Posted on 04/18/2021 4:57:02 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
I missed this Saturday, but it’s something everyone in America should be required to watch. – Bill Maher is mainly just another leftist propagandist talking head on your TV screen, but every once in a while he strays from the prevailing Democrat/media narrative, engages his own brain and speaks actual logic and facts about some topic or another. Whenever that happens, it’s generally worth listening to.
Friday night, he went off on liberals and the rank disinformation they have bought into regarding COVID-19. He also excoriated the corrupt propaganda media for being guilty of systematically pounding that disinformation into the easily manipulated liberal hive mind in this country.
VDO.AI It’s truly epic stuff. Watch it:
Here’s a transcript for those of you who still like to read stuff:
And finally new rule, don’t spin me when it comes to my health. Over the past year, the COVID pandemic has prompted the medical establishment, the media, and the government to take a scared straight approach to getting the public to comply with their recommendations. Well, I’m from a different school. Give it to me straight doc, because in the long run that always works better than you can’t handle the truth.
Now I get it: doctors tell people lies because they don’t trust you to finish the antibiotics. And media, well, I think we all know if it bleeds, it leads. The more they can get you to stay inside and watch their panic porn, the higher the ratings.
Researchers at Dartmouth built a database recently monitoring the COVID coverage of the major news outlets across the world and found that while other countries mix the good news in with the bad, the U.S. national media reported almost 90% bad news. Even as things were getting better, the reporting remained negative.
And politicians, they lie because it’s their nature to cover their ass. They don’t get blamed if things goes badly and also to keep in practice.
But when all of our sources for medical information have an agenda to spin us, yeah, you wind up with a badly misinformed population, including on the left. Liberals often mock the Republican misinformation bubble, which of course is very real. Ask anyone who works at Hillary’s pizza parlor. And we do know conservatives have some loopy ideas about COVID like the third of Republicans who believe it couldn’t be spread by someone showing no symptoms.
But what about liberals? You know, the ‘high information by the science’ people. In a recent Gallup survey, Democrats did much worse than Republicans in getting the right answer to the fundamental question: what are the chances that someone who gets COVID will need to be hospitalized? The answer is between one and 5%. 41% of Democrats thought it was over 50%, another 28% put the chances at 20 to 49.
So almost 70% of Democrats are wildly off on this key question and also have a greatly exaggerated view of the danger of COVID too and the mortality rate among children. All of which explains why today, the states with the highest share of schools that are still closed are all blue states. So if the right wing media bubble has to own things like climate change denial, shouldn’t liberal media have to answer for how did your audience wind up believing such a bunch of crap about COVID?
A new report in the Atlantic says the media won’t stop putting pictures of the beach on stories about COVID even though it’s looking increasingly like the beach is the best place to avoid it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and vitamin D is the key to a robust immune system. Texas lifted its COVID restrictions recently and their infection rates went down in part because of people getting outside to let the sun and wind do their thing.
But to many liberals, that can’t be right because Texas and beach loving Florida have Republican governors, but life is complicated. I’ve read that the governor of Florida reads. I know we like to think of Florida as only middle school teachers on bath salts having sex with their students in front of an alligator but apparently the governor is also a voracious consumer of the scientific literature. And maybe that’s why he protected his most vulnerable population – the elderly – way better than did the governor of New York.
Those are just facts. I know it’s irresponsible of me to say them.
Look, here’s what I’m saying, I don’t want politics mixed in with my medical decisions. And now that everything is politics, that’s all we do. If their side says COVID is nothing, our side has to say it’s everything.
Trump said it would go away like a miracle. And we said it was World War Z. Trump said we should ingest household disinfectants and we laughed as we should of course. And then it turned out 19% of America was literally drenching the fruit in Clorox. And now of course, we find out that all that paranoia about surfaces was bullshit anyway even though we spent hours and hours wiping our knobs with Lysol. And if you’ve ever wiped your knob with Lysol, I think you know.
Now go home and wash the mail. If you lie to people, even for a very good cause you lose their trust. I think a lot of people… Thank you. I think a lot of people died because of Trump’s incompetence. And I think a lot of people died because talking about obesity had become a third rail in America.
I know you’ve heard me pound this fried drumstick before, but since I last mentioned it, a stunning statistic was reported: 78% of those hospitalized, ventilated, or dead from COVID have been overweight. It is the key piece of the puzzle – by far the most pertinent factor – but you dare not speak its name. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if there had been some national campaign similar to Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program with the urgency of the pandemic behind it, if the media and the doctors had made a point to keep saying, ‘but there’s something you can do.’
But we’ll never know because they never did. Because the last thing you want to do is say something insensitive. We would literally rather die. Instead, we were told to lock down. Unfortunately the killer was already in the house and her name is Little Debbie.
[End]
That is great stuff right there. Naturally, liberals across social media responded not by taking a step back and engaging in just a moment of introspection, but by attacking Maher and impugning his personal integrity.
