October 30, 2021

More On Sean Parnell's Bad Relationship...With The Media. (Am I Gonna Get Sued, Too?)

Let's start with The Inky:

Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell is trying to fight off attacks about temporary protective orders issued against him — and his opponents are using that as more fodder to go after him.

Parnell, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has battled attempts by supporters of fellow Republican Jeff Bartos to air attack ads about the issue, threatening to sue them and TV stations, and recently sought a gag order to prevent his estranged wife from talking about the protective orders. [Name bolding in original.]

A threatened lawsuit? Did someone say something about "threatening to sue" the media outlets who aired Bartos' attack ads?

Hmm...

Anyway, on the one hand my first instinct is for radio silence on something like this.  As I wrote recently, my middle-aged memory belched up an old saying that fits here:

When your rivals are fighting amongst themselves, let them.

I don't know the provenance of the saying (or its origin or even its ultimate source) but there you have it anyway.

On the other hand, this is too delicious to keep quiet.

So, what's the story here?

The Washington Post has a good rundown:

[Sean] Parnell is in a tough primary battle for the nomination for an open seat in the U.S. Senate, a race crucial to Republicans’ hopes to take back the chamber.

A few years ago, the former Army captain was ordered by law enforcement to leave his home and give up his guns. He is in the process of a divorce as he runs for the Senate, and we’ve learned that Parnell’s wife had called 911 in relation to a domestic dispute and filed two protection-from-abuse orders against him that were lifted after a few days.

Now he’s in a custody battle over his three children — prompting one Republican operative to remark that they’ve never heard of a top Senate candidate losing custody of children midrace.

The trouble in Parnell’s personal life blew into the open days after Trump endorsed him. Another top Republican candidate, Jeff Bartos, is running ads talking about all this. Parnell has accused Bartos of lying.

Things could get worse for Parnell. He went to court to seal divorce records and to order his wife not to talk about the prior restraining orders. But a judge recently ruled that much of that information can become public and that his wife can talk about what happened.

As with all things legal, the official status of those PFA orders needs to be clarified. Here it is from The Inky: 

Neither was extended after a full hearing involving both parties, and both were later expunged. [Bolding added.]

Did you know that Sean's soon to be ex-wife is also suing her former employers (The American Warrior Initiative and the Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation - both entities with strong ties to Sean Parnell)? Take a look:

Nature of the Action
 
This is an action brought pursuant to Sex Discrimination and Religious Discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, retaliation, and creation of a hostile work environment, as well as the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. The Plaintiff, seeks declaratory, injunctive and compensatory relief for the discriminatory conduct, the retaliation and hostile work environment she endured, and for being terminated from her position by the Defendants in this matter.

The Plaintiff is Sean's soon to be ex-wife and the Defendants are The American Warrior Initiative and the Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation.

According to the Complaint's Statements of Fact, Sean's wife worked mostly for the mortgage company (her "primary job responsibilities were under Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation" it says) rather than the veterans' charity. 

Did you know that, according to those same Statements of Fact, she made 80K a year as an event planner for these two organizations?

80K - that's a lot of event planning, amirite?

According to the Statements of Fact, Sean's wife worked directly under a woman named Louise Thaxton and from her bio we learn something very interesting about the relationship between Fairway and the AWI::

Louise is a national advocate for America’s veterans and is the Director and co-founder of the American Warrior Initiative, the non-profit of Fairway... [Emphasis added.]

Anyway, the Statements of Fact points out that that the mortgage company was "heavily faith-based" and so divorce was frowned upon.

The Statements of Fact go on:

20. When [Louise Thaxton, the Plaintiff's supervisor] learned that the Plaintiff had separated from her husband, she refused to speak to the Plaintiff for approximately six (6) months and had sided with the husband, Mr. Parnell. 

21. Plaintiff’s failure to conform to certain ideals professed for “Christian women” in the company ultimately led to her termination.      

  22. On  August  30,  2019,  the  Plaintiff  had  a  discussion  with  her  supervisor,  Louise  Thaxton, wherein she expressed concern to Thaxton that she knew there were unethical actions taking place within the nonprofit. 

23. The Plaintiff also told Thaxton that she would be talking with Human Resources regarding her concerns.  

24. Thaxton  was  immediately  hostile  towards  her  and  told  her  that  she  was  being  insubordinate and unprofessional, and within an hour the Plaintiff was terminated.

Um what?? "Unethical actions" at Sean Parnell's nonprofit? Do tell!

For the record, I have no idea what Sean's wife might be talking about. For all I know, she could've been dropping the phrase into the conversation in order to give herself some "whistle blower" cover.

But can someone please ask Sean Parnell about what his wife said about his nonprofit?

Wait. Am I going to be sued by Sean Parnell for blogging about this? For blogging about some legal documents filed nearly a year ago?

October 29, 2021

Meanwhile, Outside

Yes, Wendy and Brock, her sidekick, are still lying about Covid and the Vaccines.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano is a dangerous religious zealot who was involved in the January 6th coup attempt (we just don't know how deeply).

But the planet is still warming up.

From the scientists at NOAA:

The global surface temperature for September 2021 was 0.90°C (1.62°F) above the 20th century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F) and was the fifth highest September temperature in the 142-year record. Only Septembers of 2015, 2016, 2019, and 2020 had a higher September temperature departure. The eight warmest Septembers have all occurred since 2014. September 2021 also marked the 45th consecutive September and the 441st consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.

Take a look:

Meanwhile, in DC:

Top executives from some of the world’s biggest oil companies are testified before Congress on Thursday about the fossil fuel industry’s alleged efforts to mislead the public about climate change.

Lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform brought in executives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell to grill them about what Democrats say is their decades-long history of sowing doubt about the effects their products are having on Earth’s temperature and the stability of its climate system.

And then this from Reuters

A U.S. House committee will subpoena major oil company executives for documents on what company scientists have said about climate change and any funds spent to mislead the public on global warming, the head of the panel said on Thursday.

Democrat Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, announced the subpoenas at the close of a hearing in which energy industry chiefs were grilled over climate.

"We need to get to the bottom of the oil industry's disinformation campaign with these subpoenas," said Maloney, who plans to go after documents from the companies and their trade groups about funding of "shadow groups," public relations firms and social media companies.

 So...maybe something will happen.

October 28, 2021

It's A Day On Planet Earth - And That Means Wendy Bell Is Misleading Her Audience

Again, with the VAERS data:


Wendy, honey, sweetie, apple of my eye, anytime you're using the VAERS data to point anyone away from the vaccine, you're putting their health at risk.

And that expert you're using? Dr Jessica Rose?

Yea, she's not the most reliable source now is she?

Take a look at this from Reuters:

An article widely shared on social media claims more than 150,000 people have died from COVID-19 vaccines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Reuters this claim is inaccurate and based on misinterpreted data.

The article, published on Sept. 22 on a website known for spreading misinformation (here and here), claims scientists concluded through an “in-depth analysis” that “at least 150,000 Americans have been killed”.

And:

The website credits the findings to Jessica Rose, who was a postdoctoral researcher in biology at the Israel Institute of Technology from 2016-20, according to her resume posted online (here). She is now a self-described independent researcher.

The blog article cites a paper titled: “Estimating the number of COVID vaccine deaths in America” (here), which Rose co-authored alongside Mathew Crawford, a statistician (here). Both appear to be members of a group questioning COVID-19 vaccines (here).

Here's Reuters on that paper:

Rose and Crawford’s paper calculates a so-called “underreporting rate” of adverse reactions by comparing data submitted to VAERS on anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) after vaccination with estimates of people vaccinated in the United States. They then subtract the average number of background deaths for previous years from the deaths after vaccination reported to VAERS before multiplying the resulting number by their estimated underreporting rate. They say these calculations produce an estimated total of more than 150,000 people who have died in the United States as a result of COVID-19 vaccines.

An FDA spokesperson told Reuters in an email that it “strongly disagrees” with the analysis put forth in the report.

They added that the claim 150,000 people have died in the United States as a result of COVID-19 vaccines is not accurate and is based on data from VAERS that was not properly interpreted.

This was published on October 4, a little more than 3 weeks ago. Did you see it? Did you (or your sidekick Brock) even bother to look for it? A journalist would have. Someone interested in getting at the truth would have.

Evidently, you didn't. Or you did and you chose not to tell your many adorings.

And Wendy, had you checked you would've had an answer to the top line of your Bullshit Board:

HEY - FDA! PLEASE EXPLAIN...
From the Reuters Fact Check:

The spokesperson said: “Although under reporting is a limitation in VAERS, with regard to COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring, there currently is not evidence to suggest it would underestimate the amount of COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths to such a large degree.”

The FDA and CDC have multiple systems in place in addition to VAERS to monitor vaccine safety. “A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines,” the FDA told Reuters.

And here's Reuters' verdict:

False. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and there is no evidence to suggest they have caused more than 150,000 deaths. The claim is based on misinterpreted data.

That Jessica Rose? 

Anytime you point anyone away from the vaccines, you're putting their health at risk. Some of them will get sick. Some of those may even die. That's on you.

 

October 27, 2021

But Wait. I Thought That Wendy Bell Was An Award Winning Journalist!

Look at what happened on twitter yesterday (October 26):

The clip (thanks Jon!) starts with Wendy reading a headline:

Biden Orders VA To Withhold Health Benefits From Unvaccinated Veterans
She then dutifully references the source of this material (since she always gives out the truth and she always tells you where she got it, right??):

Deleware Ohio News dot com
The article is here, actually. And Wendy reads the first sentence of the piece:

President Joe Biden has ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to withhold healthcare benefits from unvaccinated veterans as part of an aggressive new initiative to combat the COVID-19 pandemic

A few minutes later this happened:

After Brock says that folks on-line are telling them it's "parodies" Wendy says, "Alright, we'll come out and say that."

Adding:

I hope it's satire. That would be terrible. It better be satire. I sure hope it is. You know that is one segment you can't fiddle with. I can't imagine he would do that. But I could.

So even though they're told it's fake, they still believe it's possible as it still fits their narrative.

Wendy used to be an award winning journalist. Isn't it part of the education of journalists to verify sources? To make sure that what they're telling their audience is actually, you know, credible?

On that front, Wendy and Brock failed miserably.

Here's the thing. As Jon points out (and thanks, again, Jon!) with this image from the website's front page:


How did Wendy Bell, award winning journalist, not see this? Did she not bother checking? Or was she so interested in smearing The President that she didn't care what the truth was?

