Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• The Good, the Bad, and the Embarrassing in America’s COVID-19 Response - Were Americans too unruly, or did elected officials expect too little of them? - link

• Why Won’t Amnesty International Call Alexey Navalny a Prisoner of Conscience? - The Russian regime has used both its vast media infrastructure and its judicial system to vilify its opponents. - link

• Inside Xinjiang’s Prison State - Survivors detail the scope of China’s campaign of persecution against ethnic and religious minorities. - link

• The Secret Early History of Queer Foster Families - In the nineteen-seventies, social workers in several states placed queer teen-agers with queer foster parents, in discrete acts of quiet radicalism. - link

• A Deportation Nightmare in the Bronx - Arrested for jaywalking, a DACA recipient spent the pandemic in ICE detention because of what New York City officials admit was an “operational error.” He could be deported as soon as next week. - link

From Vox

• Kevin McCarthy’s CPAC panel shows how the GOP has devolved into a Trump personality cult -

  

  McCarthy contorts himself to praise Trump, as Trump reportedly considers denouncing him anyway.

  If you watched House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Saturday panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after spending four months in a coma, you’d not only think that there was no January 6 insurrection aimed at overthrowing former President Donald Trump’s election loss, but that Trump actually won a second term.

  McCarthy’s remarks in particular — and CPAC 2021 in general — illustrate how whatever second thoughts the Republican establishment had about Trump following the insurrection have fallen by the wayside. And they were a reminder that although Trump did lose reelection, he remains a popular, and therefore powerful, figure in the Republican Party.

  McCarthy didn’t make the former president the focus of his remarks, but was quick to praise Trump early during his event, crediting the former president for Republicans picking up seats in the House of Representatives following last November’s election.

  “President Trump worked on all these races,” McCarthy said, later adding, “Even when President Trump was sick with Covid … he would do these rallies over the phone for each district, and he would have the candidate on and then he would talk, and he would turn out the votes.”

  McCarthy didn’t talk much about Trump during his CPAC panel discussion, aside from crediting him for Republicans gaining seats in the House last November pic.twitter.com/jzyartRYb4

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 27, 2021

“Listen — we’re gonna continue to do exactly what we did in the last election,” McCarthy said at another point.

The rest of CPAC has been similar in tone. In fact, despite President Joe Biden’s decisive popular vote and Electoral College victory over Trump — and Trump’s shameful efforts to overthrow the election during the transition period to a new administration — CPAC 2021 has served as a cultish celebration of the former president. None of the few remaining prominent anti-Trump Republicans were invited to speak, and no criticism of the former president has been brooked.

Along these lines, perhaps the most revealing remark during McCarthy’s panel discussion came from Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who, like many of his Republican colleagues, skipped the vote on the Covid-19 relief bill so he could appear at CPAC.

“The most popular Republican figure in Congress today is Kevin McCarthy,” Banks said. “Let me tell you who the least popular Republicans in the party are today — they are those very few Republicans who want to erase Donald Trump and Donald Trump supporters from our party.”

Banks’s observations about anti-Trump Republicans may be technically true, but what he didn’t mention is that Trump has dragged down the popularity of all GOP officials. A recent Forbes piece by Andrew Solender explains:

Republicans have the lowest ratings [of national politicians], with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy down by 20 points, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) down by 30 points and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suffering a staggering deficit of 44 points, with just 17% favorability and 61% unfavorability.

Nonetheless, there’s a political calculus in McCarthy’s decision to stand behind Trump, even after he criticized him in the days following the insurrection.

Trump may not be popular in general, but he remains overwhelmingly popular with the GOP base — a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll found 79 percent of Republicans viewed Trump favorably, while McCarthy received just 34 percent support among Republicans. And a recent USA Today/Suffolk University study found 46 percent of Republicans said they would leave the GOP should Trump start his own political party.

It is Trump who can decide the fate of the GOP, and of individual lawmakers, and he has made it clear in the past that he values those lawmakers who are loyal to him. But there are also indications that the level of loyalty McCarthy has shown thus far, as fawning as it may be, may not be enough for Trump.

Trump is reportedly thinking about denouncing McCarthy during his CPAC speech on Sunday

McCarthy initially had some doubts about Trump.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, for instance, he was recorded saying he believed Trump was literally on Vladimir Putin’s payroll. But during Trump’s tenure as president, McCarthy — who served as House Majority Leader until Republicans lost the majority in the 2018 midterms, then became House Minority Leader — emerged as one of Trump’s staunchest congressional defenders.

