More On Wendy Bell And Her Bad Research.

Just a few minutes of digging showed exactly how bad Wendy Bell is at research. She's putting the health of the general population at risk.

Take a look at yesterday's BS board:

Lotsa numbers and so on. But we want to begin the dig in the upper right hand corner:

Sounds kinda official, right? Some NGO that produces non-partisan economic data, right?

Wrong on both parts.

According to the Media Bias/Fact Check:

Overall, we rate The American Institute for Economic Research Right-Center biased based on Libertarian-leaning economic policy and Mixed for factual reporting due to the publication of misinformation related to Coronavirus. 

Misinformation related to Coronavirus, you say. Interesting.

Misinformation like this from the London School of Economics:

The AIER has spread unreliable information about COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. In September, it published a bizarre rant by its ‘Senior Resident Fellow’, George Gilder, who declared that the “Covid-19 crisis was already essentially over” by late April, based on a clearly inaccurate article that suggested “the spread of the coronavirus declines to almost zero after 70 days—no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it”.

This might be where Wendy Bell got her "information" declaring Covid over last year. 

The AIER also got into trouble with something called the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration proposed a plan towards Covid herd-immunity basically by protecting those most-vulnerable and removing any governmental lockdowns thus allowing it to spread through the rest of the population.

Hmm. Wendy's advocated for this, too. I am guessing she's a BIG fan of the AIER.

Anyway, here's a response from an actual scientist:

A high-profile proposal to avoid lockdown by letting the coronavirus run wild in the young and healthy while shielding the most vulnerable is dangerously flawed and operationally impractical, according to England’s chief medical officer.

Prof Chris Whitty told MPs on the science and technology committee that the Great Barrington declaration, put forward by three scientists at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford universities, would lead to a very large number of deaths and was unlikely to achieve such widespread immunity that the epidemic would fizzle out naturally.

But that's not Wendy Bell's only research sin.

Take a look at the very specific numbers she uses. It makes it so so easy for someone to find what she referenced at AIER.

It's this page. Take a look at what's pasted across the top of the page:

Editor’s note: the article and video discussed below have been pulled by Johns Hopkins Newsletter. You can read the announcement here. An additional explanation is here. The claims made by the economics professor will clearly require more investigation, as the announcement says. That said, AIER is publishing this in the interest of objective science and open discussion.

So the research from AIER was actually from Johns Hopkins Newsletter. The Newsletter says of the research:

Editor’s Note: After The News-Letter published this article on Nov. 22, it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data” has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.

We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation, as we noted on social media. 

This is the "research" that Wendy Bell used on her BS board yesterday.

In fact this is Wendy Bell's second bite at the Briand bad apple. The first was last December.

Shame on Wendy Bell for spreading COVID misinformation. More people will get sick and some may even die because of her bad research.

And shame on the St. Barnabas Health System for giving her a platform to spread that misinformation.

Note to St Barnabas: I'm Not Sure This Is A Good Topic For Wendy Bell.

Let's start here:

Oh look! @StBarnabasHS WJAS in-house racist claims there is no systemic racism! pic.twitter.com/FJnQmVrnlo

— JON (@JonInPGH) April 4, 2021

I may be out of my lane but I'm thinking that it might not be a good idea for America's Worst White Woman to be defining our nation's status on race.

And why shouldn't Wendy Bell ever ever comment on race? Damon Young explains:

Well, years ago, when Wendy Bell was still an anchorwoman at WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate), six people were killed in a horrific mass shooting in a predominately black Pittsburgh suburb. A week after the shooting, Bell went to her Facebook fan page and published what historians now refer to as the “Moby Dick of White Privilege.” (By “historians” I mean “I.”)

She began with some “thoughts” on how she hadn’t been able to walk or talk since the shooting, continued by effectively calling the mothers of the suspected shooters “broke black hoes,” described the shooting with Pulitzer-level black poverty porn imagery, and then ended with a pitch-perfect screed on how a recent family night at the Cheesecake Factory with a smiling and skipping black server gave her hope for us. (If you think I’m making this up, please—I beg of you—read what she wrote. And even if you don’t think I’m making this up, read it for your own entertainment.)

Bell was eventually fired from WTAE. She subsequently sued them for racial discrimination, and the case was settled. [Italics in original.]

Yea, she should probably just stay away from the topic as it got her fired from TAE.

On the other hand, at about 8:40 into Wendy's lecture on race, she states:

But I don't believe that the issue that is really most troubling most in defining at this point in American is systemic racism.

We have systemic irresponsibility. We have a problem with people not being accountable for their own decisions.

And a minute or so later she says:

But then there are elements in here where we're covering up for the systemic failures of generations of Americans – who've been allowed to become victims and blame other people for their lack of achievement, who use outrage as their cover for lack of progress.

You know when you're very young, your parents, if you're fortunate enough and they're part of your life and you have two of them, you have mom and you have dad, they teach you from the very early age about being accountable for the decisions that you make and trying to make the best decisions you can.

Gee, I wonder who she means. I wonder exactly who she's describing?

I wonder. Hmm.

Anyway, did you catch the homophobia sprinkled in there? Did you catch how Wendy Bell thinks that you're fortunate to be raised in a two parent household just as long as it's a mom and a dad.

And that's just the first 12 minutes or so. I didn't have the stomach to go any further.

Feel free to do so - I'm off to look at things in bloom (for fifty springs are little room).

Wendy Bell Sows Doubt About The Vaccine (Oh And Seasons It With A Little Racism)

Today on her Facebook Page, Wendy Bell posted this:

We'll get to the Trumpian racism in a minute, no worries.

By simply asking the question "Do you feel the vaccines...are safe?" She's sowing doubt - doubt that's going to get more people sick.

Why?

Because there's more than enough evidence already to show that the vaccines are safe. The question is not up for debate. Someone's feelings don't matter in judging the safety of the vaccines.

From the CDC:

All COVID-19 vaccines were tested in clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people to make sure they meet safety standards and protect adults of different races, ethnicities, and ages, including adults over the age of 65, participated in the clinical trials. There were no serious safety concerns. The most common side effects were pain at the injection site and signs and symptoms like fever and chills. After a review of all the available information, ACIP and CDC agreed the lifesaving benefits of COVID-19 vaccination for LTCF residents outweigh the risks of possible side effects.

And here's a description of the trial phases for vaccine testing: 

In the U.S., the FDA meticulously review the data from each clinical trial phase before approval or, in the case of public health emergencies, before granting emergency use authorization.

And:

A phase 1 trial focuses on the safety of the vaccine candidate. Escalating doses of the vaccine are given to healthy volunteers to determine side effects and tolerability.

Phase 2 trials expand their recruitment and may include participants with health conditions such as obesity, cancer, and diabetes. There is also active recruitment for participants of various demographics. The trial continues to test the safety of the vaccine and looks at the drug’s initial efficacy and how it affects the immune system.

Phase 3 trials recruit thousands of participants to measure the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing disease.

All this has already been done. The vaccines are safe.

If the Angel of Death were really interested in the health and safety of her audience, she would have asked the question something like this:

Even though the scientific evidence shows that the vaccines are safe, are you be reluctant to get one? And if so, why?

This could then trigger a discussion about phase trials, safety measures and so on. I suspect, however, Wendy Bell is more interested in a discussion that runs along the lines of this comment:

All the Wendy tropes are there; herd immunity, mistrust of the Guv'ment, no scientific data.

Yea, that's where St Barnabas' Angel of Death is going with this.

Perhaps Wendy should get her husband (he's a Doctor, doncha know) on the record about the safety of the vaccines.

Then there's Wendy's racism: 

“Ultimately, diseases are about biology, not geography,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who help lead the U.S. response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa. Descriptions of coronavirus that are winning praise in some GOP circles are racist, potentially undermine efforts to prevent spread of the disease and and threaten to harm relationships with China, health advocates say.

Specifically, this from NBC:

Republican lawmakers have persisted in using "Wuhan virus" or "Chinese coronavirus," despite remarks by Democrats and the director of the CDC that such phrases are inaccurate and even racist.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., used the term "Wuhan virus" on Thursday in announcing that his Washington office was closing because of the illness. His comments came two days after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, agreed when questioned at a House hearing that it was "absolutely wrong and inappropriate" to use such labels.

That was last March and Wendy Bell's still pushing the racism.

It must be so comforting for the powers-that-be at St Barnabas Health Care to be connected to such a warm and loving human being as the twice fired Wendy Bell.

THIS - This Is Why Wendy Bell Is The Angel Of Death

From her Facebook Page this morning: 

Hmm. Let's see. Dr Fauci:

• MD - Graduated 1st in his class from Cornell in 1966 (Note: this would be a few years before Wendy Bell was born)
  
• Joined the NIH in 1968
• Appointed director of NIAID in 1984

That's a position he still holds. About his position at NIAID:

[Dr. Fauci] oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies. The NIAID budget for fiscal year 2021 is an estimated $6.1 billion.

And Wendy Bell?

• Fired from WTAE for a racist Facebook post
• Fired from KDKA Radio for calling for statue protestors to be shot on sight

Which one is an expert in communicable diseases? And which one is an ignorant voice on American talk radio? 

But here's more about Dr Fauci:

Dr. Fauci also is the longtime chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. He has made many contributions to basic and clinical research on the pathogenesis and treatment of immune-mediated and infectious diseases. He helped pioneer the field of human immunoregulation by making important basic scientific observations that underpin the current understanding of the regulation of the human immune response. In addition, Dr. Fauci is widely recognized for delineating the precise ways that immunosuppressive agents modulate the human immune response. He developed effective therapies for formerly fatal inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly Wegener's granulomatosis), and lymphomatoid granulomatosis. A 1985 Stanford University Arthritis Center Survey of the American Rheumatism Association membership ranked Dr. Fauci’s work on the treatment of polyarteritis nodosa and granulomatosis with polyangiitis among the most important advances in patient management in rheumatology over the previous 20 years.

And Wendy Bell?

She knows all about the coronavirus. She said this to her audience: 

We understand what happens with coronavirus. People get sick. But people need to be exposed. We need to all become immune to this thing. Stop saying (she uses air quotes here) we need a vaccine, OK? We have a flu vaccine and only half the people get it. So everyone's going to rush out and get this vaccine? C'mon.

This is why she's the Angel of Death. The more people listen to and believe her, the more people will die. I just don't know how she sleeps at night,

I'd post this in a comment at Wendy's Facebook page and at WJAS' Facebook page, but for some reason I am blocked from doing so at both.

If some brave soul in MY audience were to post this at either place, they'd probably get blocked, too.

Wendy Bell/Radio Karen Has Returned To The Airwaves! Vetted And Approved By St Barnabas!!

This past Wednesday, Wendy Bell posted this on her Facebook page:

This was followed the next morning by this reporting from Eric Heyl at Patch:

Controversial talk show host Wendy Bell has announced she is returning to local radio next week following her abrupt departure from KDKA-AM last fall. Bell stated on social media that she will join conservative talk station WJAS-AM beginning Jan. 25.

Perhaps he's just being diplomatic but Heyl is too kind to the Angel of Death. She's not "controversial" as much as she's putting the public health in grave danger. (Is there another kind of danger?)

A few hours later, the story was reported by Julia Felton of the Trib:

JD Turco, senior vice president at St. Barnabas Broadcasting, which bought WJAS in November, confirmed Thursday that Bell will be joining the station.

“She’s going to be a conservative talk show host, in keeping with the lineup we have right now,” he said. “There’s a lot of conservative talk there. We believe she fits well into that lineup.”

And then a little after that Joshua Axelrod of the P-G:

“We were able to have the have a conversation with Wendy, and we feel it’s mutually beneficial to put her on,” said J.D. Turco, senior vice president of St. Barnabas Health System, which owns WJAS. “We have high hopes for Wendy and for WJAS.”

And:

Mr. Turco, who is also the chief financial officer of St. Barnabas Broadcasting, said Ms. Bell will fit in well with the station’s conservative talk-show format and that she was hired after “considerable thought” regarding her past behavior.

“We can’t predict the future, but we do think we’ve done ample due diligence, and hopefully it’ll all work out,” he said.

Before we go any further, let me point out that while the P-G is more than happy to post what amounts to free advertising for Radio Karen's latest media presence, they passed on reporting about Wendy's recent indefensible doxxing of a private citizen. This is what I wrote about what Wendy did:

To summarize: a woman called a sponsor of Wendy Bell's, Sierra Experts (who can be reached at 412 378-8333) and left an anonymous voice mail complaining about Wendy Bell. Sierra Experts' IT folks then hacked through the woman's "block caller" and sent Wendy Bell her phone number. By the way, Sierra Experts advertise a number of IT services and evidently violating a person's privacy is one of them. Once they had the woman's number Wendy Bell and her "research team" reversed searched it and doxxed the woman, exposing her name, image and contact info to her audience so that her audience could harass the woman who complained about Wendy Bell to Sierra Experts.

Was this included in St Barnabas' "due diligence"? And if it was, why are they going ahead with rewarding Wendy Bell with a 7 kilowatt platform? If not, can it really be called "due diligence"?

Are you like me and wondering what else was part of this "due diligence"? Let's focus with the virus since, y'know, St Barnabas Broadcasting is headquartered in the same building in Gibsonia as St Barnabas Health Care.

September 2, 2020 Wendy Bell lies to her audience with this:

...the CDC says that 94% of people who we think died of COVID did not die from COVID but died and happened to have it at the same time.

This is, of course, a lie - a QAnon inspired lie, to boot! From Factcheck:

He noted that the 6% figure includes cases where COVID-19 was listed as the only cause of death. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of Covid didn’t die of Covid-19. They did,” Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

And Wendy has reiterated this lie as recently as 3 weeks ago. 

Was this part of St Barnabas' "due diligence"? Seems kind of important, lying to the public about CDC statements on Covid-19 fatality. If they knew about it and yet STILL want her on their airwaves, then what does that say about St Barnabas Broadcasting?

June 27, 2020 Wendy Bell pushes so-called "herd immunity" onto her adoring public with this mini-rant to Governor Wolf:

Stop trying to circumvent the law. Stop trying to supersede our individual freedoms. Stop trying to rule with an iron fist and stop trying to scare us about this virus.

We understand what happens with coronavirus. People get sick. But people need to be exposed. We need to all become immune to this thing. Stop saying (she uses air quotes here) we need a vaccine, OK? We have a flu vaccine and only half the people get it. So everyone's going to rush out and get this vaccine? C'mon.

As I wrote back then, she's talking herd immunity without the need for a vaccine. Something she reiterated a few weeks later on July 12. She's talking about the news of 15,000 people testing postive for Covid-19 in Florida when she says:

I think, isn't it the third most populous state in the United States of America? Don't we want this virus to work its way through the people so that we can be immune? So that we can develop some semblance of herd immunity? As we anxiously await the arrival of a vaccine?

The only problem with herd immunity without a vaccine is this from Johns Hopkins Medical School: 

To reach herd immunity for COVID-19, likely 70% or more of the population would need to be immune. Without a vaccine, over 200 million Americans would have to get infected before we reach this threshold. Put another way, even if the current pace of the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the United States, we won’t reach herd immunity in 2021. If current daily death rates continue, over half a million Americans would be dead from COVID-19 by that time.

Was this part of St Barnabas' "due diligence"?  Wendy saying "people need to be exposed" so that we can all reach herd immunity (disregarding the massive loss of life that would occur as a result)? Why give someone who believes this any sort of platform at all?

Finally,

April 8, 2020 Wendy Bell is on a fence. And by "fence" she's talking about an ethical quandary. This one:

[B]ut dollars and cents boil down to, "are you going to bankrupt America and the future for less than one percent of our population, many of whom are already ill? Or aged?"

As I wrote at the time:

Wendy Bell is having trouble deciding between her two options: "bankrupting" America or saving hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of American lives - people who are old and frail.

And so now I wonder if this was part of St Barnabas' "due diligence" don't you? I mean, she's questioning whether not protecting the economy is worth protecting the people actually living at the St Barnabas nursing home. Did that come up in conversation during their "due diligence" at all? I was all over the news. They had to have seen it, right?

Then there's this wrinkle in the story, this fly in the ointment, this monkey in the wrench:

The data revealed for the first time that the second-worst outbreak at a nursing home in the region in terms of deaths is at one of the best known in the area: St. Barnabas Nursing Home in Richland, which has recorded 31 deaths, the 13th most of any facility in the state.

With 62 positive COVID-19 cases among the 92 residents living in the 152-bed facility — according to online data — the ritzy nonprofit nursing home, known for its two golf courses and ubiquitous television ads featuring former Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey in his golfing attire, has a fatality rate higher even than Brighton. St. Barnabas has also had 14 cases among its staff.

That was May 20, 2020.

Yippee Ki Yay, St Barnabas. You need to explain how diligent your "due diligence" was of Wendy Bell. By putting her on your airwaves, you're giving her the opportunity to spread a lot of lies. 

I think we're entitled to the truth.

Wendy Bell's NOT Going To Be Happy With YouTube! No, Sirree!

This morning, I was watching Wendy's broadcast from yesterday at Radio Karen central, trying to track down the source of a video Wendy played about 6 minutes in.

I snagged a screen shot from the video:

Seems to me that Wendy's occasional reference to the phrase "Great Awakening" and now her use of the a video contains the phrase itself points to Wendy going full QAnon. 

But I'm not sure. That's why I was trying to track down the source of the video.

In any event, I tried loading the transcript of the video and for some reason, it wasn't loading. So I tried refreshing the screen, as sometimes that frees things up.

And I found that in that short period of time, YouTube pulled the video. It's gone.

I took a trip to Wendy Bell's website and in the videos section found the same message I saw at YouTube. This:

I didn't get a chance to absorb all the Trump-trooth Wendy was spraying but considering that this was her BS board for yesterday:

You can guess it was probably pretty crazie. I did get to hear how we're in a war between good and evil and how it's no longer about the left, it's about the deep state.

Did you know it was Italy that tossed all those votes to Biden? Someone should tell Rudy Giuliani! Maybe Rudy Giuliani can refile those 60 or so failed lawsuits now that the truth has been revealed!

(But wait, Rudy Giuliani is an Eye-talian, isn't he? Maybe he's a mole from lo stato profundo on a mission to sink the Great Trump Awakening from the inside! Prove me wrong.)

Quick Update: While writing this blog post, I refreshed the videos page at Wendy Bell's website and found that even the above image is gone. I'm not sure if that's an automatic thing or if Wendy's frantically searching for a way to repost the video.

No worries, though. I still have my original screen capture.

Wendy Bell Fails To Prove Antifa Participated In The Trump Coup

First some news.

This was the first thing Wendy said on today's video:

Wait a minute. Huh. Very interesting, ladies and gentlemen. Hello everybody! Very intriguing right now. As I'm clicking "Go Live" Fail to post to Facebook - here's what Facebook said: You've been temporarily blocked from performing this action.

Wendy Bell got booted from Facebook, at least temporarily.

Yay.

But I really don't care about that. What I care about happened about 12 and a half minutes into her show this morning. She was talking about the Trump-ist coup attempt this week when she says:

I think it's important for us to identify, too, who also showed up at the rally at The Capitol on Wednesday. Because we're all being told it's a bunch of derelict, deranged, rabid Trump supporters. Do you know who went? people who love America. And what happened was that love for America was purposely on schedule bought and paid for, hijacked by the left.

After some throat clearing admitting that "some Trump people" were, in fact, there, she says:

But I want you to see this video. I think it's important, right? Because it's taken by a man on January 6 who recorded some video that's pretty important.

She then shows a video clip from this guy:

Pretty unique looking guy, right? I mean no disrespect here but there aren't a lot of guys who look like this, am I right?

Remember your answer.

On the video, the denim clad gentleman is talking about how the police have escorted in some Antifa shuttle buses "right here. Front and center."

A few seconds later, someone else on the video exclaims:

They freakin brought antifa here!

Having "proven" that antifa was there at the riot in DC on January 6, Wendy returns to the screen, smirking triumphant as she says:

How do you like me now?

We'll see, Wendy. We'll see.

Because Wendy has a problem with the video. You see, she broadcast it today, January 8, at about 11am (eastern standard time).  Too bad Wendy Bell, teller of all things Trump-troothful, failed to read this piece from Reuters dated January 6. That's two days ago, by the way.

The first paragraph from Reuters:

Posts on social media make the claim that the Washington D.C. Police “escorted Antifa” into the U.S. capital ahead of the January 6 protests. A spokeswoman for the D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told Reuters this assertion is false. As evidence, some iterations feature a mislabeled video that has been circulating since at least Dec. 5, 2020, allegedly showing St. Paul, Minnesota not Washington D.C.

Reuters linked to a number of sources of the video. This is one of them. Here's a screen capture:

Do you see your problem, Wendy? See the time stamp? 

It's from December 6, Wendy. That's a little more than a month ago, Wendy. It wasn't at the Trump-fluffed DC insurrection, Wendy.

There aren't enough words in the English frickin language to describe how wrong you are about this. It's simply a failure of colossal proportions. You know that, right?

Hey, Wendy! How do you like me now?

 Thought so.

Wendy Bell Crossed A Line Today. (She Doxxed A Critic On Air)

Usually, my critiques of Wendy Bell's Karen-rants focus on her disregard for facts or her questionable morality. 

When it comes to her Covid-19 denialism, it's both. She's both factually wrong about the severity of the virus and grossly immoral in her dismissal of that severity. I've called her the "Angel of Death" more than a few times for, among other things, pushing the need for so-called "herd immunity" when it comes to Covid-19 while (willfully?) ignoring the vast numbers of Americans the virus would kill in the meantime.

This is absolutely morally reprehensible.

Today, however, she crossed a big line.

Of course in her telling, the host of Radio Karen is the victim. This is what you'll find at her Facebook page:

With little or no mention of what she did to violate said "standards," Wendy snowflaked herself to Trump-level victimhood.

So what DID she do?

Here's the story. Wendy Bell has sponsors and an otherwise concerned citizen called one of those sponsors, in this case a company called "Sierra Experts" (who can be reached at at 412 379-8333, by the way) and left this message:

Hello, I'm calling on behalf of a number of people who are going to start boycotting anyone who sponsors Wendy Bell. Um, we didn't know about Sierra Experts but the fact that you do sponsor Wendy Bell, who is full of hate speech and actually helped incite the riots at the Capitol yesterday, puts you on a bad list that a lot of people are going to avoid. We are going to do our level best to educate people about that. Please remove yourself from sponsoring Wendy Bell. She is full of hate speech and she is part of the reason violence was incited at the Capitol yesterday. Thank you.

And so what did the freedom loving common sense conservatives at Sierra Experts do with this voice mail?

Wendy Bell herself explained on the now-blocked facebook video:

That woman left, what she thought was an anonymous phone call at my advertisers. Well, my advertisers are really smart people. And they don't like it when people they don't know, who aren't customers of theirs, try to browbeat them into submission to join "Joe Biden's America." So one of my advertisers managed to unravel the no-caller ID private line blocked number and I got to see the number. 

So my team did a reverse search, found out who the woman was, did some digging, found some audio of her, did a cross reference check of the audio. You gotta make sure who you're talking about if you're gonna go on and say, "This is what's going on here."

Wendy Bell found a picture of the woman and showed it to her vast adoring audience. On her BS board, she'd written the woman's name, phone number, work place and, according to my buddy Jon, coiner of the term "Radio Karen," told her listeners to harass the woman who called Sierra Experts (who, by the way, can be reached at 412 378-8333).

I've blurred out the picture and the name and contact info to protect the woman's privacy.

