Day: 7/9/2021

Psaki to GOP: Failure to Provide Accurate Public Health Info…is Literally Killing People

Posted by on July 9, 2021 at 5:01 pm. 4 Comments :

This week President Biden discussed his administration’s outreach program aimed at getting more people vaccinated against the coronavirus. The details were presented by Press Secretary Jen Psaki at the Daily Briefing on Tuesday. And that discussion triggered an ongoing freak out by Republicans and their mouthpieces on Fox News.

Jen Psaki

The frantic freaking is still in effect as Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends babbled deliriously about government goons who are “gonna knock on your door. They’re gonna demand that you take it. And they’re gonna give you a third shot.” Needless to say, that crackpot conspiracy exists only the minds of Kilmeade, his Fox confederates, and their dimwitted viewers.

But it doesn’t stop there. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-QAnon) attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas on Friday and told an interviewer that Biden’s door-to-door informational effort is really just a prelude to the wholesale confiscation of every American’s guns and bibles:

If Cawthorn thinks that the “mechanisms” that would be in place to send the feds to every home in the country is an evil plot, I hope nobody tells him about the Census or the Post Office, who have been doing that for decades.

In the interest of providing a definitive rebuttal to this avalanche of asininity, posted below is Jen Psaki’s response (video and transcript) to a question on this subject by ABC News White House correspondent, Karen Travers. Psaki spells out precisely what the outreach program is and isn’t. Not that it will will satisfy the glassy-eyed cult followers of Donald Trump, but at least it can be referenced when needed to rebut the right-wing crazy:

Travers: There’s still pushback about the President’s comments about going door-to-door to encourage vaccination. The South Carolina Governor said today that “enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating, or pressuring anyone to take the vaccine is bad policy that will deteriorate the public trust and confidence in the state’s efforts.”

And Gov. McMaster said he’s going to prohibit the state health agencies from using the administration’s targeted tactics. Can you respond to the Governor and explain what is being done and what is not being done in this outreach?

Psaki: Sure. Let me first say that the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including So. Carolina, is literally killing people. So maybe they should consider that.

But I would say that what this is, and what this is not, it is not federal employees going door-to-door. This is grassroots volunteers. This is members of the clergy. These are volunteers who believe people across the country, especially in low vaccinated areas, should have accurate information; should have information about where they can get vaccinated; where they can save their own lives and their neighbors’ lives and their family members’ lives.

That’s exactly what this is. It’s something that’s been going on since April. And it’s something where we’ve seen an impact in states where there are lower vaccination rates. So it’s something that we will continue to work with local groups to do. And it’s a disservice to the country, and to the people who may lose their lives, may lose family members, to provide inaccurate disinformation at a moment when we’re still fighting a pandemic.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Can’t Keep Its Lies Straight About Biden’s Vaccine Outreach Initiative

Posted by on July 9, 2021 at 11:57 am. 4 Comments :

As the nation continues to battle the deadly coronavirus pandemic that Donald Trump so badly mismanaged, Fox News continues to mislead their viewers and foment irrational fears based on outright lies. They have a burning obsession with finding fault for anything and everything President Biden does whether it’s real or not, and regardless of the harm it causes.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

On Friday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade unleashed another of his frantic, factless tirades aimed at disseminating a flagrantly false narrative about Biden. The subject was the President’s latest initiative to save American lives by promoting the safety, effectiveness, and availability of vaccines. Fox News and the Republican Party of Death have already been maligning this initiative, with some characterizing it as a Nazi-style infringement on freedom. And in the spirit of that insanity, Kilmeade said to…

“Ask yourself if you have a problem with this. They’re gonna knock on your door. They’re gonna demand that you take it. And they’re gonna give you a third shot.”

Of course, none of that has even a passing resemblance to the truth. Nevertheless, Kilmeade went on to rant that “It’s unbelievable how offensive his administration is getting with a pandemic that is clearly on the run.” Apparently Kilmeade hasn’t heard that the Delta variant of the virus is surging in (mostly Trump) parts of the country. For the first time in months the infection and hospitalization rates are going up.

However, in a rare display of honesty, another Fox News anchor delivered some factual information about the Biden outreach program. Gillian Turner interviewed Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen and presented him with what the program is actually doing. Thiessen, however, wasn’t moved:

Turner: In the Biden administration’s defense, they’re insisting with this door-to-door strategy they’re not showing up with needles. They’re not showing up with shots. Nothing is happening on your front doorstep in front of your neighbors. They are not gonna come jab you. But what they are trying to do is get information to you. They are trying to make sure that you know these shots are free, that you are eligible, where you can go to get one. It’s an information sharing operation, they say. Does that assuage some of your concern at all, or not really?
Thiessen: Not really. I don’t want people showing up on my doorstep before knowing my vaccine history.

Turner made some excellent points, putting the program’s mission into the proper context. So expect Fox News to make her disappear for a few weeks while she is undergoing reeducation. As for Thiessen, what the heck is he talking about? Does he want people to get his vaccine history before showing up on his doorstep? To be clear, the outreach program will not collect information about people’s vaccination status. It will be targeting geographic areas that are known to have low vaccination rates. And no one will be required to get a shot, or even listen to the volunteers in the field.

Thiessen went on to complain that Trump wasn’t included in a public service ad that featured all of the living former presidents promoting the vaccine. He implies that Trump was deliberately left out. There is, however, no proof of that. In fact, it was Trump who demonstrated his disinterest in promoting the vaccine (that he nevertheless claims credit for) by getting vaccinated secretly in January and not disclosing it until weeks after he left office.

Furthermore, Trump has declined all previous attempts to appear with the other former presidents. And when asked about his non-participation in this ad, Trump repeatedly refused to respond. That doesn’t sound like he was left out. Were that the case he would be whining about it ceaselessly and complaining about how mean everyone is to him.

Thiessen concedes that it is Trump country that is lagging in vaccinations. So he wonders why the Biden administration doesn’t recruit Trump to]“go to Mississippi and do a public service ad, or do something out there telling people to get vaccinated.” As if Trump would do anything at the request of the President that he has been yammering about for months, saying that he isn’t really the President. Turner reminds Thiessen that Trump “could also do that on his own” and that he doesn’t need “to wait for a formal invitation from the White House.”

I hope no one is holding their breath for Trump to visit Mississippi to help their residents get vaccinated and avoid severe illness and death. That would take time away from his golfing and his cult rallies where he pays tribute to himself, insults his critics, and perpetuates the “Big Lie: that the election was stolen from him. And everybody knows that those are his only priorities. He can’t be bothered with saving lives.

UPDATE: Press Secretary Jen Psaki makes it abundantly clear what the outreach program is all about:

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.