Weaponization of a Virus

groups of family and friends. I want to open up today with telling you a little bit about my holiday experience. As many folks across the country are headed back to work today, are headed back to school today, when the United States is at a break point where we are seeing three hundred thousand new cases a day, three hundred thousand new omicron cases a day. Here's a little bit of good news before we go into the apocalyptic nature

of our politics. The good news with Amicron that we have thus far, and again, this has only been on the planet for but a handful of weeks, right, so we gotta be as intellectually nimble as possible in understanding that all the information that we are receiving. Scientists and doctors and analysts are getting in real time and providing that information to the public. What we know thus far is that Omicron for those that are vaccinated and boosted right,

it is obviously a vaccine evader. But at the same point, for those that are vaccinated and boosted, the reality is is that you will most likely either a have no symptoms at all or be have very mild symptoms, probably those associated with a cult. However, if you are experiencing symptoms, stay the fuck at home, right, So, let me tell you something about my feelings about the CDC and Rochelle Wilenski.

At this point in time, I think that the CDC has lost all fucking credibility, and I don't think that we can just blame the Trump administration for the CDC

and where they are right now. I think the fact of the matter is is that it is very clear and evident thanks to the good people over at Routers and the AP and other news lines that once the CDC spoke with the president of Delta Right Delta Airlines, the CEO of Delta, and he asked that the guidelines be cut from ten days of quarantine to five because he doesn't have any staff. There is no one available to fly or to serve for DELTA because everyone's infected

with fucking COVID. Well, here's the thing. Are we following the science or are we following CEOs? And with the abrupt pivot that the CDC made in terms of shortening the recommendation of quarantining for ten days to five, you know, a good five day work week, leads us all to believe what we've always known is that capitalism is what rules everything, not just in this country but around the fucking globe. No one actually cares about the science or

the public health implications. We just care about keeping things running right. Even in the CDC's statement that they released a couple of days back when we were all still on break their recommendations, they said, well, we have to figure out how to balance public health with a like keeping our economy going. My god. You know what I find really frustrating here is that if those same sentiments came out of the CDC during the Trump administration, then

everybody would have been up in arms. But because it's coming out in the Biden administration, there's nothing more than memes and jokes that are being made, but no real interrogation as to what data the CDC is using to make their decisions these days, because here they go saying, well, you know, we're going to rely on the public to do the right thing. It's like, have you been paying attention?

Have we all been on planet Earth since February of twenty twenty when the first alpha variant the og raret its head. Do we not understand that depending on people's goodwill right and their honesty is not where we are as a country right now when we have still still at this moment in time, a sixty two percent of the public has been vaccinated. Sixty two percent, that's it. But we're all supposed to feel what good about that?

You know, folks. And what's frustrating here too is that, you know, the CDC they did a lot of things. In my humble opinion, again, I'm not a doctor and I'm not a scientist, and I say that because, unlike you know, the right wingers, I actually admit to where my analysis can fall short because I don't have those years of education in the medical industry, particularly epidemiology, to

provide you with my COVID intel. But what I can say as a person who has coached many as CEOs and has done media trainings for many of people, including members of Congress, is that the communication aspect of the

CDC as faulty as fuck. Right. The rush to tell people to take off their masks when they were vaccinated, the rush to tell people that they could go back inside to indoor dining, all of those things were used as tactics, as carrot dangling tactics for an unvaccinated public that if you had been paying attention, you would know you were not going to move the needle with There are twenty five percent of those people, those staunch Trumpers, those that are so enveloped in QAnon, in Newsmax, in

