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Many right-wing media outlets from Fox News to white AM talk radio have promoted a great deal of misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, which radio host Rush Limbaugh infamously compared to the common cold. But not only all right-wing media outlets have downplayed the severity of coronavirus: The Bulwark has offered an abundance of quality reporting on the pandemic. And Bulwark journalist Jonathan V. Last, this week, slams some of the bizarre contradictions that have been coming from coronavirus truthers.

Ive been consistently boggled by the loose affiliation of coronavirus-truthers, America Firsters, Catholic rad-trads, and economic boosters who have come together over the last month to insist that: (1) COVID-19 isnt so bad. (2) The real problem is the economy and the lunacy of shutting America down, Last asserts in an article published on Thursday.

Coronavirus truthers, the conservative journalist adds, are demanding that the U.S. economy reopen and insist that social distancing is going too far.

These people all seem to have different reasons for wanting America to reopen, Last explains. The only thing they have in common is that they all from the Taliban Catholics to the alt-right trolls, from the conspiracy cranks to Peter Navarro love them some Trump.

Last adds, however, that coronavirus truthers overlook the fact that Trump himself supports social distancing for the rest of April and that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who many of them hate, is part of Trumps coronavirus task force.

If you have seen someone from the #ReopenAmerica brigade blame Trump, please send me the clip, Last writes. Because as of now, I have literally never seen anyone from that part of the world blame Trump for Americas shutdown. How could that be? Hes the president! Last adds, If Anthony Fauci is the villain in all of this, and Trump hasnt fired him by now, then Trump is at least a dupe and maybe an accomplice.

Moreover, Last writes, the coronavirus truthers are giving Trump a pass for when it comes to social distancing.

On March 16, Trump urged Americans to social distance for 15 days, Last notes. He later extended that timeline. If COVID-19 is really no big deal and if reopening America is the most important thing in the world, then why arent these people flaying Trump every minute of every day and exhorting him to stop this madness? Truly, it is a mystery.

Last is among the conservative journalists who like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot at the Washington Post or Joe Scarborough at MSNBC certainly cannot be accused of downplaying coronavirus severity. In a separate Bulwark article published on April 15, Last slammed the coronavirus truthers who ignorantly claim that its no worse than the flu.

Pointing to a scientific graph that compared flu and COVID-19 data, Last stressed that COVID-19 is not only deadlier it is also easier to spread.

Coronavirus is so much more dangerous to the American people than the flu that anyone who suggests equivalency is either deliberately lying, or does not know what they are talking about, Last wrote.

then let us make a small request. AlterNets journalists work tirelessly to counter the traditional corporate media narrative. Were here seven days a week, 365 days a year. And were proud to say that weve been bringing you the real, unfiltered news for 20 yearslonger than any other progressive news site on the Internet.

Its through the generosity of our supporters that were able to share with you all the underreported news you need to know. Independent journalism is increasingly imperiled; ads alone cant pay our bills. AlterNet counts on readers like you to support our coverage. Did you enjoy content from David Cay Johnston, Common Dreams, Raw Story and Robert Reich? Opinion from Salon and Jim Hightower? Analysis by The Conversation? Then join the hundreds of readers who have supported AlterNet this year.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure AlterNet remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to AlterNet, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

See the original post:
Conservative journalist wonders why coronavirus truthers never blame Trump for anything: Truly, its a mystery - AlterNet

Fate has done its best to derail Mystery Jets and their frontman Blaine Harrison.

First, the release of their sixth album, A Billion Heartbeats, and its September support tour were delayed after Harrison underwent emergency surgery.

Now, coronavirus has forced them to postpone their live dates a second time, until autumn this year.

The band, however, were determined to release their album.

It would have been wrong to delay the music again, explains Harrison down the line from his studio in central London.

These songs need to be out there in the world doing their thing.

Although life is different at the moment, community feels more important than ever togetherness feels more important than ever.