All she had to do was to read the bio posted of the writer posted at the bottom of piece she spewed out to her many adorings:

Ricardo Paye is a Senior Correspondent with Delaware Ohio News. Born and raised in the Delaware County Fairgrounds, he's a reporter with a deep knowledge of the streets who isn't afraid to ask tough questions. His fondest childhood memory is getting a hand job from a public utility worker in the basement of Pilsner's 5 & Dime store. He holds a bachelor's degree in Euthanasia from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Wendy, how could you have missed this?

Wendy and Sidekick Brock failed on yet another front: This isn't even a new story.

She "reported" this "truth" on October 26.

USAToday debunked it more 40 days ago on September 16:

President Joe Biden recently announced vaccination requirements for federal workers and companies with more than 100 employees, as COVID-19 cases continue to surge due to the highly contagious delta variant.

As Republican governors and commentators criticized the new vaccine mandate, some took to social media to claim Biden also ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to withhold health benefits from veterans who are unvaccinated. 

"Biden Orders VA to withhold Health Benefits From Unvaccinated Veterans," reads the headline of an article that was shared to Facebook on Sept. 13 in a post with more than 300 interactions in three days.

Another user shared the same screenshot to Instagram and claimed Biden said, "As with so many other things in our country, veterans are part of the problem when they should be part of the solution."

But Biden never said this, and he is not withholding health benefits from unvaccinated veterans. The claim started as satire and was shared to social media as if it were factual.

40 days ago, Wendy.

Politifact had this on September 14.

Newsweek on September 15.

Heck, Disabled Veterans [dot] org had it then, too.

So including USAToday, hat's one-two-three-four, count 'em four fact checks from more than a month ago, Wendy. And you missed (or ignored) each one of them.

I hope you just missed them. That would be even more terrible if you knew about them and ignored the truth just to smear the administration. It better be ignorance and not dishonesty. I sure hope it is. You know that is one thing (truth) you can't fiddle with. I can't imagine you would do that. 

But I could.

Wendy, feel free to respond to this via email (or twitter) I'll put you on once a week, if you'd like. I think I could even give you a percentage of my sponsorship $$. Would you like that?


October 26, 2021

If They Engaged In Insurrection...The Constitution Has A Solution.

Remember The Constitution?

Section Three of The Fourteenth Amendment reads:

No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Now, onto Rolling Stone

As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.

Uh-oh. 

While there's nothing specifically about Pennsylvania in the Rolling Stone piece, there are a few danger signs, IMHO. Like this one:

These specific members of Congress were involved in the pro-Trump activism around the election and the electoral certification on Jan. 6. Both Brooks and Cawthorn spoke with Trump at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. In his speech at that event, Brooks, who was reportedly wearing body armor, declared, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” Gosar, Greene, and Boebert were all billed as speakers at the “Wild Protest,” which also took place on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

Hey, you know who else is thusly billed?

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano.

What does he know about all this? Has anyone asked him?

As we blogged earlier, Steve Bannon himself said that Mastriano's late November conference was the beginning of the "counter reaction" to President Biden's win on November 3.

And Doug Mastriano was among the guests/speakers at that "Wild Protest" on January 6.

And Doug Mastriano is at the Capitol as the Trump-mob was storming the building.

What does Doug Mastriano know about the planning of the day's events? All of the day's events?

BTW, did you know what the January 6 Committee is doing?

Among other things, this:

The House select committee is setting its sights on the financing behind events and people associated with January 6, CNN has learned, including money that funded pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" rallies that preceded the attack on the Capitol that day, in an effort to determine whether any election law violations or financial crimes took place.

The Democratic-led panel is focused in part on understanding how event organizers and vendors were paid, and how the two rallies were funded, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation, including some who have been interviewed by the committee. Investigators also want to know if any funding came from domestic extremists or foreign sources, sources say.

An important detail:

"There was a lot of money raised and a lot of money given, millions of dollars ... to pay for the buses and the hotels and the meals and the accommodation," Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on the select committee, told CNN this week. "A lot of the staffing of it came from people who used to work for Donald Trump on his campaign and then just went over to work on the rally stuff, so we're gonna get to the bottom of that stuff."

Did you catch the part about the buses?

Did you know that PA State Senator Doug Mastriano (or at least his campaign office) financed some of those buses?

Campaign finance records show that State Sen. Doug Mastriano’s campaign spent thousands of dollars on charter buses ahead of the Washington D.C. rally that ended with supporters of President Donald Trump violently storming the halls of Congress last week during an insurrection.

Where did that money come from, Doug? Aren't you at all nervous that the House Committee might be asking you under oath?

October 25, 2021

Uh-Oh. Sean Parnell Made It Onto CNN (And Not In A Good Way)

 Here's the headline at CNN:

Trump pick's messy personal life worries Senate Republicans desperate to hold on to Pennsylvania seat

And the piece begins with this:

Sean Parnell may have the backing of former President Donald Trump, but the Pennsylvania Republican also has significant personal baggage that is raising concerns about the GOP's ability to hold one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country next year.

Uh-oh. 

I can hear in the depths of my cobwebbed memory an old saying. Or maybe it's just an echo (it's pretty empty in there). Or maybe I misheard something long ago and have since transformed it into something completely different. I really don't know. But here it is anyway:

When your rivals are fighting amongst themselves. Let them.

Maybe it was Napoleon who said it. Or maybe Sun Tzu or maybe it was Soupy Sales. Who knows?

This is a fight between two rival Republicans for their party's nomination to replace Senator Pat Toomey. Jeff Bartos says Parnell's unfit. 

If you look wa-a-a-ay down at the bottom of this website that's the source of all this muck, you'll see this:

Parnell fired back that:

Ian Prior, a spokesman for the Parnell campaign, criticized Baltos’ donation to the Democratic Party and his kind words to Hillary Clinton.

“First, we learn that Jeff personally donated to Democrats who supported President Trump’s impeachment,” Priore said in a statement. Pittsburgh City Paper.. “Now we know that Jeff worked for Bill Clinton and publicly praised Hillary Clinton. It seems that Jeff was #ReadyForHillary.” 

The Bartos folks pointed out that Parnell himself criticized Trump and so on.

It was ever thus.


October 23, 2021

Steve Bannon: The Movement To Invalidate Biden's Win Started At Mastriano's Conference

As we all know by now:

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, one of former President Donald Trump's closest allies, in criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

That was this past Thursday.

Thursday night, the contemptible Bannon was guest of PA the Adams County Republican Committee at their annual Eisenhower Banquet.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano was speaking there, as well.

Lots happened that Thursday. The York Daily Record reported:

Former Trump political strategist and conservative host of "War Room" podcast Steve Bannon came to Gettysburg Thursday night to speak at the Adams County GOP Eisenhower Dinner.  

This was his first public appearance after the U.S. House voted to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of court when he declined to comply with a subpoena to testify about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Anyway, here's more from Panyard:

Before the event, Bannon spoke with Adams County GOP Chair Charlotte Shaffer for his "War Room" news show.

The pair spoke about the 3 November movement, a Trump-centered Republican movement seeking to prove election fraud.

“One of the reasons I accepted the gracious invitation of Charlotte Shaffer, the chairman, was that this was the railhead of where 3 November started, the counter reaction, the great conference,” Bannon said on War Room.

Bannon was referring to an event in Gettysburg at which former Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani publicly protested the election results. Mastriano organized that event as a member of the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee.

Jack Panyard, the reporter of the above, kinda sorta left out some very important info, you know. Hey Jack, let me correct it for you (my corrections will be in bold italics in case you were to miss them): 

The pair spoke about the 3 November movement, a Trump-centered Republican movement seeking to prove non-existent election fraud.
That's all you had to do, Jack, and your sentence would've been 100% correct.

For the record, that "event in Gettysburg" has been fact-checked for it's many many misstatements:

  • AP:
    CLAIM: Pennsylvania election officials mailed out 1.8 million ballots but counted votes from more than 2.5 mailed ballots.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The statistic combines data from Pennsylvania’s June primary election, in which 1.8 million voters requested vote-by-mail ballots, and data from the general election, in which voters mailed back more than 2.6 million ballots that were counted.

    THE FACTS: In the weeks before the November 2020 election, more than 3 million Pennsylvania voters requested vote-by-mail ballots.

    Data from Pennsylvania’s Department of State analyzed by the U.S. Election Project, an election data site maintained by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald, show 3,087,524 mail ballots requested and 2,629,672 mail ballots returned and counted.

    But those figures were distorted at a legislative hearing in Gettysburg last week as President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani tried to argue there was fraud in Pennsylvania’s election.
  • CBS in Philadelphia:

    “In the case of Philadelphia and in the case of Allegheny County and one or two other counties, the mail-in ballots that were received were not inspected at all by any Republican. They were hidden from Republicans,” Giuliani said.

    Committee members heard testimony from Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs who claim they were denied access to the mail-in ballot-counting process.

    “For 10 days for more than 80 hours, what I saw was not a secure and transparent election,” Justin Kweder said.

    These allegations have been disputed by election officials.

    In fact, Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt reiterated on Wednesday that the city’s ballot-counting process was observed by poll watchers from all parties and live-streamed to the public.

That (and much more) is what happened at Gettysburg.

Anyway, on his podcast did Steve Bannon, not just expand on just how deep Mastriano's ties are to the "movement" that culminated in the January 6 insurrection?

By pointing out that "the movement" started with that November 25, 2020 Gettysburg conference, it sure sounds like it to me.

According to Bannon, the movement started at Mastriano's conference in Gettysburg. And that's the movement that stormed the Capitol on January 6. Mastriano in DC that day watching the crowd overrun the building's defenses and he has since lied about how close to the Capitol he really was.

How deeply is PA State Senator Doug Mastriano involved in Trump's insurrection?

October 22, 2021

Wendy Bell's Ongoing Ivermectin Misinformation

We've danced this dance before, Wendy and I. Too too many times.

Transcript:

...when he came out and said that his doctor had prescribed for him Ivermectin -

You know. That safe therapeutic that we all have been talking about? That Dr Fauci and others have been besmirching?

Because you know as well as I that good health is not profitable. It is the drug dependency that is.

So if there is something that is safe for pregnant people, children, the elderly the sick and it costs pennies to give to people -

You know the same therapeutic that was used in that state in India (population 245 million) where the Indian government decided to go door to door, knocking on people's doors, testing them on the spot for Covid and people who had it were given a medical kit. Inside the medical kit, a bunch of different things – among those things, Ivermectin.

Cases of Covid and deaths went to zero.

It's amazing how that works.

It's amazing that Uttar Pradesh can get with the program of preventative medicine that we know is safe and effective and yet here in the United States, we're not allowed to have that.

Here in the United States we have the great privilege of paying the greatest pharmaceutical markup on planet Earth. 

Ermagerd, there's so much wrong with this.

Let's start with the big one - something I blogged about only eleven days ago:

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Task Force on Covid-19 have dropped the use of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) drugs from their revised guidelines for the treatment of the infection.

The decision was taken after experts found that these drugs have little to no effect on Covid-related mortality or clinical recovery of the patient.

And this has been the case in India since September 23.

How did you miss that, Wendy? It was published right there at the India Today on September 26 of this year. That means it's been posted online for about a month, right?

And yet you missed it, didn't you? 

Or did you just decide not to let anyone know the truth?

Your old friends at Health Feedback have also debunked this specific claim about Uttar Pradesh, haven't they Wendy?

10 days ago on October 12:

From the text:

The claim that Uttar Pradesh is now COVID-19 free due to the use of ivermectin is inaccurate and unsupported by scientific evidence. Uttar Pradesh isn’t entirely free of COVID-19, and comparisons with other states are challenging due to differences in testing capacity. Furthermore, many factors other than ivermectin use could have influenced the course of the second COVID-19 wave in Uttar Pradesh, including restrictions and immunity from previous infection and vaccination.

In addition, the quality of evidence supporting ivermectin use in COVID-19 patients is very low. For this reason, public health authorities don’t recommend the use of ivermectin for preventing or treating COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. Given all these uncertainties, we can’t determine whether ivermectin played any role at all in the decline of COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh.

Isn't there someone in your inner circle of family/friends who's a medical expert, Wendy? Someone you could use as maybe I dunno, some sort of intellectual tool to dig through all this medicalese?


October 20, 2021

More On Steve Bannon (And Where He'll Be The Night The House Votes His Contempt Resolution)

First let's start with what everyone knows:

The panel voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend charging [Steve] Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena, sending the issue to the House.

And then:

Western Pennsylvania's own Guy Reschenthaler voted no on the Rules Committee resolution, by the way.

Finally, there's this:

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Thursday to refer Steve Bannon to federal prosecutors for potential criminal charges relating to his defiance of Congress over the investigation into the 6 January Capitol insurrection.

And if (if?) he's found in contempt, I suppose some U.S. Marshalls will be called upon to scoop Stephen K. Bannon out of the metaphorical kitty litter in which he's currently resting.

But where oh where is he scheduled to be on Thursday night?

Adams County, Pennsylvania:


Which just happens to be in treason-adjacent PA Senator Doug Mastriano's legislative district.

Did you know that?

Looks like the treason-adjacent Mastriano is going to be in the same room as the contemptible Steve Bannon:

From the above:
About this Event

Enjoy Dinner and an evening with political strategist and host of Bannon’s War Room, Steve Bannon, Senior Fellow at Family Research Council, Joseph Backholm, founding President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, Michael Geer and PA District 33 Senator Doug Mastriano. Meet likeminded Republicans who share conservative values here in Adams County, throughout Pennsylvania and across our Nation.

Tickets are $60/$500/$750 depending on how much you're looking to nullify our Constitutional Republic.

I'm sure the U.S. Marshalls can get in, if they need to.

Lock Him Up! Lock Him up! Lock Him Up! (Steve Bannon, That Is)

From the NYTimes:

One day before a mob of former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to Mr. Trump, made a prediction to listeners of his radio show.

“Now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack — the point of attack tomorrow,” Mr. Bannon said on Jan. 5 as he promoted a plan hatched by Mr. Trump and far-right Republican lawmakers to try to overturn President Biden’s victory the next day, when Congress would meet to formalize the election results. “It’s going to kick off. It’s going to be very dramatic.”

It is because of comments like that, which foreshadowed the violence that played out during the Capitol riot, that the House committee investigating the assault is interested in questioning Mr. Bannon. But the former counselor to Mr. Trump has refused to cooperate with the inquiry, citing the former president’s claim of executive privilege.

The panel voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend charging Mr. Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena, sending the issue to the House. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said members would hold a vote on Thursday. The chamber is expected to approve the move and hand the matter over to the Justice Department for prosecution. [Emphasis added.]

You can read The House resolution recommending contempt charges here

Additionally, there's this from The Hill:

A criminal contempt report released by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol largely pushes back on former Trump White House strategist Stephen Bannon’s claim that he can’t respond to a subpoena by the panel due to executive privilege.

The trove of documents was released ahead of a scheduled vote for a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ) after Bannon failed to show for a scheduled deposition, laying out the multiple attempts made to seek his testimony.

And then this tweet from that reporter at The Hill:

Uh-oh.

Need I remind you who else was "ID'd by the Senate as a key part" of Trump's plan?

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano.

Back to the Bannon Contempt report, on pages 12-13, there are a few bullet points that may (may) impact Mastriano. Here are a few:

  • Anyone with whom he communicated by any means with respect to any aspect of the planning, objectives, conduct, or participation in the January 6, 2021, rally, including but not limited to Boris Epshteyn. 
  • The financing or fundraising to assist any individual’s or organization’s travel to or accommodation in Washington, DC, to attend or participate in the January 6, 2021, rally.

We know Doug was at the rally.

We know Doug's office rented some buses to take people to that rally.

We know that Doug was one of Trump's guys specifically mentioned in the latter's call to the DOJ.

How much you wanna bet the January 6 committee wants to talk to Doug Mastriano, too?

But back to Steve Bannon: 

Lock Him Up! Lock Him up! Lock Him Up!

October 19, 2021

Wendy Bell Misleads (Lies) On Covid. Again. With VAERS Numbers. AGAIN.

 Her BS Board from yesterday:


Oh, Wendy! The VAERS numbers again?

How often do we need to do this?

American Faith [dot] com is not a reliable source of information. The numbers you cite on your BS board are the numbers American Faith gathers from the National Vaccine Information Center which is, of course, a source of vaccine misinformation.

From Newsweek (last May):

With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, the CDC has provided additional analysis of VAERS reports on its main website, stating, "A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines."

However, alternative platforms exist where anyone can access VAERS data and bypass the CDC's clear explanation of its many limitations. One, MedAlerts.org, is run by an anti-vaccine group called the National Vaccine Information Center, whose own website NewsGuard found to have repeatedly published false health claims. [Emphasis added.]

The part you always leave out is the VAERS disclaimer

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system. 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. In large part, 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.

And that was just the first paragraph.

Among one of its bullet points is this:

The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.

It is inconceivable for you to not know this, Wendy as I know you read this blog.

(You've even invited me on your radio show while blocking me from commenting on your FB page.)

So you must know about the VAERS disclaimer - but you never let that truth affect your misinformation narrative.

Let me answer the question you posted at the at the top of your BS board:

WILL SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS?

You're lying with these numbers.

October 18, 2021

Parallels/Coincidences Or Connections (Frank Scavo and Doug Mastriano)

Good morning, it's Monday. Let's start here:

A Lackawanna County man who organized a protest outside state House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s house in late December is the latest Pennsylvanian to be charged by the federal government for participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Frank Scavo, a former state Senate candidate and controversial Old Forge, Pa., school board president, appeared in federal court on Thursday to face four misdemeanor charges related to his presence in Capitol.

Eight days before the Jan. 6 attack, Scavo and more than 100 people protested outside Cutler’s district office in Buck to call on one of the legislature’s top Republicans to take decisive action to overturn Pennsylvania’s election results. Scavo and other protesters then gathered outside Cutler’s home in Drumore Township.

So far so typical among the Trumpists.

It's the next paragraph where a whole mess of red flags began to be raised:

Scavo organized the bus that transported some protesters from Scranton to Lancaster County on Dec. 30. The group included members of an off-shoot of the Unification Church, which was founded in South Korea by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon whose followers are often referred to “Moonies.”

And then a couple of paragraphs later:

The following week, Scavo organized five buses to take 200 people to the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., responding to then-President Trump’s call for his supporters to join him in trying to stop Congress from counting the final Electoral College results.

So Scavo was in the Capitol (that's a crime) and there's video and the FBI is on the case. Yadda-yadda and so forth.

Right now I am more curious about that off-shoot of the Unification Church.

For that we go here:

A pro-gun, pro-Trump sect composed of U.S. and non-citizen zealots was involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and largely escaped attention. Known as Moonies, it is preparing for insurrection 2.0.

Look back to three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Former White House senior counselor Steve Bannon addressed a crowd gathered on the grounds of Kahr Arms/Tommy Gun Warehouse in Greeley, Pa., by video.

And:

Frank Scavo, a local Republican politician who previously served on the Old Forge School Board in Lackawanna County, emceed the event. Following Bannon’s remarks, Scavo reinforced the previous speaker’s points.

“You heard Steve Bannon,” Scavo said. “Now is our time, now is your time. Working the polls — all you’re doing is making sure that it’s going straight, that it’s going according to plan. All you’re doing is making sure that there aren’t busloads of people which show up and just happen to vote.”

Then, Scavo introduced the next speaker — a man dressed in a camouflage-patterned suit and tie and wearing a crown of bullets with a gold-plated AR-15 rifle slung over his shoulder.

It was Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, leader of World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, more commonly known as Rod of Iron Ministries.

Rod of Iron.

Is any of this sounding familiar? 

If not, let me remind you:

From its beginning, the church wholeheartedly embraced former President Donald Trump and incorporated Trumpian culture war and conspiracies into its rhetoric. Moon told VICE News in late 2019 that he believed God was working through Trump to rid the world of “political satanism” (for example, the “deep state” and “the swamp”) and restore Eden. Through his gun-centric, MAGA-friendly outlook, Moon has been able to establish some fringe political alliances. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon spoke at a recent event hosted by the church. Pennsylvania state senator and “Stop the Steal” organizer Doug Mastriano was also recently billed as a special guest at another church event. [Emphasis added.]
So we have two Pennsylvania politicians (one a little more prominent than the other) each Trumpists, each involved in busing people to the "Stop The Steal" rally on January 6 (which morphed into the Capitol insurrection where one of the to men was more involved than the other) and each tied to a pro-gun off-shoot of the Unification Church (which also was involved in storming the Capitol on January 6).

It's quite possible that these two gentlemen of Pennsylvania are simply running parallel political lives and it's all a coincidence and they've never ever even met.

And it's quite possible that they have.

Have they met?

Can someone please ask Doug about this?

October 16, 2021

Two Days In A Row! PA State Senator Doug Mastriano In The News

Today, it's Business Insider. And let me just say that it's never a good sign when the news about you opens with something like this:

A Pennsylvania Republican who tried to block his state's votes from being counted in the 2020 election held a fundraiser at a church on Thursday at which he mocked the notion of "herd immunity" and falsely suggested the vaccines against COVID-19 are not really vaccines at all.

Jeepers, there's absolutely nothing about any of this good qualities! For instance, I am pretty sure he lowers the seat whenever he's done in the bathroom and I would not at all be surprised to hear that he is, at the very least, an adequate tipper (assuming the service is good). 

