Quick Question For PA State Senator Doug Mastriano

Did you see this article in the Washington Post?

(That's not the question I want to ask. We're getting to the question I want to ask. It's further down the page.)

The Post article contains these paragraphs:

The criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot, as the Justice Department aims to determine the full extent of any conspiracy to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the past two months, a federal grand jury in Washington has issued subpoena requests to some officials in former president Donald Trump’s orbit who assisted in planning, funding and executing the Jan. 6 rally, said the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The development shows the degree to which the Justice Department investigation — which already involves more defendants than any other criminal prosecution in the nation’s history — has moved further beyond the storming of the Capitol to examine events preceding the attack.

So they're looking into the "preparations for the rally that preceded the riot" including the "planning, funding and executing" the rally.

It's long been known that:

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. 

They say it was a couple thousand to Wolf's Bus Lines. 

Wolf's Bus Lines (at 200 Old US Route 15 York Springs, PA 17372) is in your legislative district, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

So here's my question:

Given that the committee is looking into the preparation/funding for the January 6 rally and given that your campaign chartered some buses for the rally, what do you think the chances are they're looking into your campaign's funding of those buses?

I am a Pennsylvanian and a voter and I'd like an answer to that question.

Wendy Bell Is STILL Lying To You About Medicine!

We'll start, as is tradition, with The Angel of Death's most recent Bullshit Board:

And we'll focus on this part, specifically:

The text reads:

American Heart Association: We conclude that the mRNA vaccines dramatically increases inflammation of the endothelium, and T-cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observation of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.

Oh my god! Did the American Heart Association actually say that? That's huge, if it's true, right?? I mean the AHA must have said it since it's in quotation marks, am I right?

Wendy Bell, award winning journalist, would never ever misquote such a prestigious organization as the American Heart Association to make a cheap point, would she? She'd be sure to track down the quotation to make sure it was actually solid, wouldn't she?

Any long term reader of this blog will already know the answer to those questions.

But what about that quote? Where's it from? Is it an official pronouncement? Some policy statement? A warning to the public? A paragraph from a peer-reviewed paper? An accurate assessment of what the AHA believes?

And that would be a hearty no for each. Wendy failed to do her own research as the AHA did not say what Wendy said they said.

And it has been the case for a number of months.

Facthcheck - December 21, 2021: 

The COVID-19 vaccines administered in the U.S. are not known to increase the risk of heart attack. But social media posts are misinterpreting an abstract in an American Heart Association journal as proof that the vaccine kills. The publisher later issued an “expression of concern” about the abstract “until a suitable correction can be published.”

And:

Yet, several online and social media posts claim mRNA COVID-19 vaccines “dramatically increase” heart attack risk, based on a misrepresented abstract published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation on Nov. 8. 

The abstract, which by nature is a brief summary and in this case represented preliminary research that is not peer-reviewed, concludes that “mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.” The abstract is not part of a full scientific paper, and was presented as a poster at AHA’s Scientific Sessions online program on Nov. 13. None of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been linked to thrombosis.

And you know what the AHA actually did to regarding this abstract?

Here's the next sentence from Factcheck:

After its publication, AHA was notified about “potential errors” in the abstract, and on Nov. 24, the journal published an ‘expression of concern’ stating it “may not be reliable.”

Take a look:

Soon after publication of the above abstract in Circulation, it was brought to the American Heart Association Committee on Scientific Sessions Program’s attention that there are potential errors in the abstract. Specifically, there are several typographical errors, there is no data in the abstract regarding myocardial T-cell infiltration, there are no statistical analyses for significance provided, and the author is not clear that only anecdotal data was used.

See that, Wendy? That's what the American Heart Association said.

If you don't like Factcheck, Wendy, there's always Reuters:

A research abstract cited by commentators as proof that COVID-19 vaccines increase a person’s risk of heart disease has raised multiple concerns from experts.

The 319-word abstract, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, claims its research has found mRNA vaccines “dramatically increase” inflammation in endothelium cells and T cell infiltration in the heart.

And:

However, multiple experts have raised criticisms of the abstract, which does not detail a full study and has not been peer-reviewed.

And if not Factcheck or Reuters then how about this: 

In a video clip, Vernon Coleman, who is a noted spreader of health misinformation, claims that he can prove that the COVID-19 jab is "murder." As evidence, he cites the abstract of a paper from the American Heart Association's (AHA) journal Circulation. Coleman reads from the abstract of the paper, which says, “We conclude that the mRNA vaccine dramatically increases inflammation of the endothelium, T-cell infiltration of cardiac muscle, and may account for the observation of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.” He claims this is proof that mRNA vaccines damage the heart.

The paper he is citing is not a published paper at all - it is a poster presentation from an online conference. Posters are a way of advertising talks about scientific work during conferences, and are neither peer-reviewed nor published in the same way that actual scientific papers are. This abstract has no published data, no references, and several spelling errors.

Since the abstract was published on November 8, the AHA has updated the abstract with an Expression of Concern...

And so on.

Took me about 20 seconds to find all this, Wendy. OK, maybe a minute.

Whenever Wendy Bell steers someone away from the vaccines, she's putting that person's health at risk.

Wendy Bell, the Angel of Death.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ASK DOUG MASTRIANO WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT 1/6!

US District Judge David O. Carter wrote:

The illegality of the plan was obvious. Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections.239 Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the Vice President to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election. As Vice President Pence stated, “no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority.”240 Every American—and certainly the President of the United States—knows that in a democracy, leaders are elected, not installed. With a plan this “BOLD,”241 President Trump knowingly tried to subvert this fundamental principle.

Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.

The NYTimes has some context:

A federal judge ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump and a lawyer who had advised him on how to overturn the 2020 election most likely had committed felonies, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.

The judge’s comments in the civil case of the lawyer, John Eastman, marked a significant breakthrough for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee, which is weighing making a criminal referral to the Justice Department, had used a filing in the case to lay out the crimes it believed Mr. Trump might have committed.

Mr. Trump has not been charged with any crime, and the judge’s ruling had no immediate, practical legal effect on him. But it essentially ratified the committee’s argument that Mr. Trump’s efforts to block Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory could well rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy.

And:

Judge Carter’s decision came in an order for Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had written a memo that members of both parties have likened to a blueprint for a coup, to turn over more than 100 emails to the committee.

We've already covered that memo and, one hopes, wondered how deeply Pennsylvania State Senator (and possible GOP candidate for Pennsylvania Governor) Doug Mastriano's was involved with it. 

Some quick points:

• The plan hinged on generating doubt on the election outcome in a number of swing states.
• Pennsylvania was one of those states.
  
• Stopping Congress from certifying the 2020 election based on that doubt.
• Making sure there were "alternative electors" in those states to vote for Trump in that event.
• Real electors in the swing states invalidated/alternative electors' votes counted.
• Trump wins.
  

 We also pointed out that: 

• Trump was counting on Mastriano's help in overturning the 2020 election.
• Mastriano called for the legislature to establish alternative electors to vote for Trump.
  
• Proposed legislation to that effect.

More or less exactly what the Eastman memo laid out.

We also know he lied about his wanderings around The Capitol on January 6.

Now that a Federal Judge (in a decision in a civil matter) has gone on record saying that Trump more than likely broke the law in a corruptly attempt to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021, and given all that we know about PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's interactions (parallel or otherwise) with that plan, can someone please ask Doug Mastriano:

Senator, what did you know about this plan and when did you know it?

Meanwhile, Outside

From the scientists at NOAA:

The February 2022 global surface temperature was the seventh highest on record at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average. This value was 0.17°C (0.31°F) warmer than last year's February value (2021), but 0.45°C (0.81°F) cooler than the record-warm February set in 2016. February 2022 also marked the 46th consecutive February and the 446th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.

And then there's this from the Orange Vulgarity:

 

Here's a thought: probably not a good idea to take a critique of climate change from a guy who said it was a Chinese hoax.

The planet is getting warmer, no matter what the twice-impeached corrupt former occupant of the Oval Office says.

PA State Senator Boasting About Something Gov Wolf Did!

Hey, you remember yesterday, right?

That's when I posted about how Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano was planning on introducing legislation to utilize some American Rescue Plan funding for a law enforcement initiative.

All without mentioning that the ARP made it through the US Congress with absolutely no GOP support.

Does Doug not think that his base will care or check or know that that's demon-crat Biden/Pelosi/Schumer Socialist money?

Remember that blogpost?

Well, take a look at this from Senator Mastriano's legislative website: 

I hate to open a blog critique with some petty feeble quibbling, but does anyone else see Doug's glaring error? That vast mountainous bowl of pus error?

I'll give you a hint: Headline reads "$800 million" while the first sentence of the press release reads "$839,000."

Doug Mastriano is off (if my maths are true) by a factor of 1,000. Let's hope Doug's budgetary calculations are more accurate.

But here's a question. How do I know that $839,000 is correct?

Well, my friends, the answer to that leads to my main critique of Mastriano's press release.

First, check the date of the release: March 25, 2020.

Now take a look at this press release from Pennsylvania Governor Wolf. It's dated March 22, 2022 - that's three days earlier (again, if my maths are true):

Governor Tom Wolf today announced the approval of $10 million for 19 projects through the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA) for nongovernmental entities to deploy middle-mile and last-mile high-speed broadband infrastructure to unserved areas in Pennsylvania through the Unserved High-Speed Broadband Funding Program (UHSB). [Bolding in original.]

And:

Franklin County

• $838,974 to Comcast Cable Communications, LLC to construct wired infrastructure for unserved areas of Metal and Peters Townships.

Is PA State Senator (and GOP candidate for Governor) actually trying to take credit for something that PA Governor actually announced just three days earlier?

Looks like he is.

Isn't there a biblical commandment about bearing false witness?

Yes, there is.

And didn't Doug Mastriano just break that commandment?

Looks like he did.

Oops.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano Wants Some Of That Sweet ARP Funding

If you were to happen over to PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's Facebook Page you'll eventually find your way to this post here.

In it (on it?) is this PA Senate Co-Sponsorship Memorandum.

This is what GOP State Sen Doug says about it:

Police agencies across Pennsylvania are facing critical officer shortages. This comes at a time when violent crime is increasing and trafficking of deadly drugs such as fentanyl overwhelm our communities. I’m teaming up with Senator Devlin Robinson to introduce a bill that ensures police have the resources they need to safeguard their communities.

And this is the first sentence of that memorandum:

In the near future, we will introduce legislation that allocates $100 million in American Rescue Plan funds to create the “Law Enforcement Recovery Grant Program.” [Emphasis added.]

Did you see it? Didja? Huh? I even emphasized the text I wanted you to see. Can you see it now?

Do you know what the American Rescue Plan is?

That's the trillion dollar piece of legislation that was signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021.

Oh and no Republican in the House of Representatives voted for it and no Republican in the US Senate voted for it, either.

WTAE even drew up a "how they voted" list.  In Pennsylvania, no GOP support for this bill at all - not even from Doug's Insurgency Subpoena Buddy, Representative Scott Perry.

That's where Mastriano and Robinson are looking to get the funding for bill - from legislation that gained absolutely no GOP support in Congress.

So Doug, any public comment yet on your being subpoenaed by the United States Congress?

For your part in Trump's attempted coup?

You violated your Oath of Office by participating, didn't you?

Wendy Bell vs Joy Reid - Not A Contest At All

In case you missed it, Wendy Bell America's Worst White Woman lectured us on Joy Reid's racism.

For those of you who don't know, this is Joy Reid:

And this is what Damon Young had to say about Wendy in that link above:

Well, years ago, when Wendy Bell was still an anchorwoman at WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate), six people were killed in a horrific mass shooting in a predominately black Pittsburgh suburb. A week after the shooting, Bell went to her Facebook fan page and published what historians now refer to as the “Moby Dick of White Privilege.” (By “historians” I mean “I.”)

She began with some “thoughts” on how she hadn’t been able to walk or talk since the shooting, continued by effectively calling the mothers of the suspected shooters “broke black hoes,” described the shooting with Pulitzer-level black poverty porn imagery, and then ended with a pitch-perfect screed on how a recent family night at the Cheesecake Factory with a smiling and skipping black server gave her hope for us. (If you think I’m making this up, please—I beg of you—read what she wrote. And even if you don’t think I’m making this up, read it for your own entertainment.) [All italics in original.]

So, of course, if there's anyone in America who's qualified to lecture us on race and how she's much more "down" with unity than Joy Reid, it's Wendy Bell.

Let's take a look.

The good folks over at Wendy Bell Watch tweeted:

No one was safe from “Positively Wendy Bell’s” racist dog whistles during her two hour rant about Ketanji Brown Jackson today.

About Joy Reid: “you represent everything I am fundamentally opposed to”.

We know, Wendy. We know. pic.twitter.com/xCbxxXXs8q

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) March 24, 2022

Transcript:

Crazy.

You know what? What women do with their bodies -

You're the one pushing the vaccine, Joy.

We don't have right to bodily autonomy any more. Or maybe you forgot that. Maybe your right to decide what's best for your body only suits your things that you care about.

But those of us who didn't want it, you called names for two years, you blithering hack.

If you want to see yourself as a servant and all Black people as a servant, as the deck is always stacked against you, as you'll never be equal, as it'll always suck, that's on you.

But you're a noxious, toxic individual.

You provide way way too much fodder for us on this program because you represent everything I fundamentally am opposed to.

I guarantee you. I guarantee you I care more about Black equality than what Joy Reid espouses on her program.

Because it's not about equality. It's about her having a spotlight, having a mouthpiece, being noxious.

Her.

I'm down with "we."

What is best for "we the people."

And is it Katani Brown Jackson? You decide.

I know how I feel.

If you listen very very carefully (so closely that you're listening between the lines) you can almost hear the word "uppity" under Wendy's noxious toxic breath as she rants about Reid.

Wendy Bell's sotto voce racism.

Just This, Today

President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.

That's what Alabama Representative (and breathless pro-Trumper)  Mo Brooks said after the orange vulgarity turned on him.

The NYTimes has some more:

In a subsequent text message, Mr. Brooks said Mr. Trump had made the request of him on “multiple occasions” since Sept. 1, 2021. He said the former president did not specify how exactly Congress would reinstall him as president, and Mr. Brooks repeatedly told him it was impossible.

“I told President Trump that ‘rescinding’ the 2020 election was not a legal option. Period,” Mr. Brooks wrote.

Mr. Brooks said Mr. Trump brought up the matter to him repeatedly over the past six months. He said he had initially hoped the requests were not connected to his endorsement in the Senate race, but now believes that Mr. Trump was dangling public support of Mr. Brooks’s candidacy as leverage to try to get a new election.

“I hoped not but you’ve seen what happened today,” Mr. Brooks said in a text. “For emphasis, the conversations about Jan. 6, 2021 being the only 2020 remedy have been going off and on for 6+ months.”

I wonder if, when Representative Brooks ask Trump for, well, anything Trump replied with:

I would like you to do us a favor, though.

Yea, I wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's GOP

Some scenes from Today's GOP.

In Florida Senator Rick Scott's 11-Point Plan to "Rescue America" we find:

Point 1 - Education:

Kids in public schools will say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, and honor the American Flag. We must foster national unity.

Already, this is unconstitutional.

And this is why. From the Supreme Court decision "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette" The Court held:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

That was 1943. The world was at war (for a second time since 1914) and yet the Supreme Court of the United States stopped the compulsory recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

And the above passage also puts the kibosh on this other GOP point:

Public schools will teach our children to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom in an often-dark world.

"No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics..."

From Tennessee we hear:

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn this weekend called a landmark 1965 Supreme Court ruling legalizing access to contraception "constitutionally unsound" in comments criticizing the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the high court. 

And:

"Constitutionally unsound rulings like Griswold vs. Connecticut, Kelo v. the city of New London, and NFIB vs. Sebelius confused Tennesseans and left Congress wondering who gave the court permission to bypass our system of checks and balances," Blackburn said in the video address.

From Indiana, we read: 

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to legalize interracial marriage nationwide and should have left it to individual states.

And:

Braun said examples of judicial activism include the landmark decision legalizing abortion. He said the Supreme Court shouldn’t “homogenize” issues nationwide, instead leaving them up to individual states to decide – which extends, when asked, to include interracial marriage.

“If you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too," Braun said. "I think that’s hypocritical.”

And then he failed at walking back his position:

In a new statement, Braun claims he misunderstood the line of questioning. The Republican said the Constitution unquestionably bans racial discrimination and that he condemns racism at all levels.

During the news conference, Braun was asked directly, "So, you would be OK with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states?"

He responded, "Yes."

These are but three slivers of today's GOP.

But as Maya Angelou once said:

When people show you who they are, believe them.

Today's GOP.

Wendy Bell STILL Misleads With Numbers. And These Are OLD. Debunked 18 Months Ago.

This was Wendy's Bullshit Board yesterday:

I'll wait on the non-Breitbartian news about the CDC's revisions of the pediatric Covid deaths.

In the meantime, let's focus on this:

Do those numbers, those percentages look familiar to anyone?

If you're a frequent long term reader in this blog, they should.

Wendy was spewing this spew way back in September of 2020.

For context, this was about six weeks before Wendy was fired by KDKA Radio for advocating that "park rangers and snipers" could solve the problem of people protesting Confederate monuments by shooting them. On sight.

In response Wendy said that she'd been "fired for sharing conservative values."

Shooting protestors on sight is a conservative value? Wendy, you're not helping the cause, dear.

This is what Wendy said back then:

This is from the CDC.gov. Double check my numbers, you'll find I'm accurate.

According to the CDC, over the weekend, they said 94% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States of America - 94% of those people who passed had at least one other condition that led to their death.

So I checked her numbers and found they were very inaccurate.

From CNN at the time:

Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a post that President Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day.

The tweet -- which has been replaced with a message saying, "This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules -- from "Mel Q," copied from someone else's Facebook post, claimed that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had "quietly" updated its numbers "to admit that only 6%" of people listed as coronavirus deaths "actually died from Covid," since "the other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses."

And then this was the explanation back then by an actual epidemiologist:

So what’s happening here? Well, it’s pretty simple — in the U.S., deaths are recorded using standardized death certificates. On these certificates, completed by medical certifiers, there are several spaces to fill in — one for the immediate cause of death, and then several lines for the underlying causes of that. As an example, say someone has lung cancer, and dies in hospital of an infection after having a lung removed. The immediate cause of death is the infection, which occurred due to complications of the lung removal, which was ultimately caused by the underlying issue of lung cancer. In the same way, someone who gets COVID-19, which causes respiratory failure, and then dies of kidney failure due to being on a ventilator would have at least three things on their form — the immediate cause, kidney failure, the secondary cause, respiratory failure, and the underlying cause, COVID-19.

Wendy, didn't you criticize Dr Rachel Levine for not being a "doctor of disease" but a pediatrician while she was "in charge of our well being" as part of the Wolf Administration? 

Yes, you did.

So that actual epidemiologist, that "doctor of disease" debunked that factoid a year and a half ago.

CNN explained:

That is not at all the same thing as saying only 6% of reported Covid-19 deaths "actually died" from Covid-19. It simply means that the other 94% were listed as having at least one additional factor contributing to their death.

 

For example, the other 94% includes people whose death certificate listed both Covid-19 and obesity, both Covid-19 and diabetes, or both Covid-19 and heart disease -- among other conditions. 

 

People can live with obesity, diabetes or heart disease for years but then get infected with Covid-19 and die quickly. The fact that they also had an underlying condition does not mean that Covid-19 was not a major reason, or the major reason, they died when they did.

Did you miss the actual news? Or are you just ignoring it? 

Are you an incompetent pundit or a dishonest one?

Your pick.

In The News This Weekend

There's this from The Week:

New information about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot will be revealed in the near future, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the House select committee investigating the attack, said on Sunday.

During an appearance on Meet the Press, Cheney said the committee's "first priority" is to make recommendations about legislation and criminal penalties for officials who do not carry out their duties.

"We're looking at things like do we need additional enhanced criminal penalties for the kind of supreme dereliction of duty that you saw with President Trump when he refused to tell the mob to go home after he had provoked that attack on the Capitol," Cheney said. "So there will be legislative recommendations, and there certainly will be new information."

Enhanced criminal penalties and a release of new information, huh?

From the MTP transcript, there's a little more:

Well, I think certainly, our first priority is to make recommendations. And we're looking at this like do we need additional enhanced criminal penalties for the kind of supreme dereliction of duty that you saw with President Trump when he refused to tell the mob to go home after he had provoked that attack on the Capitol. So there will be legislative recommendations, and there certainly will be new information. And I can tell you, I have not learned a single thing since I have been on this committee that has made me less concerned or less worried about the gravity of the situation and the actions that President Trump took and also refused to take while the attack was under way. '-[Emphasis added.]

At the beginning of her answer to Chuck Todd about her different votes regarding the (let me remind everyone) two Trump impeachment trials, she said this:

You know, I believe, Chuck, all of us who are in positions of public trust have an obligation to the Constitution.

They all took an oath and depending on their individual histories, perhaps a number of oaths to defend the Constitution.

This also happened this weekend:

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a leading Republican candidate for governor, recounted his long-running, unproven case for election fraud on Saturday.

Yet his claims seemed subdued compared to those of leading national election denier Mike Lindell, the My Pillow founder and another featured speaker.

Lindell repeatedly and falsely claimed the number of votes counted in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania exceeded the number of registered voters. Each time, he drew nothing but applause from the crowd of several hundred which nearly filled a conference room near Gettysburg.

Let me correct the reporter here for a second. Look at the adjective he used to modify the word "case" in his first sentence: unproven.

This is incorrect. And let me illustrate with a simple example.

This is a description of Fermat's Last Theorem:

No three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than 2. 

And prior to 1995, it was unproven.

After 1995? Proven. 

See the problem here? By labeling it as "unproven" the reporter leaves open the possibility  (at least in that sentence) that Trump's big lie might still be proven.

Even though David Wenner lays out the facts:

Mastriano has been a leading denier of the results of the 2020 election, including those of Pennsylvania, which President Joe Biden won by 80,555 votes, and where multiple state and county audits found no evidence of significant fraud.

Moreover, Republicans did well overall in Pennsylvania, winning the statewide races for treasurer and auditor general, further undercutting the plausibility of any fraud engineered by Democrats.

“There’s no evidence that there was widespread fraud. Period,” says political analyst G. Terry Madonna. “I don’t think anyone wouldn’t admit there could have been a bit here and a bit there … But nothing that would have changed the outcome of the election.”

The Associated Press said it contacted the elections offices in all 67 Pennsylvania counties. It said election officials in 11 counties identified a total of 26 possible cases of voter fraud. Most involved allegations of ballots being cast or people who were dead. Six people had been charged as of late 2021.

“Statewide, no prosecutor, judge or election official in Pennsylvania has raised a concern about widespread fraud,” the Associated Press wrote.

So...not unproven but disproven. 

Anyway, Doug was there spouting out the disproven allegations of voter fraud to an adoring crowd of his supporters.

Wenner goes on:

In the weeks following the election, Mastriano tweeted the false claim of “mounting evidence” against Pennsylvania’s election results, and advanced the idea state lawmakers could intervene and send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College.

Mastriano was in contact with Trump in the weeks leading up to the final result certification. He also organized buses to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol trying to disrupt certification of Biden’s win.

Trump's big lie led to the attack on The Capitol.

And Doug was there, too.

BTW, Doug took this oath when he took his place in the Pennsylvania State Senate:  

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity.

And this oath in the Army:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

And yet, he's continued to lie about the 2020 election and was on the grounds at The Capitol when Trump's mob stormed it.

I wonder if any of the "new information" set to be released by The 1/6 Committee will involve Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano. I will be waiting.

NEWSFLASH! IVERMECTIN DID NOT WORK AGAINST COVID-19! (Does Doug Mastriano Know This??)

STOP THE PRESSES!

I know this will come as a complete shock to most of you. It was certainly an Earth-shattering revelation for me.

Are you sitting down? Comfy? Relaxed?

All shovels and rakes and implements of destruction well beyond easy reach?

Ok. Here it is:

In a trial of nearly 1,400 COVID-19 patients, those who received the antiparasitic drug ivermectin didn't fare better than those who received a placebo, The Wall Street Journal reported March 18. 

It's the largest trial yet to evaluate the drug's effect on the coronavirus. The findings are awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal and are set to be presented March 18 at a forum sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, Edward Mills, PhD, one of the study's lead researchers, told the Journal. 

"There was no indication that ivermectin was clinically useful," Dr. Mills said. He is a professor of health sciences at Canada's McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

I mean, this is big, right??

I mean, who could have possibly known that ivermectin didn't work against Covid-19?

But here's the thing. At the end of February, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano proposed legislation using this as a justification:

Despite a record of success in other parts of the world, it is increasingly difficult for a patient in Pennsylvania to obtain early treatment off-label drugs such as.. Ivermectin following prescription from a provider. 

And:

SB 1091 will allow physicians and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense drugs already approved by the FDA for off-label use in the treatment or prevention of COVID, without penalty from licensing boards. The bill will also clarify that a pharmacy may not decline to fill a prescription of a COVID early treatment drug based solely on their opinion of the drug.

First off there is no "record of success" anywhere regarding the treatment of Covid-19 with ivermectin.

If there were indications that it was "clinically useful" in one section of the world that data would've impacted the study done by Dr Mills in Canada.

Secondly, there's this:

The American Medical Association (AMA), American Pharmacists Association (APhA), and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) strongly oppose the ordering, prescribing, or dispensing of ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial. [Emphasis in original.]

Look back at Doug's justification. Specifically:

The bill will also clarify that a pharmacy may not decline to fill a prescription of a COVID early treatment drug based solely on their opinion of the drug.

But what if it's based on, you know, science? 

For clarification, these are not opinions from the AMA, the APhA or the ASHP:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA have issued advisories indicating that ivermectin is not authorized or approved for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19. The National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, and Merck (the manufacturer of the drug) all state there is insufficient evidence to support the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. The Infectious Diseases Society of America Guidelines on the Treatment and Management of Patients with COVID-19 also recommend against the use of ivermectin outside of a clinical trial.

Use of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 has been demonstrated to be harmful to patients.

Will State Senator (and insurrection-adjacent) Doug Mastriano be correcting the public record soon?

Wendy Bell - She Misgenders. She Deadnames. She's Awful.

Could SWPA's Angel of Death, Wendy Bell, be seen as any worse of a person?

I didn't think so but evidently her application for citizenship in Transphobistan has been approved.

Take a look. We've seen Wendy Bell attack Admiral Rachel Levine:

USAToday has named a biological man one of its "Women of the Year."

And:

The same Dr Levine who moved her own mother - and I can say "his" yes but I'm not going to be petty or get lost in the weeds.

I'll chose your pronoun that you wish, but by golly Dr Levine, you're not a woman.

Yesterday, Wendy went all petty and got completely lost in the weeds:

Welcome back to the Wendy Bell Radio show. I am just going to take the gloves off and I'm done. I'm done playing the game. I've waited long enough. I've danced on the line and I've called Will Thomas "Lia Thomas." I've called him a she.

This is a man. I will not play the leftist game anymore.

So all of you who are on the left who like to record what I talk about and put it up in eight second seg-- you know little snippets on twitter to be outraged, now's your time to record.

I will not play your game anymore.

Note: That last part was a shout-out to my friend Jon - who performs the herculean task of listening to Wendy Bell every day in order to show the world the extent of her grotesque, ignorant, dangerous rants in all their hideous "common sense conservative" glory.

I have no idea where Jon finds the strength. Perhaps it was the working in Augean Stables. Maybe capturing the Cretan Bull. Who knows?

In any event, Wendy was fixated on this story and, according to Jon, Lia Thomas' genitalia.

In fact, in a later video, we can hear Wendy announce:

I'm done. It's Will Thomas - with a penis.

A cis-gendered conservative fixated on a trans woman's genitalia - not surprising for an upstanding citizen of Transphobistan, no?

But this blog post is not about Lia Thomas or Rachel Levine. I am confident that each woman will be more or less OK when all is said and done.

This blog-post is about how dangerous the normalization of such attacks (such as Wendy's) can be to the many many trans individuals out there who aren't in the news as NCAA swimmers, who aren't high-ranking Government officials.

The danger is much broader than that.

Let's start with some definitions:

For people who are transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming, coming into their authentic gender can be an important and affirming step in life.

Sometimes, people continue to refer to a person who is transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming using terms related to how they identified before transition.

This is known as misgendering.

Take a look: Wendy Bell misgendered Admiral Rachel Levine.

Take another look: Wendy Bell is deadnaming Lia Thomas.

Wait. What's deadnaming?

A transgender person may decide to no longer use their birth or legal name. Instead, they’ll choose a name that better aligns with their identity. When someone uses their old name after being asked not to, that is what we call ‘deadnaming.’ The person who they once were is dead, but the new person is alive, so their current name should be used.

And:

[Deadnaming] can remind [a transgender person] of that period in their lives before they could take steps to affirm who they are. Deadnaming might bring them back into those more negative times in their lives. And often, that gender dysphoria (distress that comes from one’s sex assigned at birth not lining up with their true gender identity) can be associated with depression and anxiety.

So why is this dangerous?

Well, this: 

In one of the largest and most diverse studies of transgender youths to date, researchers led by a team at The University of Texas at Austin have found that when transgender youths are allowed to use their chosen name in places such as work, school and at home, their risk of depression and suicide drops.

“Many kids who are transgender have chosen a name that is different than the one that they were given at birth,” said author Stephen T. Russell, professor and chair of human development and family science. “We showed that the more contexts or settings where they were able to use their preferred name, the stronger their mental health was.”

The study in the Journal of Adolescent Health was published this week in advance of Saturday’s annual Transgender Day of Visibility.

Researchers interviewed transgender youths ages 15 to 21 and asked whether young people could use their chosen name at school, home, work and with friends. Compared with peers who could not use their chosen name in any context, young people who could use their name in all four areas experienced 71 percent fewer symptoms of severe depression, a 34 percent decrease in reported thoughts of suicide and a 65 percent decrease in suicidal attempts.

Normalizing deadnaming increases human suffering, Wendy. 

You deadnamed Lia Thomas. How many of your adorings do you think now feel it's a little more OK to misgender/deadname trans people from here on out? How do you think that will infect the lives of those around them?

Will it make them better people? Will it make for a safer space for the trans people in their surroundings?

Congratulations, Wendy. The answer to both questions is no. Your lack of simple human empathy is disturbing.

You're an awful person, Wendy Bell.

Wendy Bell Fair-Use Parody Artwork!

Happy Friday!

Feel free to download and distribute:

You can use this for whenever The Angel of Death tries telling you anything about the Coronavirus or the vaccines or how ivermectin worked in India or how the VAERS database proves this or that. 

Then there's this:

 

It's just a general purpose fair use parody logo. Use it whenever Wendy's talking about, well, anything.

This general purpose fair use parody logo works, too:

And then there's this:

Yea, I went there. Don't believe Wendy's propaganda but let's give her benefit of the doubt and say that she's just lying to you.

The alternative would be that she actually believes all that bullshit.

Happy Friday!

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano Is STILL Spreading Covid Misinformation

Were you to stumble across Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano's Facebook page within the past day or so, you'd find this:

The text:

During our expert panel earlier this month, Dr. McCullough confirmed what many have us had said two years ago when we tried to reopen the state. “As each person becomes ill with the syndrome, they can indeed pass it to a susceptible person, but transmission is only from acutely ill to susceptible person only. Someone who has no symptoms poses no threat to someone else, whether they be susceptible or not susceptible. That means there should never have been any lockdowns, there should never have been any social distancing or any other measures for people who are well."

Let me say right off that I am not an expert in epidemiology.

But then again, neither is Dr Peter McCullough - he's a cardiologist.

But there is that adage, that old saying, that goes, "Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day" so perhaps Cardiologist (and not-Epidemiologist) McCullough is correct.

And that would be incorrect.

In fact he's been fact checked before on this very issue (asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus):

AFP: 

McCullough also repeats another previously debunked claim about virus transmission that he made in this testimony to the senate of the US state of Texas.

He claims the virus does not spread from infected people who are asymptomatic and says in this recent misleading video: "Once an individual recovers from Covid-19, they have robust, complete and durable immunity with a negligible risk of ever getting Covid-19 again."

He also states: "We don’t need to treat everybody but high risk people over age 50 with medical problems should receive early treatment to reduce hospitalisation and death."

These claims are also false.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that infected people without symptoms can still transmit the virus.

"Whether or not they have symptoms, infected people can be contagious and the virus can spread from them to other people," according to the WHO's website here.

Do I need to tell you that the WHO is filled with actual experts?

AFP (again): 

McCullough testified: “One of the mistakes I heard today as a rationale for vaccinations is asymptomatic spread and I want you to be very clear about this -- my opinion is there is a low degree, if any, of asymptomatic spread.

“Sick person gives it to sick person. The Chinese have published a study in the British Medical Journal, 11 million people, they’re trying to find asymptomatic spread. You can’t find it,” he said.

And:

Fujian Song, one of the report’s authors, said in an email on January 6, 2021 that, “It is misleading/incorrect/wrong to conclude that ‘all asymptomatic’ individuals infected with Covid-19 are not infectious, based on the results of the paper.”

And:

[Bruno Lina professor of virology at the University of Lyon] confirmed that it is incorrect to claim that asymptomatic people can’t spread the virus.