To summarize: a woman called a sponsor of Wendy Bell's, Sierra Experts (who can be reached at 412 378-8333) and left an anonymous voice mail complaining about Wendy Bell. Sierra Experts' IT folks then hacked through the woman's "block caller" and sent Wendy Bell her phone number. By the way, Sierra Experts advertise a number of IT services and evidently violating a person's privacy is one of them. Once they had the woman's number Wendy Bell and her "research team" reversed searched it and doxxed the woman, exposing her name, image and contact info to her audience so that her audience could harass the woman who complained about Wendy Bell to Sierra Experts,

Sierra Experts can be reached at 412 379-8333, if you wanted to discuss any of this with them.

Surely this is illegal somehow. Isn't this cyber bullying?

In any case, Wendy Bell crossed a line today. Up until today, she was just another fired for being a racist ignorant conservative blow hard.

But from now on, she's also a complete fucking asshole.

See If You Can Spot The Dissonance (Wendy Bell Fights For "Election Integrity" While Ignoring GOP Election Misdeeds)

Radio Karen host Wendy Bell was in Harrisburg yesterday as you can see from her Facebook Page:

And yet, this is what happened inside:

The new session of the Pennsylvania Senate got off to a chaotic start Tuesday, with Republicans refusing to seat a Democratic senator whose election victory has been certified by state officials.

Because:

[Democratic State Sen. Jim] Brewster narrowly won reelection over Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli, who is asking a federal judge to throw out the election results. At the center of that legal dispute are several hundred mail ballots that lacked a handwritten date on an outer envelope, as required by state law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed those ballots to be counted, which gave Brewster the edge in the race.

Republicans are usually the reliable "states' rights!" crowd. But, as usual, when it's necessary to get what they want, they run to the feds.

And don't think, even for a minute, that Wendy was at the capital to defend Brewster's win. 

Election integrity? I don't think so.

Wendy Bell's Lying About Covid. Again.

If you had the intestinal fortitude to saunter over to Wendy Bell's Facebook Page, you'd see this:

 

Uh-oh! Wendy's peddling false information. Again.

What is it this time?

Were you to opt to click the "See Why" you'd see this:

Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. We've been through this before, haven't we? 

Yes, we have. FOUR MONTHS AGO.

This is what I posted from Factcheck.org:  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t drastically reduced the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19, but posts making that bogus claim have been circulating widely — with the help of President Donald Trump, who retweeted one such claim on Aug. 30.

Twitter has since removed the original tweet, which came from an account dedicated to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon. But the claim is still readily available on all the major social media platforms. In fact, the same QAnon account that posted the now-deleted tweet includes a screenshot version featuring the president’s retweet.

The post Trump highlighted said: “This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid. That’s 9,210 deaths. The other 94% had 2 to 3 other serious illnesses and the overwhelming majority were of very advanced age.”

But that’s not what the CDC information says.

This was so long ago, Wendy Bell hadn't yet been fired by KDKA Radio for advocating that Park Police shoot protestors.

That's how old this lie is, Wendy.

See? There WAS Voter Fraud! Only TRUMP DID IT

52 U.S. Code § 20511: 

A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office...

(2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by...

(B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held...

shall be fined in accordance with title 18 (which fines shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury, miscellaneous receipts (pursuant to section 3302 of title 31), notwithstanding any other law), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. 

GA Code § 21-2-604 (2016): 

(a) (1) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.

And then this from the Washington Post:

President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act.

And:

At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

He later added: “So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

And then this from the NYTimes: 

President Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to overturn the presidential election and vaguely threatened him with “a criminal offense” during an hourlong telephone call on Saturday, according to an audio recording of the conversation.

And a few paragraphs down we learn of the threat:

“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” the president said during the call. “You know, that’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”

Hmm...a vague-ish threat for criminal prosecution (Trump IS still head of the DOJ, doncha know) unless Georgia officials "find" him just enough votes to win. All caught on tape for the entire world to hear.

I'm NOT a lawyer but it sure sounds to me like this runs counter to 52 U.S. Code § 20511 and Georgia Code § 21-2-562 (2016). 

How is this not illegal? And in light of this, how can the hundred or so House members (including one from my neighboring district, Representative Guy Reschenthaler) or the dozen or so Senators looking to upend Biden's win in November still support the criminal in the White House?

And snarkier still, how will Wendy Bell spin it?

Wendy Bell Continues With The Wingnut Guests

A day or so ago, it was Mike Flynn (confessed liar and QAnon follower). Yesterday on her Facebook page, Wendy Bell posted this:

It's time for your TUESDAY MONOLOGUE!! I'm delighted to welcome MIT PhD. Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, inventor, scientist, and engineer, whose common-sense MATHEMATICAL forensic evaluation of the election results have PROVEN some serious BS. Get ready!

Apparently, however, "Infiniti/Comcast/wifi whatever" finally followed the instructions in the memo from the Soros-controlled Deep State to shut this mutha down before she had a chance to educate you on the truth of how the spineless Republicans are leading the Republican party to ruin - ROO-een, I say!!!!

Her living room broadcast was cut short. Sad. So so sad.

So let's, instead, take a look at who Wendy invited on as an expert: MIT PhD. Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, inventor, scientist, and engineer.

We should note, though, that this is not the first time Wendy referenced a mathematical evaluation on some issue in the public eye. Remember when Wendy Bell announced for all the world to hear that:

Covid is officially over. Signs on the floor are gone. Santized carts are no more. Limits on chicken, scratched.

Like the Israeli mathmetician said and our governor never heard... the cycle is 70 days.

That was last May. How many people have died since then, Wendy? How many have gotten sick? 

You really should be more careful when you present "proof" of something.

Anyway, back to our MIT PhD. Back in April, Politico said this about him:

When President Donald Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday night, he jolted a fringe conservative movement that viewed the boost as an acknowledgment of its cause.

And the #FireFauci gang was ready with a replacement: Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai.

Ayyadurai, or “Dr. Shiva” as his fans call him, is a controversial scientist and long-shot Massachusetts Senate candidate who is pushing a variety of claims that range from dubious to medically disputed to outright false. He has argued that a strict vitamin regimen can prevent and treat the coronavirus — an unsubstantiated view at odds with the medical community and existing research. And he claims Fauci is a deep-state plant hellbent on “forced and mandatory vaccines” to support “Big Pharma” — a claim for which there is no evidence.

