Levin Report

Donald Trump, Human Parasite, Is Now Telling People Not to Vaccinate Their Kids Against Coronavirus

Helpful as always!
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Donald Trump on the South Lawn of the White House on November 20, 2019.by JOSHUA LOTT/AFP via Getty Images

Given the opportunity to be of service to their country, most former U.S. presidents are happy to help. Then there’s Donald Trump. A stunted man-child who’s never done anything without first asking, “What’s in it for me?” the ex-president has actively hurt America since leaving office in January, largely by doing everything he can to undermine democracy, whether it’s his continued attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election or telling people he’s going to be “reinstated” as POTUS in a matter of months. Also unhelpful? His decision to prolong the pandemic by telling people not to have their children vaccinated for COVID-19.

Yes, despite regularly insisting that he doesn’t get enough credit for the coronavirus vaccines, Trump claimed during an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday that school-age children should not be inoculated against the deadly virus. “Now we have to get back and the schools have to get open—and frankly, we’re lucky we have the vaccine. But the vaccine on very young people is something that you gotta really stop,” Trump inexplicably said. “You have to get back to running your country—I mean, I don’t see reasons—and I am a big believer in what we did with the vaccine. It’s incredible what we did. You see the results. But to have every school child, where it’s 99.99%, they just don’t—you know, they’re just not affected or affected badly. Having to receive a vaccine I think is something that you should start thinking about, because I think it’s unnecessary.”

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As usual, the majority of the words coming out of the 45th president’s mouth were a lie. The coronavirus does, in fact, affect children. As Politico notes, more than 2,000 children have been diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome since the start of the pandemic; MIS-C damages the heart to such an extent that some kids who develop it will reportedly need “lifelong monitoring and interventions,” while more than 30 have died. According to neonatologist Dr. Alvaro Moreira, MIS-C can hit seemingly healthy kids nearly a month after asymptomatic infections. And while it’s true that children are less likely to become symptomatic than adults, more than 4 million have tested positive for COVID-19, which they can subsequently pass on to more vulnerable people, contributing to the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, NBC News reports that “virtually all hospitalized COVID patients” are unvaccinated, and it’s not just unvaccinated adults who are at risk for severe illness. “In our local hospitals the kids that are getting sick are the ones that are not vaccinated,” said Dr. Natasha Burgert, a pediatrician in Overland Park, Kansas. Not surprisingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged children 12 and up to get vaccinated, citing the recent increase in coronavirus-related hospitalizations.

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Trump, of course, isn’t the only Republican on the anti-science, anti-vax train, according to The Tennessean:

Some lawmakers are taking aim at the Tennessee Department of Health and the state’s top health official for encouraging minors to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Several Republican lawmakers questioned state Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey during a joint Government Operations Committee meeting Wednesday, lodging complaints and threatening to dissolve or “reconstitute” the department’s responsibilities in response to its efforts to vaccinate Tennesseans against the deadly coronavirus.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, accused the department of “peer pressuring” teenagers and young adults to get the COVID-19 vaccine with or without their parents’ permission. “We know how impressionable our young people are. For a department of ours to make it seem like you need a vaccine...to fit in is peer pressure applied by the state of Tennessee,” Cepicky said. “Personally, I think it’s reprehensible that you would do that, that you would do that to our youth.”

Unsurprisingly, teen vaccinations in states that voted for Joe Biden are far outpacing those in states that went for Trump, according to NBC News:

Vaccination rates for children 12 to 17 have surged in the northeast and lagged in the South, one month since the first COVID-19 vaccines were cleared for ages 12 and up, according to an NBC News analysis. In Vermont nearly 59% of adolescents have received their first dose. In Massachusetts the number is more than half. And in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, more than 40% of 12- to 17-year-olds have received one shot. Meanwhile, young people living in the South are least likely to have had their first dose. Just over 7% of Mississippi 12- to 17-year-olds have received their first dose, and less than 10% of that age group in Louisiana.

A not-insignificant number of Trump’s supporters would presumably listen to him if he encouraged them to get their children vaccinated. But apparently he doesn’t want to do that.

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14 congressional Republicans think the end of slavery isn’t worth celebrating

They very pointedly refused to vote to make Juneteenth, which celebrates the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were informed of their freedom, a federal holiday. For reasons as absurd as “people will confuse it with the Fourth of July.” No, really. Per The Hill:

The 14 Republicans who voted against the bill were Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Scott DesJarlais (Tenn.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Ronny Jackson (Texas), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Mike Rogers (Ala.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Chip Roy (Texas) and Tom Tiffany (Wis.).

Multiple House Republicans objected to officially calling the holiday “Juneteenth National Independence Day” out of concerns it could be confused with Independence Day on July 4. “I fully support creating a day to celebrate the abolition of slavery,” Massie said during House floor debate. “However, naming this day National Independence Day will create confusion and push Americans to pick one of those two days as their Independence Day based on their racial identity.”

Luckily their absurd objections were overruled and the bill made it to Biden’s desk on Thursday, where he signed it into law, giving most federal workers Friday off. (We assume the 14 lawmakers against the bill will be going into the office and working tomorrow.) “Great nations don’t ignore the most painful moments. They don’t ignore those moments in the past. They embrace them,” Biden said in remarks in the East Room, adding that the date isn’t just an acknowledgement of the past but a call for action.

Andrew Giuliani‘s campaign spokeswoman is his childhood babysitter

We learned this and other delightful factoids in a New York magazine profile of Rudy’s son, who, for some reason, is running for governor of New York:

If the reaction most people had throughout the witching era of the last presidency was the thought What happened to Rudy?, then these early days of post-Trump Trumpian politics are animated, at least in New York and Palm Beach and certain parts of New Jersey, by a related concern: What the fuck is Andrew doing? As one person close to Donald Trump put it, “That’s a question that a lot of people who genuinely like Andrew and genuinely like the mayor are asking.”

Rudy married his mistress in 2003; the kids took their mother’s side; and for long stretches of Andrew’s life, he barely spoke to his father. During the 2007 Republican presidential primary, Andrew confided in the media. He told The New York Times that he had “a little problem” with his then stepmother, Judith. Even now, a lifetime and two divorces later, Rudy is not in the 12-member family group chat that includes extended Giuliani relatives and close friends, according to Heather McBride, Andrew’s former babysitter, a member of the group chat who now serves as his spokeswoman.

Other members of Giuilani’s team reportedly include Ryan McAvoy, a former Trump White House staffer “best known for once leaving a copy of his encrypted passwords at a D.C. bus stop” and Sean Kalin Jr., “a TikTok-famous zookeeper from Florida who loves sloths and kangaroos and whose father competed on a golf-themed reality show with Andrew in 2013.”

Elsewhere!

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Biden administration to invest $3.2 billion for COVID-19 antiviral pills (NBC News)

The Commodities Boom Is Luring Criminals to Make Bigger and Bolder Scores (Businessweek)

McCarthy slams Biden for giving “Putin a pass” after years of silence on Trump’s relationship with Russian president (CNN)

Mortgage rates shoot higher after Fed Chairman Powell’s comments (CNBC)

Officer injured in Capitol riot blasts GOP lawmaker’s behavior as “disgusting” after tense exchange (CNN)

St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters plead guilty, will give up firearms (Washington Post)

The U.S. may be ready to see cicadas gone, but this French village has a statue, a song, and ceramics in their honor (Washington Post)

Newly discovered frog species named after Led Zeppelin (NYP)

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