The new COVID relief bill contains $500,000,000 for Israel. ImageImage
The legislative package also contains $2 billion for Air Force missile procurement and related expenses. Image
$4 billion for Navy weapons procurement. Image
$2 billion for Space Force! Image
It should be noted this is all part of a consolidated appropriations package--COVID relief was tied into the continuing resolution.

But these figures are still useful to see what our government's priorities are.
Love the low key accusations that I'm self-loathing.

The first tweet should have read "the spending package that COVID relief is part of" and not "the COVID relief bill."

It was imprecise language, but the point is the same: We have $ for everything but struggling people.
See? Look here, folks: the NYT did the same thing I did. ImageImage
And so did Rachel Maddow (just after the 3 minute mark). She called it “the COVID relief bill.”

This is fake outrage—a deliberate attempt to distract from the fact that we’ve got funds for apartheid while claiming to be broke for our people.

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More from @WalkerBragman

Oct 24, 2023
The "If everyone is mad at my article, I got it right" conventional wisdom needs to be retired already.

Faye, I'm a reporter who covers disinformation and dark money. Your article got it wrong and these folks you keep engaging with are extremists.
Thacker, for example, was the Twitter Files guy who implied (wrongly) that Taylor Lorenz's uncle owned the Internet Archive. He writes for the Brownstone Institute, a far-right dark money outfit that promotes misinformation and conspiracy thinking.
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I could go on and on and on about why affiliating with Brownstone is damning, but I think this screenshot should suffice.

This is a Brownstone article by the group's founder about accountability for public health officials. Note the image used. Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 19, 2023
Today, I am excited to announce that I have a story in @RollingStone, which is also cross-published with Important Context.

The scoop: America's largest charitable funds have been funding anti-vaccine groups throughout the pandemic.

rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
Please subscribe to Important Context so we can continue doing this kind of reporting!

importantcontext.news/p/americas-big…
Also, please find me on Blu*Sky and Thr*ads.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 24, 2023
The White House plan is to let you get infected every year—perhaps multiple times—with a virus linked to a host of serious health problems and for which reinfection makes those problems more likely.
CDC won’t even recommend masking at this point. It’s just pathetic.

They bet everything on the vaccines early on but didn’t adapt when it became clear that the jabs wouldn’t be enough on their own.

The goal now seems to be normalization of current levels of infection
Setting aside CDC changing the color scheme and metric of its transmission map to make the crisis seem less bad; setting aside the “end” of the emergency phase of the pandemic; most damning of all has been the near total lack of communication from the admin around long COVID.
Read 7 tweets
Sep 18, 2023
It's incredible how reliably conspiracy theories end up reinforcing--rather than challenging--power.

COVID conspiracy theories, for example, fuel opposition to public health measures opposed by big business.
Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories not only lead to hesitancy, which helps new strains develop, but you don't see antivaxxers calling to strip pharmaceutical companies of IP protections for their vaccines.
Conspiracy theories misdirect anger and attention away from the actual villains toward shadowy forces often unnamed--or, in other cases, individuals undeserving of the hate that ends up directed their way.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 3, 2023
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's credibility savaged in yet another Canadian court decision.

"He stubbornly He stubbornly refused to admit that his statement...was inaccurate"


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"Dr. Bhattacharya was reluctant to accept any evidence or opinion that may cast doubt on his opinions."

"He conceded that he aware that the article had been retracted...but he did not raise that fact until he was cross-examined on it

This is wild.

Just a completely dishonest.

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In this Alberta case, Bhattacharya cited Sweden as an of good COVID response.

When made aware that Alberta's death rate was about 15% of Sweden's, he said age-adjusted analysis was necessary to make that comparison.

But concedes on cross he hadn't conducted such an analysis. Image
Read 10 tweets
Jun 15, 2023
NEW: The parents’ rights group known as Parents Defending Education calls itself “grassroots.”

Tax filings reveal that in its first year, 2021, it received hundreds of thousands of dollars from major right-wing organizations and funds.

importantcontext.news/p/major-grassr…
The funders of Parents Defending Education, which was founded by right-wing operative Nicole Neily, a veteran of the political influence network of Charles Koch, include the Searle Freedom Trust, which funds a number of groups in Koch’s network.

The trust gave $250K.
Important Context has previously reported that another “grassroots” parents’ rights group, Moms For Liberty, received much of its funding in its first year (2021) in just 5 large donations.

MFL was recently designated an extremist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Read 7 tweets

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