Exsibilation

@CovidSolidarit1 There's no particular reason to believe this, and lots of reasons to think the initial rumor was a propaganda op.

I think it is perfectly plausible that SarsCov2 spread as the result of a lab leak. If think it’s also plausible SC2 was enhanced- Daszak explained quite candidly how / why he was doing this. I don’t think that if this occurred it was a conspiracy, I think it was a fuck up.

@davepl1968 @sabrinacartan @elonmusk Maybe we shouldn't have let idiots like Musk make these decisions in the first place?

@sabrinacartan Based on @elonmusk 's track record, he'd cut it to 99 and then realize it needed to be 140. But that doesn't make 428 the right number either, right?

this is like watching an amateur house flipper tear down a load-bearing wall

@JustinWolfers When Republicans are president, we have recessions. So after a Republican president is elected, it is reasonable for consumer sentiment to decline. Oh, also Republican voters are delusional so that's the red line.

Look at this graph and explain to me why you think I should read this as a measure of consumer confidence rather than partisanship.

@jaredpolis @RobertKennedyJr @HHSGov What in the fuck? Resign, governor.

I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health. Before you mock him or disagree, I want to share with you some quotes that if he follows through show why I’m excited: “Level the playing field for Americans internationally on drug costs…cap drug prices so that companies can’t charge Americans substantially more than Europeans pay." YES! Colorado currently has an application just SITTING at FDA for us to import low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and we just need their approval. "In some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA that are – that have to go, that are not doing their job, they're not protecting our kids," YES! The entire nutrition regime is dominated by big corporate ag rather than human health and they do more harm than good “We’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.” YES! We have tried unsuccessfully to better protect people and pollinators from harmful pesticides here in Colorado and we need all the help we can get to take on big chemical companies and improve human health and the environment! For our pollinators and our people! 🦋 He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again and I hope that we can finally make progress on these important issues.

@angie_rasmussen After the hatchet job Jha took to public health under Biden, it shouldn't surprise any of us that he's angling to help Trump finish the job.

In case you doubt me, here's the table that these eager quislings are trying to get a seat at: x.com/MeidasTouch/st…

This is tremendously disappointing. Bioweapons are a real threat and deterrence is important. But that doesn't justify implying that China has bioweapons programs making pathogens that target specific ethnicities. This is a racist conspiracy theory.

@OverweightChamp @LittleMammith "Who were right..." <sigh> Once the Israel-Palestine conflict entered the national discourse, we were already fucked. There's too much history, nuance, and general bloodshed for any one perspective to be "right" without some qualification. It's unsolvable and there's no "right".

I personally don't think the best way to help Harris win was to spend her entire campaign calling her a corrupt genocidaire while intentionally pumping pure negativity and rage into the brains of low-information voters, but I'm always open to new strategies

This is wild, and very likely nation state-level espionage. Why? Unclear.

@ElieNYC I'm not so sure. He has no reputation left to uphold and will be willing to break the law for Trump in ways that others might not be - including bogus prosecutions.

Given the available options, Matt Gaetz is a better pick for AG than the alternative. Gaetz is just… and idiot. We can survive an idiot evil person running the DOJ. We can’t not survive a creative evil person running the DOJ.

@tbonier Until the people who voted for this actually do something to prevent "this" from happening... they did indeed vote for this and are complicit.

I get the schadenfreude behind the "they voted for this" takes on this site as Trump rolls out his cabinet of unqualified loyalists. But can we stop? Americans, like voters around the globe, voted for the non-incumbent. Not because they loved or were even aware of Trump's agenda.

The moral degradation of the Silicon Valley "founder" class is something to behold.

@JeromeAdamsMD What exactly is there to understand about continued frustration over Covid policies and vaccines?

America is nearing a FAFO moment when it comes to public health- especially on vaccines. I understand the continued frustration over Covid policies and vaccines. But to prevent health departments from giving them to anyone? Even the elderly/ disabled/ those in nursing homes? 🤯

@1goodtern Not to mention that during the most direct precedent (1918), younger and "healthier" people were the most affected by the more virulent strain.

This teenager in critical condition with bird flu... I've seen people asking "what previous conditions did he have?" Those people don't seem to understand that everyone who has had covid now has a previous condition.

I'm sure this will go quite well.

@nervtechsupport Totally hilarious how people prefer to protect their health rather than attend your pointless cosplay meetings.

all the comments and quote tweets about not masking are so funny because they would never make that complaint in person. not that they can't, they would never show up

@1goodtern Yes. If "they" can convince voters that the current US economy is in a recession and that the idiot who bankrupted casinos will fix it, they can make us believe anything. It worked with COVID as well.

As I've been reading the news from America, I think I'm less concerned that Trump was elected because Americans are malicious, and more concerned about how easily manipulated so many of them are.

@mehdirhasan Denying covid was an earlier instance of leopards-eating-faces. Everyone said "it's ok if older, disabled, immunocompromised people get hurt, but I'm healthy and I'll be fine". How did we expect things would go with a neurotropic vascular disease that reinfects continuously?

The refusal of our political leaders and major media outlets to talk about this stuff continues to leave the field open for Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers and a whole host of other conspiracy theorists and grifters.

This is good framing. A Trump admin truly seeking a good economy might chicken out, deport a few thousand people and declare the wall built, as it were. But a Trump admin looking to crash the economy has myriad ways of doing so. It's an insider attack with root privilege.

As someone who would love to see a flourishing and independent Gaza, Netanyahu in handcuffs in the Hague, and every last Israeli settlement removed from the West Bank... I can only say that this statement is a flatulent load of horse shit and its authors can go fuck themselves.

@LittleMammith Not to mention... it's all just vibes anyway. There's nothing "liberals" can do to stop the incoming Trump admin from imposing all the tariffs it wants.

Of all the most pathetic and bizarre things I've seen this week, maybe the most galling is watching conservatives indignantly clutch their pearls at the thought that maybe, just maybe liberals aren't going to save them from the things they actively fought to get.

@suchnerve Yep. They keep telling us this when they begged us to stop shaming them for not wearing a mask. Shame is the only thing they understand.

Clearly, stigma works. It works so well that it’s convinced billions of people to stop filtering the air they breathe despite an oft-disabling, sometimes even deadly virus continuing to rip through the population. You ask why people unmasked, and the theme is “I got weird looks.”

This might sound like an emotional take, but it isn’t. It’s the result of years of careful thought. I don’t think outreach is the solution to some people going further right. Stigma is. My evidence is how quickly nearly everyone took their masks off the moment it became uncool.