The Signorile Report

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This week the FDA revoked two monoclonal antibodies, from Regeneron and Eli Lilly respectively, because they have no affect on the Omicron variant.

People with Covid-19 were being given false hope by some hospital and doctors, as the treatments are as useless as ivermectin.

And Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who’d boxed himself in by wildly promoting monoclonal antibodies over vaccines — hardly giving any events over recent months urging people to get vaxxed, as he played to the Trumpist anti-vax base — went ballistic.

He accused the Biden administration of allowing people to die, which is ludicrous because it was the drugmakers themselves that announced the treatments don’t work against Omicron:

The regulatory move was expected because both drugmakers had said the infusion drugs are less able to target omicron due to its mutations…

..Omicron’s resistance to the two leading monoclonal antibody medicines has upended the treatment playbook for COVID-19 in recent weeks.

As I discussed this on my SiriusXM show this week, a DeSantis supporter called in to both try to clarify that DeSantis is “not an anti-vaxxer,” even as DeSantis has not promoted vaccines in months and bans vaccine mandates, and to excuse DeSantis on several fronts.

Doug from Florida couldn’t explain why DeSantis stood next to a QAnon-inspired anti-vaxxer at a DeSantis event who claimed the vaccines “change your RNA” — and DeSantis didn’t correct him.

And when I pointed out that DeSantis has a major donor with a big stake in Regeneron, Doug blew it off, stating, “"He is a politician, and that's what politicians do."

So, it appears totally okay to DeSantis supporters in Florida that DeSantis is pushing a useless, expensive therapy — paid for by your federal tax dollars — which one of his donors makes a killing on, even if it puts people’s lives at risk by giving them false hope there’s a treatment for Omicron rather than just urge then to get vaccinated.

You’ll want to hear this one, as the guy remained level-headed — while being completely delusional.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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The proof that Trump supporters are immersed deep in a cult becomes so clear when they call into my SiriusXM radio program to spout ludicrous non-facts with such confidence. It brings me back to CPAC, and the golden calf of Trump that was wheeled down a corridor while worshipers looked on. They bow to the authoritarian and give up all independent thought.

MAGA follower Dave from California called into my show to claim that Congress has no power over elections. I literally read from the Constitution to him, from precisely where it says Congress has a lot of power.

Dave was jarred, in the way that cult followers often are when their counter-logic is exposed. After referencing Trumpist radio host Mark Levin — which was hilarious — he then tried to change the subject to the Electoral College.

But I held him to what he initially called about and asked him to counter what I stated, or to admit he was wrong. He said he didn’t “have a copy of the Constitution to read,” so “I don’t know.”

Then he tried to change the subject to voter ID, which is a straw man because the Freedom to Vote Act, which Senator Joe Manchin helped write (yet he wouldn’t allow a filibuster carve out to get passed), would allow states to ask for ID and lists the kind of ID people can use.

So, that didn’t work either.

Dave then just started babbling about something else. And then something else.

It was quite something to behold.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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f you’ve been enjoying The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!

This is part of series focusing on Democratic candidates Im interviewing on my SiriusXM show as Democrats fight to keep the House and Senate, and even gain seats, in the 2022 midterms.

Vermont has just one Congressional district and it’s not in danger of falling into GOP hands. Yet the small progressive state has great influence, represented by Senator Bernie Sanders in the U.S Senate, a several-time presidential candidate who has helped move the agenda in a dramatically progressive way for Democrats.

So I wanted to focus in on Becca Balint, president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, who made history as the first woman elected to legislative leadership in that state.

Ballint will also make history as the first LGBTQ person and first woman representing Vermont in the United States House of Representatives if elected in 2022, bringing even more change to Washington from the Green Mountain State. Democratic Congressman Peter Welch, currently representing Vermont in the House, will now run for the the U.S. Senate after the announcement of the retirement of Senator Patrick Leahy.

Balint has a lot of great ideas, enormous passion and will be a powerful addition to progressives in the House. So I thought you might want to hear my full interview with her from my SiriusXM program. And you can check out her campaign site here.

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Once again, a person who claimed to have been vaccinated — though had been “hesitant” previously — called in to my SiriusXM program to argue against vaccine mandates.

This time Shelly from Virginia claimed to be a health care worker.

She also claimed that people should not be mandated to get vaccinated by employers and should in fact collect unemployment if they lose their jobs — as some Republican governors are now offering — because many people have been “vaccine-damaged” in the past. She particularly pointed to veterans.

That is anti-vax terminology that has been floated among the anti-vax conspiracy theorists, going back to a video in 2020 about “vaccine damage” that has proven to be completely false.

On a list of vaccine concerns for many different vaccines over decades, the CDC found no long-lasting “damage” proven to anyone, though there were many investigations of vaccines after people claimed problems.

Regarding veterans, there have been many health outbreaks among them while they served on active duty military and later, some related to infections caused by needles that weren’t sterile, but there’s been no proof of any damage by vaccines. There have been numerous illnesses reported by veterans, particularly during the Gulf War, but none were proven to be caused by a vaccine, even though there have been many such claims.

It might be true, as Shelly states, that many are afraid of vaccines based on these past beliefs and claims, but that should not warrant scrapping vaccine mandates to protect the greater public.

If people need psychological help in dealing with getting over a fear of a vaccine they should seek it, as I told her.

I finally had to just end the conversation with Shelly when she began to go back to the boilerplate anti-vax argument — that few people are supposedly dying of Covid-19 — as I won’t allow disinformation to spewed on my show.

Why do I talk to these people at all?

So that maybe someone on the fence who might be listening can see how foolish they sound. And also so that others who are promoting vaccines can be as forceful in rebutting these people — because they truly must be forcefully rebutted.

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During a discussion about the horrific school shooting in Oakland County, Michigan last week, Jeff from South Carolina called into my SiriusXM program to express that he was a “at a loss” to hear me hold Trump supporters responsible for this extremist, violence behavior we’re seeing, which is emboldened by GOP leaders.

An obvious conservative and Trump supporter, he was shocked — or at least claimed to be— at the idea that one is responsible for actions of politicians in a party one supports who aren’t punished for their violent actions.

I’d explained, as I wrote here yesterday, that Jennifer Crumbley, mother of Eathan Crumbley, was an avowed supporter of Donald Trump, and how she and her husband James bought the gun for their son and had seen warnings that he’d engage in violence.

I went through Jennifer Crumbley’s open letter to Trump, vowing allegiance to him, and I went through the calls to violence by Trump-supporting right-wing Republican politicians, such as North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, who commanded all mothers, regarding their sons, to “raise them to be a monster!”

And I talked about how Cawthorn and other extremists in the party are now in control of the GOP in the House, because the supposed leaders of the party — like Kevin McCarthy — not only don’t condemn them; they reward them.

And let’s not forget the glorification of guns. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie sent out a Christmas tweet with this hideous photo last Saturday, following the Michigan school shooting. It was on the very day that the Crumbleys, having become fugitives, were on the run.

Jeff became angry at the insinuation that he was supporting hatred and violence. He expressed ignorance at hearing Cawthorn’s comments, and said he is a “middle of the road” guy who “looks at people like Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene as “nutbags.” This was the attempt to absolve the rest of the GOP.

But, I explained, the extremists are the GOP now, because the leaders don’t condemn them. And if you support the GOP — now completely owned lock, stock and barrel by Trump, who enables the extremists — then you are enabling the agenda of the “nutbags,” including their promotion of violence.

This abdication of responsibility is typical of many Trumpers, who try to minimize the violence by saying they don’t support it — while they support the party, and the leadership that embraces it.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

Thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and connect in great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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I got into quite a scrap with Shannon from South Carolina, who called my SiriusXM program to claim that because the Covid-19 vaccines aren’t 100% effective, and thus people could still theoretically transmit Covid if vaccinated, the government “doesn’t have a right” to mandate the vaccine.

I then asked him if he knew the efficacy of the measles vaccine or polio vaccine or others, all of which are and were under 100% effective (and some not nearly as good as the Covid vaccines), and yet are mandated by governments with mandates upheld by the courts.

He said he knew nothing about that but deferred to his wife, who he said was in the “medical professional.”

When I said he’d not taken up an education from his wife very well if he didn’t know that, he accused me of attacking his wife!

Shannon called me a jerk for allegedly saying his wife “is not educated.”

But that’s not what I said, I told him, I said, “your wife did not educate you well.”

“I’m not insulting her — I’m insulting you,” I said.

Yes, by the end of the conversation I called him “dumb as a rock.”

Was I too hard on him? Listen in and let me know your thoughts.

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This stunning and horrible account underscores how deep and dangerous the anti-vax Trump cult is.

