The 565,286 Worst Lies Fox News Is Telling Your Nana About Coronavirus RIGHT THIS SECOND
It's bad, y'all. Watch your Nana close.
Put on a mask of some sort and bring Purell, as we're about to dive into all the conspiracy theories and lies Fox News has been spreading about coronavirus the last 24 hours. You ready? Because it's bad. As in, if you have loved ones who are brainwshed by Fox, you need to monitor them extra close right now, for their protection, so they don't go out and get themselves and/or others sick, because of what Fox News has been telling them lately.
Again, it's BAD.
Let's take a look:
THE KILMEADE HYPOTHESIS!
"Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade is a man who, in 2015, got VERY ANGRY AT SHARKS for stubbornly insisting on living in the OCEAN ALL THE TIME, which meant sharks were attacking surfers far more than Brian Kilmeade would prefer. Why couldn't they just CLEAR OUT THE SHARKS from the surfer parts of OCEAN? asked Brian Kilmeade, with genuine confusion.
So like ... he's a scientist, obviously.
And now — we hope you are sitting down — Brian Kilmeade has SOLVED CORONAVIRUS, because Dr. Oz is investigating THE KILMEADE HYPOTHESIS of coronavirus, on Twitter.
No really, Dr. Oz, a known doctor you'd definitely send your kids to, used the words "KILMEADE HYPOTHESIS" to describe a theory of coronavirus that originatedin a medical journal with a real doctor in a science labon "Fox & Friends," when Kilmeade got to wonderin' if all the people who take hydroxychloroquine for lupus are just totally immune to coronavirus.
Dr. Oz is using Twitter to find patients to test "the Kilmeade hypothesis" that people on hydroxychloroquine are im… https: //t.co/T6ulBuLuzH
— Bobby Lewis (@Bobby Lewis) 1586349207.0
We could transcribe it, but unless you think Wonkette and Bobby Lewis from Media Matters are lying when we say Dr. Oz is using the scientific method of "Ask Twitter" to investigate "THE KILMEADE HYPOTHESIS," that will not be necessary.
We wish that was the worst thing in this blog post.
Fox News Pretty Sure Deep State Just Making Up Coronavirus Deaths To Make Trump Look Bad
Put aside the KILMEADE HYPOTHESIS for a moment, because according to the rest of Fox News, coronavirus is already solved and also wasn't a big deal to begin with. Also THEY are lying about how many people are dying of coronavirus, and you know who THEY is, don't you?
Here is Brit Hume telling Tucker Carlson, on a day when 2,000 Americans died (TWO-THOUSAND AMERICANS! THE HIGHEST NUMBER YET!) that maybe coronavirus just wasn't that dangerous to begin with.
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This came after Tucker Carlson set up a massive attack on the "experts" for getting the coronavirus SO WRONG, asking "how did they screw that up so thoroughly?" (They didn't. Social distancing works.) Carlson said if the so-called "experts" don't give him satisfactory answers, they should be "disqualified forever from influencing our lives."
He's such a disingenuous hack. He doesn't want the answer to these questions. If he did he would find them bc they… https: //t.co/mlePmlrzPX
— Andrew Lawrence (@Andrew Lawrence) 1586305529.0
As Brit Hume's appearance on Tucker's lap continued, he spread more dumbshit propaganda about how maybe a lot of people aren't dying of coronavirus, they are dying with it. He used the (intellectually dishonest) example of prostate cancer, which itself doesn't really kill very many people, but what he's doing is dogwhistling a conspiracy theory that says people dying of complications from coronavirus, or of underlying conditions exacerbated by coronavirus, somehow don't count. Indeed, it's a whole new Fox conspiracy theory, that the actual coronavirus death count is inflated.
As Media Matters examines at length here, the truth is completely the opposite. Coronavirus deaths in America are severely undercounted , just like coronavirus cases in America are severely undercounted, because our testing regime is still flaming horseshit. Wonkette will have much more on that in coming days.
Brit Hume played conspiracy-theory-pocket-pool with fellow wingnut Mark Levin about this on Twitter yesterday:
2. It emphatically provides that doctors are to enter the COVID19 code when recording the cause of death even wheth… https: //t.co/9R5hQLVjXi
— Mark R. Levin (@Mark R. Levin) 1586306417.0
Tucker Carlson chimed in after Brit Hume's conspiracy-mongering to say that some people may "seek an inaccurate death count" from coronavirus, and you know who he means (it is the Deep State Fake News).
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Tucker Carlson also declared that coronavirus is probably like so over, you guys. "That short-term crisis may have passed! We'll see, but it it looks like it may have!" he proclaimed to his Cracker-Barrel-starved viewers. Apparently he doesn't realize that we haven't even reached our peak literally anywhere in America and oh fuck it, just watch.
Tucker Carlson is essentially reporting that the crisis is over: "That short term crisis may have passed. We'll see… https://t.co/tYkvQKp81H
— Andrew Lawrence (@Andrew Lawrence) 1586305087.0
Here is Fox News daytime idiot Harris Faulkner today, doing the conspiracy-mongering about the COVID-19 death count being inflated:
Fox anchor Harris Faulkner is joining the chorus of Fox figures suggesting perhaps the coronavirus death toll is ov… https: //t.co/PhYaJs4L4I
— Lis Power (@Lis Power) 1586369107.0
Like we said, the "overcounting the numbers" thing is a whole thing , and you're going to be hearing it for MONTHS.
Time For The Laura Ingraham Section, We Guess
Here is Laura Ingraham #JustAskingQuestions about whether we maybe should have social distanced a lot less because not enough people are dying of coronavirus for Laura Ingraham to have had to make all these social distancing sacrifices. After all, the latest models say ONLY 80,000 Americans are going to die of coronavirus. That's like ... only 27 measly 9/11s that will follow Donald Trump around until the day he dies.
Laura Ingraham: Mortality projections have gone down because people kept social distance Also Laura Ingraham: If w… https://t.co/2vtukV66NB
— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1586311713.0
INGRAHAM: Shouldn't this experience make us less willing to rely on the same "experts" to help determine when and how we should reopen our economy?
No, you goddamned fucking idiot , that is not what "this experience" should teach us about "experts."
But she's just pretty dead set on this. Here she is on Twitter today, telling Trump what he needs to tell those "experts" about when we're reopening the country:
At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we're opening on May 1. Give… https: //t.co/pcAjr2amWm
— Laura Ingraham (@Laura Ingraham) 1586355218.0
Good god, Laura Ingraham, get a grip. Is the stay-at-home order interfering with your ability to order your servants to do your laundry? Christ.
ALL of Fox News is like this right now, and this is what they are telling the attention-starved conserva-Boomers who watch them, who were already gonna shit their pants if they can't go to the big sale at Big Lots like yesterday . Look at this tweet from John Whitehouse from Media Matters:
Fox News in lockstep tonight: The war against coronavirus is over https://t.co/npGxP7UVNu
— John Whitehouse (@John Whitehouse) 1586311715.0
Got all that? Coronavirus isn't that big a deal, coronavirus is over, all the Fox News viewers should go spit virus all over each other at the Walmart gun counter very soon, the liberal so-called "experts" are lying about the coronavirus death count anyway, and if you get it, you can just drink your hydroxychloroquine and you'll be fine.
Is Any Of This Reality? Tell Us, Erick Erickson!
No really, Erick said a non-stupid:
Good job, Erick Erickson!
So how bad is coronavirus in America right now? Well, there's this factoid, which is that the American death count for COVID-19 is more in 39 days than it was for the swine flu (that's the one they say Obama fucked off on) for a whole year.
COVID-19 has now killed more Americans in 39 days (12,911) than the 2009 swine flu killed in an entire year (12,469… https: //t.co/KoA3GmMdDa
— Paul D. Miller (@Paul D. Miller) 1586356575.0
Put another way, that's around four and a half 9/11s and counting. The total death toll in New York City is now more than 9/11 . And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the real death toll from coronavirus is even higher, because the official counts aren't including those who died at home. (Josh Marshall is writing some interesting editor's blogs right now on the phenomenon of "excess mortality" in the time of coronavirus, comparing year-over-year death statistics, and finding that a lot of coronavirus hotspots likely have lots of officially "unexplained" deaths right now, which may very well be because of COVID-19.)
If current, lower projections hold — BIG "IF" — then around 82,000 Americans will still die. That's ... again, that's 27 and a half 9/11s.
And this is what Fox News is choosing to do over the past 24 hours? Jesus fuck, if hell is real, we have an idea who God might send there.
Look, there are some signs that the curve is starting to flatten, in some places more than others. That is a great thing! And if it continues, then the reason is that all of us have been quarantining and doing social distancing and protecting ourselves and each other! But that means we keep doing what we're doing . If fewer people die of coronavirus than the models initially showed, that's incredible. It's also not a signal to stop fighting,
Dr. Deborah Birx said on "Today" this morning that if people stop social distancing, we run a high risk of having a "very acute second wave very early ":
Watch @savannahguthrie’s full interview with Dr. Deborah Birx, who says signs of flattening coronavirus curve offer… https: //t.co/FvMoy2MjFG
— TODAY (@TODAY) 1586346030.0
Jesus, this is not really that complicated. What we do now determines whether we have a "very acute second wave very early," or whether we escape that fate.
The absolute last thing we need right now — or can afford, as members of humanity — is Fox News hosts blowing lie-smoke up your Uncle Fuckhead's ass about how it's totally fine for him to go get breathed on at the gun range, because of how coronavirus is either solved, or wasn't a big deal to begin with, or the DEEP STATE IS LYIN' 'BOUT CORONAVIRUS TO HURT DONALD TRUMP.
Of course, that doesn't even take into account Fox News's dumbest viewer, the president of the United States, who is slurping up this bullshit like jizz in the middle of a Big Mac. Oh hey look, he was on Fox News last night too, talking about how he bought America some hydroxychloroquine cookies and also saying he has learned that the ventilator situation in America is just great ( it is not ), and he learned that by watching Hannity !
"I just saw on your show, and a couple of other people just reported back to me, that everyone is in the great shap… https: //t.co/uAdn9PlAV2
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1586309828.0
This is what Fox News is doing right now, and that's who's watching.
And if Fox News keeps doing this, every person who works there who enables this will have more blood on their hands than they and their shithole Dear Leader already do. We are not a lawyer, but we bet some real lawyers are preparing some very legal and very cool lawsuits, for after this is all over, in response to Fox News's coverage. (And Fox News knows it. ) (Oh, and one group already did.)
Like we said, keep an eye on your Nana. You don't want to have to be part of one of those class action lawsuits against Fox News, because of how she died after Fox News lied to her about coronavirus.
On that cheery note, OPEN THREAD!
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I'm ok with calling something stupid a hypothesis. Hypotheses are things that require evidence to prove. They are assumed false otherwise.
Science? How does it work?