Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Dog Bites Man – Fraudi: Parties for me but not for thee
Once again, “Doctor” Fraudci spouted leftist partisan nonsense, in the false name of public health. He peddled his propaganda on the Poppycock Network, appearing on Meet the Press to condemn those bitter clinging deplorable extremist hobbits gathering in Sturges, South Dakota, while having nary a care for the equivalent “superspreader” events this past week on Martha’s Vineyard and in Chicago.
L
ollapalooza is a long-running music festival, held in Chicago, Berlin, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Stockholm, and Paris. Chicago hosted Lollapalooza, July 29 – August 1, 2021, in Grant Park. It was a perfectly normal huge weekend party, with mostly younger people packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. There were 8 stages and over 170 bands.
Marxist Mayor Lori Lightfoot was happy to play host to this event, with over 100,000 festival-goers traveling from around the world to attend. A typical Lollapalooza attendee expressed all the approved “concerns” [emphasis added]:
Alison Goodwin was eager to attend Lollapalooza, excited for both the live music lineup and the strict pandemic protocols that she had assumed would keep the event safe for her and her wife, who traveled here from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Yet she became increasingly worried during the four-day festival, describing a sea of attendees “literally pressed against each other, maskless.”
She felt the screening process for vaccination cards and COVID-19 tests at the entrance was far too quick to be thorough. While signs requested masks be worn in restrooms, she said “this was hardly ever abided by and came with zero enforcement.”
Even though she’s fully vaccinated, Goodwin said she and her wife are scheduled to get tested for COVID-19 on Friday, a few days after their first potential exposure at the event.
“We would not have attended if we knew it were going to be like that,” Goodwin said.
So, a perfectly progressive woman fears she has been made unsafe, that her vaccination is no more than a virtue signal and does not convey immunity, effective resistance, like a real vaccine. She believes all the things “Doctor” Fraudi and the CDC-DNC-media cabal are saying. Yet, Fraudi did not take the occasion the next Sunday with Chuck Todd to reinforce the messaging of the state and local health commissars, calling for Lollapalooza attendees to get tested for COVID-19. The leftist Democrat-controlled city was not mentioned once by Todd and Fraudi.
Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash was a grand affair on Martha’s Vineyard. Celebrities flocked with their private jets from all around to see and be seen. And I do mean they showed their faces. There is photographic evidence, snapped by one of the performers, who posted them and then was leaned on to take them down.
Notice the absence of masks, including on Barack Obama. This was held on Saturday with all the usual public plandemic performance:
A source close to the Obama camp insisted the 60th birthday celebration would be a super non-spreader: all guests had to submit a negative PCR test beforehand, there’s a medical professional acting as “COVID coordinator,” and masks will be handed out during the Saturday evening festivities, the source said. .
Obama and his guests allegedly kept their faces covered as they kicked things off at a pre-party shindig Friday night at the Winnitu Ocean Resort, where many of those invited to Saturday’s bash are staying.
But guests whipped off their facial protection once they packed on the balcony overlooking the beach.
Plenty of video and photographic evidence was posted to social media, before being taken down. Yet, Chuck Todd and “Doctor” Fraudci had not a word to say about how this was a threat to public health and how people should wear masks indoors even when fully vaccinated. See the Daily Mail for extensive coverage, including video. Consider this Instagram post that was captured before being quickly taken down:
So, Lollapalooza and Obama’s birthday bash were approved gatherings of the right kind of people. On the other hand, a large outdoor gathering of motorcyclists was not approved by Fraudi, who insisted that this event should have been canceled.
New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik put it plainly:
Democrats are imposing forced vaccine mandates, unscientific masks mandates, and are openly discussing lockdowns, while President Obama gathers with hundreds of maskless liberal elites who flew in on private jets with no vaccine requirement to attend.
The City of Sturgis shows a full schedule through this week, from Military Appreciation Day to a performance and stunt bike show to concerts and the annual Beef Throwdown Main Street Burger Battle on the Harley-Davidson Stage.
On Monday, August 9, Governor Kristi Noem took part in the Sturgis Buffalo Chip Legends Ride. This is an annual charity ride through the Black Hills, ending at the Sturgis Buffalo Chip massive bar, drag racing, beach, and outdoor concert venue. Governor Noem took part in the ride to promote tourism, then made a few remarks.
The brief press conference did not go well at all for Fraudi and the plandemic perpetrators, so you will not find the whole video on any of the usual social media. Governor Noem has not pushed her team to move to Rumble, so she did not get the unedited video posted. Yet, we have the money quote:
I was not surprised to see Dr. Fauci pick on Sturgis. He picked on it last year, this rally as well, and honestly, I wish he cared more about the Southern Border and what we have going on there with a lot of COVID virus cases coming across the border that are not being isolated and taken care of.
This year, Governor Noem helped raise $140,000 with the auction of a painting of her on horseback going for $50,000, the whole thing in stark contrast with the Biden art scam:
The painting of Gov. Kristi Noem on horseback went for $55,000 at Monday’s Buffalo Chip Legends Ride auction to a couple from Texas, and Noem said she’s going to install the painting herself.
Jess and Heather Slaughter had the highest bid. All proceeds will go to Treasured Lives, a non-profit organization that helps survivors of sex trafficking.
“We’ve bought a lot of David Uhl work; we like Governor Noem,” Jess said.
Survivors of sex trafficking? I’m sure that is something Biden can get behind.
John Hinderaker sums it up nicely:
What a joke. It has been obvious from the beginning that the rules that CDC and Democratic governors inflict on the rest of us do not apply to liberal elites. Chuck Todd is not a journalist, and “Doctor” Fauci is not a scientist. No wonder so many people don’t bother to listen to either one.
UPDATE: I should also have noted that neither Todd nor Fauci mentioned the fact that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are streaming across the Southern border each month, due to President Biden’s “no border” policy, many of them covid-positive. This influx dwarfs anything else going on that arguably contributes to the ongoing spread of covid-19.
Too much Fraudi and not enough Kristi Noem? Here is a Legends Ride photoessay from Deadwood. She came back up on state Monday evening to talk about the money raised, the charity, leadership, and freedom.
https://youtu.be/of4LFQHNA24
Published in Politics
One side effect of Covid is that a lot of people have become nose-blind to the smell of the government response and conduct.
So, “lowbrow” biker types can’t get together without masks, but the elites can because they are a “sophisticated, vaccinated crowd”:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/sophisticated-vaccinated-crowd-ny-times-hack-defends-obamas-maskless-b-day-extravaganza-pointing-elitist-nature-crowd-video/
The NYT idiot couldn’t conceive of the possibility the bikers were also vaccinated. As for being sophisticated, the guy I shared an office with for many years was a QA (quality assurance) specialist, and was even on a national QA standard subcommittee for a while. He also kept his head shaved, wore a diamond stud earring (left ear), and rode a Harley. He invited me to come to Sturgis with him several times, but I declined because I figured I’d be dead five minutes after entering the Full Throttle Saloon. Of course, I now regret not going, so I have to satisfy myself with watching the reality TV series of the same name . . .
Great post, thanks.
I was surprized that I read through the list of bands on the poster to see how many of them I had heard. I only found five that I had heard of: Foo Fighters, Miley Cyrus, Limp Biskit, Journey, and Modest Mouse.
And only one of them would I be able to identify if I heard them play – Journey. (If it’s the same Journey.)
I know this is an old story with we elders (I’m 64), but this seems extreme – one band out of a hundred at a major festival?
Journey is still around? I have a friend who plays in a Journey tribute band . . .
I saw headlines warning that Sturgis would be another spreader event. I thought that last year’s event turned out to not be a spreader event so I was confused, but not surprised, that that’s how headlines were written. Of course, as you pointed out, it was the only major event chastised by the media.
Lollapalooza is mostly suburban 18-year-olds whose parents rent them a hotel room. They crowd onto the metra commuter trains and trade tricks on how to peel the lid off a water bottle after they hit the liquor stores downtown willing to sell them vodka, reseal the bottle and hydrate themselves. Oh, and the young “ladies” wear very little clothing.
Some of the college-age attendees spent spring 2020 deliberately getting Covid during the lockdown. It was a moneymaking enterprise for some…give me $50 and I’ll spit on your toothbrush.
In other words, people least susceptible to the virus hanging out while preparing for a massive hangover so their friends will think they are cool.
Doesn’t anyone get tired of the drumbeat of manipulation by the sophisticated?
Are they insane?! Do they want a repeat of last year when absolutely nothing happened, not even a big fatal surge among residents of Sturgis?
But there was this tut-tut from CDC:
“While the number of cases identified is sizable – 140 cases per 100,000 attendees – it is likely that the true national impact of the Sturgis event is underestimated,” the report said. Researchers cited several reasons for this, including the variability of health departments’ ability to identify and interview all COVID-19 cases, and reluctance among some who tested positive to report attending the Sturgis rally.”
679 cases, 17 hospitalizations, and one old biker who died –out of over 400,000. The rally participants could have experienced that same level of risk and infection rate if they stayed home in their respective communities.
Alcohol abuse, obesity, no masks, high density in a newly formed geographically diverse population. It was teed up for COVID and it whiffed. The superspreader event is a myth, more proof that we don’t really have a handle on transmission. COVID’s gonna COVID whether we try to stop it or help it. Party on, Mr. Obama!
T-shirt time. Amen, brother.
Everyone believes what Bozo The Clown, I mean Bozo the Fauci says. Shouldn’t they???
Emphasis mine. That part of the statement is a guess not born by desired outcome under the cover of expert opinion. It’s also a statement that cannot be refuted because there’s no basis on which to refute it. Logic says the real impact should be higher, but is it true?
It’s like masks. Logic said we needed to mask up for COVID, but more and more the data and subsequent analysis says we probably wasted our effort. But we had to do something, so we masked up, distanced ourselves, and killed a booming economy. My guess is killing the economy will ultimately have a worse effect than COVID, but my guess is just as valid as the emphasized part of the above . . .
Your guess is better because there is evidence of harm but not much evidence that anybody delayed or prevented any cases when you look at cases curves in comparable jurisdictions. Minnesota health authorities looked hard for a Sturgis effect. I think they attributed 13 cases to Sturgis. Everybody keeps trying to find pockets and starting points and all we get are these big, simultaneous uniform waves across regions and our transmission models do a really lousy job of accounting for that.
It must have been cold that day:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcia.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F44%2F2021%2F08%2FLolla-2021.jpg%3Fw%3D1800%26h%3D1200%26crop%3D1&f=1&nofb=1
See Rolling Stone’s favorably review of Journey’s Lollapalooza performance. A younger fan has several videos confirming the reviewer’s story:
See also this professional recording of the entire concert:
I’ve heard of Jimmy Eat World and Aly & AJ.
JEW was big when I was in college and Aly & AJ had a Disney sitcom for a bit.
Really fantastic post, @cliffordbrown.
Don’t forget the super-spreader event at the southern border, provided by the world’s foremost human trafficker, J.R. Biden.
The Left has dropped all pretense. As Obama said the day before he took office, “We are ready to rule.” Evidently, the Republican party did not receive the memo.
Why do Conservatives continue to believe that it is possible to have any sort of dialogue with these elites?
And the Obama birthday bash was a way to celebrate the ascendancy of the algorithmic-steal on Nov 3rd 2020.
They are in with the In Crowd, and the In Crowd did not get where they got through a true count of the votes.