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Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Feb 11

If World War III Happens, You Can Thank Russiagate mtracey.substack.com/p/if-world-war…

The significance of the episode where the Ukraine president called an emergency press conference to rebuke the US Government and media for stoking a war "panic" has been sorely under-appreciated. Whatever the US is doing at the moment, it's the opposite of "de-escalation"

For years during Russiagate I argued that hysteria-peddlers were ignoring that domestic political frenzies inevitably affect the conduct of foreign policy -- and in the case of Russia relations that was potentially disastrous. Today, as predicted, we see the fruits of that frenzy

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Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Jan 16

A concession worker at Barclays Center last night was loudly barking at people that she "CANNOT" serve anyone who isn't masked (i.e. refusing service) even though arena policy doesn't require masks, and even though her own cloth mask was dangling below her nose and half her mouth

Note: it's not the worker's fault that the relevant policies are muddled. The arena, which already has a vax mandate per NYC law, "strongly recommends" masks, but doesn't expressly require them. And corporate officials are paranoid about having to potentially cancel more events

Still, it was interesting to observe an unusually vivid example of someone aggressively using mask-wearing as a point of moral leverage against others, meanwhile the manner in which they were personally mask-wearing had zero conceivable benefit

Read 4 tweets

Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Jan 8

https://twitter.com/Slate/status/1479588835721891847

Alito couldn't have been more clear: he wasn't making any kind of "anti-vax" point, he was establishing that OSHA has never before imposed a regulation on workers that inflicts some risk of adverse health effects, however remote. But of course gets smeared as "anti-vax" anyway

https://twitter.com/Slate/status/1479588835721891847

Ironically, Alito expressly foresaw that he would be (deliberately) misunderstood in exactly this manner

Alito: "These vaccines and every other vaccine of which I'm aware, and many other medications, have benefits and they also have risks... some people who are vaccinated and some people who take medication that is highly beneficial will suffer adverse consequences"

"Anti-vax"???

Read 7 tweets

Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Jan 5

Public schools were closed for at least 440,000 students in New Jersey as of today. That's over a third of the entire state's student population, and I probably under-counted. Definitely what you would have expected a full year into mass vaccination

Newark, Jersey City, Irvington, Elizabeth, Paterson, Bayonne, Union City, Hackensack, East Orange, New Brunswick, Hamilton, Camden, Trenton are among the larger districts closed. Some affluent districts too, but it's not hard to infer which students are mostly affected by this

Oh and by the way New Jersey public schools have received $4.3 billion in COVID funding from the federal government

Read 5 tweets

Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Jan 5

Rutgers announced today that fully-vaxxed and now compulsorily "boosted" students are barred from returning to their dorms til at least January 29, and classes are remote again / events cancelled. But at least the students were wished "a very happy and healthy new year" via email

Reaction from Rutgers subreddit

It's one thing to have limited sympathy for students attending "elite" private schools, but students going to state schools (often the only plausible option for them financially) are straightforwardly sympathy-deserving for all this ridiculousness

Read 4 tweets

Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Jan 2

Twitter's current "COVID misinformation policy," under which Marjorie Taylor Greene was just banned, effectively prohibits criticism of "official regulations" and "restrictions" -- even on the grounds of "efficacy." And then they wonder why people are cynical

The terms of the policy could of course just as easily apply to COVID-fanatical users: what about the "harm" caused by generating the "misleading" impression that children are at extreme risk? To take just one example of countless. But of course it's never enforced that way

As usual, Tech Officials have made themselves into unilateral arbiters of complex public debates -- like they're Philosopher Kings. But the one-sidedness of "COVID misinformation" rules, combined with the inherent ambiguity of the "harm" principle, takes it to a whole other level

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