A listener to my SiriusXM program, Joe from New Jersey, called in to tell us about a childhood friend who contracted Covid-19, was hospitalized and put on a ventilator, and tragically had both legs amputated — and still refuses to believe it’s a good idea to get vaccinated.

She was lucky to survive, but after an experience like that how could anything not have any regrets about not getting a free and effective vaccine?

Joe said his friend had moved back to New Jersey from North Carolina, and he eventually had to un-friend her on Facebook because she “became an anti-vaxxer, she became a total Trumper.”

She then contacted him three months later.

“She finally reached out to me last night,” Joe said. “She wound up getting Covid, wound up on a ventilator, and then wound up having both of her let’s amputated due to Covid.”

She still believes all the conspiracies.

“It’s horrible but I was more angry with her — I don’t fee sorry for her, I can’t, I don’t mean to sound heartless — I’m more angry with her, because we argued so much, back and forth. about having the vaccine, and her right not to have it, and this is where she wound up,” Joe explained.

He’s speechless now, he said, because this 55-year old woman lost both of her legs because of Covid and has no regrets.

“I point blank said to her last night, ‘Do you regret not getting the vaccine?’ And she wouldn’t answer me.”

Joe said, “I love her to death. She’s a good friend, but I’m more angry with her than feel sorry for her.”

The story makes you realize that for many of these people it’s a hopeless cause. They will keep the pandemic fueled and do harm to themselves and others.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts.

Thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and connect in great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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This was pretty bizarro.

On my SiriusXM program I was discussing Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers having lied about getting vaccinated for Covid-19 — and then saying he was on ivermectin, used largely as a dewormer for livestock and other animals, and promoted by antivaxxers, Fox News pundits and Joe Rogan.

That’s when Steve from Virginia called in.

Rather than focus on Rodgers’ lie — or even Rodgers refusal to get vaxxed, and defend that if he wanted to — Steve shifted away from the topic other callers were weighing in on to claim my discussion of ivermectin was “childish.”

He explained that it’s been used for humans and that this was “human grade” ivermectin. I explained that while it’s true humans have used it there are now a variety of other drugs, much more effective for treating parasites in humans, and that ivermectin was used mostly in animals and has been for many years.

But one question Steve refused to answer was why he was defending ivermectin. The conversation went around in circles, and Steve both refused to say he wasn’t taking ivermectin nor address Rodgers having lied.

It was quite amusing. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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A California man named Ed called into my SiriusXM show and claimed he was “not trying to give away a position one way or the other” but that a Southwest Airlines pilot can be excused for saying “Let’s Go Brandon!” — code for “F**k you, Biden!” — to passengers from the cockpit because of the “mental illness” foisted on Donald Trump by the “media and Hollywood.”

Ed said that “he had to listen to four years” of it, but added “not that I’m trying to take a position” —as if he weren’t a Trump supporter — and thus he doesn’t have sympathy for Biden and thinks calls for the Southwest pilot to be fired or punished are wrong.

Ed implied there was no difference between media pundits, celebrities or even politicians criticizing the president and a pilot of a private airline doing so on a flight with passengers and using code for a profanity.

“Oh, yes there was,” he said, when I said that there hadn’t been anything like this against Trump that wasn’t punished. “Sure there was,” he shot back. “Are you blind?”

“So wait — there was a pilot who did that?” I asked. He then deflected.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ed responded, trying to say this was the same as the media and Hollywood figures criticizing Trump, which is ludicrous.

In fact, I pointed out, Kathy Griffin, working for a private company, CNN, was fired for tweeting out a photo of a mask of Trump with ketchup on it — and by the way, she is a performer, meant to be provocative and make us think, and not an airline pilot, whose only job is to fly a plane.

It got pretty ridiculous. And it was a window into these people’s (non) thinking.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

Thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and connect in great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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This is one that you just have to listen to.

I’d been talking to a caller on my SiriusXM show about the right-wingers and Trumpers who listen to the show and claim they just are cruising down the dial and find it —- when, lo and behold, Dan from Omaha calls in and claims just that.

He was absolutely shocked that we could say the “good people” at DonaldTrump rallies were doing anything bad, even as they’re belting out violent and racist chants.

Oh and he defended the January 6th insurrectionists too.

Poor Dan just wasn’t up to answering questions, however, and ultimately we had to say bub-bye.

Thanks for reading and following The Signorile Report. Most of it is free to read, but if you’d like to support independent, ad-free opinion journalism (and connect in great discussion threads), please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe