1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

Not quite - just another daft meme you hang your hat-on without digging deeper.

This one's actually a little nuanced than 'blame covid' - but a meme-and brainless bias is just too easy to copy and paste.

Rolling Stone's 2011 list was compiled by a panel of musicians, mostly older classic rockers.

On that list, Clapton ranked number 2, behind only Jimi Hendrix.

The 2023 expanded list was made entirely by the editors and writers of Rolling Stone, and Clapton landed at 35.

The new 2023 Rolling Stone list prioritised different criteria such as invention, risk-taking, and contributions to landmark recordings over pure technical proficiency. The entire methodology changed.

Brian May landed at 33 and David Gilmour at 28 too, neither of whom are known anti-vaxxers.

There was no targeted Clapton hit job, it was a wholesale editorial rewrite that scrambled dozens of rankings - your copy and paste is once again misleading bias distorting facts of history.

Your one grain of truth that you clung onto desperately: Rolling Stone's write-up did include a snarky COVID reference, which handed anti-vaxxers the narrative they wanted on a plate - and you just used it without thought.

The Clapton ratings dropped because a completely different group of people rebuilt a list from scratch using different criteria. But one snarky sentence in the write-up was enough to make it a vaccine conspiracy. Which is, fittingly, exactly the same logic applied throughout these anti-vaxx threads - the tiniest shred of information and wider context removed.

It's not a "daft meme", it's a sensible and logical take on one of the expected consequences of Clapton's ostracisation since he dared to challenge the dogma.

From the horse's mouth:

Eric Clapton has revealed that his polarizing views on the coronavirus pandemic have strained his personal relationships. “I’ve tried to reach out to fellow musicians,” the famed guitarist explained during an interview with YouTube channel Oracle Films. “I just don’t hear from them anymore. My phone doesn’t ring very often. I don’t get that many texts and emails any more. It’s quite noticeable.” Clapton vocally challenged the U.K.’s COVID-related lockdown laws, even going so far as to release a single alongside Van Morrison condemning his government’s actions.

[…]

”Despite having a “terrible fear of needles,” Clapton reluctantly received the AstraZeneca vaccine earlier this year “for my kids.” The guitarist encountered severe reactions to the shots, including fever, trouble sleeping and strong painful feelings in his hands and feet. "The vaccine took my immune system and shook it around," the rocker explained, adding that the experience “frightened the <deleted> out of me.”

[…]

Clapton’s negative reaction has rendered him a vocal minority. His comments against both lockdowns and vaccinations have been met with criticism. “I was ostracized. And I could feel that everywhere,” the guitarist declared, noting that he even felt rejected within his own family. “I could feel alienation because I held a different view.”

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/eric-clapton-ostracized-covid-views/

2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Incredible isn't it - I mean... 5 years on and people have some health issues.

My knees have been giving me trouble for the last couple of years - must have been the Pfizer jab - no other explanation. Nothing to do with decades of running, carrying extra weight, or the radical concept of being a human body that has been used.

There is a limit beyond which reductio ad absurdum ceases to be a valid refutation and becomes fallacy. You have crossed it.

Are there documented cases of vax-induced knee issues? Peer-reviewed studies demonstrating mechanisms through which the Covid jab causes knee damage? Top-level experts testifying under oath that there is a definite causation between the jab and knee damage?

No, there aren't.

On 5/10/2026 at 6:12 PM, gamb00ler said:

yes.... at least in this message you included the crucial phrase: All the science papers, that I've researched

We all can clearly see how you studiously manage to 'not find' information that disagrees with your archaic biases and opinion.

Well then Sir! Where is it? Point me in the right direction would you.

My research Includes the US Naval research of the 1920s and 30s. No evidence there that a 'disease' can be passed from one person to another. That is from a sick person to a well one.

But! In saying that, let me set my table. I say that there is no such thing as diseases; at least disease as is commonly referrer as. Polio, measles, chicken pox, COVID, the flu, etc, are not diseases. So what are vaccines for? In my opinion, they are simply to make money for the medical industry. And that is from top to bottom. The compromised 'revolving door' $$$ CDC down to the dumb, know-nothing white-coats, sliding the needle into toddlers while muttering 'safe n effective; safe n effective'

Absolute shame on them all.

Nature rules OK!

Edited May 11May 11 by Stiddle Mump

46 minutes ago, Stiddle Mump said:

My research

I'm sure most of AN has an image something like this in mind as they wade through the torrent of misinformation that is your trademark:

On 5/7/2026 at 10:40 PM, rattlesnake said:

Mentioning the claims and actions of a sitting US Senator is hardly "dredging the abysmal depths of Internet mediocrity"

I'm 100% certain you didn't search the internet to find some quote from that Senator. You searched the internet for notable quotes criticizing the mRNA vaccines. That is "dredging" for biased quotes.... and guess what... up popped a Senator.

A couple more gems from @Stiddle Mump 's muse, and supposed Oracle on matters related to Covid-19, Dr Dolores Cahill.

From the same article I linked to earlier, she also said that, "Covid-19 can be prevented by taking vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc," that "children wearing a mask ... would be starved of oxygen and see their IQ lowered," and that anyone who caught Covid once, would be immune for life.

1 hour ago, gamb00ler said:

I'm 100% certain you didn't search the internet to find some quote from that Senator. You searched the internet for notable quotes criticizing the mRNA vaccines. That is "dredging" for biased quotes.... and guess what... up popped a Senator.

It's simpler than that, my X account is algorithmically tailored to my history and interests and therefore it came up without me having to do anything.

The content on X is of variable relevance, lots of it is even AI-generated so caution is required. But what Ron Johnson says and does is relevant, whether you like it or not.

And before you tell me I am trapped in an echochamber made only of whatever I want to hear, it should be said that I have other sources of information, even 'mainstream media' articles (I usually check out Google News once per day – you may recall that I recommended Forbes and Time articles on the AI bubble a few weeks ago, which I found interesting). I also read (and post/repost) articles on LinkedIn, for example.

8 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

A couple more gems from @Stiddle Mump 's muse, and supposed Oracle on matters related to Covid-19, Dr Dolores Cahill.

From the same article I linked to earlier, she also said that, "Covid-19 can be prevented by taking vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc," that "children wearing a mask ... would be starved of oxygen and see their IQ lowered," and that anyone who caught Covid once, would be immune for life.

This is the Zelenko protocol, many (including myself) have reported positive outcomes from it. Quercetin is an important one to add to the mix.

Of course mask-wearing is very harmful… and of course people's innate immune system has a lifelong memory.

She sounds like a very sensible woman.

2 hours ago, Stiddle Mump said:

Well then Sir! Where is it? Point me in the right direction would you.

My research Includes the US Naval research of the 1920s and 30s. No evidence there that a 'disease' can be passed from one person to another. That is from a sick person to a well one.

But! In saying that, let me set my table. I say that there is no such thing as diseases; at least disease as is commonly referrer as. Polio, measles, chicken pox, COVID, the flu, etc, are not diseases. So what are vaccines for? In my opinion, they are simply to make money for the medical industry. And that is from top to bottom. The compromised 'revolving door' $$$ CDC down to the dumb, know-nothing white-coats, sliding the needle into toddlers while muttering 'safe n effective; safe n effective'

Absolute shame on them all.

Nature rules OK!

Which reminds me, I watched Mike Yeadon (former Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Allergy and Respiratory Research at Pfizer) recently and his take on the topic is pretty much aligned with yours.

On 5/1/2026 at 6:43 PM, Red Phoenix said:

The unvaccinated;

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/35-unvaccinated-and-in-a-coffin-widower-makes-vaccine-plea-after-wife-dies-after-giving-birth-1.4654308

49 minutes ago, Liquorice said:

The unvaccinated;

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/35-unvaccinated-and-in-a-coffin-widower-makes-vaccine-plea-after-wife-dies-after-giving-birth-1.4654308

I'm afraid not, Liquorice.

Edited May 11May 11 by rattlesnake

52 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

I'm afraid not, Liquorice.

I can't show you one person who regrets not taking the vaccine, because they both died of Covid.

9 minutes ago, Liquorice said:

I can't show you one person who regrets not taking the vaccine, because they both died of Covid.

The vast majority of people who died of Covid had underlying conditions. I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

6 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

It's not a "daft meme", it's a sensible and logical take on one of the expected consequences of Clapton's ostracisation since he dared to challenge the dogma.