Because of course that is what they did: That inability – nay, abject refusal – to engage in just a little, tiny bit of introspection is how they became so dangerously ignorant collectively in the first place. It is not just what they do, it is literally who they are.
And that is perhaps the single main reason why our country sits on the edge today.
That is all.
Good one...
Looks like Maher is slowly working his way into being a target of the Wokesters and Socialists he has supported. I wonder how he will like it as a ‘target?”
F Maher, he’ll get what he deserves.
Now I get it: doctors tell people lies because they don’t trust you to finish the antibiotics. And media, well, I think we all know if it bleeds, it leads. The more they can get you to stay inside and watch their panic porn, the higher the ratings.
So, where's he been for the past 14 months? What a jackass. The pathetic part is, he's on the air, and trying to stay on the air, using exactly the same method, and speaking to (mostly) exactly the same audience of stooges.
True, but will he realize that he is “deserving” of it? I won’t lament when his excoriation by the Left begins.
Civ - Maher often asks his liberal ‘elite’ guests to consider our positions. As far as I can tell Bill Maher is the ONLY liberal doing that - and it happens almost every show. Not for long of course... and he trashes conservatives like all liberals do... but the man’s too intelligent to do knee jerk WOKE - he’s interesting.
“And we do know conservatives have some loopy ideas about COVID like the third of Republicans who believe it couldn’t be spread by someone showing no symptoms.”
This sounds like another totally made up “fact” designed to prove Republicans are stupid unscientific people. I have never heard anyone of either party say that - and I can’t think of any reason why Republicans in particular would be attracted to that idea...
What I have heard plenty of Republicans say is that if there are no symptoms - who cares if it spreads?
Who knows how many other harmless microbes we have been passing around since the beginning of time? Who cares if there are no symptoms?
“The answer is between one and 5%. 41% of Democrats thought it was over 50%, another 28% put the chances at 20 to 49.”
I think the answer is a hell of a lot lower than 1 to 5%!!
I still haven’t met a single person who had to be hospitalized - and even though many people were hospitalized - there are still plenty of questions regarding what constitutes a “need” to be hospitalized, how many people were needlessly hospitalized for Covid, and how many were hospitalized for other reasons who happened to have covid, or assumed have had it.
Solid facts and logic take the fun out of insanity....
When he speaks the truth?
Maher has some very good ideas and has the balls to say what he thinks, and because he is a liberal, he can get away with truth telling.
Did you watch the video?
If you watched it, and you disagree with his views on covid, you are beyond help.
He and Affleck argued on the air once upon a time, of course, besting Ben Affleck in a battle of wits isn’t much of a claim.
Maher, Sam Harris Battle Affleck, Kristof on Radical Islam
Oct 4, 2014
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3211397/posts
Affleck: Bush ‘Can Be Hung’ for Leakgate
4/8/2006
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1611784/posts
In a battle of wits, Afflect comes unarmed...
Thanks for supporting my point...
It’s just his schtick. I’m not impressed at all.
Maher's just like Affleck, but says provocative things to keep his ratings. No minds ever get changed watching his show, because if that could happen, they wouldn't be watching it.
True Civ... of course you’re right on this... but every now and then Maher makes a liberal get a weird look on their face... almost as if for a second they consider the possibility they might not be right on every issue. Of course it only lasts a few seconds but somehow it’s satisfying...
He probably goes off script (y'know, on the off chance that anyone thinks its not quasi-scripted, like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was), because being articuluate isn't the same as being intelligent, and they get that deer in the headlights look.
F him. He wanted the economy to tank to get Trump out of office. He got his wish.
About 40% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic; they show no symptoms at all. Another 40% show mild symptoms, similar to a cold or allergies, and require no medical intervention. About 20% of infections result in at least a visit to the doctor. 5% require hospitalization. 3% of COVID-19 infections result in ICU admittance. 0.65% of COVID-19 infections result in death.
Those are the general numbers provided from studies in multiple countries, including the US, based on data from serology testing and studies where blanket (e.g. whole town) testing was performed. It matches data from other controlled settings such as cruise ships.
Yes, I know those are the numbers.
But all statistics are not created equal.
For example, at sea level, 100% of the time water boils at 212°. Tests confirm this in many independent experiments. All scientists agree.
But it is NOT the number of studies, the consensus of scientists, or their educational credentials that lend credibility to the data. It is the precise definition, accountability and measurement of data that makes this experiment so conclusive.
It is easy to measure temperature of water.
It is easy to observe when water is boiling.
There are no political or financial advantages to reporting false data.
Compare that to covid.
Assessing the need for hospitalization is subjective - not deterministic.
The absence or presence of covid is difficult to measure or prove.
There can be profound political and financial incentives to skew the data.
I don’t trust any of the covid data.
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