There Goes VP Kamala Harris, Murdering The Troops By Not Saluting Them Again
More quality rightwing propaganda from Fox News.
We're just two months in to the Biden administration, and conservatives have already declared Vice President Kamala Harris a commie traitor who hates the troops. Evie Fordham at Fox News broke the story Tuesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris is facing criticism for appearing to break with precedent and failing to salute the honor guard when boarding Air Force Two.
Video reviewed by Fox News showed that her predecessors, former Vice President Mike Pence and President Biden, regularly saluted the honor guard in the same situation.
Vice President Dick Cheney was filmed not saluting military personnel in 2006, so this is not much of a precedent Harris is "breaking."
Fordham, by the way, appears to work the Kamala Harris hate beat. Her bylines from the past 24 hours include "VP Harris to speak at summit with ties to disgraced former Women's March leader" and "Kamala Harris' laughing answer to border question sparks backlash."
Her latest Pulitzer contender quotes military protocol experts Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
DISGRACEFUL: @VP Kamala Harris refuses to salute the honor guard at the steps of the aircraft. It is a clear demons… https://t.co/LjIRE0EhBw— Bernard B. Kerik (@Bernard B. Kerik) 1616465313.0
Kerik is a convicted felon whom New York Judge Stephen Robinson (no relation) sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud and obstruction. Harris is a former prosecutor who, unlike Kerik, has personally remained on the plaintiff side of legal proceedings.
Kerik tweeted:
Kamala Harris refuses to salute the honor guard at the steps of the aircraft. It is a clear demonstration of her dislike for those in uniform, both law-enforcement and military.
Wait, you're supposed to salute cops now? But my saluting hand is gun-shaped. It's like they want me to die.
Harris obviously doesn't dislike law enforcement, considering she was the chief law enforcement officer for the state of California. There's no evidence she was trying to pull a Louis DeJoy and destroy the institution from the inside. Kamala The Cop Who Hates Cops is a conservative fairy tale centered around Harris believing cops shouldn't freely execute Black people.
Harris's policy positions are also objectively pro-military, but why are we even fact-checking this garbage? Conservatives are trying to push this particular narrative after having gleefully supported the insurrectionist in chief, whose actual demonstrated contempt for the armed forces was front page news last year.
Charlie Kirk tweeted:
Kamala Harris doesn't salute members of the military as she gets on Air Force Two, breaking with a customary tradition of respect Remember when she and Joe Biden tried to sell the lie that *Trump* was the one who didn't respect the troops?
Harris and President Joe Biden didn't run on a “the other guy hates the troops" platform, because the GOP has patented that technique. Nor did they Jedi mind trick the previous White House occupant into dismissing dead US soldiers as “losers" and openly mocking the late Senator John McCain's service during Vietnam, when President Bone Spurs was bravely fighting STDs.
The one-term loser also overruled military officials and pardoned war criminals (yes, the military is actually against that!), but seriously, we promised we weren't going to fact check all this. You know it's bullshit.
Fordham doesn't bother speaking to anyone from the actual military, just rightwing hacks, so her hit piece misses the critical detail that Harris is not required to salute anyone. As US Naval War College professor Tom Nichols noted, the vice president is a civilian position outside the chain of command.
The Commander in Chief returns salutes as a matter of courtesy (a practice started by Reagan), but the VP is a civi… https://t.co/XLyF86UYIl— Tom Nichols (@Tom Nichols) 1616557098.0
Like union-busting and ignoring pandemics, civilians saluting military personnel is yet another lousy policy Ronald Reagan started. Here's the Gipper explaining his decision to US service members.
