Thursday, March 13, 2025

The Snapshot

Thursday, March 13, 2025.  Realities and perception -- touching on hair and make up in your presentation -- the difference between helping someone and making a political point, the danger that Junior has become to our country during the measles outbreak, we note the passing of a nut job,  and much more.


Let's deal with some e-mails quickly.  I'm awful and I'm a hypocrite over the Syrian-born Palestinian a few of you e-mailing the public account insist.

I may be awful.  I've copped to being a bitch and said repeatedly that I'm not a nice person. I've said that here since 2005, check the archives.

As for hypocrisy?


No.  That would be the Gaza Freaks.


My take has always been -- go back to 2004 and you'll see it here -- we should welcome everyone to this country . . . except those coming to this country to try to start up conflict with another country.  Think some of the Cuban exiles.


If a Cuban wants to come to this country, I will gladly welcome them.  Unless they get here and then use our country to try to pimp their war with Cuba.  You want to come this country?  Great, you're welcome to and I'm glad to have you up until you're pushing actions against whatever country you hate.  

Mike's "Those dangerous skies (and I'm not in the mood for our latest flavor of political martyr)" is worth reading and he talks about his anger over this issue. 


So the activist who's now facing deportation?  I agree with Mike, he should have kept his damn mouth shut.  Don't come to the US and start trying to get us involved in your personal war.  As Mike said, American students on campuses want to protest the genocide?  More power to you.  I applauded you and covered you for months and months and months here.  

But I never knowingly covered a foreigner on US campuses taking part in the protests.

I've studied abroad and had the good sense and manners to know my place.  I was a guest in a country and I acted accordingly.  

"His people!"


The wife's emerged finally.


She wants you to know that he was defending "his people."


They are his people?  Great.  Go there.  Go to your people.  You're not an American, you're not an American citizen.  Those are your people?  Well love them and protect them, go there and help.  Get the hell out of this country and so he can go work to help "his people."

I have no problem with Americans being vocal and demanding an action on an issue.  


I also have no problem with immigrants making demands regarding immigration.  I have a huge problem with people coming over here to this country and using it as a base for their petty wars and grievances.  Again, that's not new and I've gone over this over and over.  I've also opposed anyone having citizenship to more than one country.  


You can disagree with those positions and you can think I'm stupid and you can think I'm wrong -- and I'm often wrong --, but there's no hypocrisy there.  I am very consistent.  

We'll come back to this topic.

Let's move to Gavin.  I know Gavin Newsom and have noted that many, many times.  He's taken a repugnant stand on transgender people.  I have posted many videos here about that.  I have not commented which has one person insisting I'm covering up for Gavin.  


If I were covering up for him, I wouldn't have posted the videos calling him out.  I really liked Gavin up until that moment.  I've known him for years and years. I'm enraged by his new position and far too angry to write about it.  I know him going back to his first marriage.  I do not trust that I would be able to write rationally or fairly about him at present.  I am sure I would surface many buried bodies if I wrote about him right now.


B-b-but, you should!  He might be president!


He's never going to be president.  Never.  It's not happening.  California is seen as a crisis under his watch outside of our state.  That's first of all.


Second of all, he doesn't listen to me.  I'm fairly blunt.  I've told him for years to lose that ridiculous hairdo -- but women love to run their fingers through it!!! I don't think they do, I've had many conversations with both of his wives over the years and with many women who dated him.


Gavin's really the only one that likes that ridiculous hairdo.  I didn't like it on Barbara Bush when she was First Lady and I don't like it on Gavin. 


It's a joke and it makes him a joke.  And I've not only pointed that out in person, Ava and I covered it when he went on Chelsea Handler's NETFLIX talk show.  It's cine worthy and plays into the negative portrayal of him as out of touch and not wanting to be part of regular people. 

But he's an idiot and doesn't listen.  I see Stephen Jenkins has gone back to normal hair ("Third Eye Blind: Tiny Desk Concert" just went up this morning). Love Stephan but he was an idiot for going with that ridiculous George Washington hair -- not unlike Gavin.  Third Eye Blind was riding high of a great album and multiple hits.  But then he decided to end the look that the audience lapped up and debut, with BLUE, that awful hairdo. They never recovered their momentum.  


Gavin has bad hair and way too much baggage.

 

My guess is he's trying to reshape himself publicly for a run in 2028.  I don't think he'll get the nomination.  

And I'll probably work strongly against him if he does try for the nomination.  And while my record getting people awards and offices may not be strong, I do know how to organize and kill someone's chances.  So I'm not really worried about Gavin and, unless he decides to run for the presidential nomination, that's all I intend to say about him.

I'm mean and I never say anything nice or do anything nice -- argues an e-mail.