Thats what A Billion Heartbeats is about. Its about empathising with other people and sharing our experiences in difficult times.

A decade ago, Mystery Jets were a very different beast.

Formed in 2003 on Eel Pie Island, a Twickenham mudflat home to a huddle of hippy communes, the band was swept up in the Noughties folk explosion.

Twee tracks like Two Doors Down and Young Love with Laura Marling helped define that era, alongside acts like Johnny Flynn (now a bona fide film star) and Dry The River.

They were also notable for the fact that Harrisons father Henry featured as bassist, albeit briefly.

When the indie bubble burst at the end of the decade and bands like The Libertines lost their cultural cache, Mystery Jets looked to America.

Their varied and eccentric haircuts have charted this transformation from folkies to radical songwriters in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg.

More recently, the band performed at the Extinction Rebellion protests and the march celebrating the NHSs 70th anniversary.

This period also saw Harrison, who has spina bifida, include his crutches in their press photos for the first time.

They are part of who I am, he says matter-of-factly.

A Billion Heartbeats - a name taken from Yuval Noah Hararis zeitgeist-capturing Sapiens book - was born out of those moments.

A protest is a billion hearts beating together towards a common goal, he relates.

Thats what a music festival is as well. You go to a festival to escape or rejoice or lose your mind.

Whatever draws you there, its that feeling of being in a sheer mass of people pulled by the same force.

I have always thought of a protest as being like a festival of resistance.

The album takes in vast swathes of culture Trump, Brexit, the climate crisis, womens rights, race relations, the plight of the NHS.

It would feel messy if not for its execution.

Of all these topics, there is one that Harrison holds dearest.

The singer and multi-instrumentalist has spent much of his 34 years in NHS hospitals being treated for spina bifida, a condition that develops during pregnancy when the bones of the babys spine do not form properly.

He is a patron of Attitude Is Everything, which works with venues to make gigs more accessible, and last year Mystery Jets performed a free lunchtime concert for NHS workers at Londons St Thomas Hospital. Hospital Radio, which features on the album, was inspired by the hundreds of hospital radio stations in operation around the UK.

That was our first protest song, he recalls. Writing it shaped all the songs that came after it on the record.

It stemmed from a very personal feeling. When I wrote it I didnt quite appreciate how many people felt that way about the NHS.

I have often said the NHS is the closest thing the British have to a religion, and that has never felt more true than right now.

When everyone took to the streets and shared an applause, the participation across the country crossed so many divides.

Harrison lives in Londons Holborn, and before that he lived on The Strand - but back in 2017, after a decade of living in flat shares across the capital, he thought it might be time to check out and live somewhere else.

The city felt like the Ourobouros, he says, the ancient snake who eats its own tail, perpetuating an unstoppable cycle of rebirth and destruction.

But then the opportunity arose for him to become a property guardian for an abandoned office on The Strand, with a direct view of Trafalgar Square.

The agreement offered him space to build a studio and a clear view of the protests taking place below Nelsons Column. Soon he and his band were in the midst.

I arrived in zone one in the wake of the referendum and just after Trump entered office, he explains.

There was quite a spike in race-related crimes in London and the UK, and suddenly casual racism started showing its face in more and more places.

It wasnt just in Britain. The alt-right is now the second largest party in Germany.

I started attending protests. It was a way for me to get closer to, I suppose, the truth.

Recently, he moved to his current home, a second guardianship in Holborn.

His bands decision to go political, it seems, was also born out of a frustration with what rock and roll had become.

Guitar music has become very polite and sanitised, he declares.

It doesnt have to be like that. Its why grime is the punk of today...

...which is the most white person thing that has ever been said, he laughs.

But it really is. Grime is talking about the mechanics of society in way that guitar music has done at points in time.

Harrison is philosophical about the fact his bands tour has been postponed once again.

He suggests the virus is nature sending us to our bedrooms to think about what we have done.

In fact, he sees positivity in the lockdown.

When we are going about our everyday lives, perhaps we have got the blinkers on and we are so focused on getting our head down, working and keeping the wolf from the door that we forget the importance of human contact.

Thats what this moment is teaching us. A Billion Heartbeats is out now. Mystery Jets embark on their postponed UK tour in the autumn.

Read the original:
Mystery Jets frontman Blaine Harrison discusses their long-awaited sixth album - expressandstar.com

On Easter Sunday, a group of around fourteen people, led by an anti-vaxxer and documented by a conspiracy vlogger, intentionally broke social distancing and took to the streets of Vancouver.

Videos show the groupwhich featured both older people and a childholding a sign featuring an illustration of the coronavirus and the words Fake News. The rally even featured one grey-haired person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask with sunglasses over it. In photos and videos, the protesters seem to pay no heed to the six feet rule experts have recommended to avoid the spread of COVID-19.

Organizer Susan Standfield-Spooner told VICE that the quarantine measures put in place by the government have caused her to lose about 80% of the income she and her husband made from a consulting company. She said that she believes the deaths and homelessness that come from the financial strife brought about by the closures of business are far worse than the health impact of COVID-19, which has killed 735 Canadians as of Monday.

Social distancing measures are in place in an attempt to flatten the curve to slow the spread of COVID-19 so hospitals dont become overwhelmed and cause an even larger loss of life.

A photo of the rally walking in downtown Vancouver. Photo via Standfield-Spooner

Standfield-Spooner said she didnt even know most of the people at the rallya 70-year-old woman helped organize the event. The senior woman was present at the rally. Experts warn that those 70 years and older are the most at risk for dying from the disease. Standfield-Spooner said she believes the virus is real but the death tally has been exaggerated and that it was intentionally released upon the world. She also thinks the disease is infectious but not deadly, like herpes. Standfield-Spooner also has said that she believes the pandemic is an attempt by elites to strip citizens of their rights and vaccinate them. Social media posts show that shes held anti-vaccinations beliefs for several years.

In British Columbia, like the majority of the rest of the country, non-essential businesses are closed and public gatherings are banned.

Personally, my life has been destroyed, said Standfield-Spooner. I'm not sitting around enjoying it. I'm screwed. People would be surprised because I grew up, you know, in the status quo world of opportunity. I'm educated, have a wealthy background, whatever, but not right now. Right now, personally, I'm in the loser group.

(Chief Public Health Officer of Canada) Teresa Tam, I dont know how she's sleeping at night, Standfield-Spooner said.

Standfield-Spooner said this march was just a trial run and bigger rallies are on the way.

Stanfield-Spooner was only able to get a small group out in Vancouver but did inspire a similar rally in Vernon B.C. at the same time. At the Vernon rally attendeeseven those who described the virus as a hoaxstood six feet apart. The Vernon rally's organizer told a local publication that, like Standfield-Spooner, they believe social distancing for healthy people is "tyranny."

"Waiting in lines outside of stores is not normalwe don't want it anymore, and it needs to stop," Sylvia Herchen told Castanet.

The march was attended and promoted by Dan Dicks, a bit player in the Canadian conspiracy scene. Dicks sent a tweet out from the rallyshowing him in aviators talking about how people are fighting backthat went viral.

Vancouverites arent drinking the kool-aid, Dicks said in the video. Theyre getting out and getting together here to show the world that were not OK with unlawful orders and quarantines and lockdowns.

Dicks had originally posted a longer video of the rally but it was removed by YouTube, which is cracking down on conspiracy videos. Dicks boasts a YouTube channel called Press for Truth with over 260,000 subscribers in which he posts mishmash of videos ranging from his more conspiracy-centric videos about globalists, wireless technology, and Trudeaus evil plans; to more far-right videos like an endorsement of alt-right figure Faith Goldy during her Toronto mayoral campaigns, and videos railing against the irregular migrants at Roxham Road.