From the horse's mouth:

Eric Clapton has revealed that his polarizing views on the coronavirus pandemic have strained his personal relationships. “I’ve tried to reach out to fellow musicians,” the famed guitarist explained during an interview with YouTube channel Oracle Films. “I just don’t hear from them anymore. My phone doesn’t ring very often. I don’t get that many texts and emails any more. It’s quite noticeable.” Clapton vocally challenged the U.K.’s COVID-related lockdown laws, even going so far as to release a single alongside Van Morrison condemning his government’s actions.

[…]

”Despite having a “terrible fear of needles,” Clapton reluctantly received the AstraZeneca vaccine earlier this year “for my kids.” The guitarist encountered severe reactions to the shots, including fever, trouble sleeping and strong painful feelings in his hands and feet. "The vaccine took my immune system and shook it around," the rocker explained, adding that the experience “frightened the <deleted> out of me.”

[…]

Clapton’s negative reaction has rendered him a vocal minority. His comments against both lockdowns and vaccinations have been met with criticism. “I was ostracized. And I could feel that everywhere,” the guitarist declared, noting that he even felt rejected within his own family. “I could feel alienation because I held a different view.”

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/eric-clapton-ostracized-covid-views/

Perhaps he was ostracised by some - fair enough, that's a legitimate point and Clapton's personal experience is what it is.

But that's not what was claimed by you and your copy & paste. The claim was that Rolling Stone dropped him from the top 10 because of his COVID views. That's a completely different argument, and it doesn't hold up.

The one-line COVID dig in the write-up was snarky and probably unnecessary. But one snarky sentence does not a conspiracy make. Pasting a quote about Clapton feeling personally rejected by friends and family, while real and genuinely unfortunate, doesn't prove that Rolling Stone's editorial team demoted him out of ideological spite. Those are two entirely separate things being quietly stitched together to look like one argument.

That's not logic. That's a emotion with a hyperlink attached to it and called evidence.

.... And it's a habit of yours. Find a real point, gut it of anything that complicates the narrative, cherry pick the carcass, dress it up with a paste job and present it as reasoned argument. It isn't. It's confirmation bias pretending to be critical thinking.

You're not making arguments. You're curating feelings and calling it research and information.

6 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

8 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Incredible isn't it - I mean... 5 years on and people have some health issues.

My knees have been giving me trouble for the last couple of years - must have been the Pfizer jab - no other explanation. Nothing to do with decades of running, carrying extra weight, or the radical concept of being a human body that has been used.

There is a limit beyond which reductio ad absurdum ceases to be a valid refutation and becomes fallacy. You have crossed it.

Are there documented cases of vax-induced knee issues? Peer-reviewed studies demonstrating mechanisms through which the Covid jab causes knee damage? Top-level experts testifying under oath that there is a definite causation between the jab and knee damage?

No, there aren't.

Thank you Rattlesnake - You've peer-reviewed my sarcasm, validated every word of it, and then somehow kept typing as if you hadn't.

Let me be very clear about what just happened. I shifted the goalposts deliberately - from heart problems to knees - specifically to ridicule the causation fallacy. That was the point. The whole point. And you grabbed the shifted goalposts, planted your flag on them, and started defending the new position as if I'd handed you a weapon rather than a trap.

Millions of people aging and developing heart problems is not evidence of vaccine causation. It's called cardiovascular disease. It's been the leading cause of death on this planet for longer than Rolling Stone has publishing guitarist rankings. It was killing people in absolutely spectacular, industrial numbers long before anyone had heard of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, or your particular corner of the internet, and it will continue doing so with magnificent indifference to your narrative.

This is the foundational catastrophe of the anti-vax causation model. It requires you to survey a planet of billions of aging humans, all deteriorating on a perfectly predictable biological schedule, and conclude that the single unifying factor isn't age, genetics, diet, lifestyle, or the fundamental savage indifference of human physiology - it's one injection. Five years ago.

That's not analysis. That's pattern recognition with the pattern pre-loaded, the contradictory data cropped out of frame, and the conclusion written before the first sentence.

You haven't accommodated causality. You've dressed correlation in a lab coat, attempted a little linguistic ballet, and presented the performance as peer review.

The wider picture you accuse me of ignoring is the only thing I've been talking about this entire time. You just walked in having already decided what the picture looks like, and couldn't see anything else.

17 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of people who died of Covid had underlying conditions. I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

You assume that. You don't know that. And that assumption is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting for someone claiming to deal in facts.

