Coronavirus: Thread

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Wed Jan 19 15:08:20 PST 2022


Not even the Supreme Court is "immune" from the Left's
insane Corona Cult of Twisted Liars and Fake News Media...


Supreme Court Issues Rare Statement Refuting CNN/NPR 'Fake News' About
Tension Over Masks

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-issues-rare-statement-on-reports-of-tension-over-masks_4222995.html
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/19/it-is-false-justices-sotomayor-and-gorsuch-disclaim-npr-story-as-false/
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/19/second-circuit-refutes-allegations-involving-law-clerk-in-mediaite-above-the-law-and-other-publications/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-corrects-transcript-notes-gorsuch-didnt-make-false-flu-claim_4203472.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/cdc-director-disputes-supreme-court-justice-sotomayors-claim-about-kids-seriously-ill-with-covid_4201919.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-we-know-about-how-omicron-reduced-effectiveness-of-vaccines_4200065.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/pfizer-ceo-says-vaccine-offers-limited-protection-against-omicron-amid-spike-in-australias-vaccinated-hospitalisations_4210190.html
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/17/themyth-of-bipartisanship-kyrsten-sinema-becomes-the-latest-victim-of-rage-politics/


The Supreme Court on Wednesday weighed in after a report alleged the
reason Justice Sonia Sotomayor is participating in arguments from her
chambers as opposed to sitting with colleagues is due to Justice Neil
Gorsuch’s refusal to wear a mask.

    “Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a
mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about
the law, we are warm colleagues and friends,” Sotomayor, an Obama
nominee, and Gorsuch, a Trump nominee, said in a joint statement sent
to The Epoch Times by a court spokesperson.

One report from NPR alleged Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W.
Bush nominee, had asked the other justice to wear masks because he
understood that Sotomayor didn’t feel safe around people who weren’t
wearing them following the surge of the Omicron virus variant. The
report cited “court sources” for its claim and was authored by Nina
Totenberg, who was fired for plagiarism earlier in her career.

Another report, from CNN, cited a single unnamed source in alleging
Sotomayor had gone to her chambers for cases because she was
uncomfortable with Gorsuch being unmasked.

Sotomayor’s worries stem from having diabetes, which puts her at
increased risk of experiencing severe illness if she contracts the
virus, according to the reports.

A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to answer follow-up questions
over the phone and has not returned emailed questions on the matter,
including how long Sotomayor has been participating in arguments
remotely.

The justice was again listening from her chambers on Wednesday,
according to Roberts.

An NPR spokesperson told news outlets that Totenberg “never reported
that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask, nor did
she report that anyone admonished him,” adding, “The statement
released by Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch does not contradict the
reporting in Totenberg’s piece.”

However, as Jonathan Turley points out, even the joint statement made
little difference. Indeed, Kathryn Rubino (who is the subject of
another dubious column today) discarded the account of even Sotomayor
in a column titled “Neil Gorsuch’s Call For Civility Was Always Just
For Show.”  Rubino still maintains that the false story still proves
her point:

    “This information probably does not surprise Supreme Court
watchers — like even a little bit — but, Neil Gorsuch is a real jerk
of a coworker.”

Ruth Marcus who also features prominently in the earlier column
controversy discussed today ran with the mask claim.

All nine justices have received COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots,
the court has previously said.

Still, the vaccines have proven increasingly unable to prevent
infection from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes
COVID-19, following the emergence of the Omicron variant, though
they’re holding up relatively well against severe disease.

Sotomayor and her two colleagues also nominated by Democrat presidents
drew criticism earlier this month when they offered false statements
on COVID-19 during arguments for and against two Biden administration
COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Sotomayor, for instance, claimed that in the United States, “We have
over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious
condition and many on ventilators.”

Federal data, though, showed that about 3,500 children were
hospitalized with COVID-19, and a significant percentage of
hospitalized patients are actually admitted for other reasons.

Justice Stephen Breyer, a Clinton nominee, falsely said that 750
million new COVID-19 cases were recorded on Jan. 6 while Justice Elena
Kagan, an Obama nominee, claimed that “we know that the best way to
prevent spread is for people to get vaccinated and to prevent
dangerous illness and death is for people to get vaccinated” even
though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said even before
the emergence of Omicron—which easily bypasses vaccines—that vaccines
do not prevent transmission of the virus.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch delivers remarks after
taking the judicial oath during a ceremony in the Rose Garden at the
White House in Washington on April 10, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Images)

As Jonathan Turley pointed out, the NPR story struck many of us as
diametrically at odds with everything we have heard about Gorsuch on
the Court.

However, it was another “fact clearly too good to check.”

It really does not matter if it is false or not. The narrative
remains. The story is another manifestation of our age of rage. It is
not enough that you disagree with Gorsuch. You have to portray him as
a sadistic, borderline homicidal fanatic. In the end, the media just
moves on with the next collective primal scream session masked as
journalism.


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