By Doug Porter
If you been keeping up with the news you’ve no doubt heard about an outbreak of a very serious disease occurring in West Africa. It’s called Ebola and is fatal in an average of about 50% of the people who are infected, according to the World Health Organization. Many news accounts say “up to” 90%, which may be a factor in the outbreaks of another disease making the rounds.
There is also an outbreak of a very serious condition in the United States. It’s called Teabola and causes irrational fear in about 90% of the people who are infected. The disease is being spread by the same media outlets and social media networks responsible for breakouts of Obama Derangement Syndrome throughout the United States.
Today we’ll take a look at both Teabola and Ebola in the media.
Fox News has been in the front lines of the Teabola crisis. And with sooo many scare stories to chose from, it’s hard to know where to start.
Here’s Steve Doocy on Fox and Friends grilling Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden on why he should be trusted to talk about the Ebola virus given his role in the Obama administration:
One other theme we got on the email, Doctor, was this — and this is a political thing, but you’re part of the administration. They feel that the administration has misled a lot of people on a lot of things. Why should we believe you when you’re telling us this stuff?
Here’s Andrea Tantaros on a Fox panel warning us “I think we know we can’t rely on people for human intelligence. We can’t!” And saying “at a time when we should be getting prepared, the president was dancing in Martha’s Vineyard.”
Here’s Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce:
Making no effort to stop #Ebola at our border makes sense if Obama’s narrative incl destroying the idea that US is an exceptional country
— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) October 2, 2014
See? Obama’s doing this on purpose.
Then there is the guy who walked through Atlanta’s International Airport on Thursday, wearing protective medical clothing, goggles, and breathing mask, with the words “CDC is lying” painted on his back. You just know Fox news was all over THAT story.
From Media Matters:
On Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Mobley was interviewed for nearly 9 minutes, exclaiming that “people need to be scared.” He then warned that Ebola will soon “get to every third-world country, and it’s going to devour them,” leading to daily Ebola cases in the U.S. He complained that “I came through international customs last night. Although on the front page of USA Today it says we’re screening at airports, there’s no thermal screening, they didn’t ask where I’ve been, they didn’t ask if I’ve been sick … they asked if I had tobacco or alcohol, that is it.” But travelers are being screened in affected countries – Mobley arrived from Guatemala, which has not seen a single case of Ebola.
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
The chattering class of nativists are also promoting the Teabola crisis to stoke fears about immigration. At Daily Caller Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies was invited to comment on a news story touting the “Roughly 13,500 people from the Ebola-stricken countries of Sierra Leon, Guinea and Liberia have visas to visit the United States.”
Obviously she wants them all banned at the border:
Without the visa changes, the federal government is encouraging foreign government officials, professionals and wealthy people to flee Ebola countries to get free medical services in Texas and other states, she said.
“People are already coming here for ‘birth tourism’” to ensure their children has U.S. citizenship, Vaughan said.
“There’s no reason that people won’t come here for treatment that doesn’t exist in their country,” she said, especially “if there is no effort to recoup [medical] costs or to prevent people coming.”
“People pay attention to our border policy and try to take advantage of anything they see,” she said, citing the surge of 130,000 poor Central Americans who have crossed the southern border since last October.
Congressman Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., earned a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact nearly three months ago for his claims in a letter to the CDC about “Reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning.” The lack of truth in his letter hasn’t stopped a host of other right wing types from making the same claim.
In fact, you could easily make the claim that Teabola is spreading faster and is more contagious than Ebola.
Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever
The World Health Organization fact sheet on Ebola is a good source for non-panic striken facts. Here one can learn things like there are actually five species within the three genera of the virus family Filoviridae. And that fruit bats are suspected to be the original source of the disease.
Ebola IS a terrible disease, and the most serious (in terms of fatalities) of the four deadly viruses causing outbreaks around the world. But it’s certainly not something to be afraid of for the vast majority of people. The New York Times history and fact sheet on the disease is about as complete as it gets. If you have concerns, I suggest starting there.