McCarthy concocted far-fetched arguments to defend Trump during his first impeachment, including that there is a precedent against impeaching presidents in their first term, and went as far as to patronize and promote Trump’s private business. He echoed Trump’s lies about the FBI investigation into his relationship with Russia being tantamount to “a modern-day coup” and, while sitting next to Donald Trump Jr. at last year’s CPAC, farcically cited Wikipedia edits as evidence that big tech companies are biased against Republicans.

Even after Trump lost the election last November, McCarthy went on Fox News and held up his disastrous coronavirus response as an example of “remarkable” governance. He defended a recorded phone call of Trump trying to bully the Georgia secretary of state into throwing out his loss there as evidence that he’s “always been concerned about the integrity of the election.”

For a brief moment after the deadly January 6 insurrection Trump encouraged, however, McCarthy’s tune changed a bit. While McCarthy joined 146 other Republicans in voting to overthrow the election results, on January 13 he gave a speech on the House floor saying Trump “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress.”

But as it became clear that the Republican base was sticking with Trump, McCarthy quickly fell back in line. Just eight days after he said Trump “bears responsibility” for the insurrection, McCarthy said basically the exact opposite thing during a news conference.

“I don’t believe he provoked it,” McCarthy said, referring to the January 6 insurrection.

But that remarkable flip-flop apparently wasn’t enough to keep McCarthy in Trump’s good graces. Trump is now reportedly steamed that McCarthy stood by House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) even after Cheney voted for Trump’s second impeachment.

The GOP split between the large MAGA faction McCarthy represents and the much smaller anti-Trump faction led by Cheney was illustrated in a scene on Wednesday, when, during a news conference, McCarthy told a reporter that he thinks Trump should be speaking at CPAC. He was immediately contradicted by Cheney, who was standing behind him and said, “I don’t believe [Trump] should be playing a role in the future of the party.”

“On that high note, thank you all very much,” McCarthy quipped, before walking away from reporters.

Trump is reportedly bothered that instead of purging Cheney from the party, McCarthy supported her in retaining her leadership position in the House Republican caucus — leading to awkward scenes like the one from Wednesday. Tara Palmeri provided the full context in the Saturday installment of Politico Playbook:

Three people close to Trump tell me that he’s stewing anew over KEVIN MCCARTHY. It’s become so frequent that his advisers think the House minority leader may be in for a public reprimand. That’s even after the powwow at Mar-a-Lago where McCarthy tried to patch things up after he denounced Trump for the violence on Jan. 6.

The reason for Trump’s displeasure: an emboldened Cheney.

Each time Cheney criticizes Trump from her leadership post as the No. 3 House Republican, he’s reminded that it was McCarthy who pleaded with his conference to keep her on as chair — despite her vote to impeach Trump. The latest trigger came Wednesday, when Cheney said at a press conference that Trump should not lead the party going forward while McCarthy awkwardly stood by.

McCarthy in particular, and CPAC speakers in general, have sided against Cheney in this dispute. On Friday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) claimed during his speech that Cheney would be booed if she showed up at CPAC, and he’s not wrong. But that Trump is even considering publicly castigating McCarthy just because he won’t work to purge the handful of House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment reflects the extent to which the party has devolved into a personality cult — one that’s endured even after the leader was defeated.

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter. Every Friday, you’ll get an explainer of a big policy story from the week, a look at important research that recently came out, and answers to reader questions — to guide you through the first 100 days of President Joe Biden’s administration.

• CPAC 2021 shows how conservatives have learned nothing about the coronavirus -

  

  CPAC organizers begged attendees to wear masks — and got booed.

  One of the most enduring clips from the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference was Mick Mulvaney dismissing the coronavirus pandemic as a media-driven “attempt to bring down the president.” More than 500,000 deaths and a year later, the first two full days of CPAC 2021 in Orlando, Florida, illustrated how little conservatives have learned.

  Throughout the day on Friday, speakers characterized the coronavirus — which continues to claim more than 2,000 lives each day in the US — as something that only liberal wimps worry about or, more nefariously, as little more than a pretext Democratic public officials have used to shut down businesses and schools.

  This type of rhetoric might seem absurd to people who take science and public health seriously, but it doesn’t to CPAC attendees.

  One of the most memorable scenes from Friday’s festivities came early on, when event officials had to take to the stage and beg people to respect “private property rights” and “the rule of law” by wearing masks while walking around the hotel where the conference is being held. Unhappy attendees responded by booing and yelling “freedom!”