He explained that asymptomatic people often have lower amounts of the virus so they may be less contagious, but “as this virus is very transmissible, in particular the British variant, there can be transmission from asymptomatic carriers.”

Being a professor of virology makes him an expert, by the way.

But what if the vérificateurs de faits at the Agence France-Presse got it wrong.

Is there any science to show that there, in fact, is asymptomatic virus transmisstion?

In fact, there is.

JAMA 12/7/2020:

Under a range of assumptions of presymptomatic transmission and transmission from individuals with infection who never develop symptoms, the model presented here estimated that more than half of transmission comes from asymptomatic individuals.

PNAS 02/10/2021:

The contributions of asymptomatic infections to herd immunity and community transmission are key to the resurgence and control of COVID-19, but are difficult to estimate using current models that ignore changes in testing capacity. Using a model that incorporates daily testing information fit to the case and serology data from New York City, we show that the proportion of symptomatic cases is low, ranging from 13 to 18%, and that the reproductive number may be larger than often assumed. Asymptomatic infections contribute substantially to herd immunity, and to community transmission together with presymptomatic ones. 

And that's just the tip, as they say, of the science iceberg (though in this town, it's spelt ICEBURGH).

By pushing people away from the medical science, Doug Mastriano is putting people's health at risk.

Admiral Rachel Levine

This is Admiral Rachel Levine:

She is a pediatrician. She's a graduate of Harvard College and Tulane University School of Medicine. She's the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She's a four-star Admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service. She's the first openly-transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.

And she's been named one of USAToday's Women of the Year:

Levine is the U.S. assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps., where she leads a group of 6,000 uniformed public health officers.

In normal times, her job is essential. During a pandemic, it's crucial.

"I really feel that everything I've ever done, whether it was in academic medicine, in education, in clinical research, seeing my patients in my role in public health, in Pennsylvania and now my role nationally," Levine sad, "has all led to this moment in terms of helping the nation through this greatest public health crisis that we have faced in over a hundred years."

Why did I post this?

This is why.

This is why.

Today, instead of writing about Wendy Bell or Doug Mastriano, I chose to write about a much better human being: Admiral Rachel Levine.

Note: I stole that last line from Lisa Cunningham of the CP. Read Jordana Rosenfeld's CP profile of Dr Levine here.

Wendy Bell's "Research" Is STILL Spreading Russian Disinformation

The good folks at Wendy Bell Watch posted this yesterday:

Comrade Wendy reports back to her makeshift studio today to spread MORE Russian disinformation. Wendy cites to the “Conservative Treehouse” as her source but we know where the disinformation really came from… I challenge you, is this Wendy or an RT anchor? 1/ pic.twitter.com/6gwrx3wFNt

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) March 15, 2022

Before I continue, let me say that you really should take a peek at that entire thread.

It starts with The Angel of Death quoting this:

The propaganda out of the Ukraine/Hollywood association is continuing unabated.   In a Twitter video today, pushed by Buzzfeed Journalist Christopher Miller {SEE HERE}, the claim is, “President Zelensky walked to a hospital today to visit wounded Ukrainian soldiers and award them with state honors for their sacrifices.” [Emphases of various types in original.]

And ends with Jon finding Politifact's debunking (dated March 13, the day before Wendy quoted The Conservative Treehouse):

There is no evidence that Zelensky’s video of him visiting a military hospital was pre-recorded or staged.

The woman who appears with Zelensky in the video and in photographs of his visit is Tetiana Ostashchenko — not Inna Derusova, who died in February. 

Before you go all "he said/she said" let me fill you in on Politifact's, um, facts:

The claim at the heart of the posts is wrong. BBC disinformation journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and fact-checking organizations from Spain and Ukraine each verified the identity of the woman in the video. 

PolitiFact could not confirm exactly where or when the video of Zelensky’s hospital visit was filmed. But the video does not show Derusova, a combat medic who died in a February artillery attack, and who was honored posthumously with a Hero of Ukraine title. Instead, the woman shown beside Zelensky in the video is Tetiana Ostashchenko. She is a military doctor and the commander of the medical forces for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Feel free to check the links. There's a curious bit o' info from the second link: 

On March 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited wounded soldiers at a military hospital to award them “orders and medals for courage and dedication.” Both Ukrainian and Western media outlets covered the visit, while the only Kremlin-owned news outlet to do so was Radio Sputnik.

The pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Война с фейками (“War On Fakes”), a propaganda channel that masquerades as fact-checkers, suggested that Zelenskyy pre-recorded his visit. As evidence, the channel claimed that Sergeant Inna Derusova, a woman they allege is visible in footage with Zelenskyy, died on February 26, implying that the event was previously recorded and that Zelenskyy had left Kyiv. While it is true that Derusova, a senior field medic from Sumy, died on February 26 during a Russian artillery strike, she is not the same woman in the footage. The woman seen during Zelenskyy’s visit shares some visual similarities with Derusova, but there are also notable differences. First, the woman in the footage has a differently shaped nose and appears to be younger; second, she is wearing a name tag ending with the letters -enko.  Stopfake.org, a Ukrainian fact-checking organization, verified that the woman in the footage is Tatiana Ostaschenko, Commander of Medical Services for Ukraine’s Armed Forces, rather than the late Sgt. Derusova. [Emphasis added.]

See that? Wendy Bell is spreading Russian disinformation. Still.

Wendy, don't you (or Brock, if he does your homework for you) ever check the sources of your public comments?

And let me correct your first sentence from that first tweet:

The propaganda out of Russia is continuing unabated and is being delivered to southwestern Pennsylvania by The Angel of Death, Wendy Bell.

If they keep this up, I might have to give the good folks at Wendy Bell Watch a desk here at 2 Political Junkies.

Um, Senator Mastriano? Are You Seeing This?

