Quick Hits

Anthony Fauci has covid.

So the power of prayer does work.

On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden's Chief Medical Advisor and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), tested positive for COVID-19 on a rapid antigen test, according to a statement from the National Institutes of Health.

Fauci is fully vaccinated and has been boosted twice. He is reportedly experiencing mild symptoms.

"Dr. Fauci will isolate and continue to work from his home," the statement reads. "He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials. Dr. Fauci will follow the COVID-19 guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical advice from his physician and return to the NIH when he tests negative."

Here's a Long Covid Dedication for Anthony Fauci.

Nancy Pelosi made an appearance on RuPaul's drag racing, where she announced, and this is not a joke, "Drag is what America is all about."

David French was unavailable for comment, because he was masturbating.

A drag queen for every school.

Let's make sure that is in every campaign ad running in America for the next five months.

That's not a parody, that's real.

Here's the amazeballs commentary The Atlantic is paying this pantload for.

First, we have to start with him telling you he used to be a Republican, because this literally all he ever has to say:

Any evaluation of a president's performance usually begins with a soul-baring about whether the writer voted for or against the incumbent. I voted for Joe Biden, and I like him.

I am not, however, a partisan Democrat, and I was never a member of the Democratic Party. (My parents were typical Depression-era, blue-collar Democrats turned post-1968 Republicans.) In college, I became a New England moderate-conservative Republican, but I worked for a centrist Democrat on Beacon Hill and for a moderate Republican, the late John Heinz, in the Senate. And so I always kind of liked Biden as someone to whom I could relate: a working-class centrist who spoke his mind, even when his thoughts were garbled or when he seemed comically full of himself.

Then this stream-of-consciousness riffing:

The Joe Biden who ran in 2020 appeared wiser, sadder, somewhat deflated, and seemed to be taking on the presidency as a public service and a burden. Time and tragedy had tempered Biden, and I liked him even more than I did in his flashier, Jason Sudeikis--like youth. These days, I think he's done a pretty good job, especially given the fact that he's dealing with a pandemic, revelations about an attempted American coup d'état, and an economic slowdown over which he had no control.

Finally, after a little more scatting and bebopping, Tom Nichols finally offers up the answer to the question he posed in the beginning: Why isn't this fantastic president getting the credit he deserves?

Here's his very well-thought-out, not-at-all-just-a-Twitter-fart answer:

My suspicion is that the full weight of our foreign and domestic crises has not broken through the self-absorption and solipsism of not only our political parties but the American public. We are just not capable of understanding that at home, we are inches away from the meltdown of our constitutional system of government, and abroad, we are one errant cruise missile away from a nuclear crisis.

But this is all the president's fault because Joe Biden is old and talks like ... well, like Joe Biden.

This is part of a more general problem in American politics: We have come to regard the presidency as a temporary appointment to Superman, and the White House as a gleaming Fortress of Solitude full of potential miracles. In doing so, we let ourselves off the hook for any responsibility either for our own actions as voters, or for any requirement to face our problems together with resilience and understanding.

Biden isn't getting credit because the public isn't as intelligent as this savant, and because he talks poorly (like he's in the advanced stages of cognitive decline, Nichols might have said with more specificity), and because Americans aren't as intelligent as Tom Nichols (oh right back to that so soon?) and think that a President is just a "Superman" who can solve problems with his heat-ray vision.

How original, Tom. You're cribbing from Ezra Klein of Vox. The "Green Lantern theory of the Presidency" was a popular way for leftwingers to explain popular discontent with Barack Obama back in 2014, despite him being every bit as awesome (or even more awesome) than Joe Biden.

What is the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency?

According to Brendan Nyhan, the Dartmouth political scientist who coined the term, the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency is "the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics." In other words, the American president is functionally all-powerful, and whenever he can't get something done, it's because he's not trying hard enough, or not trying smart enough.

So gay.

Tom Nichols claims to have until recently been a Republican, but all of his politics are of the far left. He also claims to be a serious intellectual, but all of his reading seems to come directly from Twitter, or Twitter-adjacent "texts" like Vox.

Maybe The Atlantic isn't actually paying this hugely-benippled pantload. His, ahem, analysis is from a "newsletter." Maybe he has some deal where he gets to post his newsletter there, but he only gets a cut of whatever money he can cadge out of imbeciles who can't get enough of Tom Nichols' mindthoughts and soulpatterns on Twitter.

Still seems like a very brand-destructive thing for The Atlantic to do.

Disgraced former CNN permanent guest Michael Avenatti now says he wants to plead guilty to a plethora of charges that he swindled from a whole bunch of clients.

Swindling clients was pretty much his whole job. The Stormy Daniels embezzlement was small beer by comparison to some of the other sh*t he was doing.

Imprisoned former attorney Michael Avenatti wants to change his plea to guilty in a California case, accusing him of stealing millions of dollars from clients, a new court filing shows.

Advisory counsel, H. Dean Steward, filed the notice of intent for Avenatti, 51, to change his plea to guilty on multiple counts in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sunday.

"Despite repeated efforts over the last year by Mr. Avenatti and his counsel, including substantial efforts made in the last 30 days, defendant has been unable to reach a plea agreement with the government," the court filing read.

"Mr. Avenatti wishes to plea in order to be accountable; accept responsibility; avoid his former clients being further burdened; save the Court and the government significant resources; and save his family further embarrassment," the court filing noted.

What he's hoping is that his sentence will just run concurrently with the four years he's serving for Daniels, meaning it will be another freebie. His Nike extortion sentence of 2 1/2 years is running concurrently with the Daniels sentence, so that's already a freebie.

Sean Hannity suggested that Trump pardon Hunter Biden after the second impeachment trial, in order to "heal the nation," because Sean Hannity is a ridiculous beefwitted blockhead who once applied to be Lex Luthor's minion but was beaten for the job by Otis.

Hey why don't you have on Senator Lindsey Graham another four times this week, Sean?

An Australian gossip columnist is apologizing for threatening to out Rebel Wilson as a lesbian. Under threat of being outed, she outed herself before he could publish his own outing.

The gossip columnist himself is gay.

"Brilliant:"

Elevate the conversation 🌈 @IQfy_

One of our readers shared this strategy for dealing with gas pump disinfo stickers:
">live in Texas
>see one of the stickers
>call it in to the Railroad Commission of Texas
>get a reward for reporting vandalism
Reich-winged scrotes are literally paying for my gas."

Do you feel the conversation elevating, Reich-Winged Scrotes?

A rebuttal.

The White House says that oil companies shouldn't "use the war as an excuse."

Oh, the oil companies shouldn't use "the war as an excuse," huh?

As strongly signaled/tipped/leaked, the Fed raised interest rates by 0.75%, the biggest increase since 1994, before Clinton was even thinking about using an intern as a humidor.

Fed Chair Powell said they might raise them by another 0.75% as soon as July.

Biden will soon be Pivoting to Anger against the Fed.

Speaking of Mayra Flores:

The Epoch Times @EpochTimes

"I voted for [@MayraFlores2022] – first time I ever voted Republican," Musk said. "Massive red wave in 2022."

@ElonMusk said he is leaning toward voting for @GovRonDeSantis for president in 2024 and predicted a "red wave" in the #Midterms2022.

Ugh, terrible dad joke:

posted by Ace at 06:17 PM

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