The Rodney Dangerfield of SoCal Politics Gets Some Respect
Running against Republican Congressman Darrell Issa has got to be one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. The 49th Congressional District, encompassing northern San Diego County and a bit Orange County, is solidly Republican. Issa is a celebrity candidate, managing to keep a high profile via his Chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Longtime North County resident and Democrat Dave Peiser is challenging Issa. Yesterday he got his own bit of celebrity boost.
Here’s the scoop, courtesy of Progressive Democrats of San Diego’s Facebook page.
It seems legendary musicians Stephen Stills and Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash have an opinion about the Congressional Race in California’s 49th District. Actually, they had Strong Opinions about this race. Thank you Joel Rafael for setting up this meeting. And thanks Joe Dusel for taking the pic.
The Che Cafe, Still Raising Hell at UCSD
Yup, the all-ages music venue and gathering place for the not-in-the-mainstream is still open. The University of California San Diego has filed a lawsuit seeking to evict the Che Cafe, with a trial scheduled to start on October 10th.
The Che Cafe isn’t sitting by idly while this battle with the university goes on. They’ve called for the public to join them in a protest on Monday, October 6th at 9am at the UCSD Town Square.
They’ll be there simultaneously with a public ceremony featuring UCSD’s Chancellor in observance of the 50th anniversary of the federal government’s transfer of the Camp Matthews Marine base to the University of California.
Here’s an excerpt from the Call to Protest issued by Che Cafe:
The Marine Corps will be on campus for the anniversary ceremony.
The press will be all over it.
The whole campus population has been invited.
The Che Cafe Collective is calling for a broad community protest.
Protest UCSD’s attempt to evict the Che Cafe and level the building. The Che Cafe building is the LAST of the original Camp Matthews buildings still in use. It has historic importance to our community and our country and should be protected. Starting in 1966 the building served as the first UCSD student center and is still one of the few buildings students control and maintain with self-assessed student fees. In the late 1970’s UCSD administrators wanted to turn the building into a faculty club. The student body said “no” and it has been the Che Cafe ever since. The Che Cafe is a non-profit, student-worker owned and operated community center, vegan cafe, and a safe & sober all ages concerts/events venue. Now UCSD has trumped up an eviction lawsuit to kill the Che Cafe. Administrators have stated in writing that they “may” save the murals (if it’s not “too expensive”)!
SAVE THE CHE CAFE!
Protest the new WAR FOR OIL! The “perpetual war”? Protest UCSD’s “hand-in-glove” relationship with the military and with what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex”.
Time Out for Elections (No Starting Line Column Next Week)
Vote by mail ballots are being issued on Monday, October 6th. I’ll be taking a week off from writing this column to focus on curating THE BEST VOTING GUIDE, ever.
Here’s the Tentative Schedule: (Titles are placeholders)
- Monday, October 6th: Introduction and Overview of the November 2014 General Election, Are You Smart Enough to Be a California Voter?(Lori Saldaña), Propositions 1 & 2, and All About Tom T & Betty Yee (Jim Miller)
- Tuesday, October 7th: Props 45 & 46 (they’re politically linked) And an overview of the Top Six Statewide Races
- Wednesday, October 8th: Prop 47 (Ernie McCray), Prop 48.
- Thursday, October 9th: Two Women Worth Watching: Carol Kim and Olga Diaz (Don Greene), and Escondido’s Prop H.
- Friday, October 10th: Various Legislative races, with one article on US Congress and one on the California Legislature
There will be more, but this is what we’re sure of now. (With an all-volunteer organization, a bird in the hand is all we can count on!)
On This Day:1922 – Rebecca L. Felton became the first woman to hold office of US Senator. She was appointed by Governor Thomas W. Hardwick of Georgia to fill a vacancy. 1965 – Folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie (“This Land is Your Land”, “Union Maid” and hundreds of others) dies of Huntington’s disease in New York at the age of 55 1970 – Baseball umpires struck for recognition of their newly-formed Major League Umpires Association, and won after one day
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Doug Porter
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Terror campaigns like those waged by FOX (and some of the MSM) are themselves likely candidates for quarantine. It may come about that all conventional news operations will simply die because they isolated themselves from the general public with too obviously self-serving biases toward billionaires and sensationalist non-news.