But it just looks so so bad when the first bullet out of the barrel is about Doug's part in Trump's Big Lie and the second is about how the COVID-19 vaccines really aren't vaccines.

The brother can't catch a break at all, can he?

BI continues:

At a political fundraiser hosted by the tax-exempt, evangelical Time Ministries Church in central Pennsylvania, Mastriano appeared to gear up for a potential run for governor in 2022, having previously claimed that former President Donald Trump personally asked him to do so. His remarks, aired live on Facebook, touched on opposition to vaccine mandates — a bill he introduced prohibits requiring any immunization — and rehashing claims that the 2020 election stolen.

Wait - a political fundraiser at a tax-exempt church?

Well, the church did post this on it's FB page

And the IRS does say:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.  For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

So when it says that "Refreshments will be provided by" the church, isn't that a donation in kind? And when it suggests "donations to Friends of Doug Mastriano" isn't that participating in the political campaign?

Doesn't all that violate the IRS rules for tax-exempt status?

You can watch Doug's fundraising speech here.

Business Insider continues:

"So now the healthcare workers, you're in a bad spot there," Mastriano said, blasting "Joe Biden's edicts" that "you need to get the shot."

"I guess I shouldn't call it a 'vaccine,'" Mastriano continued, a reference to false claims and disinformation that mRNA vaccines, such as the ones from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are not true vaccines because they rely on a new medical technology to spur antibody production. The inoculation from Johnson & Johnson is a more traditional vector vaccine.

The vaccines, one of which has full FDA approval (Pfizer), and two others that have FDA emergency authorization (Moderna and J&J), are safe and effective at staving off severe cases of COVID-19, per Johns Hopkins.

Of Doug's many college degrees, none are in any way scientific so his opinion as to whether the vaccines are, in fact, vaccines is moot.

A point further proved by this:

"And who ever heard this idea that you need to get the shot to protect other people?" Mastriano asked the small audience at the church. "You know when I was deployed overseas, and then you get all of these things shoved into your body, like any veteran does, it's not there to protect the Afghans or Iraqis, it protects you. This is not even reasonable or logical," he said.

Despite Mastriano's suggestion that the benefits of mass inoculation are a novel argument for the COVID-19 vaccines, it is a basic tenet of modern immunology and a reason why, for example, schools in Pennsylvania require all students to be vaccinated against diseases such as polio, with few exemptions for medical and religious reasons.

He also lied about the 2020 election:

At Thursday's fundraiser, the state senator also pushed false claims about the 2020 election. Although Pennsylvania Republicans actually passed a ballot measure this year, limiting Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's ability to issue public health orders during a pandemic, Mastriano insisted the state's elections are fraudulent, citing a debunked story about ballots being trucked in from New York reiterating his demand for a "forensic audit" like that carried out in Maricopa County, Arizona, which he witnessed over the summer.

"They had magnifying glasses on one of the machines, they could tell — apparently photocopies are pixelated…. it's very clear that's a compromised ballot," he claimed.

But the partisan review in Arizona, commissioned by the state's Republicans, did not find any such "compromised ballots," despite being led by a group, Cyber Ninjas, that was committed to finding them. A third-party review of results in Pennsylvania's Fulton County, pushed by Mastriano, likewise found no evidence of fraud.

Isn't there a Commandment against bearing false witness?

So why is Doug Mastriano lying in church?

October 15, 2021

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano In The News!

First, there's CNN:

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano went out of his way to help advance former President Donald Trump's election lies: He spearheaded a "hearing" at a hotel in Gettysburg a few weeks after the 2020 election, where Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani made false claims about election fraud. He chartered buses to ferry his supporters to Washington on January 6. And he was briefly in charge of the Pennsylvania state Senate's partisan "audit" of the 2020 election.

Now Mastriano's role behind the scenes helping Trump try to overturn his loss to Joe Biden is under renewed scrutiny after a Democrat-led Senate Judiciary report released last week revealed his correspondence with the Justice Department spreading debunked claims of fraud. Mastriano is one of three under-the-radar figures the report singles out for further investigation for their efforts helping Trump try to subvert the election. [Emphasis added.]

Mastriano, one of three singled out for further investigation. 

On Mastriano's pressuring the DOJ, CNN has this:

Behind the scenes, Mastriano was helping Trump try to convince the Justice Department of election fraud. The Senate Judiciary Committee Democratic report shows Mastriano forwarded Donoghue a letter in December 2020 with numerous false and debunked claims about election fraud in Pennsylvania, which was later sent to Rosen, according to the panel. 
 
"This election is an embarrassment to our nation," Mastriano wrote in his memo.
Trump, in a December 27 call with Rosen, cited both Mastriano and Perry when he urged Rosen to say there was fraud in the election.
 
"The President said something to the effect of, you know, 'People were trying to address this problem, Scott Perry and Mastriano. Jim Jordan, he's a big fighter, but they can't do it in their own capacities,'" Donoghue told the committee.

Then, more locally, there's KDKA

A Pennsylvania state senator from the Gettysburg area is being accused of playing a critical role in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. 

State Senator Doug Mastriano is being accused of also passing barricades and police lines as the mob took over the Capitol.

A new Senate Judiciary Report highlighted former President Donald Trump’s faith that Sen. Mastriano was in his corner. 

