The Internet
Here's What Banning QAnon From Facebook Will Do ... And What It's Probably Too Late To Do
Might have been better to do this three years ago.
October 10, 2020 02:15 PM
This week, Facebook released a statement announcing that they were officially banning QAnon pages, groups and Instagram Accounts. And it only took them a little over three years to do it!
Via Facebook:
Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content. This is an update from the initial policy in August that removed Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon when they discussed potential violence while imposing a series of restrictions to limit the reach of other Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with the movement. Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts that represent an identified Militarized Social Movement are already prohibited. And we will continue to disable the profiles of admins who manage Pages and Groups removed for violating this policy, as we began doing in August.
Thursday, in the Wonkette Chat Cave, Liz asked me if I thought it would have the same effect as deplatforming has had on other far-right nonsense — like Milo and what have you. I have since given it some thought, and if you want the truth, I really don't think it will. But that doesn't mean that it's entirely useless to do it now. At this point, anything will help.
<p>The bad news is that it's been spreading for years now and those who are familiar enough with it don't really need to ever explicitly mention "QAnon" in order to make it clear that they are in fact talking about QAnon. They have approximately 1200 other codewords and dogwhistles and what have you. In fact, since social media sites have started to ban QAnon-related nonsense, many of them are already getting hep and avoiding using the term at all. </p><p>Additionally, in the last year it's spread well beyond Q themselves.</p><p><span></span>Sure, there are the people who eagerly anticipate every "drop," who talk about being bakers and following the White Rabbit and all of that other nonsense. The people who spend all of their free time on the Voat QResearch pages. The ones who are really serious about it. There are lots of them, actually.</p><p>But then there are the Republican politicians adopting their little #WWG1WGA ("Where we go one, we go all" — it's a quote from a not-very-good 1996 Jeff Bridges movie called "White Squall") hashtag because they think it sounds good and patriotic. There are people of all political stripes — perhaps most particularly the apolitical — getting in on the "Save The Children" nonsense and spreading QAnonsense everywhere without having any idea about where all of this is coming from or what QAnon even is.</p><p>QAnon is to many recent conspiracy theories what Theosophy and Madame Blavatsky are to modern New Agey crap. Just like, for the most part, your friend who is super into crystals and astrology probably has no idea what an Ascended Master is or whatever, the gals in your Wine Moms Facebook group talking about children being trafficked in Wayfair cabinets are not all religiously devoted to Donald Trump and probably don't follow Q.</p><p>It may be too late to truly put a cork in it, but it can't hurt. Sure, some QAnon people will go "Oh look we're being oppressed, just as it was foretold! This proves Q is real!" — but the way this stuff works is that literally everything, to them, is proof that Q is real and they are on the right track.</p><p>Where it's still useful is the fact that the groups are really where people get fully indoctrinated, and if those go away or are at least more difficult to find ... that's gonna be a really good thing for people. I can't tell you how often I see people involved in this crap saying they don't actually even care if it's true, because the <em>real</em> QAnon was the friends they made along the way. </p><p>Part of the appeal of this "movement" is the community itself. When people get involved, they get <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing" target="_blank">love bombed</a> and they get to join this community, this movement that feels bigger than themselves, where everyone accepts them and thinks they are <em>great</em>. They spend hours in these groups and on Twitter, congratulating themselves on how clever they are and talking about how everyone else is a sheep like they're teenagers who just discovered punk rock. </p><p>This kind of stuff doesn't sell as well without a community, because in and of itself it's not actually all that interesting — which is usually the case for these sorts of things. Very few people would look at any of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqSZhwu1Rwo" target="_blank">the videos of Marshall Applewhite</a>, the Heaven's Gate guy and go "Oh, well, yeah. I can definitely see the appeal there." The appeal is never <em>just</em> the leaders, it's never just whatever they're saying, it's also the community and the feeling of belonging and the feeling of being special <em>because</em> you belong. </p><p>In that way, in the way that they may be able to drag fewer people in, and that some who are not fully devoted may get bored with it, it may do some good. But in the future, it would be super great if social media companies could put the kibosh on these kind of extremist movements a wee bit sooner. </p><p><span></span></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Immigrants
Patriot Grifter WALL Guy Brian Kolfage Building Army Of Death-Threating Trolls
He seems terrible!