Really?  I'm not a nice person, I admit that.  But never do anything nice?


I'm thinking of a man who passed away.  The late John Conyers introduced me to him a little over 20 years ago.  His death really wasn't noted.  And I was being kind -- or thought I was -- by not noting it here.  Maybe I should?  Maybe it would teach the Gaza Freaks a lesson about how you run off people from your causes.  Because that's what he did.  A very intelligent person.  Dedicated to so many good causes -- and a few nutty conspiracies.


We highlighted him for years.  He'd send something to the public account.  Sometimes he'd send it and I wouldn't note it or wouldn't note it fast enough and he'd call me personally to complain. 


As the years passed, he got nuttier and nuttier.  And I still highlighted him.  Even though it resulted in many complaints -- because he was getting so nutty.  


We finally did drop him.  And he called to gripe and wanted to know why and I told him he was spreading lies.  He screamed back over the phone that I was "a gatekeeper!"  I was preventing the free flow of information.  


No.  


I wasn't going to allow your lies up here.  


A political opinion that I disagreed with?  Sure.  No problem.


But lies?  Lies about science?  Conspiracy theories that were so laughable and so bad.


I'm sorry you went nutty but you did.  And you lost the ability to speak with people as a result.


He was nuts at the end.  At the end he was Naomi Wolf.  Prior to that, he had a strong mind and could make strong political arguments -- some of which I agreed with, some of which I didn't.  But I'm not interested in chemtrail conspiracies or lies about vaccinations. I'm not interested in the nutty.


Gaza Freaks, you'll are on the same path.  There is not enough support in the US to get what you want.  And, what's worse, your behavior in the lead up to the presidential election turned off a large group of people who previously worked to support you.


You are as crazy -- as bats**t crazy -- as Francis A. Boyle was at the end (he's the nut job who recently died that I was referencing above).  


Now I don't want to keep writing about the Syrian-born Palestinian.  Mainly because I don't like bulls**t. And I'm tired of reading and hearing copy that's coming from the man's attorney.  That's not journalism.  (Check out WIKIPEDIA's laughable entry where his claims are presented as fact and claims from others are just claims.  That's not reality.  Both sides are making claims at this point -- his attorney and the government.) And it's going to get so bad that I'll end up making the case for him to be deported and doing so better than Chump's idiotic administration can -- which is why I don't plan on writing about this topic again.


The reason we're starting with this is because when I saw the coverage of the ugly wife yesterday, I again had to ponder: How stupid is this attorney?


Francis Boyle thought he could act the fool and people would support him.  That's not reality and that's not the world we live in.


The attorney for the Palestinian doesn't grasp reality.  There is no excuse for the malpractice she's carrying out in terms of the court of public opinion.


I don't care how devout the wife is or not.  You tell the idiot to change her clothes and to put on some make up.


This is not about how you worship. This is about connecting with Americans and getting attention and support for your husband.

The clothes she wore for the camera?  She could have worn the exact same clothes but in an appealing color and fabric instead of looking like she was wearing a feedsack.


Her skin was awful.  She needed make up.  Men wear make up when on camera.  Ronald Regan did -- and I'm talking after he was done acting.  The reason is to look natural.  

At the very least, someone should have put mascara on her.


This is not where you make the case for 'my religion and I'm devout.'  This is where you try to get everyone who catches you to relate to you.  You don't put up barriers.


You're pregnant and your husband's being deported?  Start reaching for people's emotions.  And to do that, you can't put up a wall by looking like some Amish person from the 18th century. 


There is no way the wife is as ugly as she photographed yesterday.  You're in front of the camera, put some make up on so people watching without any opinion yet are thinking, "That poor woman, she looks so vulnerable and in pain.  I can't imagine how I'd get through that."  That's what you want and that's the only thing that's going to help your husband.  You've got an idiot for an attorney.  She should have told you to put on some make up -- even if it was just mascara -- so you would look normal to the people watching.  Instead, your bare face looked ugly -- and, again, she's probably not ugly.  But when you go in front of the camera, man or woman, for a planned interview, you're generally wearing make up.  She didn't have to look like she spent a half hour at the Clinique counter, but she needed some make up.  

I've noted before where friends have asked my input on their clients.  I've noted before where I've advised on wardrobe in court and on hair and make up.  I do know what I'm talking about.


Time and again, freaks -- like Boyle -- want to prove their point.


That's not me.  That's not how I handle it.  Again, the war resisters that self-checked out and got my help are in Canada and aren't at any threat of being expelled.  That's because my goal during the Iraq War was to keep them safe.  I wasn't going to -- and didn't -- use them to make points on the Iraq War.  I was opposed to the Iraq War and could call it out -- and did day after day both here and on campuses across the country.  That didn't mean I was using people who self-checked out to make my point.