So he pushed the idea that vitamins can treat the coronavirus? That Fauci is deep-state? Neither point has any connection with reality. So why would Wendy have him on as an expert?

No need to answer that. We all know the reason.

There's more from Politico on our MIT PhD:

Ayyadurai, who first came to prominence over a disputed claim that he invented email, argued that the push for a coronavirus vaccine essentially creates a product that can be sold to every person on the planet, benefiting pharmaceutical companies.

”They’re gonna go help all the people in Africa with vaccines, vaccines, vaccines vaccines, right?” Ayyadurai said. “Vaccines are highly profitable. So when I connect the dots, it is essentially about moving this entire [world], using sometimes fear mongering to move it, to mandated vaccines for everyone.”

Wait, so he claims to have invented email, too? Look at this from Techdirt:

Once again, as I've said multiple times in the past, all of the evidence suggests that Shiva Ayyadurai was an incredibly bright kid who accomplished something truly exceptional and praiseworthy: he built a functional email system for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in Newark, New Jersey, somewhere between 1978 and 1980. If he simply stuck to highlighting that impressive accomplishment, that would have been one thing, and would have likely earned him the level of praise he deserves. The problem is that, since 2011, Ayyadurai has insisted that his email system for UMDNJ was the first true email system, and thus that he "invented" email. The evidence disagrees with him, and as we'll show, that evidence includes statements from Shiva Ayyadurai himself.

Feel free to read the rest for yourself. Techdirt is mentioned in the Politico piece, by the way:

A libel claim on the part of Shiva Ayyadurai, the self-identified “inventor of email,” was tossed out by a Massachusetts judge today, concluding a baseless suit filed against Techdirt back in January. According to the site, the judge also “rejected Ayyadurai’s request to file an amended complaint.”

So we've come full circle, I guess, over the MIT PhD. Covid denier, disputed inventor of email, Fauci/Deep State paranoiac.

Yep. Seems like a good fit for an interview on Radio Karen.

Wendy Bell Chats With A Traitor (Who's Also A QAnon Quack)

Yesterday at Wendy Bell Radio, Wendy had a hearty fawning chat with the recently pardoned Michael Flynn.

In case you took a marijuana and missed the news, Michael Flynn was recently pardoned for this offenses:

The defendant, MICHAEL T. FLYNN, who served as a surrogate and national security advisor for the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Campaign"), as a senior member of President-Elect Trump's Transition Team ("Presidential Transition Team"), and as the National Security Advisor to President Trump, made materially false statements and omissions during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") on January 24, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

Further, he entered his guilty plea knowingly, voluntarily, intelligently, and with fulsome and satisfactory advice of counsel.

Accepting the pardon does not mean he didn't commit the crime, just that he can't be charged/convicted for it. Furthermore, The Supreme Court has established:

This brings us to the differences between legislative immunity and a pardon. They are substantial. The latter carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.

He's also a QAnon Quack: 

Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn called into a QAnon conspiracy theory podcast on Friday, but said that he could only speak for a few minutes. He had a surprising reason to cut the call short, he explained. He was avoiding assassins and had to stay on the move.

This is who Wendy Bell fawned over:

I want to thank you for your service to America. You know, I think we watched, for years we watched, what you and your family went through, really. I think we all endured such unfairness with you. (3:15)

He pled guilty, twice. He's guilty, Wendy.

A few minutes later (at about 8:52), they get into the coup when Wendy asks "What's going to happen on January 6?" and Flynn answers:

Well I think that if everybody follows the truth and seeks the truth then what I believe could happen, one of the outcomes that could happen, is the states that are in contention (and those are the quote unquote the swing states), five maybe six of them, that those states may be they may be put to the side so their electoral college votes that come in they could be put to the side.

Because of the non-existent voter fraud, because of the legal actions of those "five maybe six" of the swing states (Pennsylvania, included) those electoral votes should be set aside to make sure Donald Trump has another term.

That's the QAnon felon's prediction (hope?)

That's Wendy Bell guest yesterday.

F**kers: The Suddenly Thin-Skinned GOP Reacts To The Truth

The GOP is all snowflaking over this:

President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon, is getting roasted by conservatives on Twitter after she called Republican Congress members “f—kers” while in the same breath calling for unity during a new interview with Glamour magazine.

This, of course, is the same party boot-licking Donald Trump every chance it gets.

And recently we learned that the Trump Administration wanted this:

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a "herd immunity" approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.

"Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…" Alexander added.

And, in case you were wondering:

Alexander was a top deputy of Caputo, who was personally installed by President Donald Trump in April to lead the health department's communications efforts. Officials told POLITICO that they believed that when Alexander made recommendations, he had the backing of the White House.

“It was understood that he spoke for Michael Caputo, who spoke for the White House,” said Kyle McGowan, a Trump appointee who was CDC chief of staff before leaving this summer. “That’s how they wanted it to be perceived.”

Of course, the killer "pro-life" administration has since back-pedaled on herd-immunity.

When Wendy Bell similarly pushed for "herd immunity" this summer, this is what I found posted at Johns Hopkins about why "herd immunity" is such a fucking dangerous idea:

To reach herd immunity for COVID-19, likely 70% or more of the population would need to be immune. Without a vaccine, over 200 million Americans would have to get infected before we reach this threshold. Put another way, even if the current pace of the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the United States – with over 25,000 confirmed cases a day – it will be well into 2021 before we reach herd immunity. If current daily death rates continue, over half a million Americans would be dead from COVID-19 by that time. [Emphasis added.]

In order to achieve "herd immunity" upwards of a half a million US Citizens would have to die. This was the idea the Trump Administration floated.

The Trump party also supports putting kids in cages and overturning (without any evidence) a constitutionally validated election.

So perhaps "party of fuckers" doesn't do them justice. How's this: "a party of cruel, seditious fuckers who might well be guilty of negligent homicide on a massive scale."

If you support Donald Trump, this is what you support. This is who you are.

Congratulations.

MAGA.

Look At Who Wendy Bell Is Interviewing TODAY!

 From her Facebook page:

I have a BIG SHOW planned today at 11AM sharp!! Joining me will be James Lyons-Weiler, PhD whose impassioned plea on the rotunda steps in Harrisburg against the politicization of not just Covid-19 but the VACCINES being fast-tracked to immunize us against it has GONE VIRAL!!

So who is this James Lyons-Weiler, PhD?

He's the subject of this scientific paper, by the way:

Dr James Lyons-Weiler, the CEO of the “Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge,” made an appalling online statement on 3 February 2020, which claimed the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic was most likely constructed via laboratory recombination [1]. In the results, he showed SARS-CoV-2 had a unique inserted sequence (1378 bp) located in the middle of its spike glycoprotein gene that had no match in other coronaviruses (Supplementary Figure 1). Furthermore, he claimed this unique sequence was similar to some sequence in pShuttle-SN (Supplementary Figure 2), a common expression vector used in research laboratory.

To check on his claim, we ran a thorough analysis on his results, and found some serious mistakes in his distorted analysis. Thus, we drew an opposite conclusion that there was no evidence to support the theory for the formation of SARS-CoV-2 in a laboratory.

Of course science is right and James Lyons-Weiler, PhD is wrong. The virus was not created in a lab.

Also, he's not an immunologist. And he is an anti-vaxxer:

Now, by any stretch of the imagination, James Lyons-Weiler is antivaccine. You might remember him ranting about who killed Colton Berrett Colton Berrett, as you might recall, is the unfortunate teen who developed the rare condition called transverse myelitis that one of his arms useless, the other almost useless, and him on a portable ventilator, paralyzed. Antivaxers blamed it on Gardasil, although the temporal relationship between Colton’s receiving the shot and the onset of his symptoms was tenuous at best. Ultimately, he committed suicide, leading to a “Gardasil killed Colton Berrett” narrative making its way around the Internet. His antivax cred is impeccable, particularly his ability to claim that he’s read far more studies on vaccines than is humanly possible and praising horribly awful antivaccine studies. Yet, in some quarters, he is not sufficiently antivaccine. I kid you not.

Don't believe the above? Check out Lyons-Weiler, PhD's own words:

[Vaccine] Mandates without exemptions create a situation where those who are destined to be injured by vaccines will be found, and injured, with mathematical certainty.

Mandates for vaccines are, for some,

Mandatory death sentences, for having the wrong genes.

Mandated Guillan Barre Syndrome.

Mandated lifetime paralysis.

Mandated lifetime autoimmunity.

Mandated food allergies.

Mandated encephalopathy, leading to autism, for millions.

And so on. Vaccines leading to autism = anti-vaxxer.

So he's not an immunologist and he is an anti-vaxxer speaking with the Angel of Death about the COVID-19 vaccines. What could possible go wrong with this discussion??

You're going to get more people sick and some of those people may die, Wendy. You know that, right?

Wendy Bell Plays The Victim Card. Again. Wendy Bell Lies. Again.

If you were to stumble (drunkenly or otherwise) across Wendy Bell's Facebook page today, you'd see this:

The first two paragraphs:

In an astonishing assault on Americans' First Amendment right to freedom of speech, YouTube announced today it will take down any videos that discuss election fraud.

 

Holy. Freaking. JESUS.

Um, Wendy? Isn't there a commandment against using The Lord's name in vain? Didn't you just do that? I'm not a believer, but it's my understanding that breaking one of the commandments is a really really bad thing to do, right? So why did you do it, Wendy? Why put your immortal soul at risk for something as mundane as politics?

Eternal damnation of the Angel of Death aside, Wendy also just lied to her devotees when she said that YouTube will take down any videos that discuss election fraud.

Wrong Wendy Bell. Wrong.

By the way, "lying" is mentioned in yet another commandment ("Thou shalt not bear false witness"). Hey, Wendy! You're two-for-two on breaking commandments today! Congratulations!

Anyway, here is what YouTube actually announced:

Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come. [Emphasis added.]

Mislead, Wendy. Not discuss. Can you see that?

Since there's no evidence that "counting errors" or "software glitches" changed the outcome of the 2020 election, any allegations of such evidence (such as yours, Wendy) will be removed by YouTube, a private entity owned by Google.

Which brings us to yet another lie of yours, Wendy. This is not a First Amendment issue.

This is the pertinent part First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...

The lesson here is that a private entity can abridge your freedom of speech but the government can't. 

For example if a television newscaster were to post some racist remarks on Facebook that didn't adhere to that TV station's "ethics and journalistic standards," that station could fire said racist broadcaster, right?

Or if a radio broadcaster were to advocate for the police to illegally "shoot on sight" protestors, that broadcaster's employers would be within their rights to distance themselves from said fascist broadcaster, right?

You should have learned this lesson by now, Wendy Bell. Why haven't you?

Stop playing the conservative victim card.

Stop lying to your audience.

Try to remember what being a journalist was all about. Or being a good human being.

Wendy Bell STILL Has A Problem With The Truth...

...or reality or something. 

Goddamit this is tiring. Debunking the P-G's Jack Kelly was at least fun. Debunking the climate change denials of the Trib braintrust was at least fun. This is a constant mindnumb, an ice cream brain freeze without the pleasures of a good chocolate chocolate chip with sprinkles.

So be it. Let's do this thing.

If you were to stumble across Wendy Bell's facebook page, and scroll down a day or so, you'll find this:

Yep, she got snagged by the fact-checkers at Facebook. Yet again.

If you were to click on that "See Why" button, you'd see this:

Fact Check: Video From Georgia Does NOT Show Suitcases
Filled With Ballots Suspiciously Pulled From Under A Table;
Poll Watchers Were NOT Told To Leave

Which is what Wendy was asserting. If you don't feel inclined to believe Facebook, other's have fact-checked this false assertion as well:

• Factcheck
• Politifact
• Snopes
• AP

The story's just not true, Wendy. When will you be correcting the record? (Y'know, to protect your journalistic credibility?)

But that's the false claim Facebook caught. They have yet to snag her on this bit of false from last Tuesday. Wendy described it thusly:

When a researcher’s study of COVID deaths (conducted at a respected institution) goes against the narrative pushed by big government, big tech and big media, then gets RETRACTED, common sense Americans have their greatest fears realized. Everyone is corrupt.

And she opens with this little bit of projection at a little under one minute in. She asserts that she has "very basic values" but, alas, there's a pushback:

...against those values - about basic integrity, about honesty, about morals, about being able to go to bed at night knowing that you did the best job you could, that you didn't cheat or lie or steal or deceive for your own benefit to the detriment of others. 

And yet every single day in this country, that's all we see. We see people corrupted by greed and thirsty beyond thirsty for power who are willing to sell out their morality and put other people in danger and at risk for their own benefit.

Does the Angel of Death not possess even a soupçon of introspection? Can she not see that she's describing herself here? 

I suppose not.

Anyway, she brings to you the story after dutifully telling you about the good folks giving her money for so she can do her DIY broadcasts. She says:

(05:29): What triggered this whole conversation for me today was a friend of mine had forwarded me an article that was published November 22nd [by the Johns Hopkins school newspaper].

Ah...this'll be good. Wendy continues that if it's from Johns Hopkins, it's gotta be true, right? Right??

She adds a little familiar COVID virus denial for good measure:

(06:42): [It's] a virus that, if you talk to almost any doctor will tell you, operates just like other viruses -  it impacts those who are the weakest and the most at risk first and does have some outlier effects on healthy people but very rarely. A 99% survival rate with this virus ladies and gentlemen.

Misinformation like this (99% survival rate, it's just like other viruses) is going to get people sick and some of them will die, Wendy.

Any statement that downplays the deaths of 270,000+ of our fellow citizens is morally reprehensible and marks the person making the statement as complicit in those deaths. I say that because basic integrity, honesty and morality demand it. I say this because it's simply immoral to put other people in danger for their own benefit. 

Note: This edition of Wendy Bell Radio is sponsored by Attorney John D'Onofrio and Dr. Richard Rafferty of the Disc Institute of Pittsburgh and Tom Yakopin of West Penn Life & Health. Give them a call and let them know how you feel about Wendy Bell's take on the deaths of so many of our fellow citizens.

But back to Wendy. She spends a few minutes breathlessly summarizing the November 22 article, which contained this:

[Genevieve] Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths.

These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people js assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.

Mmm Wendy like but then Wendy sad:

(24:04) Wouldn't you know somebody found out about that article because just five days later they retracted the article about this Johns Hopkins researchers' research. They retracted it. Somebody got to them ladies and gentlemen.

See that?? Somebody got to them! Maybe it was the cigarette smoking man! Maybe it was Ted Cruz' father! Maybe it was Professor Moriarty! In either case, it must've been someone connected to George Soros, right?? I'm sure Q will tell us once Trump finishes his divine quest of clearing the swamp and imprisoning all the pedophiles in the Demonrat party.

Wendy seems to think that because the article was published it effectively debunked the CDC/WHO/mainstream narrative that the virus kills lots of people. Furthermore she seems to think that it's being quashed simply because it contradicts that narrative. Reacting to the paper's retraction, Wendy says: 

From the retraction:

(24:41): Editor's note: We decided on November 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation.

Wendy reacts: 

How is using CDC data and analyzing how many people in what age groups died from what causes this year and going back and comparing that same data to two years prior misinformation?  It's misinformation if the information you get contradicts the narrative. Bingo!

Except that the article wasn't retracted because it conflicted with the accepted narrative. It was retraced because it was factually incorrect. 

There is a difference, you know. It's as clear as the difference between fact and opinion. A journalist would know the difference, Wendy. Do you?

From the retraction:

Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19. 

Additionally, Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic. This evidence does not disprove the severity of COVID-19; an increase in excess deaths is not represented in these proportionalities because they are offered as percentages, not raw numbers.

But they're not alone. Newsweek has looked into this story:

In late November, the student-run Johns Hopkins News-Letter published a story, since retracted, about a study claiming that there have been no extra deaths, known as "excess deaths," in the U.S. this year from COVID-19 compared to deaths expected in an otherwise normal year.

This year, there have been nearly 300,000 excess deaths attributed to COVID-19, as of early October, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

The story was published on November 22, then taken down, with a retraction published on November 27. The retraction said the study cited in the story "has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic."

[Bob Anderson, chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch at the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC] said taking down the story was warranted.

"The study was retracted by the newsletter for a reason," Anderson said. "It's because it wasn't very good at all."

The student-run publication said its decision was made "to stop the spread of misinformation," and it acknowledged that it had inaccurately claimed that there was "no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths" and that number of total deaths were "not above normal death numbers."

The facts:

"Overall, an estimated 299,028 excess deaths occurred from late January through October 3, 2020, with 198,081 (66%) excess deaths attributed to COVID-19," according to a report on the CDC's website. "Excess deaths are defined as the number of persons who have died from all causes, in excess of the expected number of deaths for a given place and time."

Then there's this from Factcheck:

An economics professor’s flawed interpretation of U.S. mortality data has prompted a viral, false claim that COVID-19 hasn’t led to more deaths than normal this year. In fact, multiple analyses have found there to be a higher-than-normal number of deaths during the pandemic — as much as 20%, according to some studies.

And this from Health Feedback:

Firstly, the study the claim refers to was not a scientific study, but instead an article published in a student newsletter at Johns Hopkins University. Secondly, the claim that no excess deaths have occurred in 2020 is false. Data from the U.S. CDC clearly shows that the number of deaths in 2020 is higher than that of previous years, most likely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

And:

The U.S. has recorded more than 200,000 excess deaths (about 300,000 according to the latest CDC data) from all causes in 2020 compared to the average number of deaths in previous years. Excess deaths in 2020 have also been observed in all age groups, ranging from young adults to the elderly.

When will you be correcting the record, Wendy? You're still downplaying the severity of the virus and as such you're morally complicit with all the extra suffering you're causing.

How do you sleep at night?