Recently Dicks has turned his eye to COVID-19 and conspiracies surrounding that, with a focus on the tyranny of self-isolation. Experts have warned that during a pandemic conspiracies can do real damage to real people. As for the 70-year-old organizer who helped organize the anti-lockdown rally,Standfield-Spooner said it was her choice to come out.

People participate in life by choice, said Standfield-Spooner. It's more likely there's a woman there who was 70, I think she was the oldest I think shes more likely to die from a car accident in Canada.

There were 160 car accident fatalities per month in Canada in 2018, roughly 600 less than the amount of people who have died due to coronavirus over the last month.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Read the original here:
Great, the Anti-Vaxxer Coronavirus Protests Are Here - VICE

FATE has done its best to derail Mystery Jets and their frontman Blaine Harrison. First, the release of their sixth album, A Billion Heartbeats, and its September support tour were delayed after Harrison underwent emergency surgery.

Now, coronavirus has forced them to postpone their live dates a second time, until autumn this year. The band, however, were determined to release their album.

"It would have been wrong to delay the music again," explains Harrison down the line from his studio in central London.

"These songs need to be out there in the world doing their thing. Although life is different at the moment, community feels more important than ever togetherness feels more important than ever.

"That's what A Billion Heartbeats is about. It's about empathising with other people and sharing our experiences in difficult times."

A decade ago, Mystery Jets were a very different beast. Formed in 2003 on Eel Pie Island, a Twickenham mudflat home to a huddle of hippy communes, the band was swept up in the folk explosion of the early 00s.

Twee tracks like Two Doors Down and Young Love with Laura Marling helped define that era, alongside acts like Johnny Flynn and Dry The River. They were also notable for the fact that Harrison's father Henry featured as bassist, albeit briefly.

When the indie bubble burst at the end of the decade and bands like The Libertines lost their cultural cache, Mystery Jets looked to America. Their varied and eccentric haircuts have charted this transformation from folkies to radical songwriters in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg.

More recently, the band performed at the Extinction Rebellion protests and the march celebrating the NHS's 70th anniversary. This period also saw Harrison, who has spina bifida, include his crutches in their press photos for the first time.

"They are part of who I am," he says matter-of-factly.

A Billion Heartbeats a name taken from Yuval Noah Harari's zeitgeist-capturing Sapiens book was born out of those moments.

"A protest is a billion hearts beating together towards a common goal," he relates.

"That's what a music festival is as well. You go to a festival to escape or rejoice or lose your mind. Whatever draws you there, it's that feeling of being in a sheer mass of people pulled by the same force.

"I have always thought of a protest as being like a festival of resistance."

The album takes in vast swathes of culture Trump, Brexit, the climate crisis, women's rights, race relations, the plight of the NHS. It would feel messy if not for its execution.

Of all these topics, there is one that Harrison holds dearest. The singer and multi-instrumentalist has spent much of his 34 years in NHS hospitals being treated for spina bifida, a condition that develops during pregnancy when the bones of the baby's spine do not form properly.

He is a patron of Attitude Is Everything, which works with venues to make gigs more accessible, and last year Mystery Jets performed a free lunchtime concert for NHS workers at London's St Thomas' Hospital.

Hospital Radio, which features on the album, was inspired by the hundreds of hospital radio stations in operation around the UK.

"That was our first protest song," he recalls.

"Writing it shaped all the songs that came after it on the record.

"It stemmed from a very personal feeling. When I wrote it I didn't quite appreciate how many people felt that way about the NHS.

"I have often said the NHS is the closest thing the British have to a religion, and that has never felt more true than right now. When everyone took to the streets and shared an applause, the participation across the country crossed so many divides."

Harrison lives in London's Holborn, and before that he lived on The Strand but back in 2017, after a decade of living in flat shares across the capital, he thought it might be time to "check out and live somewhere else".

The city felt like the Ourobouros, he says, the ancient snake who eats its own tail, perpetuating an unstoppable cycle of rebirth and destruction. But then the opportunity arose for him to become a property guardian for an abandoned office on The Strand, with a direct view of Trafalgar Square.

The agreement offered him space to build a studio and a clear view of the protests taking place below Nelson's Column. Soon he and his band were in the midst.

"I arrived in zone one in the wake of the referendum and just after Trump entered office," he explains.

"There was quite a spike in race-related crimes in London and the UK, and suddenly casual racism started showing its face in more and more places. It wasn't just in Britain. The alt-right is now the second largest party in Germany.

"I started attending protests. It was a way for me to get closer to, I suppose, the truth."

Recently, he moved to his current home, a second guardianship in Holborn.

His band's decision to go political, it seems, was also born out of a frustration with what rock and roll had become.

"Guitar music has become very polite and sanitised," he declares.

"It doesn't have to be like that. It's why grime is the punk of today which is the most 'white person' thing that has ever been said. But it really is. Grime is talking about the mechanics of society in way that guitar music has done at points in time."

Harrison is philosophical about the fact his band's tour has been postponed once again.

He suggests the virus is nature "sending us to our bedrooms to think about what we have done".

In fact, he sees positivity in the lockdown.

"When we are going about our everyday lives, perhaps we have got the blinkers on and we are so focused on getting our head down, working and keeping the wolf from the door that we forget the importance of human contact.

"That's what this moment is teaching us."

:: A Billion Heartbeats is out now.

More:
Mystery Jets man Blaine Harrison on sixth album A Billion Heartbeats and why the NHS is "the closest thing the British have to a religion" -...

Mask-making has become a literal cottage industry over the last month as a means of warding off coronavirus.

Makeshift facial protections are so en vogue lately, even actor Matthew McConaughey as Bobby Bandito jumped on the bandwagon showing how to make a face filter from a bandana and a coffee filter. Now everyone looks like a bandanna bandit walking into essential stores and businesses, whereby in normal times they would be suspected of being the kind of robber McConaughey was channeling in his instructive video.

Its for that reason the Governor of Georgia stepped in and said its okay to wear a mask, even though state law forbids it.

On Monday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp declared a pandemic exemption from a 1951 state law that prohibits wearing masks in public after some black officials warned that some African Americans, fearing harassment by police, might not cover their faces for protection.

The anti-mask law makes it a misdemeanor to wear a mask, hood or other face covering to conceal the identity of the wearer on public property. Georgia passed the law to prevent [Ku Klux] Klan members from wearing hoods during public rallies and marches. With the federal Centers for Disease Control now encouraging Americans to wear masks that cover the mouth and nose in public, Kemp signed an order Monday that says the anti-mask law cant be enforced against people covering their faces as protection against the virus.

See the rest of the story from US News and World Report here.

Gov. Kemps declaration allows citizens to wear masks. But in Texas, several municipalities have recently issued orders requiring masks to be worn. And come to find out, mask laws particularly throughout the South are a patchwork of conflicting standards.

In Austin, a mandate was handed down by the city and Travis County that anyone in public over the age of 10 must wear a protective face mask. As with the previous issuance of the shelter-in-place order, numerous carve-outs were put into place. These exceptions can be made for when people are exercising, are outside only with members of their household or are eating or drinking. The legality of the order was questioned, and the Austin Police are already announcing that it will mostly expect voluntary compliance.

Unlike Georgia, Texas allows for masks. The Lone Star State attempted an anti-mask law in 1925, when then-Governor Miriam Ferguson pushed for and signed a law intended to forbid members of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan from wearing hoods or masks to protect their identities. The Texas Supreme Courts soon overruled it.

It appears Texas and Georgia are not the only states which have struggled with the legal consequences of mask laws.

Activists of the extreme Left or even the alt-Right have been known to wear masks to conceal their identity, be they bandannas or Guy Fawkes masks. A 2017 protest surrounding an ill-fated Milo Yiannopoulos speech at the University of California, Berkeley, featuring thousands of protesters with face coverings prompted the New York Times to do a little digging and a reporter noticed a distinct disparity from how masks are approached in California versus throughout the South and in other places:

Some conservative media sites have criticized the University of California for not cracking down on protesters from the left, and have lauded the tough stance taken by the authorities at Auburn University in Alabama. Before a speech by the white nationalist Richard Spencer at the Auburn campus , the police stopped anti-fascist [sic] protesters and ordered them to remove their masks.

The different approaches by the police at Berkeley and Auburn illustrate more than just a contrast in tactics to try to tame clashes between far-left and far-right demonstrators. The authorities in Alabama also have a law enforcement tool that those in California lack: a broad anti-mask law.

Alabama has had an anti-mask law on the books since the 1940s, with many exceptions such as Halloween and Mardi Gras celebrations.

The Times noted that Ohio has a law that makes it illegal for two or more people to wear white caps, masks or other disguises while committing a misdemeanor.

In West Virginia, the Times also reported, a broad law prohibits masks except for holiday costumes, winter outdoor gear, and other exemptions.

In New York, a law on the books since 1845 was dusted off to arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011. The original law was meant to unveil land dispute protesters who dressed as American Indians to obscure their identities, the Times reported.

Motorcyclists wearing bandannas or other face coverings have found difficulty traveling from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in which laws differ, particularly in Louisiana where a strong anti-mask law carries a six-month to three-year term of imprisonment.

At least 10 other states have anti-mask provisions on the books. But California is a whole other situation.

In 1979, Iranians began seeking asylum in California following the Shahs seizure of power, leading some to complain that masks conceal their identities so that their families back in the Middle East are not the victims of retribution attacks. Thus, the Golden States mask ban was soon struck down by the state courts.

(As a side note: Before the Iranian revolution, it was not mandatory for women to wear the hijab covering but in the U.S. many female adherents to stricter forms of Islam have found difficulty wearing head or face coverings for religious purposes, with state anti-mask laws being a factor and often conflicting with religious freedom legislation.)

California isnt the only place where masks have been allowed for civil rights reasons. In Indiana in 1999, a federal district court case awarded the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan organization in the city of Goshen the right to wear masks in public settings for lawful assemblies.

Tennessee and Florida have also invalidated their anti-mask laws on civil rights grounds.

From the hip:Anti-mask laws, while originally intended to curtail violence, are often challenged on the grounds that they protect the First Amendments right to freedom of assembly and petition.

These laws can serve as an example of how, in the throes of a public safety concern, civil rights can be easily taken away in the name of pragmatism. Rights are also often taken away because of political pressures what legislator wants to run for re-election having been one of the few of his peers to oppose a law designed to push back against the Klan? Isnt that how we ended up with thought crime hate crime laws on the books in so many places (though incredibly difficult to enforce and fully prosecute)? Its all about the feels.

Georgias situation is unique in that, after decades of being invalidated by lower courts, the state Supreme Court found the anti-mask law constitutional only to require further clarification by the governor. The courts logic was that the wearing of a mask amounts to an act of intimidation and a threat of violence, which was not deemed protected speech. But this song-and-dance routine is what happens when a law is passed without a 360-degree view to the potential consequences. The same goes for quickly hobbled together orders declaring what businesses and institutions are essential and non-essential, which well hear a lot about today as states begin implementing their phase-ins of which entities are allowed to re-open amid dwindling COVID-19 cases.

____Image credit: Screenshot of McConaugheys YouTube video, promotional screenshot from scene in Blazing Saddles.

See the rest here:
Mask Hero Or Bandanna Bandito? It Depends On Your State's Anti-Klan Laws - The Hayride