This was about their lives and their safety.  And so what we focused on was that and how we could get citizenship for them.  Too many others wanted to use a Joshua Key or a Darrell Anderson to make a political point  That may have helped you feel good about yourself but it didn't help those attempting to live in Canada.  No one we helped got deported.  No one we helped has ever been threatened with deportation.  

Sometimes you get too lost in trying to make a statement that you're really not helping the people who need help. 


Francis fell into that trap as did the Gaza Freaks. 


I'm not going to doom a person to make a political point.  That's not helping them.  And pretending the world is at a point it's not yet at is being an idiot and a danger to the people you say you want to help.


Moving on, depending upon the time zone you are in,  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cheryl Hines Explains Junior" went up last night or this morning.


cheryl


Cheryl Hines, the disgusting wife of Junior.  Robert Kennedy Junior is a nut job and an embarrassment.  So naturally Donald Chump picked him for HHS.  First, let me applaud him.  Last time we noted him, I pointed out that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should post at the government website his thoughts on immunizations, not take the attitude that writing a column for FOX "NEWS" qualifies for a Cabinet Secretary.  Guess what?  He has posted the column at HHS finally.


It should have gone up there immediately but maybe this was a wobbly foot taking a first step?  I'll be kind and we'll just move on to the larger issues of Junior being unqualified. 




An unearthed report showed that Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy shared "inaccurate" information about a CDC Advisor Committee on vaccines, as many believe he was laying the groundwork for dismissing its members.

In recent interviews, Kennedy has claimed, "I think 97% of the people on it had conflicts. I think we need to end those conflicts and make sure that scientists are doing unobstructed science."

However, after reviewing the 2009 report and speaking to people involved with the committee, NPR determined that Kennedy's assertion was "inaccurate."

"Right now, what we're getting is a total misrepresentation of a 20-year-old report, about a process that was already being improved before that report was issued," former CDC Director Tom Friedman told NPR.


Did he not grasp that there were serious trust issues with regards to him being the head of this cabinet post?  Those concerns are not made better when you're caught lying.  We have the worst measles outbreak in years and people looking for reassurance that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is (a) on the job and (b) knows what they're doing.  When Donna Shalala served in that post, no one questioned her knowledge base, her qualifications or how she did her job.  For eight years, she did a solid job, demonstrated real leadership and kept the American people informed.  It's too bad Junior's struggling.  And that he's struggling at a time when the country especially needs a health czar.  Neha Mukherjee (CNN) explains, "At least two pregnant women have been infected in this outbreak, according to officials at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock. Eighty-one measles cases have been reported in children ages 4 and younger across Texas and New Mexico. This is part of the larger outbreak that now spans three states, including Oklahoma, and totals 258 reported cases."  The World Health Organization notes:



The virus is so contagious that 90% of people who are not immune and who come into contact with an infected person will become infected and develop the disease.

Measles is normally spread through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body.

The measles virus can live for up to 2 hours on a surface or in the air. If other people breathe in the contaminated air or touch the infected surface and then their eyes, nose or mouth, they can become infected. An infected person can spread the virus even before they have typical symptoms (e.g. rash).

Measles infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and a rash all over the body. Measles is a highly contagious and potentially serious disease.

Most deaths from measles are from complications related to the disease. Complications are most common in children under 5 years and adults over age 30.

One in 5 children infected with the measles virus may develop severe complications.

Complications can include:

blindness
encephalitis (an infection causing brain swelling and potentially brain damage)
severe diarrhoea and related dehydration
ear infections that can lead to permanent deafness
severe breathing problems including pneumonia.
Measles infection has also been shown to weaken a person’s immune system, making it more difficult for them to fight off other diseases for months or even years after being sick with measles.

If a woman catches measles during pregnancy, this can be dangerous for the mother and can result in her baby being born prematurely with a low birth weight.

The only way to stop measles is to prevent it through vaccination. Measles vaccine is safe and effective. Two doses of measles-containing vaccine (MR/measles-rubella) provide 97% protection from infection and the potentially serious consequences of the disease. For most people this protection is lifelong.


Pretty straight and forward, pretty cut and dry -- the same can't be said of Junior or his oversight at present.  Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:



Health care professionals are torching Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s response to a slew of measles cases popping up across the country.

The health and human services secretary suggested Monday that a poor diet could have been behind the death of a West Texas child who contracted measles.

“It’s very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person,” Kennedy told The New York Times, adding that there is “a correlation between people who get hurt by measles and people who don’t have good nutrition or who don’t have a good exercise regimen.”

Kennedy’s comment, however, belied the fact that the most vulnerable populations to die from measles are unvaccinated children.