Fox News, and in Trump's orbit, that regardless of what it is that you do to try and get them

over to your side, they're not coming. And so the question that I continue to ask is the same question that I ask about why Democrats go off trying to court the Karens and the Chads and these invisible independence as opposed to shoring up their base in the same way that Republicans do, right, Like, why do you keep going after the people that don't want to fuck with you as opposed to the people that actively do and

are saying so on a regular basis. But with the CDC, it's once again not rewarding those people that have been doing the right thing, that have been masking up that we're social distancing when we were told to social distance right, that we're outdoor dining, when we were told that we could outdoor dine. Not those people. They have given up everything for those that are unvaccinated. And I get it. I get the idea that we believe that these people pose a threat and the reality is, folks, we are

going to be living with COVID. COVID is just now a part of our culture. It is a part of our world. And all we can do, frankly, is hope that with so much virus in the air, with omicron, and how fast it is spreading, I mean like fucking wildfire in a tender field. This thing has spread. I mean, just think about this when we think about this for

a moment. It was the beginning of December, right either late November the beginning of December, when the news broke that omicron was present in South Africa and in Brussels, and in the Netherlands and in the UK. Right it was South African scientists who first discovered the mutation that was the beginning of December. Within three weeks it had ravaged the fucking globe. So with that much virus in the air, all we can do, folks, is pray that each and every iteration of COVID will be less and

less life threatening. That's all we can hope. There's no science to prove that we can deal with the fact that delta was transmitted faster than alpha, right, and then omicron was transmitted faster than delta. But it also seems that right now again for those that are vaccinated and boosted,

that the symptoms right or are mild. But if you're still paying attention to COVID nineteen news, then you know in places like Tennessee, in places like Alabama and Arkansas, right these very right states, that their hospital systems are on a breaking point, at a breaking point right where doctors and nurses and other health professionals are not able to keep up with the demand. But their governors still don't give a shit. And here's the thing with COVID

that just pisses me off. And now folks will say, Danielle, we got to deal with one thing at one time. And I have to tell you this, no, we do not. We all need to learn how to fucking juggle, right, because that's the kind of climate and world that we are living in when we are not able to just take one crisis at a time. No, we're getting multiple crises over the course of multiple weeks that are coming at us all at once. Here's the thing, over eight

hundred thousand Americans are dead, right. We have actual evidence that Donald Trump was aware of just how dangerous, just how deadly deadly COVID nineteen was, and he did nothing. And as a matter of fact, did they not only do nothing, they decided to as a collective, as a collective, as an administration, and as an entire political party, to weaponize a virus that would kill close to a million Americans. No one is being held accountable for that. No one

is being held accountable for the lies. I see no lawsuits being waged at Q and on being waged at Newsmax, at Fox News, at any of these places for their participation in the weaponization of a virus that is killed close to a million people. Now, you can have people on the other side that say, well, how would we have known you can even have them feign ignorance. But you see, to this date, we are now two years into this pandemic, and they still refer to it as

a hoax. They still say that everyone is overreacting. They still say, no, no, it's the economy, get back to work, don't mask up. Masking your children is child abuse. These people still continue with this narrative because they have faced absolutely no consequences for it. And my question is when, if ever, we wonder why bad actors keep getting worse just right before, right over the weekend, Once again, it is only corporations that are holding these wayward, lying ass

politicians accountable. Marjorie Taylor Green has finally not through her anti semitism, not through her xenophobia, not through her racism, but through her lies about COVID nineteen, has finally lost her Twitter account permanently. But guess what she has two She has her congressional Twitter account. They didn't fucking suspend that. So let me just paint this picture for you. We're

living in a society. We're the only consequences that lying ass politicians face who not only lie, but are racist, Our misogynist, are anti Semites, are xenophobic, are homophobic? Are transphobic? Right? That are the most deplorable and disgusting human beings on the face of the it's planet that the only consequence they receive for their actions is losing a Twitter account. That's it. They don't lose their seats, they're not expelled

from Congress. Maybe maybe they'll lose their committees, as Marjorie Taylor Green has already done. But that woman, right, and I use that, and I'm telling you their other word just wants to come up. But I'm going to try and start out twenty twenty two on a better note. That crackpot walks around stalking her colleagues, running them down, putting up posters, using her social media followers to threaten them.

And she still has a job, even though she has no committee power, even though she is no ability to vote, She's still receiving a salary, a check from us, the American people. She's still able to fundraise off of her fucking crazy How is it that the only consequences that these people are facing is losing the ability to tweet. The only consequence Donald Trump has faced since leaving office, right, is the loss of his Twitter account. That's it. It is hard to keep faith in focus when it's just

we are living in such absurd times. I mean, that's honestly all that I can say. You know, I don't believe in resolutions. I believe in manifestations, right. I believe in energy. I believe in energy shifts. I believe in matching people with the energy that they give you. And I have to tell you, I also believe in letting some shit go. I want us as we go into this new year together, I want us to use woke af use the community that we have here in order

to rage, in order to vent. And then at the end of each episode, y'all collectively take a deep breath, take three, and let it go, right, because I am going to refuse. I don't know how much time we have left. I honestly do not. And when I say I don't know how much time I have left, I mean between COVID climate change and the impending collapse of our democracy. It's unclear, right, It's unclear how long somebody like me will be able to broadcast four Right, it's unclear. Right.

So with whatever time that we have left, I say we rage, I say we try and wake as many fucking people up as possible. But at the end of each day, we let that shit go. Right. I'm not holding this toxic waste inside of me any longer. So if you see me, you know, on Twitter, also cracking jokes on Instagram, also live in life. Yeah, I implore you to do the same, because I'm not going to stay in rage and in anger and in frustration and in anxiety and in depression and in sadness because I

think that doing so is going to shift something. The only thing that it shifts is me off a cliff and I'm not going out like that, right. So, you know, as I run through the news, which we will because there's so much to cover, I just want to remind you of all of that. It is okay. You can hold both rage and joy at the same time. You can both pay attention and decide that you're going to limit that and disconnect, right, because this twenty twenty two

is also about our health and well being. Yes, we have consequential midterm elections. Yes we will probably see more variants pop up before the end of the year is over. Yes, we may or may not see any members of Congress be arrested for you know, communicating with insurrectionists and giving

them the four Plans to the Capitol Building. But at that point, here's the thing, folks, I am going to begin this year the way that I want to fucking end it, which is with my emotional, physical, and mental well being in alignment, right, because they will not rob me of that. No matter the crazy shit that we are going to see that we're going to discuss on this show. Do not let them rob you of your sanity because you will need it, all right. So let's

talk about for a moment the Republicans. So, my friend wajahat Ali, who is a writer at The Daily Beast, he is a new book that is coming out at the end of this month called Go Back to Where You Came From. He offered a bit of advice to the media on Twitter yesterday, and he said, dear media, let us use this year to cover the Republican Party in the way that they should be covered. They are not a normal political party anymore, so stop treating them

like that. They are a radicalized white supremist party. They have radicalized white Americans across this country. And if they were of any other shade, if they were affiliated with any other religion, I would guarantee you that the headlines and the stories that you saw on news media, on the papers anywhere would be a hell of a lot

different than the nothingburger we get most days. We are coming up on the year anniversary this week Thursday, the year anniversary that Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and all of his crew, Johnny east all of these folks, Eastman, everybody, Juliani, his fucking spawn all put together a war room PowerPoint presentation on how to overthrow the government. And these people are still free because for some reason, when you are white, rich and powerful, you need to have a Mount Everest

style selection of evidence. The proof has to be so high, you know. And what makes me so disgusted that I want to spit is that, folks, if you remember, back in the early aughts, there was one of the most devastating cases that New York had seen in quite some time. And New York had seen a lot of devastating cases because millions of motherfuckers live here. But it was a case of Caliph Browder, the sixteen year old black boy who was picked up by police under the suspicion, the

mere suspicion that he had stolen a backpack. Now, as far as we were all concerned, the backpack did not contain bricks of gold, It did not contain body parts, It did not contain, you know, kilos of cocaine, It didn't contain, oh anything. They picked him up and they

threw him in jail. And not just any jail. They threw him in Rikers, and not just in Rikers, but in solitary confinement where he would be beaten and tortured and abused, not just by the other inmates at Rikers, but by the police at Rikers, by the correctional facility, the correctional staff at Rikers. His family was not able to come up with the thousands of dollars for his

bail bonds. And because we have a payola system right, New York State and New York City are able to target the poor black people, Latin X folks, throw them in jail, throw away the key. Well. As it would turn out, after three years of being in this tortuous and nightmarish scenario, Caliph Browder was released. He was never actually charged, he never stood trial. He was just held for three years under the suspicion of stealing a backpack.

He would later, if you remember, commit suicide. He would kill himself because the depression and the anxiety that that incarceration, wrongful incarceration caused him, he couldn't bear to live with it. That is one of too many stories. He was held for three years under suspicion of having a backpack, stealing

a backpack that never turned up. So you tell me why the fuck we need mountains and mountains and mountains of all of the fucking evidence in the world that we have had, by the way, We've had evidence of obstruction, we have had evidence of you know, money laundering, of theft. We've had all of this evidence on Trump since the Mulla Report, since his first impeachment, since his second impeachment.

Then he openly threatens to kill the vice president of the United States, is still going on television saying that the election was stolen from him, has raised a hundred million dollars plus off of that said lie, has changed policies and laws across this country as it pertains to elections, And this motherfucker is still walking three So is the person that put together the PowerPoint presentation. So is Steve Bannon that continues to go on air and threaten people.

It is more than suspicion to overthrow the government here, and yet these rich white men continue to walk fucking free, and all we're doing is holding hearings telling people we'll get to the bottom of this. And a year later, what's the longest sentence that somebody has received for trying to overthrow our government violently so killing five people, destroying millions of dollars worth of property, and shitting in the halls of our democracy. I think the longest sentence thus far,

don't quote me. I think might be four years. And that was for the fucking idiot QAnon Shaman, right, because he was just so front and fucking center. There was no way for you not to do something. But will he serve those four years? Probably not. It just pains me because the injustice is just so blatant, right, the imbalance is just so off, But we continue to trudge along.

And I believe that there's a reason why we continue to want to tell ourselves that, oh oh, justice is coming, because it's I think that if we don't believe in something, we'll lose our minds. I think that we are holding on to the hope of some semblance of justice happening because we don't want to imagine a society that has

shown us who it is. We don't want to imagine that you're living in a society that, for I don't know, since the beginning of time, black people have been very aware that the laws were never meant to actually protect us, They were never meant to support our citizenship. The laws were only ever created to protect white people and property from black people and other people of color. So when they break the law, you just have to move the goalpost. You just have to change the law, or you just

have to increase the burden of proof. You see in America, you can just point out a black person and say they did that thing right, whether it is in the nineteen fifties, a black man whistled at me, and so we're gonna lynch and murder and torture them. And that's based on what just some white person's thoughts. But in order to convict a known mob for burning down a town, lynching, beating, raping people, oh, you need to show so much, not

just their faces, not even just their own words and statements. No, we need to create an entire circus around it, only to have them sit up, cry their crocodile white tears and then be sent home. And then we say, well, you win some, you lose some. Well, how many do you actually have to lose for us to recognize that the system is rigged. It's not broken, right, it's rigged. I don't even like using that word anymore because when you use it nowadays, it triggers, you know, the conversations

and the rants of Donald Trump. But you see, the system really is rigged. It has been rigged against black people and other people of color. We know, good god, damn well, what would have happened? How many thousands of people would have been dead on the steps of the

Capitol building? How you would have seen it look like somebodies, you know, Capital Down or White House Down or whatever one of those movies with you know, helicopters and bombs being dropped just to stop those crazy black and brown people from wanting to declare their rights as citizens, right, because that's what would have happened, and then they would have spun the tail. America has been doing this since forever.