October 08, 2020 03:07 PM
Remember Brian Kolfage, the triple-amputee Iraq veteran who raised an assload of money to help Donald Trump build WALL, then found out that wasn't legal, so he created a nonprofit called "We Build the Wall" (incorrectly spelled with some lowercase letters) to put up WALL on private land? The group managed to put up two sections of WALL that are wholly separate from Donald Trump's beloved project, which border-crossers can craftily avoid by going around them, and one of the WALL sections may get eated by the Rio Grande but lots of wingnut patriots think Kolfage is maybe the third greatest American ever, after Donald Trump and Alex Jones. Too bad he and one of his partners, Steve Bannon, got charged by the feds with defrauding their donors by allegedly taking a lot of that money and spending it on themselves, presumably to reward their own patriotism.
In a follow-up story to their earlier joint reporting on just how shitty and fally-downy the Texas section of WALL is, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune recently reported on Kolfage's other fun hobby, which is sending an army of social media followers after anyone who speaks ill of him. Kolfage's supporters know he is American Patriotism personified, so anyone who opposes his WALL is clearly an enemy of the USA. And how's this for fun? The reporters found that while Kolfage has personally been banned by Facebook, he's still able to lead his online brigades through a "fan page" that he supposedly can't access because it's run by his wife. Yet somehow, people are still informed who their enemies are! Like particularly anyone in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which is pursuing the fraud case and is obviously part of the Deep State.
<p>The report, based on multiple interviews and "hundreds of screenshots of since-deleted social media posts," not to mention records from two defamation lawsuits, details how, since he became a rightwing mover and shaker around 2013, Kolfage has unleashed his rabid followers on an array of people, enough to have </p><blockquote>spawned an informal support group of individuals who have felt his wrath, including fellow veterans and progressives, as well as some of Kolfage's former conservative allies.</blockquote><p>Among those he's targeted have been people Kolfage perceived as getting in the way of WALL, like the mayor of a New Mexico town who — like some kind of communist — tried to stop Kolfage from throwing up the structure without building permits. Or a priest in Texas who preferred not to have his historic mission flooded if the WALL going up along the Rio Grande changed the river's flow due to high water. Also the head of a neighboring wildlife refuge who opposed WALL. And the staff of an international commission that has jurisdiction over construction along the Rio Grande. </p><h2>Facebook Is A Hive Of Scum And Villainy</h2><p>Other folks who subjected to the wrath of Kolfage's online jihadists included Jan Vrotsos, a 61-year-old woman whose name and Facebook ID were falsely attached to a post attacking Kolfage and disabled vets, as well as Jackie Millinor, 64, a retired Air Force vet who wrote in defense of Vrotsos. Both received all sorts of hideous messages and threats — not just online, but over the phone, too. </p><p>Vrotsos somehow got the attention of Kolfage's army in 2013 when she posted a sympathy message for what she thought was a family who had lost a child to cancer. The post she replied to was on a fake page Kolfage fans had created to ensnare a completely unrelated liberal blogger. And then shit, as it does on the internet, went weird: </p><blockquote>Someone, it's unclear who, then posted a fabricated comment to Kolfage from Vrotsos calling disabled veterans worthless. "I hope you die a miserable death you worthless fake hero. You and your family will be a burden on tax payers your entire life," the fake message read, accompanied by Vrotsos' profile picture of her standing in front of a sunflower field with her cocker spaniel, Buddy.<br><br>The post went viral. It was shared by Kolfage and his followers, along with Vrotsos' picture, email and home address, as well as the phone numbers of her and her mother.<br><br>"This lady is enjoying her freedom at the expense of my legs and hand and enjoys bashing wounded warriors," Kolfage wrote on social media. "EXPOSE HER." It was liked by nearly 1,300 people and shared more than 12,000 times.</blockquote><p>Then Vrotsos's mother, then 81, started getting phone calls telling her that her daughter needed to get her affairs in order. Vrotsos herself was targeted with hundreds of threats, including one lover of America and all that's good and holy who said they hoped she would be "mugged and raped at gunpoint by a aids ridden piece of filth." That'll learn her to attack a disabled vet, which she hadn't.</p><p>Police told Vrotsos that unfortunately there was little they could do, because First Amendment, unless she experienced "real threats and intentional ID theft." They suggested she might sue, and eventually she did, which won her an apology from Kolfage, isn't that great? And now everything's not quite fine:</p><blockquote>But what bothered her the most, she said in a recent phone interview, is that the harassers found out where her dad was buried, and that they threatened to dig up the World War II veteran and "piss on his grave."<br><br>"I was petrified," she said. She didn't leave her house for weeks. It would be years before she stopped looking over her shoulder, afraid people would recognize her.</blockquote><p>Oh, yes, and until all that started, she'd never heard of Kolfage. Now she has! Bet she'll think twice before insulting a vet, not that she ever did, even once. Millinor, for her part, got attacked simply for posting a message in support of Vrotsos; in return, she got doxxed and harassed, and says Kolfage contacted her employer and urged she be fired for "harassing" a wounded warrior. It didn't work, but she had such serious stress that she was hospitalized for gastrointestinal issues. </p><blockquote>"It broke a piece of me," Millinor said recently. "I'm not the same person now as before, after what Brian Kolfage did to me. My own family members thought I was crazy."</blockquote><h2>Up Against The WALL</h2><p>The opponents of the Texas and New Mexico WALL projects got the full Kolfage, too, being accused of supporting immigrant smugglers, child traffickers, and sex trafficking. The mayor of Sunland Park, New Mexico, Javier Perea, got death threats and warnings to watch his back after he brazenly said We Build the Wall needed a construction permit; he dismisses the harassment as a publicity stunt aimed at fundraising, but says even a year later he still had thousands of unread emails about the matter. </p><p> The International Boundary and Water Commission, located in El Paso, was accused by Kolfage of trying to support illegal immigration when officials "opened a gate We Build the Wall constructed on federal property without permission." Yes, really. Clearly, commissioner Jayne Harkins was leaving the gate open to help out illegal border crossers, although she was a Trump appointee. A spokesperson for the commission, Sally Spener, said it was difficult to get anything done in the office because of all the people calling to yell "#CloseTheGate," and we bet most of them said the hashtag out loud, too. </p><p>Asked about that mess, Kolfage told ProPublica and the <em>Tribune</em> that the border region is lousy with corruption! "It was border patrol agents who alerted us that the very first people to come out strong against our wall were the ones paid off," he explained. Which surely justified the death threats against the priest, and against Marianna Treviño-Wright, the director of the National Butterfly Center, which is next door to the Rio Grande WALL. Kolfage accused her of enabling sex trafficking, and also sent a nice tweet to let her know there were "snipers in your bushes doing security for our team." For some reason, she considered that a threat; she's also filed a defamation suit against Kolfage. </p><p>And now Kolfage's army is going after the federal prosecutors in New York because obviously they're part of a plot to destroy him and America. </p><blockquote>A recent Facebook post garnered more than 1,500 angry comments supporting him.<br><br>"I see public hangings on the White house lawn," one person commented on a recent post about why the indictment was a political hit job, adding, "Obama should be 1st."</blockquote><h2>Dipshits United</h2><p>Kolfage also has no end of supporters in wingnut media, like Stupidest Man on the Internet Jim Hoft, whose Gateway Pundit today <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/exclusive-egregious-case-us-history-just-got-worse-now-new-jersey-looking-build-wall/" target="_blank">called the fraud prosecution </a>"the most egregious abuse of power in US history," recounted what a hero Kolfage is, and retold the story of his August arrest at length (misspelling his name at least once, because the site has a reputation to uphold). You have to read all the way to the penultimate paragraph to find the supposed news hook: The New Jersey AG is looking at prosecuting We Build the Wall for fraud, too. HOW UNFAIR! Clearly, the piece closes, "The abuse of power by crooked Democrat attorneys in positions of power will not end."</p><p>We'll just float this possibility raised by Robyn in the Wonkette chatcave: Why charge rightwing grifters for fraud at all, when it looks like their victims are so eager to throw money at them even if the funds end up lining their pockets? Let them eat fraud, because they think fraud is yummy — and what's more, they get very angry if you try to interfere in their God-given right to throw money at people who are ripping them off. </p><p>America!</p><p>[<a href="http://propublica.org/article/veteran-war-hero-defendant-troll?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter" target="_blank">ProPublica</a> / <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/exclusive-egregious-case-us-history-just-got-worse-now-new-jersey-looking-build-wall/" target="_blank">Gateway Pundit</a>]</p><p>Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by your donations. Please help us out if you can! We won't doxx you, but you might not get any of those cakes we like. </p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Trump
Trump Reassures Fretful Nation He Can Still Write His Name With A Sharpie
Whew!
October 05, 2020 09:00 AM
Donald Trump never wanted to contract COVID-19, but he did. Trump reportedly didn't want his positive diagnosis to become public, but it did. Now, he's trying to spin his illness as deserving of a Purple Heart. This will succeed as well as his other plans.
Goya bean spokeswoman Ivanka Trump tweeted a photo Saturday of her father in his suite at Walter Reed hospital.
Nothing can stop him from working for the American people. RELENTLESS! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/2ZSat782qe— Ivanka Trump (@Ivanka Trump)1601781036.0
According to recent polls, nothing can stop the president from “working for the American people" except for the American people themselves, who are overwhelmingly rejecting him. Ivanka Trump has probably never personally experienced an honest day's work, so she thinks we'll be impressed by the a photo of the president “reviewing" documents and signing his name to blank pages — you know, upstanding president stuff.
Trump's a real workaholic. Even though on an average weekend when he's not hospitalized, he's playing golf. If he was swinging a nine iron in his swank hospital digs, we'd know he was fully recovered. Now I just think he's delirious, probably hallucinating a full rally crowd in the room with him as he sings “I'm Going Home."
<p>
Never one to be outdone in the race to inherit his father's debts, Eric Trump boasted Sunday about the president's much vaunted work ethic. The man watches more Fox News than a racist retiree and tweets more frequently than a spoiled tween whose parents don't impose any screen time restrictions.</p><div id="0bd0a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4b13cdc2bb02e04319bcdeec5b04a31b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1312755269512949760" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@EricTrump @realDonaldTrump It's a sharpie and an empty piece of paper, Eric.
The kind of work ethic you see in pre-K.</div> — Sudaraka (@Sudaraka)<a href="https://twitter.com/SudarakaA/statuses/1312755269512949760">1601820220.0</a></blockquote></div><p>
Jon Ostrower, editor in chief of The Air Current, <a href="https://twitter.com/jonostrower/status/1312616578773446656?s=20" target="_blank">pointed out</a> that the two photos of Trump hard at work, despite his illness, were taken just 10 minutes apart at 5:25:59 pm and 5:35:40 p.m. Saturday. As former Homeland Security staffer <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/just-another-disgruntled-ex-white-house-staffer-who-thinks-trump-aint-s-t" target="_blank">Olivia Troye could confirm, </a>10 minutes probably stretches the limits of Trump's focus and concentration. Maybe he just finds blank pages more compelling than security briefings.
</p><p>
What's appalling, while not surprising, is that this pair of sociopathic jackals thought these photos were effective PR. Trump is still crawling with coronavirus but his people forced a photographer into the room with him. He still won't wear a damn mask because he's incapable of taking the disease seriously. He's not Prince going on stage with the flu and killing "Purple Rain" again (and that obsessive zeal might not have been great for his longterm health). Trump is seriously ill. He should not be working. The blank pages will have to wait.
</p><p>
It was <a href="https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1312780520061898752?s=20" target="_blank">confirmed yesterday</a> that Trump is on dexamethasone, which can cause changes in mood and behavior. In Trump's case, any alteration to his existing personality is an improvement, but just on principle, this seems like a 25th Amendment issue.
</p><p>
Meanwhile, Trump's buddies in state media, Fox News, have <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/fox-news-resilient-donald-trump-will-beat-coronavirus" target="_blank">presented Trump</a> as “resilient" and a “warrior." Greg Gutfeld <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/fox-host-trump-took-risk-he-got-virus-because-he-was-doing-it-us" target="_blank">said </a>on “The Five" that Trump took risks with COVID-19 “for us."
</p><blockquote>
<strong>GUTFELD: </strong><em>He was going to walk out there on that battlefield with you, and not sit somewhere in a basement.</em>
</blockquote><p>
Trump wasn't on a “battlefield" or more specifically a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/us/houston-adeline-fagan-covid-19-death/index.html" target="_blank">hospital</a> or sadly a <a href="https://local12.com/news/nation-world/arkansas-elementary-school-teacher-dies-from-covid-19" target="_blank">school</a> where people have died. He possibly got sick because he threw a big, unsafe party to <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/amy-coney-barretts-scotus-seat-heist-ceremony-a-covid-19-super-spreader-event" target="_blank">celebrate someone's promotion. </a> That was hardly essential work.
</p><p>
Fox News host Steve Hilton suggested that Trump bouncing back, better than ever, could serve as a "metaphor for the recovery of the country." More than 200,000 Americans are dead.
</p><p>
Brian Kilmeade at "Fox & Friends" <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trumps-diagnosis-covid-19-fox-news-struggles-realize-actually-serious" target="_blank">claimed </a>that the president contracting a disease he'd downplayed for months could actually help him win the election. That's ludicrous even for him.
</p><blockquote>
<strong>KILMEADE:</strong> In the big picture, there could be a good message sent here to the American public — you can get it, you can be a senior and you can beat it and go back. […] This is another thing, the most famous person in the world gets and beats it, correct?
</blockquote><p> According to a study from July, eight out of 10 people who died from COVID-19 were 65 or older. Trump might've beat similar odds when he <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/" target="_blank">won the Electoral College,</a> but that doesn't mean he's on a streak. This is still an incredibly deadly disease for people in Trump's demographic, and it could be dangerous if his recovery encourages at-risk populations to start behaving as irresponsibly as the president. </p><div id="ae5e6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="206644fcaf889830f76f03cb234286a2"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1312624193993756673" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">My greatest fear is that Trump will experience a mild brush with COVID-19 and believe it is just like flu for tough… https://t.co/9z3BHFuze8</div> — John W. Dean (@John W. Dean)<a href="https://twitter.com/JohnWDean/statuses/1312624193993756673">1601788969.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The upside is that most Americans aren't as dumb as the Fox News brain trust. ABC News released a poll Sunday showing that 72 percent of Americans believe the president failed to take the "risk of contracting the virus seriously enough" nor "the appropriate precautions when it came to his personal <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/alerts/obamacare" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">health</a>." They don't think he's a mighty warrior. They think he's a big dummy. </p><p>Americans are also more concerned, not less, with contracting COVID-19. Sorry, Trump, but Joe Biden is going to win this election from the safety of his tastefully decorated basement.</p><p>[<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trumps-diagnosis-covid-19-fox-news-struggles-realize-actually-serious" target="_blank">Media Matters</a> / <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-virus-precautions-poll/story?id=73411221&cid=social_twitter_abcn" target="_blank">ABC News</a>]</p><p>
<em>Follow Stephen Robinson on </em><em><a href="https://twitter.com/SER1897" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Twitter.</a></em>
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coronavirus
GOPers Now Taking COVID Seriously Following Trump's Diag— Ahhh, Who Are We Kidding?
May we present: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
October 03, 2020 03:30 PM
This week, people who are much less cynical than I am are very likely thinking to themselves "You know, I bet this is really going to change things. People on the Right are going to start taking COVID-19 more seriously and we'll be able to knock this thing out, or maybe they'll even see that Trump was very stupid about coronavirus and not vote for him this time around! But in the meantime, it sure does seem like his tone is softening! Perhaps he is becoming presidential At last!!"
By "less cynical" I mean "more likely to be wrong about things." Obviously.
Because on Friday evening, well after everyone knew about Trump's diagnosis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed that people who supported closing schools to slow the spread of coronavirus were like "flat earthers."
<p>Via <a href="https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/10/02/florida-governor-says-closing-schools-to-stop-spread-of-covid-19-was-a-mistake/" target="_blank">Click Orlando:</a></p><blockquote>"In March we may not have had all the information, but in hindsight, knowing what we know now, the closure of schools was one of the biggest public health mistakes in modern American history," DeSantis said. "And I think even Europe has said we shouldn't have closed up."<br><br>In the interview with the conservative talk-show host, DeSantis said that as the virus surged in Florida in July, he fought against people who didn't want to reopen schools because he expected the outbreak to abate and because children "are not vectors" for spreading the coronavirus.<br><br>"So, now we're at the point where the people who advocate school closures are really the flat earthers of our day," DeSantis said. "They're not doing it based on data. They're not doing it based on evidence. They're doing it based on either politics or emotion. And so, the harm of school closures, I think, is really considerable."</blockquote><p>Pretty sure that they are, in fact, doing it based on evidence, rather than politics or emotion. In fact, it is just a little bit possible that DeSantis is projecting here. <br><br>There's more irony in that take than you might think. Part of the reason why flat earthers think the earth is flat is because they can't "feel" that it's round. That when they look out at the ocean, they don't see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KFPGs4ZwmU" target="_blank">"the curve."</a> They also feel that it bolsters their belief in God for reasons I'm not actually totally clear on. According to this guy, the reason we tell people that space exists and the earth is round is that we want them to think they're not God's special creations? </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8b76fc31799c137ef0f77379c36241e0"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WcqKUhU0WDc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Space is Fake! - Flat Earth Man Exposes Space Fraud!</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://youtu.be/WcqKUhU0WDc" target="_blank">youtu.be</a>
</small>
</p><p>It is a <em>weirdly</em> catchy song, honestly.</p><p>But I digress. </p><p>It takes an incredible amount of chutzpah to go "Yeah, we definitely should have done <em>less</em> to prevent transmission of this virus that has killed 200,000 people in the country and 14,640 people in Florida alone — 111 of them just yesterday," but DeSantis is willing to go there.</p><p>His theory will surely come as a surprise to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/10/coronavirus-teacher-deaths-fall/" target="_blank">the families of teachers</a> who have already died this year from COVID-19. Also all of the other families of people who have died from COVID-19! And people who have contracted COVID-19 from children, who absolutely <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/big-contact-tracing-study-shows-role-of-kids-and-superspreaders-in-coronavirus-pandemic/ar-BB19B4Xq" target="_blank">can pass the virus on</a>, to each other and also to adults. Because it's not as if a virus is going to go "Oh, I'm in an 8 year olds nose! Better stay here and not get anyone else sick!"</p><p>Bill Barr, for his part has announced that he will not be quarantining after attending the Rose Garden Massacre and interacting with Kellyanne Conway, who has since tested positive for the virus. </p><p>Via <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/03/politics/william-barr-coronavirus-quarantine/index.html" target="_blank">CNN:</a></p><blockquote>Asked Saturday why Barr isn't quarantining after news of Conway's positive Covid results, the Justice Department reiterated to CNN that Barr had tested negative on Friday. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec later said Barr had again tested negative.<br><br>The attorney general was seen leaving the White House on Saturday wearing a mask. He had gone there on Friday and Saturday to get Covid tests -- both of which were negative.Barr will continue to self monitor and get tested, according to the Justice Department.<br><br>The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recommends</a> a person stay at home for 14 days if they may have been exposed to Covid-19 to prevent spread of the virus.<br></blockquote><p><span></span>Trump's regular supporters haven't started taking it too seriously either. Or maybe they don't know what they're supposed to do or think just yet, because he hasn't told them. </p><p>Via <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/03/donald-trump-base-stays-loyal-president-fights-covid-19" target="_blank">The Guardian:</a></p><blockquote>Sean Patterson is not worried that Donald Trump has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/02/trump-hospital-covid-coronavirus-diagnosis" target="_blank">hospitalized with coronavirus</a> because he believes what the president tells him.<br><br>"It's a hoax. There's no pandemic. As Trump said, how many millions die of flu?" said the 56-year-old truck driver outside the early voting station in St Joseph, Missouri – a stronghold for the president.<br><br>But then Patterson pauses and contemplates the possibility that Trump really does have Covid-19.<br><br>"If he's sick, then they planted it when they tested him. It's what they did to me when I went to hospital for my heart beating too fast. Two weeks later I got a cold," he said. "It's political. I don't trust the US government at all. Who are they to mandate personal safety? I listen to Trump."</blockquote><p>And sure, that'll probably work out for them just fine. Until it doesn't. </p><p>Anyway! I am now out for the day and this is your open thread! Bye!!!!</p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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