The report also says that Mastriano and his wife also took part in the insurrection and organized buses to travel to Washington D.C. that day.

Now the committee believes that Mastriano’s actions warrant further investigation. 

Nothing we haven't posted here, but still it's good to know KDKA is catching up.

Finally, in a piece about AG Josh Shapiro announcing his candidacy, The Morning Call has this about our bff, Douggiemast:

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, another Trump ally, has discussed a possible run, but he’s fallen out of favor with party leaders and may be damaged through his links to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

 May be damaged? Huh?

Looks to me like the man's deeply embedded in whatever shenanigans Trump engineered to stay in power despite losing in November, 2020.

The only question is when he gets called to testify before Congress and what (if any) charges he'll face for participating in the Trump's attempted coup.

 

 

October 14, 2021

Another Congressional Subpoena (And Of Course, The PENNSYLVANIA Connection!)

The AP is reporting:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to a former Justice Department lawyer who positioned himself as an ally of Donald Trump and aided the Republican president’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

The subpoena to Jeffrey Clark, revealed Wednesday, came amid signs of a rapidly escalating congressional inquiry. At least three of the people who were involved in organizing and running the rally that preceded the violent riot are handing over documents in response to subpoenas from the committee.

The Hill has roughly the same story but adds:

An otherwise little-known figure in the Justice Department, Clark was introduced to Trump by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another person the Senate Committee recommended the House focus on.

There it is.

The NYTimes has some more on Rep. Perry: 

It was Mr. Perry, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, who first made Mr. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump.

Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them.

Adding:

It is unclear when Mr. Perry, who represents the Harrisburg area, met Mr. Clark, a Philadelphia native, or how well they knew each other before the introduction to Mr. Trump. Former Trump administration officials said that it was only in late December that Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen about the introduction brokered by Mr. Perry, who was among the scores of people feeding Mr. Trump false hope that he had won the election.

But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump would have known Mr. Clark otherwise.

And:

As the date for Congress to affirm Mr. Biden’s victory neared, Mr. Perry and Mr. Clark discussed a plan to have the Justice Department send a letter to Georgia state lawmakers informing them of an investigation into voter fraud that could invalidate the state’s Electoral College results.
The Times also points out that they discussed the plan with Trump himself.

You can read the Committee's letter to Clark here.

A key take-away:


You might have to click on the image to read it, sorry.

Jeffrey Clark is under investigation for his role in the events leading up to the January 6 insurgency. And Jeffrey Clark was introduced to Donald Trump by Rep Scott Perry.

What did Scott Perry know and when did he know it? How deeply enmeshed in the coup is he?

October 13, 2021

CNN Has The Scott Perry Story (Oh, And Doug Mastriano's Name Shows Up, Too!)

Take a look:

Or you can read about it here:

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry is under renewed scrutiny after a Senate report released last week provided fresh details about Perry's role in helping former President Donald Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.

The report from the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats zeroes in on Perry as a key player in Trump's attempts to pressure the Justice Department to support his false voter fraud conspiracies, which Trump had hoped would lead to Congress overturning his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Perry connected Trump with a Justice Department lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, who was open to his claims of voter fraud, while Trump dispatched Perry to try to convince the top DOJ brass that the election had been stolen, according to the committee.

And, as we're learning, as goes Scott Perry, so goes PA State Senator Doug Mastriano. First the visual:

And now the readable:
Perry and the other two officials singled out by the report, Trump campaign legal adviser Cleta Mitchell and Pennsylvania state GOP Rep. Doug Mastriano, could all have firsthand knowledge about Trump's efforts behind the scenes in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
 
Perry was among roughly a dozen GOP lawmakers whose phone records the committee instructed telecom companies to preserve in August.

I wonder if any of those calls were to Mastriano. I wonder. I wonder if they talked, whether they traded Army stories or just simply coup-cooed late at night.

But back to the Über-patriot Scott Perry:

In the months since January 6, Perry has not backed off his claims that the election results should have been thrown out in Pennsylvania. He also voted against creating an independent commission or a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and he was part of a group of nearly two-dozen House Republicans who voted against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the officers who defended the Capitol on January 6.

Great guy, Scott Perry. One of Trump's guys. 

Another is Doug Mastriano.

October 12, 2021

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's VIP Recognition on 1/6

The entwining is getting entwinier!

This bubbled up on the interwebs recently:

The Uprising has obtained internal documents from the planning of the January 6 “March To Save America” rally at the White House Ellipse that immediately preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol building.

These documents, which you can read below, include a four page list of 109 “important guests” from at least 18 states. The guests were invited to the rally by the pro-Trump organization Women For America First, which “largely organized” the event.

A House select committee dedicated to the attack is investigating the organizers of that event at the Ellipse. The Uprising is publishing these documents due to the apparent interest in organizers and participants in the rally that has been shown by the select committee.

 Guess who's on the above mentioned "important guests" list?

You got it:

See that? Right at the bottom of the image? That's right. Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano.

So not only was he listed as among the "Invited Speaker & Featured Guests" at the rally, he was a completely different list of event "Important Guests."

How deeply was Doug Mastriano involved with the attempted coup? We know he wandered around the Capitol while the Trump-mob stormed it (he also lied about his Capitol grounds wanderlust).

Seeing as the House Committee has subpoenaed the organizers of those rallies, how long can we expect to wait before PA State Senator Mastriano will be called to testify (under oath) about what he knew about the attempted coup?

Is he expecting a knock on his door anytime soon?