I was a second lieutenant of horse cavalry back in the World War II days. As I told the admiral, I wound up flying a desk for the Army Air Force. And so, I know all the rules about not saluting in civilian clothes and so forth, and when you should or shouldn't. But then when I got this job and I would be approaching Air Force One or Marine One and those Marines would come to a salute and I — knowing that I am in civilian clothes — I would nod and say hello and think they could drop their hand, and they wouldn't. They just stood there. So, one night over at the Marine Commandant's quarters in Washington, and I was getting a couple of highballs, and I didn't know what to do with them. So, I said to the Commandant, I said, 'Look, I know all the rules about saluting in civilian clothes and all, but if I am the Commander in Chief, there ought to be a regulation that would permit me to return a salute.' And I heard some words of wisdom. He said, 'I think if you did, no one would say anything.'
Wow. They really called this guy the Great Communicator.
This is America, not Cold War Cuba or the Soviet Union. The president and vice president are civilians, and civilians control the military not the other way around.
[Fox News]
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Here’s What Aliens Did To You During That Hour You Lost On Sunday! Tabs, Tues.,March 16, 2021
Come and get your Tabs!
New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland was confirmed Monday to lead the Interior Department. Just four Republican Senators supported her nomination: Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, and both Alaska Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, who claimed she “struggled" with her vote. Haaland is the first Native American to serve in a presidential Cabinet. (Politico)
MAGA mob suspect Guy Reffitt bragged about his involvement in the January 6 Capitol siege, which he compared to the "preface" of a book, because he's a well-rounded insurrectionist. Anyway, he insists that "we took the Capital [sic] of the United States of America and we will do it again." We have a real president now who might actually call in the National Guard, so I wouldn't attempt an encore performance. (Newsweek)
Another MAGA mob suspect, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, was an Army reservist, which is disturbing on its own, but he was also a known white supremacist who even grew a Hitler mustache while working as a Navy contractor with security clearance. I don't want to tell Nazis how to sympathize but you can still be awful without the silly mustache. (Washington Post)
A Fresno, California, police officer was placed on leave when it was discovered he's rightwing extremist. Yeah, I know, that seems redundant, but he's was literally a Proud Boy. (The Daily Beast)
CNN's Brianna Keilar reads Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson for filth. Please watch and enjoy.
.@brikeilarcnn rolls the tape on GOP Sen. Ron Johnson who says if groups like BLM had protested, he would have been… https://t.co/vpglqRgnUD— CNN Newsroom (@CNN Newsroom) 1615830950.0
The Vatican announced Monday that Catholic priests can't bless same-sex marriages because of all the gayness. As Jonathan Swift noted, there is just enough religion in the world to make us hate, but not enough to make us love. (NPR)
Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson thinks we should demilitarize the police. How are cops supposed to keep the suburbs safe from Cory Booker without tanks? (The Nation)
The one-term loser's incompetence was not the only reason America's pandemic response was less than ideal. (The Atlantic)
Current unemployment figures are likely undercounting millions who left the labor force because of health or child care issues. (The New York Times)
The child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan will provide many families up to $3,600 per child. And to think, Republicans would've only given us egg noodles and ketchup. (Wall Street Journal)
Buckingham Palace has hired an external law firm to determine if Meghan Markle bullied Royal staff while she was Black, because she is Black, you know. (CNN)
The Academy Award nominations are out and the Best Picture contenders fit the usual naming conventions: definite article with generic term (e.g. The Father), something ending in “land" (e.g. Nomadland), and random Mad Libs movie title (e.g. Promising Young Woman). (Variety)
I was last in Seattle on March 3, rehearsing a play that “but sleeps" until we can safely gather again. Check out what Seattle residents long for in a post-pandemic reality. Live theatre and music! Also, strangely, Costco samples. (Seattle Times)
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We’re Not Being Sarcastic This Time: The Vaccine Rollout Is Going Just Great!
It’s amazing what competent people can accomplish.
The vaccine rollout is going well. There, I said it. An advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just unanimously approved a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which started shipping four million doses of the easier-to-use, one-shot vaccine.
"We think literally within about the next 24 to 48 hours, Americans should start receiving shots in arms," Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson's CEO and chairman of the board, told NBC's Today.
Johnson & Johnson aims to deliver 100 million doses by June and up to a billion by the end of the year. But doomsaying has abounded about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine's efficacy. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both about 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson rates 65 percent at preventing moderate to severe/critical symptoms. That's also based on research in South Africa where the coronavirus variant is more prevalent. In the US, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine's effectiveness is around 72 percent.
Infectious disease experts say this is still impressive, and it actually wouldn't matter if the rates were lower.
"It's not just how effective a vaccine is. It's how many people get it," Dr. David Priest, an infectious disease specialist with Novant Health, said.
Priest said a good example of that is the annual flu shot.
"The flu vaccine every year, maybe, is 40% effective, but if every eligible person got it, we'd have almost no flu mortality," Priest said.
None of the vaccines will make you bullet proof or anything. However, no deaths or major hospitalizations have been directly linked to the vaccines themselves. They're so safe even the one-term loser and his wife secretly got their shots on their way out the door.
Now, to Dr. David Priest's point, we just need to make sure as many Americans are vaccinated as possible. We didn't actually have a plan for that until the new administration arrived.
.@VP Harris: "There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations. … We're starting from scratch." @mikeallen:… https://t.co/Wg7Ew7jNLL— Axios (@Axios) 1613360760.0
Vice President Kamala Harris caught flak from conservatives when she said a few weeks ago that the Biden administration was left with no “national strategy or plan" for vaccine rollout.
We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out. And so in many ways, we're starting from scratch on something that's been raging for almost an entire year!
The one-term loser's staff cried foul and said there was plenty of strategy written on that crumpled cocktail napkin they left behind. Dr. Anthony Fauci supported Harris's claims because they were true and he was there for the hot mess parade. He told Jim Sciutto at CNN that “the actual plan of getting the vaccine doses into people's arms was really rather vague."
Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the prior administration’s vaccination plan was “rather vague” and “not well-coordinate… https://t.co/j8aTp5WY3r— CNN (@CNN) 1613495700.0
It's not surprising that the twice-impeached thug would confuse a “goal" for a “plan," just like every asshole I've worked with in corporate America. I'm sure while summoning his third or fourth Diet Coke, he waved his arm around and decreed that everyone (who voted for him) would get vaccinated and everything would go back to normal. They'd even build a turd-shaped statue in his honor. That was his idea of leadership, but anyone can have a “goal." The plan is what's important.
FAUCI: It was not a well coordinated plan. Getting the vaccines made, getting them shipped through Operation Warp Speed was okay, but I believe what the vice president is referring to is: What is process of actually getting these doses into people?
Dr. Fauci is so polite he even used the previous administration's dumbass name for the vaccine rollout, Operation Warp Speed. I love "Star Trek" like every other middle-aged man who didn't date in high school, but warp speed refers to travel. We're not visiting the Klingon home world. We're trying to get people vaccinated. Dr. Leonard McCoy or my secret wife, Dr. Beverly Crusher, rarely said “warp speed" while practicing medicine, and they often produced miracle cures in 45 minutes.
The Biden administration had to organize the actual distribution of vaccines. This involved connecting with community vaccine centers, pharmacies, and mobile units. The previous White House occupant could only effectively organize a Klan rally. The United States is currently vaccinating more people than any other country. Although momentum slowed due to inclement weather across the country a few weeks ago, the American Prospect reported that the US quickly made up ground and was averaging about 1.3 million shots per day, far exceeding the Biden administration's daily target of 1 million shots.
Right now the U.S. is shipping about 10-15 million doses per week. That should increase to 20 million per week in March, 25 million in April, and 30 million by June. If distribution ramps up similarly, you could see 4.5 million shots delivered daily by summer.
Dr. Fauci was concerned that demand might overwhelm supply, but we now have three vaccines punching COVID-19 in the face. If this rollout continues at this rate, Biden will easily keep his promise that everyone who wants a vaccine, which should be everyone, will have access to one by the end of July.
Yes, it's possible we might still have to wear masks into 2022, but I've personally enjoyed not having a cold all winter. Right now, let's just appreciate that there's a plan for vaccinating everyone so we can see our extended families again and safely invite them into our homes, even the annoying ones. Get happy! That's an order.
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President Biden Making Anti-LGBTQ Bigots Cry So Much, Hooray!
It’s been a great week.
President Joe Biden reversed today the previous administration's terrible, bigoted, and gross ban on transgender Americans serving openly in the military. Donald Trump, demonstrating his typical contempt for servicemembers, announced the ban on Twitter in 2019 because he's terrible, bigoted, and gross.
Biden's order "sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve." Radical!
"President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America's strength is found in its diversity," the White House said.
Biden's order "immediately prohibits involuntary separations, discharges, and denials of reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity or under circumstances relating to gender identity," the White House said
This is great news unless you're a homophobic religious bigot or one of those annoying people on the left who'd rain on even Barbra Streisand's parade. You don't have to support the military's worst actions to oppose senseless discrimination in the armed forces.
Biden signed the executive order with Madam Vice President In Charge Kamala Harris on his right and freshly confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on his left. The next four years are gonna be lit!
President Biden signs executive order repealing Trump-era ban on transgender people serving openly in the military:… https://t.co/sP64IUu0uO— NBC News (@NBC News) 1611596559.0
Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn sneered that Biden's order isn't “unifying," but according to Gallup, 71 percent of Americans support transgender people serving in the military. The past administration's ban was the divisive move, intended to placate the GOP's social conservative base. Those bigoted creeps are in glorious high dudgeon. Good. If you only feel free if your fellow Americans are living in fear and in the shadows, you're a monster.
Our real president didn't wait long to start treating LGBTQ Americans like people who are actual citizens. His first day in office, Biden issued an executive order "preventing and combating discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation." Slate described the order as "the biggest expansion of LGBTQ equality in American history."
Wipe away the tears and feast on these sweet words of inclusion:
Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination. All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.
This restores Obama-era protections the Legion of Doom administration had rolled back. The Department of Education under Betsy DeVos didn't give a damn about trans kids, and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson was actively hostile to trans people. (Carson even reportedly referred to trans women, who are women, as “big hairy men" in front of his staff.) Former Attorney General and living Confederate monument Jeff Sessions came out swinging against gays in the name of “religious liberty."
Biden cannily based his executive order on the 2020 Supreme Court ruling that determined discrimination "on the basis of sex" includes discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four (ahh, RBG, we miss you) liberal justices on this landmark decision.
It's been a great six days. Biden has delivered for LGBTQ Americans more quickly than both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Those were different times, of course, and we can thank the activists for pushing mainstream Democrats in the right direction over the years. However, Biden has proven a reliable, unshakeable ally. He's the first president from the Silent Generation but he's not quiet about LGBTQ rights. It speaks volumes that Biden doesn't consider these issues “distractions" from his larger agenda or a political liability that Republicans will exploit. It's not 2004 anymore.
I know some conservative queer people (yes, they exist) who supported Trump during the 2016 primaries because they genuinely believed he was more supportive of LGBTQ rights than the other Republicans running, specifically Ted Cruz, who wore his social conservative bonafides like gaudy medals.
We're too petty to ever forget that Maggie Haberman at the New York Timesenabled this false narrative of a socially moderate and tolerant Trump. Seriously, can you believe this shit?
The New York Times
Haberman's April 22, 2016, article painted a picture of a Trump who congratulated Elton John on his marriage and was the first private club owner in Palm Beach, Florida, to admit an openly gay couple. Haberman, who was able to spot supposed Clinton corruption at 100 paces, seemed oblivious to Trump's true nature: He was completely transactional and would have no problem selling out LGBTQ people to advance his own ends.
There was quantitatively little difference for LGBTQ Americans between a Trump administration and a Ted Cruz or even a Mike Pence one. Don't let the Times fool you about any other seemingly “nice" Republican in the future, either. Only Democrats will defend the rights and dignity of all Americans.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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