“To be crystal clear: 1. Measles is a nasty disease,” an epidemiologist under the handle @HealthNerd posted on BlueSky. “2. You cannot treat measles with antibiotics or cod liver oil. 3. The measles vaccine is very safe and highly effective, as shown by the ELIMINATION OF THE DISEASE IN THE US FOR 25 YEARS. 4. RFK Jr. is an ignorant fool.”



In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity broadcast Tuesday, Kennedy said “natural immunity” after getting a measles infection is more effective at providing lasting protection against the disease. However, Kennedy left out that the dangers of catching the disease outweigh the advantage of immunity, according to doctors.

“It used to be when you and I were kids, everybody got measles,” Kennedy told Hannity. “And measles gave you protection, lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people, for life, but many people it wanes.”

RFK Jr: "It used to be that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn't do that ... it used to be that very young kids were protected by breast milk. Women who get vaccinated do not provide that level of immunity."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-03-12T01:41:30.330Z


Despite Kennedy’s claims, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the majority of people who have had the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccines will be protected for life. The CDC also has guidance for people it recommends should be revaccinated.

Dr. Ashish K. Jha (TIME) explains, "Contrary to statements by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., outbreaks of this deadly disease are highly unusual. The U.S. declared measles eliminated more than 20 years ago, thanks to an exceptionally safe and effective vaccine. But efforts to undermine confidence in that vaccine have contributed to these recent outbreaks. There are things we can do, individually and collectively, to protect our most vulnerable and hopefully eliminate measles in this country again."

Obviously, Robert Kennedy Junior is an irredeemable monster. And the fact that he’s advocating for bringing back outbreaks of long dormant lethal diseases like measles should be a massive story but isn’t. Is it that we’d reflexively have to implicate Trump too, and outlets aren’t willing to do that?

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— SportsAngle (@sportsangle.bsky.social) March 12, 2025 at 11:21 AM


How many more needless deaths will Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Junior evoke with their reckless junk science? There isn’t just blood on their hands, they’re covered with it head to toe.

[image or embed]

— SportsAngle (@sportsangle.bsky.social) March 11, 2025 at 1:13 PM





Did you ever think we'd knowingly put a quack and a nut job in charge of Health and Human Services?  Natalie Neysa Alund (USA TODAY) reports:


Two more states are reporting they are now part of the escalating measles outbreaks across the U.S.

Oklahoma health officials on Tuesday reported two cases of the highly contagious infectious disease in the state while health officials more than 1,500 miles northeast in Vermont reported one confirmed case of the virus there.
The two cases in Oklahoma are being reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as probable cases "due to exposure associated with the Texas and New Mexico outbreak" and because the victims are experiencing symptoms consistent with measles, the Oklahoma State Department of Health said.



Instead of pulling a Shalala, Junior's off playing nut job again.  David Edwards (RAW STORY) explains, "

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly was in contact with a Texas historian who helped support the distribution of unproven measles remedies amid an outbreak in the state.

Texas historian Tina Siemens told Mother Jones that Kennedy contacted her last week to discuss health concerns in the Mennonite community.
"Siemens said she had been working with a clinic called Veritas Wellness in Lubbock, Texas, to distribute medications, including Vitamin C, cod liver oil, and the inhaled steroid budesonide," the magazine reported.
Siemens was connected to an online fundraiser that claimed it would be "used to defray the cost of essential vitamins, supplements, and medicines necessary to treat children enduring complications from the measles virus and other illnesses."


Senator Ron Wyden's office issued the following statement:

Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley today called for immediate action from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr. to stop the spread of measles and save lives after our country experienced the first measles deaths in a decade.  

Measles, once declared eliminated in the U.S. over two decades ago, has infected at least 223 individuals in 13 U.S. jurisdictions. 

“Unfortunately, two of these cases have resulted in the tragic deaths of a child in Texas and a resident in New Mexico. These mark the first U.S. deaths from measles in 10 years. It is imperative that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) act immediately and robustly to stop the spread of this preventable infection and save American lives,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary Kennedy. 

To prevent further infections and protect vulnerable populations, the lawmakers pressed Kennedy to increase vaccination rates: “More must be done to increase vaccination rates against measles. Clear communication that vaccines work is imperative to build trust and increase uptake of vaccinations, ultimately saving lives. Therefore, it is critical that HHS utilize its authorities to promote vaccination against measles as the most effective way to prevent infection to improve vaccination rates and prevent future outbreaks.”

Stressing the importance of reinstating public health workers indiscriminately fired by the Trump administration, the senators concluded, “We urgently request that you reinstate all fired federal health workers and protect those remaining from termination to help stop the spread of measles and other infectious diseases.”

 In addition to Wyden and Merkley, the letter was led by Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and signed by Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Fetterman (D-PA), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). 

Full text of the letter is here.





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