This weekend, LancasterOnline published this:

Federal investigators obtained a search warrant targeting a Central Pennsylvania man who they believe may have evidence documenting how a far right group planned to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's presidential victory on Jan. 6, 2021.

A Justice Department court filing, made public on Tuesday, shows federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant for an unnamed individual living in Carlisle who is alleged to be an “upper tier” member of the Proud Boys, an all-male group whose members have a record of using violence and the threat of violence in support of former President Donald Trump and public demonstrations organized by conservative activists.

The document was filed as part of the government’s prosecution of Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former leader of the group who was arrested on Tuesday and charged with conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding, among other charges. It also revealed that two search warrants were sought in connection – one for a Carlisle, Pennsylvania, resident, and a second for a North Carolina man.

They continue:

The government believes the Carlisle resident, referred to only as “Person 3,” contributed to an “encrypted message group” where Tarrio and other members discussed ways to interfere with the January 6 certification of Biden’s win in the November 2020 election.

Person 3 is a Proud Boy who uses the alias “Johnny Blackbeard,” LNP |Lancaster Online was able to confirm. Information found online shows that the alias belongs to John Charles Stewart, a Carlisle resident who was first identified as a member of the Harrisburg Proud Boys chapter in a data leak last summer from the web hosting platform Epik.

Senator, isn't Carlisle Pennsylvania in Cumberland County?

It's the county seat, in fact.

And Senator doesn't your legislative district include parts of Cumberland County?

Yes it does, in fact.

So isn't it safe to assume that John Charles Stewart, "upper tier" member of the Proud Boys, aka Johnny Blackbeard lives awfully close to your district if not directly within it?

That can't be denied, Senator.

Then there's this:

CONFIRMED: Proud Boy John Charles Stewart, aka Johnny Blackbeard, is seen in the middle of this photo. Blackbeard is currently being investigated for his involvement in the insurrection.

I took this photo during a Mastriano 9/12/2020 rally. https://t.co/secsB6acjw pic.twitter.com/aCtBP2BI0a

— Sean Kitchen (@pennslinger) March 13, 2022

So Senator, John Charles Stewart, aka "Johnny Blackbeard" upper-tier member of the Proud Boys, who lives at the very least close to your legislative district, who was at your rally on 9/12/2020 and who's now being investigated by the same January 6 Committee that subpoenaed you a month or so ago.

Did you ever meet him? If he's interviewed by the committee will he say he knows you? What do you think he'll say about you?

Does any of that that make you nervous?

But here's the thing that should concern all the members of all the groups being investigated for their involvement in Trump's attempted coup - from Lancaster Online:

Asher Meza, an associate of Tarrio’s and a member of the Miami Proud Boys chapter, said he participated in the “Ministry of Self Defense” chat referenced in the Department of Justice’s indictment; he described Blackbeard as an admin of the chat.

Meza said Blackbeard wasn’t in Washington, D.C., on January 6 because he was in the hospital dealing with a medical problem. Schwetz said the same.

"I am 100% sure he was not there,” Schwetz said, though he declined to answer how he is certain. “He was not anywhere on January 6." [Emphasis added.]

But he's still being investigated - all because he's part of the organization(s) that were involved with the insurrection.

But you were there, Senator. You wandered around The Capitol. Shouldn't you be doubly (or triply) nervous about this?

 

Yes, Wendy Bell's "Research" Is Shoddy, At Best

Hot off the Twitter-presses from the more than capable crew at the WBW:

Comrade Wendy is off in New York City today, so no new propaganda.

So let’s flashback to Wendy’s huge scoop this week. Crisis actors pretending to be dead in body bags in Ukraine! Shocking exposé from the @newsmax superstar. Wendy even educates her son about it…1/ pic.twitter.com/lVoc3HHhQk

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) March 11, 2022

I won't bother with a transcription. Suffice it to say that Wendy Bell "enlightens" one of her sons with the video from this story:

As far as I can tell, the original tweet has been removed.

The video shows one of the "dead" getting out of the "body bag" and as this is purportedly in Ukraine, the whole invasion story has to be taken with a huge amount of skepticism, teaches Wendy. Wendy beams that her son "learns" this lesson about the news media and Ukraine. She "Right-on!" quotes him:

That I can't believe everything I'm hearing in school.

You'll note the date on Wendy's BS board: 3/9/22. The removed tweet's date is Mar 1, 2022.

This story was debunked by Politifact on March 4 (three days later):

The people under the tarps aren’t crisis actors from Ukraine trying to fool people into thinking they are dead. They were part of a protest against climate change that was held in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 4.

Specifically:

The clip is from a Feb. 4 demonstration against climate change in Vienna. The reporter, Marvin Bergauer, is from an Austrian news channel called OE24 TV and is speaking German in the video. An English translation of the chyron on the video says "Vienna: Demo against climate policy." 

 

The people under the tarps aren’t crisis actors — from Germany, Ukraine or anywhere else — trying to fool people into thinking that they are dead. They’re protesters from Austria in a video taken before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

So let's go through the possibilities of Wendy's life-lesson to her son.

• The fake story was introduced on March 1.
• Polifact debunked it on March 4.
• Wendy told the story on March 9.

Perhaps Wendy told her son the story before it was debunked. This gives her the benefit of the doubt - if she knew it was false and yet still told her son? No. No rational parent would do that, right?

In any event, that really doesn't help her case much since she's still telling us the story after.

Or perhaps Wendy never bothered to research the veracity of the story at all.

That's far more likely, doncha think?

This is Wendy Bell-style research. It's complete and utter bullshit.

Here's the lesson we  learn every time she's debunked for misinforming the public or otherwise spreading Russian disinformation:

That I can't believe anything I'm hearing from Wendy Bell.

See what I did there?