We just have the internet now. So a year later, do I think that we are going to see anything like the Nuremberg Trials. You know, is somebody a fantashow Kyle shout out to you, sent me on Twitter and article and I'm certain that we talked about this in twenty twenty, but apparently November twenty twenty was the seventy fifth anniversary of Germany's Nuremberg Trials, you know, the trials that brought down executed the top members of the Nazi Party.

It created whole new international laws around how war criminals

could be tried personally for their participation. And I think about the fact that those prosecutors had to be brave, had to be valiant, because they were breaking ground, because there was no precedent, not any precedent for what Hitler was able to do right for so many years without people caring, because all you have to do is pick a population of people that people the large majority doesn't give a fuck about or has a conspiracy about, and

just go about your day. I remember folks saying so many times as a young person learning about the Holocaust and learning about the Nuremberg Trials, how could this happen? How was it that Hitler was receiving coverage in the New York Times Home and garden section as he was executing, burning alive, gassing millions of Jewish people. Right, How how could people go along with their day to day when their neighbors, right, their friends, I thought they were Maybe

their friends are getting picked up one by one. You don't know where they're going. How does it happen collective apathy? Oh well, at least it's not me, it's them, so I don't have to care. I wonder, And I know that I'm not the first person to say this. I know that millions of people have said it to me before. But if Hitler had had Fox News, would they have taken him down? Or would he have just had his

full on propaganda machine? And he did, He had all the news stations he had, you know, the aggrieved citizen try of Germany that was spiraling out of control in an economic downturn, and they needed somebody to blame, right, And you can't possibly blame government. You can't blame your employer for not providing you with living wages, for not creating social safety gnats that would protect people from downturns. No, you just point to somebody over there and you say

they're the reason. They're the reason why you've lost your home, lost your job, or standing in a breadline. And so then when you decide to turn around and begin the slow but steady execution of those people, no one bats an eyelash because you slowly but surely turn society against them. Well that's the meticulousness of the Trump administration. They slowly, meticulously turned normal people against facts, against truth, against their

own fucking health. We should have saw the possibility of COVID coming when people were voting against their own ability to have healthcare. Jonathan saw it, our friend and the author of Dying of Whiteness. You see, they were willing. These white folks are willing to cut off their nose, cut off their arm, so long as the black person down the street of the Latin, next person a neighborhood over loses more body parts than them, loses more rights than they do, because then they can still what hold

on to some idea, some lie of superiority. I'm never in a million years if you had told me, Danielle. People will literally flip over tables, threatened hospital staff, beat up school board officials, call in threats just so they don't get a life saving vaccine. And not only that, they'll threaten you and your safety. I never, we never, but here we are. So how is it that nobody is being held responsible for that from the insurrection to COVID.

How how is it that these governors still have their jobs? How is it that you don't see from this administration every single day fucking PSAs about how dangerous the Republican Party has become. How they are a party that literally has created death panels, people willingly though lining up to be executed. It's wild, you know, it really is when you think about what really is the cause of all of this, and it is misinformation, but it's I mean,

even the word misinformation isn't effective enough. It's bald face lies that are allowed to spread by full networks that this government refuses to shut down. Oh, Danielle, they don't have the power. Give me a fucking break. I'm so tired of being told what we don't have the power to do, what we don't have the authority to do.