  CPAC officials have to remind attendees to please, for the love of God, comply with the hotel’s rules and wear a mask. Unhappy people in the audience yell “freedom!” pic.twitter.com/hvoTPLKQ9J

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 26, 2021

People could be excused for experiencing some cognitive dissonance. The speakers who came before and after that incident demonstrated that enduring a year-long pandemic hasn’t motivated conservatives to take basic public health practices more seriously.

This was perhaps most evident on Saturday, when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, gave the headlining speech. Despite the fact that more than 1 in 500 South Dakotans has died from Covid-19 — a mortality rate that places the state among the 10 hardest-hit — Noem took a victory lap and portrayed public health responses to the pandemic as largely unnecessary.

“Let me be clear — Covid didn’t crush the economy, government crushed the economy,” she said, before taking a direct shot at trusted public health experts.

“Dr. Fauci is wrong a lot,” she added.

Noem’s comments encapsulated the tone with which the coronavirus is being talked about at CPAC. Though America’s disastrous response to the pandemic was the responsibility of a Republican president, Noem and other speakers have pointed at the fact that blue states like New York and Massachusetts are among the highest in per capita deaths to discredit public health science and make it seem as though Trump’s bungling was actually a success story. Unfortunately, contrary to what Noem claims, it was not.

“This is just dumb”

Notably, a trio of Republican senators was among the worst offenders when it came to spreading Covid-19 misinformation on Friday.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) got the morning going by bragging not only about going to church “during a time of Covid” but also about singing during the service.

“I even dared to sing in church, contrary to California doctrine,” he said.

But it has nothing to do with “California doctrine,” whatever that is. Singing in church was linked with superspreader events in the early days of the pandemic last spring, so public health experts recommended against it, and some states banned it (until a Supreme Court ruling in November found such bans to be unconstitutional). It’s not safe, unless you’ve already been vaccinated — which Lankford has been, but most Americans still have not.

Lankford’s comment set the tone. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) began his speech by cracking a joke about his decision to travel to Mexico for a family vacation last week while millions of his constituents languished without power. He then pretended to not understand why it’s important to wear masks during a pandemic, describing it as “strange” that restaurant-goers are required to wear masks in many states unless they are eating or drinking.

“You walk in, you gotta put your mask on — sadly, I’ve got two — you walk in, you gotta put your mask on. You sit down, you can take your mask off. See, apparently, the virus is actually connected to elevation,” Cruz quipped, adding later: “This is just dumb.”

Later, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) mocked Maryland officials for state public health guidelines that ended up prohibiting CPAC from having the conference in its usual location just outside Washington, DC.

“Even though cases are plummeting and vaccination rates are surging, we are still banned from getting anywhere near our nation’s capital,” Cotton said, as if the fact that daily new cases and deaths are down from where they were two months ago is a good reason to immediately drop all public health guidelines.

In hindsight, CPAC 2020 was one of the earliest indicators that Republicans would politicize public health responses to the coronavirus pandemic by framing any measure that closed businesses or schools as an impingement on their personal freedoms. That mentality went on to infuse a reelection campaign in which Trump spread disease and misinformation across the country at rallies that made a mockery of basic public health measures.

But even after Trump’s defeat, conservatives’ approach to the coronavirus pandemic remains unchanged.

It’s still Trump’s party in more ways than one

Beyond making a mockery of the coronavirus, another big theme from Friday was speakers pushing the same lies about the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

Wayne Dupree, a conspiracy theorist who once claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag, used a panel discussion to try to blame antifa and Black Lives Matter for an insurrection that was perpetrated by Trump supporters. Later, a panel discussion devoted to “How Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence” of election fraud had to be interrupted on Right Side Broadcasting’s CPAC stream so hosts could distance themselves from the panelists’ claims. (Voting machine companies have filed and threatened billion-dollar lawsuits against individuals and media organizations that have falsely claimed machines were rigged against Trump.)

And, of course, the day was infused with lots of culture war grievances about everything from social media companies having the temerity to fact-check Trump to Mr. Potato Head’s genitalia.

The big takeaway from all this is that conservatives haven’t even tried to learn lessons or make adjustments following an election cycle in which they lost control of the White House and the Senate.

Like it was last year, CPAC 2021 is a cultish celebration of Donald Trump that will be headlined Sunday with a speech by the former president — an embodiment of a movement that stands for little more than owning the libs.

• Poll: A majority of Americans think teachers should be vaccinated before reopening schools -

  

  The poll shows Americans have nuanced opinions about when — and how — to reopen schools.

  Many schools have been closed since the earliest days of the pandemic, resorting to remote learning in an effort to reduce the spread of Covid-19. Now that scientists have a better understanding of how to limit infections in schools — and with vaccine distribution ramping up throughout the country — some parents, students, and educators are calling for the days of closed schools to soon be in the rearview mirror.

  But a new Pew Research poll has found that a majority of Americans — 59 percent — believe that K-12 schools that have yet to open should remain closed for now, at least until all teachers who want a vaccine get one, compared to just 40 percent who say schools should reopen as quickly as possible.

  The poll of 10,121 US adults (taken from February 16 to 21) also found that 61 percent of adults believe schools should make the possibility that students may fall behind with online learning central to deciding whether to reopen.

  That percentage is up 13 percent from a similar July 2020 poll taken at the height of the pandemic. In last year’s poll, respondents were more concerned with preventing the spread of the virus among students (61 percent) and teachers (60 percent). Pew found respondents far less worried about these concerns in its latest poll, with 48 percent concerned with spread among teachers and 45 percent concerned about the spread among students.

  The results are somewhat contradictory; if students falling behind is a key concern, that would suggest schools ought to be opened as soon as possible, given that current data suggests online learning has slowed students’ progress. However, if vaccinating all teachers who would like to be inoculated is important, then reopening may have to be delayed, given the current availability of vaccines.

  The issue of when to reopen schools is one that evokes strong emotions on either side of the debate. Parents have been left to care for their own kids while managing learning online at home over the last year, while teachers have understandably been terrified of exposing themselves and their families to a potentially deadly disease.

  According to an EducationWeek report released Wednesday, at least 227 active teachers have died of Covid-19 in the US since the start of the pandemic. That teaching in person may prove fatal is a legitimate concern that has many teachers’ unions across the country now pushing for delaying school reopenings until their teachers can get the vaccine.

  The Pew poll suggests that a majority of US adults are sympathetic to that position, even if it may mean putting students further behind academically.

  The poll revealed differences of opinions along racial lines. Eighty percent of Black respondents said schools should wait until teachers who want it can be vaccinated; 72 percent of Asian respondents agreed, along with 69 percent of Hispanic respondents. However, only a slight majority (51 percent) of white poll takers said reopenings should be contingent on vaccination.

  The numbers were even starker along partisan lines, with nearly 8 in 10 Democrats (79 percent) agreeing with waiting until teachers can be vaccinated, compared to just 34 percent of Republicans.

  There’s a federal push to reopen schools — but doing so may still take more time

  President Joe Biden has pushed for a quick return to full time, in-person learning since taking office late last month, with the CDC releasing new guidelines for reopening schools safely. But those guidelines are also preventing some school districts from being able to reopen.

  One of the guidelines recommends that areas with high local spread of Covid-19 — a condition currently applicable to large swaths of the US — should only reopen with a fraction of the student population, or remain closed altogether.

  The lack of action has left many parents frustrated, and students at risk of falling behind and suffering negative mental health outcomes. And even with an ambitious vaccination program, waiting to vaccinate all teachers will take time, as epidemiologist Benjamin Linas noted for Vox:

  I appreciate that returning to in-person learning carries some risk for educators. There is no immediately foreseeable scenario in which there will be truly no risk of Covid-19 infection in school settings.

  However, insisting on a zero-risk scenario for school reopening is a commitment to long-term remote learning, which most people agree is not acceptable. We owe it to educators to do everything we can to mitigate risk.

  Vaccines can help lower this risk even further but do not save the day just yet. It will take time to vaccinate all teachers (who are only currently eligible for shots in just over half of states) and, still longer, students. And even when people are vaccinated, we do not yet know for certain that the vaccine prevents transmission of the virus (which has been a sticking point for educators and their unions because it means that, theoretically, they could pick up the infection without getting sick and transmit it to others, like unvaccinated family members).

  Balancing the health of teachers and students with the academic progress and mental health of students is no easy task. Reflecting this, public opinion appears to be uniquely nuanced on the issue. The decisions of administrators and teachers’ unions may lead to some frustration in the short term, but perhaps the best news is that the pandemic will, eventually, be over.

From The Hindu: Sports

• ICC will get written assurance from BCCI by March regarding issuance of visas for our players, says Ehsan Mani - Mani said if India qualifies for the WTC final it would be impossible for the Asia Cup to be held this year as planned due to a clash of dates.

• Para athlete Nishad Kumar tests positive for COVID-19 - The governing body said Nishad “has been moved to SS Sparsh Multi-speciality hospital.”

• ICC Rankings | Rohit reaches career-best eighth rank; Ashwin, Patel also move up - ICC said that player rankings will move to a weekly updating system from March 2021 for both men and women.

• Gold for Rakesh and mixed doubles pair of Harvinder-Pooja in Fazza world ranking tournament - Indian para archer Rakesh Kumar stood on top of the podium in the Compound event while the pair of Harvinder Singh and Pooja grabbed gold in the rec

• Indian shotgun coach, in Cairo for ISSF World Cup, tests positive for COVID-19 - The coach is asymptomatic and in quarantine at the moment.

From The Hindu: National News

• V.P. Joy takes over as Kerala new Chief Secretary - He replaces Vishwas Mehta

• My dream is to see India and Pakistan become true good friends, says Malala Yousafzai - Malala Yousafzai, who virtually addressed the Jaipur Literature Festival, also called for protection of minorities and the right to protest

• Low-key bidding likely at spectrum auctions on March 1 - Bands valued at ₹3.92 lakh cr at stake; 5G airwaves not on sale

• In Nagaland, an itch for reviving prickly cages for offenders - Made of logs of a tree that irritates the skin, these cages are prescribed by customary laws for shaming law-breakers

• Can AI pay a month’s salary to terminated contractual pilots: HC asks national carrier - The pilots have sought a direction to AI to restore their contractual engagements or pay them salaries along with flying allowances.

From BBC: Europe

• Covid vaccine: Germany urged to back AstraZeneca jab for over-65s - A senior German immunologist tells the BBC that his country should reverse its decision on the jab.

• Covid-19: Belgium prisoners quarantined after virus outbreak - All inmates at Namur prison have been confined to their cells amid the virus outbreak, officials say.

• LeBron vs Zlatan: Who won the politics bout? - “I will never shut up,” James tells Ibrahimovic in political activism spat.

• Covid-19: Police officers injured at Dublin anti-lockdown protest - Police say 23 people have been arrested after disorder at an anti-lockdown protest.

• Pompeii: Archaeologists unveil ceremonial chariot discovery - The ornate discovery was used during festivities and parades almost 2,000 years ago, experts say.

From Ars Technica

• Clubhouse’s security and privacy lag behind its explosive growth - The platform has promised to do better after a string of incidents. - link

• FDA authorizes J&J COVID vaccine after unanimous vote [Updated] - An FDA advisory committee voted Friday 22-0 in favor of authorization. - link

• As important as the Beetle? Two days with Volkswagen’s electric ID.4 - It’s a competent but not flashy crossover with a real-world range of 250 miles. - link

• Creator or Creature? A Nightmare Wakes dramatizes the birth of Frankenstein - Ars chats with director Nora Unkel about the origins, themes of her first feature film. - link

• Atlantic currents seem to have started fading last century - Another predicted impact of climate change may be here. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• Letters between a father and son -

  Dear son;

  Your mother and I love you very much, and we miss you dearly ever since you went to prison. I especially miss you now that spring is here, and it is time to plow the fields. The ground is hard, and my back is old. I am afraid I will never be able to plant the crops in time.

  Your loving father

  —————————————-

  Dear Dad:

  Do not dig in the field. That is where I hide that thing. You know I can not say what it is because they read our mail. Just do not dig out there.

  Your son

  —————————————-

  Dear son:

  The cops came out and dug up my fields. They said they were looking for something. Thanks, son. It looks like I will get the crops planted.

  Your loving and grateful father

  submitted by /u/withouta3
  [link] [comments]

• Pornhub now has a category for Coronavirus videos -

  It’s for sick fucks.

  submitted by /u/Wal-Flower
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• Three English men were in a bar and spotted an Irish man. One of the guys said he was going to bug him. -

  He walked over to the Irish man and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, I hear your St. Patrick was a sissy.” “Oh really, hmm, didn’t know that.”

  Puzzled, the English man walked back to his buddies. “I told him St. Patrick was a sissy and he didn’t care!” “You just don’t know how to set him off. Watch and learn.”

  The second English man walked over and tapped the Irish man on the shoulder. “I hear your St. Patrick was a transvestite!” “Oh, wow, I didn’t know that, thank you.”

  Shocked beyond belief, the English man went back to his buddies. “You are right, he is unshakable!”

  The third English man said: “No, no, no, I will really bug him, you just watch.”

  The English man walked over to the Irish man, tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I hear your St. Patrick was an Englishman!” “Yeah, that’s what your buddies were trying to tell me.”

  submitted by /u/nothinlefttochoose
  [link] [comments]

• Whats the leading cause of dry skin? -

  Towels

  submitted by /u/Qrow_pine
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• I was blessed with a 9 inch penis -

  The priest is in jail now

  submitted by /u/E420CDI
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