"I'm middle-aged and healthy and wouldn't have died" is not an epidemiological position. It's a feeling. A confident one, certainly, but confidence has never once amended a death certificate.

The "underlying conditions" argument sounds compelling until you actually look at what qualifies.

BMI over 30. Mild hypertension. Type 2 diabetes managed with a single medication. We're not talking about people on their deathbeds already. We're talking about an enormous slice of the normal adult population who had no idea they were meaningfully vulnerable until a novel virus with no existing immunity decided to find out.

And the first wave wasn't discriminating politely. It was hospitalising fit, healthy, active people in ways that had ICU doctors genuinely frightened. Not worried. Frightened.

Now. The statistics....

In 2018, England and Wales recorded approximately 541,000 deaths. Completely normal baseline year, nothing remarkable.

In 2020, that figure jumped to around 608,000, representing roughly 67,000 excess deaths, one of the largest single-year spikes in modern British recorded history.

Here's where the implied "comorbidity" argument or the "only the already dying" argument collapses completely.

If Covid had simply accelerated the deaths of people who were imminently going to die anyway, 2021 and 2022 should have shown a significant mortality dip. A rebound. Fewer deaths than average because the most vulnerable had already been taken.

That didn't happen. 2021 recorded around 577,000 deaths. Still substantially above baseline. 2022 came in around 650,000, the highest total in decades*

No dip. No rebound. No statistical evidence whatsoever of a vulnerable population simply dying slightly ahead of schedule.

What that tells you, bluntly, is that Covid wasn't just harvesting the imminent. It was killing people who had years left. It was adding deaths to the total, not borrowing them from the following year's column.

Half a million excess deaths across the UK recorded by the ONS isn't anecdote. That's arithmetic. And it doesn't care what you would or wouldn't have survived.

(* and no - continued excess mortality was not thats not because of vaccines - though I can see how you'd desperately want to dress it up that way).

21 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Perhaps he was ostracised by some - fair enough, that's a legitimate point and Clapton's personal experience is what it is.

But that's not what was claimed by you and your copy & paste. The claim was that Rolling Stone dropped him from the top 10 because of his COVID views. That's a completely different argument, and it doesn't hold up.

The one-line COVID dig in the write-up was snarky and probably unnecessary. But one snarky sentence does not a conspiracy make. Pasting a quote about Clapton feeling personally rejected by friends and family, while real and genuinely unfortunate, doesn't prove that Rolling Stone's editorial team demoted him out of ideological spite. Those are two entirely separate things being quietly stitched together to look like one argument.

That's not logic. That's a emotion with a hyperlink attached to it and called evidence.

.... And it's a habit of yours. Find a real point, gut it of anything that complicates the narrative, cherry pick the carcass, dress it up with a paste job and present it as reasoned argument. It isn't. It's confirmation bias pretending to be critical thinking.

You're not making arguments. You're curating feelings and calling it research and information.

Clapton didn't merely feel rejected by a few friends and family members, he was ostracised overnight by the same profession which had hailed him as a semi-God for decades.

I am not claiming the above 'proves' anything (always these predetermined 'either/or' dichotomies which limit any intelligent debate by removing context and nuance…), I am merely agreeing with Robin Monotti's take that this Rolling Stone demotion has to be considered within a consistent pattern, and in his (and my) opinion, this demotion would not haver occurred if Clapton had not held these positions. You are free to disagree, but you are mistaken when you claim this is an intentional, disingenuous distortion of truth, because it is not.

23 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Let me be very clear about what just happened. I shifted the goalposts deliberately - from heart problems to knees - specifically to ridicule the causation fallacy. That was the point. The whole point. And you grabbed the shifted goalposts, planted your flag on them, and started defending the new position as if I'd handed you a weapon rather than a trap.

But that was the point I was making. Reductio ad absurdum (which is what you describe above, a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequence is absurd or contradictory) is only valid if it respects elementary rhetorical principles – engage in sophism/fallacy and your whole point becomes moot.

And that is what you did here, as you drew an equivalence between knee problems and issues such as myocarditis or cancer, both of which have established correlation mechanisms through studies and expert tesimonies.

It doesn't matter whether you agree or lend credence to the above-mentioned studies and expert testimonies, the point is that you are engaing in a blatant false analogy, consisting in attempting to dismiss a biologically plausible link by comparing it to an impossible one.

That is the only point I was making: to validly demonstrate the purported absurdity of my reasoning through reductio ad absurdum, you need to abide by elementary rhetorical principles and you did not satisfy this criterion in this effort as it was based on a false equivalence.

53 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of people who died of Covid had underlying conditions. I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

The two family members I knew were as fit as a fiddle with no known underlying health conditions.
Once you caught Covid it was to late to receive the vaccine.

5 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

I am not claiming the above 'proves' anything (always these predetermined 'either/or' dichotomies which limit any intelligent debate by removing context and nuance…), I am merely agreeing with Robin Monotti's take that this Rolling Stone demotion has to be considered within a consistent pattern, and in his (and my) opinion, this demotion would not haver occurred if Clapton had not held these positions. You are free to disagree, but you are mistaken when you claim this is an intentional, disingenuous distortion of truth, because it is not.

Then why wasn't he removed completely?

If Rolling Stone's editorial team were conducting an ideological purge of vaccine sceptics, surely the sentence would have been banishment, not a nudge to 35? Thirty-five is still an acknowledgment of one of the most influential guitarists who ever lived. That's not a hit job. That's a methodology change with a snarky footnote.

As has already been established, Brian May dropped to 33. David Gilmour to 28. Pete Townshend, who the previous panel had at number 10, scattered somewhere into the middle distance. None of them anti-vaxxers.

All of them casualties of a completely rebuilt list that prioritised invention, risk-taking, and cultural contribution over the technical proficiency criteria the old musician panel favoured.

.....But you're nodding along with Robin Monotti (one of the most prominent COVID dissidents in the UK) - a man who published Clapton's letter on his Telegram channel and has an fairly obvious personal and ideological stake in the narrative - as if he's a dispassionate analyst rather than someone with every reason to connect those two dots regardless of whether they're actually connected.

That's not research. That's meme-mining not even standing up to credibility. You found a conclusion in an echo-chamber you liked, worked backwards to the evidence that supported it, ignored everything that didn't.

Monotti had a Telegram channel and an anti-vax agenda.

Rolling Stone had a methodology document.

26 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

27 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

You assume that. You don't know that.

Oh yes I do and nobody than me decides what goes into my body, c.f. previously discussed Nuremberg Code.

3 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

As has already been established, Brian May dropped to 33. David Gilmour to 28. Pete Townshend, who the previous panel had at number 10, scattered somewhere into the middle distance. None of them anti-vaxxers.

This is a valid point. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Therefore, Clapton's demotion was likely not caused by his vaccine position.

Edited May 11May 11 by rattlesnake

6 minutes ago, Liquorice said:

The two family members I knew were as fit as a fiddle with no known underlying health conditions.
Once you caught Covid it was to late to receive the vaccine.

I'm sorry to hear that. Do you honestly believe, with all the information you have now in 2026 (and I know you are smart) that they would not have perished if they had received the Covid jab?

Edited May 11May 11 by rattlesnake

4 minutes ago, rattlesnake said:

I'm sorry to hear that. Do you honestly believe, with all the information you have now in 2026 (and I know you are smart) that they would not have perished if they had received the Covid jab?

That we'll never know, but other family members around and in contact with them who received the vaccine and contracted Covid all survived.

6 minutes ago, Liquorice said:

That we'll never know, but other family members around and in contact with them who received the vaccine and contracted Covid all survived.

Fair enough.

1 hour ago, rattlesnake said:

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

2 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

You assume that. You don't know that.

Oh yes I do and nobody than me decides what goes into my body, c.f. previously discussed Nuremberg Code.

You misunderstood the point. Let me be precise.

"I'm middle-aged and healthy and wouldn't have died of Covid" is not a medical assessment. It's a feeling dressed up as a conclusion. You cannot argue from an unknown. You have no idea what Covid would have done to you specifically, because you never caught the first wave, and your immune system never got the memo about your fitness.

I'm fit and healthy too. I'd like to believe I'd have sailed through it. But "I'd like to believe" is not epidemiology. It's optimism. And optimism has never once overruled a cytokine storm.

What you're describing is the Dunning-Kruger of medical self-assessment. The same cognitive glitch that causes the overwhelming majority of men to genuinely believe they could land a passenger jet in an emergency. No training, no experience, no actual data - just absolute unshakeable confidence in a completely untested assumption about their own capabilities.

You don't know you would have survived. I don't know I would have survived. Nobody who didn't catch the first wave knows. That's not a minor caveat - that's the entire argument. Certainty about a hypothetical you never lived through isn't knowledge. It's just confidence wearing knowledge's clothes.

And confidence, as Covid demonstrated repeatedly and without sentiment, couldn't care less.

Influenza doesn't care. Measles didn't care when it was tearing through populations at a scale that would be considered a civilisational catastrophe today. Polio didn't care how fit you were before it quietly introduced itself to your nervous system and made permanent, life-altering decisions on your behalf. Smallpox, which we eradicated so completely that entire generations have grown up never once having to think about it, was completely unmoved by confidence, fitness, or optimistic self-assessment.

These diseases all share one characteristic. They do not negotiate. They do not review your lifestyle choices before deciding how hard to hit you. They find a host, they replicate, and they leave the consequences entirely to chance.

The difference with most of them is that we developed vaccines. And then watched, in real time, infection rates collapse, death tolls crater, and diseases that had shaped and shortened human lives for millennia get quietly, efficiently, and almost undramatically removed from the list of things capable of killing your children.

That's not pharmaceutical propaganda. That's just what happened. Historically, verifiably, on a global scale.

Nature has the answers ?? Yep - it did for hundreds of thousands of years. The answers were graveyards.

On 5/9/2026 at 10:49 AM, Stiddle Mump said:

True enough.

Dr D Cahill reckons anyone having a 'hot' jab will have serious health problems within 5 years.

And when those problems do arise, might the unfortunate say; "It was the jab." Or will they insist; "It couldn't have been the safe and effective jab. Would have been much worse if I'd caught COVID without

On 5/9/2026 at 10:49 AM, Stiddle Mump said:

True enough.

Yeah when you rely on medical and scientific words like "reckons" then i guess that locks it in and we'll see millions dropping by the thousands in the next year.

9 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

This is the Zelenko protocol, many (including myself) have reported positive outcomes from it

Ah... yes.... anecdotes... the best evidence in the possession of the deniers. It has the same weight and respect that hearsay has in a court.

Edited May 12May 12 by gamb00ler

18 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

But what Ron Johnson says and does is relevant, whether you like it or not.

Relevant.... to some... but not very faithful to the truth.

In response to my query "Senator Ron Johnson accuracy" AI says:

1. COVID-19 Misinformation: Johnson has been accused of promoting unproven treatments and spreading misinformation about vaccine safety. For example, he claimed, without evidence, that athletes were "dropping dead" due to COVID-19 vaccines.

2. 2020 Election Claims: Despite initial acknowledgments of Wisconsin’s election results, he later pursued "fake elector" schemes and alleged voter fraud in Milwaukee, which investigations have not substantiated.

3. January 6th and Political Violence: He has frequently downplayed the severity of the January 6th attack, questioning whether it was truly an "armed insurrection".

4. Russian Disinformation: Some of his investigations, particularly regarding Ukraine, were found to have relied on material identified by U.S. intelligence officials as Russian disinformation.

5. Specific Legislative Accuracy: A recent analysis of his Shutdown Fairness Act noted that while his description of the bill's function (ensuring pay for essential federal workers during a shutdown) is accurate, his arguments against Democrats regarding its obstacles were considered misleading.

In other words..... he got Trumpified.

17 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of people who died of Covid had underlying conditions. I am middle-aged and healthy, and would not have died of Covid if I had caught it.

What you and others conveniently forget or ignore is the this covid virus was a novel virus unseen prior with no historical base line of affects, impacts, reactional response or treatment. People initial were dying at a extremely high rate and what were considered as normal medical treatments were ineffective often accelerating the impact.

Hindsight is wonderfully helpful in judging initial errors, mistakes or ignorant decisions which could radically have changed reactions and outcomes if available at the initial time of decision and reaction

Perhaps you are right, as a healthy individual it may not have killed you but certainly could have impacted you in unknown ways physically.

The only position you've made accurately is that you have every right to decide your own fate in seeking or avoiding treatments but your decisions were applicable only for you.

The medical community learning or discovering who and why the vulnerable were affected in the ways they were came much later in the outbreak timeline and even then there was no definitively clear boundries of those groupings other than those with other extreme underlying medical conditions were at very high risk.

As a counterpoint to your pressumption, i lost healthy family members that were middle aged and without underlying condition to covid in the first 9 months of the outbreak so your argument doesnt hold up across the spectrum