28 Comments

I suppose the people who hates masks and mandates about vaccinations are also the same ones who would want doctors, nurses, emt's and anyone who wears a mask professionally every day of their work lives to just not wear them because 'Freedom.'

Of course they would not.

But because the virus is invisible and it 'doesn't exist' (notwithstanding 600,000+ people having died) so they feel it's their right to tell us they want us to die in a corner without making any noise. When enough children, and teens die of covid 19, I think people will finally wake up from their self-induced comas to realize that perhaps there's a lot more to be said for listening to scientists and doctors.

I think that any governor or elected official who forbids masks and vaccinations should be removed from office for manslaughter-having killed people with their ideological insanity.

The virus does not have a political party. It is an equal opportunity killer.

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All so true, Mary. You should post this to the View tweet above.

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I agree. DeSantis and Abbott are guilty of murder and should be charged accordingly.

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Why did I never notice before that Florida looks like a gun pointed at . . . Alabama and Mississippi?

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Do you see a trigger?

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August 4, 2021
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Lower Alabama, Gaetz country.

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Wonderful concept … open carry covid! Bravo again!

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Isn’t it a fundamentally bad idea for a politician to put his voters in jeopardy of their lives? After all, death is the ultimate vote suppression.

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I'm sure it's been suggested to them by aides and advisers. They're not real good at taking advice, obviously.

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. responding to something you wrote on August 1 that I think a legal argument can be made that the DeSantis – Abbott idiocy might be vulnerable to prosecution on grounds that allowing Delta coronavirus to spread around unchecked violates the civil rights of United States citizens whose States of residence might be other than Florida or Texas. The reasoning that I applied would merit consideration here, and would be equally applicable.

There is a difference here, and with that difference we can make a distinction between the carveout for firearms ownership (distorted and bloated beyond recognition by the firearms aficionado community and the Merchants of Death who supply them) under their folk interpretations of the Second Amendment, and the general rule that States cannot deprive people of their rights to life, liberty, and property without due process of law, and the Privileges and Immunities clause, as further amplified by the 14th amendment, that says that Florida's and Texas' coronavirus suppression policies are so loose and ineffective as to effectively endanger the lives of citizens of the United States whose States of residence are other than Florida and Texas. Basically, it would be similar to the United States intervening in some godforsaken Third World country whose government is so corrupt and incompetent that they cannot guarantee the safety and security of United States citizens against getting killed, in this case by a lethal virus, which the DeSantis-Abbott binary idiocy have allowed to fester to the point that a lot more American citizens other than those living in Florida and in Texas are getting sick and dying. These guys simply do not give a damn, and the proof is in the hospitalizations and deaths that their States have overseen. Who knows; a billion-dollar civil damage suit against these guys might gain some traction. Anyway, it is both interesting and fun to think about it. They think they can get away with this by acting through their state governments under what is known as 'color of law'; maybe two can play that game too. Treat them like the Sackler family, of recent opioid infamy, and let us see what happens.

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Let's make this more than "fun to think about." How do we go about getting this started?

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Putin is smiling. Who needs soldiers and bombs when you can get the people to self destruct.

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Wow. Bam!!! I'm using that, Lucian.

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PS Republicans don’t seem to mind state government interference with local voting boards as well. Georgia attempting to gut Fulton County local oversight of elections. Game the system.

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Great essay as always and you capture the feeling of Florida in August perfectly.

You say that you haven't seen anything that says that hot humid weather facilitates transmission of COVID-19 virus because, in fact it doesn't. Heat and humidity may make your jock itch worse, but they have the opposite effect on COVID. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23866-7

More likely, increased transmission of the disease is due to the fact that people in the Southeast are more likely to stay inside, out of the heat and humidity by gathering in air conditioned spaces, opposite from what happens in more temperate climates where people go outside in the summer. Not much disease gets spread at the beach.

I'm looking forward to the next COVID lull for many reasons, one of which is to give you time to write more NYC in the 70s stories.

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Great article as usual: The ladies of The View had something to say on this also https://twitter.com/i/status/1422583864225107979

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74 million Americans spread over all 50 states hired their surrogates to fiercely advocate for this that and the other. None of this should be surprising. Dems don’t have enough extinguishers to put out all the fires…have to win more elections.

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Freedom? 'Cause you're free to be dumb!

(Just not around me and my loved ones, please.)

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DeSantistan is Jabberwocky!

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I can tell you, living as I do in Texas, what "freedom" REALLY means for those of us who prefer to stay alive. It means being trapped inside your home, because to be elsewhere puts you right in the crosshairs of someone's weapon of choice - whether it be Covid, a variant thereof, or something that shoots bullets.

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Who was that person who put Deplorables into into the national conscience?

She wins, hundreds of thousands Americans still with us.

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August 4, 2021
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Even if he manages to kill the people who would have voted for him? I don't think so. I happen to believe people are going to eventually get tired of watching their friends and relatives die from a preventable disease and get tired of him, too.

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😖

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