And then all we have to do is sit around and wait for the next Trump administration to come in and decide that they're turning the FCC on every single news channel that does not bow to their will and you will see how quickly those CEOs will, how they'll bend, how they'll contort themselves. We'll all sit around and say, oh my god, this is an American not in this country,

blah blah blah. And I'll say, you had an opportunity to do the right thing four years ago, but you decided not to because you wanted to seem politically fucking neutral, you know. Desmond two two, Archbishop Desmond tu two died over the holiday the ripe old age of ninety A life incredibly well lived. And why was it well lived? Because he told the truth. He told the truth about what was happening in South Africa during apartheid. He told the truth about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

He told the truth about why people need to pay attention. He as an archbishop at a time when no one, no one was laying a finger, let alone embracing the LGBTQ plus community. He said, I'd rather go to Hell than a homophobic heaven. I want those leaders. Where are they? Where are the ones that are willing to do and say what is necessary. They've all become pawns of capitalism.

This isn't about we the people. And it's why I have always, over the last several years, ended every woke a f show with power to the people, because I believe in the collective. But what happens when the leaders that you elect to be your voice, to stand up and to do what's right for the collective all of a sudden have selective laryngitis. What does it look like when it is the people that are screaming into the

ether and it's falling on non listening ears. You know, one of the questions that I was asked yesterday when I had the good fortune to join Reverend Owl on MSNBC on Politics Nation, one of the questions that they asked was, you know, what do you see for twenty twenty two? What is that steak? And I can't say

this enough. What is that steak? Everything? Everything that you hold dear, Your ability to vote, your ability did have an abortion, your ability to vaccinatured children, your ability to turn on the television and get news that is not riddled with lies and state propaganda agencies that are supposed to be supporting you, that you're paying into with your own tax dollars, all of it, I said to Rev.

I said, he says Danielle. What happens if we don't pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, if Biden can't get it done because of mansion in cinema and their love affair with the filibuster, Well, I said, very simply, then our democracy will go up and smoke like the Capitol Building did on one six. That is not hyperbole, that is the truth. We have never been in a

worse position in this country than we are now. And we've been in two World Wars on top of other failed wars that took countless lives, billions of dollars lost, and no justice found. And I will tell you that this position that we are in is the worst most historians have ever seen. If we have the ability to look back on this time, and that is a big if. I can only imagine what is going to be said, probably the same thing that I said when learning about

the Holocaust for the first time. How did they let this happen? How did so many people fail to stop madmen from taking over the country. Why weren't there riots in the street. Why wasn't capitalism and government grinded to a fucking halt until people were held accountable for what they've been doing. I hope you see if those conversations are being had, that means that some portion of our world has been saved. But as it looks right now, folks, you know, it was Michael Harriet from The Route who

tweeted about the Netflix movie Don't Look Up. He said, don't look up as a documentary. I gotta tell you it certainly fucking is, because it's so fucking absurd that you would have the president find out that there's an existential threat and say, let's wait an assess. But isn't that what this administration is doing voting rights is an existential threat to our fucking democracy and you're still having coffee and tea with the two people with their fucking

fingers on the nuclear button. So how is it that we think that what the Biden and Harris administration is doing right now with regard to voting rights isn't the same thing that Meryl Streep was doing and fucking don't look up. Let's wait an assess. Now. Don't get me wrong, they're dealing with COVID, they're dealing with climate change. But let me tell you what they're not doing is that they're not setting off any type of alarms and that

actually they're doing the fucking reverse. Oh keep calm, folks, we have it all under control. Bits just three hundred thousand people that just were infected with omicron. You just had devastating tornadoes, tornadoes that were miles wide that took out full fucking towns. You got emergency rooms now being filled up with fucking children. You have Republicans that are threatening to kill their own colleagues, and you have an ex president twice in Peach that is using his Morilago

compound as White House too. And if you are not articulating the urgency of this moment to the people, then what the fuck are you doing? And that is my question for this administration because I feel, folks, as we come up to the year mark of the insurrection, as we come up to the first complete year of the Biden Harris administration, I have given them enough time to stress the importance, the emergency, the urgency of this moment.

Because I'm about to ride that administration like a motherfucking donkey, okay, because they are not meeting this moment and you can fight me on it. That is it for me today, Folks on woke f as always power to the people and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck.