duty, throngs of protestors broke through the line of law enforcement officers working to protect the Capitol and laid siege to the building. The actions of these rioters are an absolute disgrace. The law enforcement officers who helped secure the Capitol are patriots, and I am grateful for their service. 

As you know, on January 13, 2021 the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for his actions leading up to the siege. One month later, on February 13, 2021, I voted to convict President Trump on the House of Representatives' article of impeachment. Because of President Trump's conduct, for the first time in American history, the transfer of presidential power was not peaceful. President Trump's desperate attempts to stay in office undermined the foundations of our republic, betrayed the confidence of millions who voted for him, and required a vote to convict.

Specific to your concerns, H.R. 3233 would create a ten-member commission to examine the "facts and circumstances relating to the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol." For example, H.R. 3233 would direct the commission to investigate intelligence collection and sharing activities among law enforcement and intelligence agencies leading up to January 6, as well as factors that may have influenced the January 6 events, such as technology and online platforms. H.R. 3233 would also have granted the commission the power to subpoena witnesses and documents as part of its investigation.

On May 28, 2021, the Senate voted against concluding debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3233 by a vote of 54-35 (60 votes were needed). While I was unable to attend the vote, I would have voted in favor of the motion to proceed to H.R. 3233 with the expectation that the Senate would have considered an amendment addressing concerns about partisan staffing and the duration of the commission. Please be assured that I understand your views on H.R. 3233, and will keep them in mind should this measure again come before the Senate for consideration. 

Thank you again for your correspondence. Do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.

You'll note that Pennsylvania Pat Toomey didn't exactly respond to my points. You'll note that he simply retold the story that led me to call him a political coward in the first place.

You'll note that this does nothing to challenge my assessment of his political cowardice.