-- Rep. Madison Cawthorn

New York City NY

Description

"If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it's going to lead to one place -- and it's bloodshed.... As much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there is nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American." -- Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), speaking at the Macon County Republican Party headquarters on Sunday night, as shown in a video that has since been taken offline. THE BIG NEWS Republicans Are Killing Off Their Base with COVID Lies Medical misinformation continues to put people in danger. HuffPost has an in-depth look at the Front Line Covid Critical Care Alliance, an ad-hoc group of doctors that has promoted ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, against government advice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that "improper use of the drug can lead to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension, decreased consciousness, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, coma and death." But that isn't stopping people from buying and consuming it in great quantities, egged on by groups like the FLCCC. Vaccines remain the best protection against contracting the coronavirus and mitigating the severity of COVID symptoms. But the FLCCC hasn't embraced that fact and continues to recommend ivermectin despite a glaring lack of evidence in its favor. As HuffPost puts it, "somewhere along the way, the group’s quest to make the human version of an anti-parasite medication the standard of care for COVID merged with the anti-vaccine crusade." Dr. Eric Osgood, a former member of the group, says ivermectin should never have been promoted as a vaccine alternative or miracle cure. "People are drinking sheep drench! If that’s not a call to use your clout and influence to say, 'Enough is enough! Get your shots!' then I just don’t know," he says. Meanwhile, the New York Times surveys the anti-vaccine, anti-mask, and otherwise pro-virus positions taken by Republican governors around the country -- even though all of them have personally gotten vaccinated. "One Republican strategist privately lamented, only half-jokingly, that the party was going to kill off part of its own base with its vaccine hesitancy," the Times says. Time will tell. Finally, Vice and the Washington Post report that everyone who attended a recent city council meeting in Independence, Missouri -- where a local mask mandate was voted down before an angry and largely maskless crowd -- has been exposed to the coronavirus. Bartender! Another round of sheep drench, on the double! MORE STORIES TO WATCH Progressives Call for New Fed Chair Members of the Squad are pressuring President Joe Biden to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends in February, Politico reports. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), all of whom serve on the House Financial Services Committee, called on Biden to "re-imagine a Federal Reserve focused on eliminating climate risk and advancing racial and economic justice" -- causes that Powell has neglected. Taliban Urges Patience Amid Crises With U.S. forces having pulled out of Afghanistan, attention is turning to how the Taliban will govern the country, whether they will honor their offer of amnesty to those who fought against the group over the past two decades, and how they will cope with anticipated food shortages resulting from a major drought. The Associated Press reports that women are still attending school and music is being played at weddings; "for now, the Taliban appear less interested in imposing restrictions on daily life than in getting the country running again, a task that could prove challenging to fighters who have spent most of their lives waging an insurgency in the countryside." Model Labor Law Targets Amazon Warehouses California lawmakers are moving forward with first-of-its-kind legislation that aims to make working in Amazon warehouses a little more bearable. Assembly Bill 701, which will soon come before the State Senate, will require warehouses to disclose quotas/work speed metrics, prohibit penalties for bathroom use, and bar retaliation against worker complaints. FBI Circling GOP Governor in Corruption Scandal The Arizona Republic reports that the FBI's public corruption unit is investigating Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's staff over the issuance of tax refunds worth up to $100 million to one of Ducey's wealthy backers, G. Brint Ryan. One of the former Ducey staffers involved in the alleged scheme, Mike Liburdi, was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump. SOME NUMBER 1 Million That's how many people in Louisiana and Mississippi are without electricity thanks to Hurricane Ida -- and the outages could last weeks. At least 300,000 lost their access to clean water. Latest U.S. Drone Strike on Afghan Civilians Is a Crystallization of the War on Terror - After a US drone strike aimed at ISIS-K resulted in the deaths of 10 civilians, seven of whom were children, the MR crew reflects on how civilians casualties are often under-counted.