37 Comments

Why? Because COVID-19 showed up on Trump's watch. Try arguing with a Fox fed brain dead racist birther Trumpster over anything.

Or, hit your head with a hammer...same result.

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The single most negative influence is Fox news, the most pernicious, malevolent, conscious campaign I’ve ever seen, at 74!

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Absolutely. And they have been screaming "fire" over the air for years now, getting away with it in the name of free speech.

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Because the GOP does not trust science or knowledge. Remember, they are the descendants of the "Know Nothing" party and they uphold the tenets of their forebears proudly. Racism was one the leading platforms, against Catholics, Italians, Chinese, and German immigrants. All you have to do is change the labels and you have essentially the same thing today.

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I am on a tear about this every day as I see unmasked hordes in my relatively low vax, high infection rate corner. I have stopped being silent. Good piece.

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That’s terrible! I live in a traditionally conservative area in northern Illinois, but everyone I see in stores is wearing a mask.

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Increasingly American society makes no sense

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"Madness" is not hyperbole. Madness can spread just like other diseases. Hitler was a super spreader narcissist. He gave Germany the Holocaust. People like Hitler are almost always malignant narcissists. Trump is our own narcissist super spreader. So we take horse dewormer but refuse vaccines and masks and let our children die. This is madness. Narcissism can be induced in otherwise unremarkable people. - - - think the "Good Germans". We have two epidemics going on at the same time ands they reinforce each other.

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A really excellent question

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Most deaths are among the voluntarily unvaccinated. Most of those are t-Rump worshipers. So let’em die! Strenuous efforts should be made to overcome vaccine hesitancy in minority communities, and not a damn thing done to encourage vaccinations in heavily GOP white communities. The GOP has made the cynical calculation that more members of minorities than white people will believe their bullshit misinformation about vaccines, and that therefore more members of Dem-voting minorities will die than GOP-voting white people. Let’s do what we can to cause the opposite to happen.

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That was my thought too...they have figured that more POC will die than their white supremacist party members. But with all these nurses refusing to become vaccinated (and I have had an up close and personal experience with one a month ago), I think they have made a miscalculation. Their Kens and Karens attending rallies and wearing MAGA hats and threatening masked customers tend NOT to be POC.

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September 13, 2021
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You’re a kinder soul than I am. I’d like them ALL to drop dead!

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Why, indeed? Because virtually all of the current Republican leadership are f-ing assholes.

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Great piece

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Here in Canada we are in the process of introducing vaccine passports,albeit slowly.You Americans are way ahead of us on that front.Your unvaccinated knobs walk around in red MAGA hats.

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The Washington Post has an article today on my hometown in upstate NY—the nurses have left the hospital because they don’t want to be vaccinated. The maternity ward is shut down. Well, would you want to be in a hospital where you risk getting Covid? To NOT have staff vaccinated would be grounds for a lawsuit!

They claim they need more research and don’t want to be “guinea pigs.” As someone who did a lot of tutoring in college, I’m here to tell you: I doubt those people can comprehend the literature. Obviously the statistics are beyond their grasp since the vaccines have now been administered to The Largest “test” population of any vaccine study and the risk incidence is extremely low. (People vacationing in places where Yellow Fever is endemic face a higher risk of complications from that vaccine—but who’s giving up a vacation?!)

Three times this week, kids have come knocking to sell stuff for school fundraisers—and they come without masks. WTF.

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Some very good points re vaccinations being required for airline travel and the contrast between the number of dead and the money spent after a human created disaster and the money being spent on a disaster created by nature or possibly a lab leak.that so far has killed hundreds of thousands more, not to mention many times that number of seriously ill. Was it 2 trillion dollars spent on the war over the 20 years, plus at least as many American lives lost as in the first instance, plus the vast amount of money mentioned in the article that has been spent since 2001 on Homeland Security.

Who knows what the Pandemic total cost will be on hospital and other health care cost, not to mention other economic costs to families such as loss of the major wage earner. Yet, as Lucian points out so well, the Republican approach has been to impede protection efforts against the pandemic .rather than vigorously promoting mask wearing and vaccinations as would be expected from a caring and responsible members of government in a civilized society. Cleverer minds than mine would be needed to figure that one out. Do more ignorant and scientifically backward and slow witted people belong to the Republican party than the Democratic party? Especially certain GOP governors. Or is it that some kind of personal ambition and political gain motivate them. I'm guessing more likely the latter because look how cunning and clever thay are at changing election laws in their favor, even to the point of replacing honest election officials of high integrity with just the opposite, Also how they are passing legislation to allow legislative bodies to make vote counts null and void if not to their liking. They brazenly announce the changes are required to make voting easier and to avoid fraud. Nothing is said about making it easier to steal for them an

More on mandates:

"Mary PapenfussSun, September 12, 2021, 6:43 PM

Chris Wallace tore into Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) on Sunday for coming out against mandatory OVID-19 vaccination, even though his state has mandates in place for several other vaccines.“You say it’s a personal choice,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday.” “In fact, to attend school in your tate of Nebraska, children must be vaccinated against a number of diseases. ... They must be accinated against diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella, hepatitis B and chickenpox.”“Why are those mandates that parents in your state must comply with — and do omply with routinely — why is it that they’re not so objectionable and such a violation of ersonal reedom, but [President Joe] Biden’s vaccine mandates are?” he asked.Ricketts responded that eople “don’t know who to trust right now” and that “we have trust in those other vaccines” due to their “long history.”

Wallace pointed out that the polio vaccine was also developed quickly — and that people “viewed it as a blessing” when it first became available — and that the Food and Drug Administration has given full approval to a COVID-19 vaccine.Ricketts responded by saying that he is focused on hospital capacity in his state. He also said the majority of people dying of the coronavirus in Nebraska are senior citizens, and that most members of that population have been vaccinated. He claimed COVID-19 did not post a significant risk for younger people.

Biden announced last week that all federal workers and contractors will need to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the coming weeks, as will health care workers at providers that receive federal funding through Medicaid and Medicare. The administration will also require all businesses with 100 or more employees to test unvaccinated workers at least once a week.

Ricketts previously responded to the new regulations by saying Biden had “forgotten we live in America; he thinks we live in the Soviet Union.”

The governor is one of several GOP lawmakers who has threatened to sue over Biden’s vaccine requirements.

Biden responded to such threats in remarks he made Thursday: “Have at it!”

“I’m so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities,” the president said. “We’re playing for real here. This isn’t a game.”

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I did not see Chris Wallace's interview of Ricketts, but Ricketts' positions do not surprise me. I was born and raised in Nebraska, but left following college graduation in '74. I have not been back since my dad died in 2000, and have no desire to ever return. I still have relatives there, many of whom are in complete agreement with their governor. Many don't believe the numbers of deaths, that deaths from other causes were attributed to covid. I have heard over and over that Covid is no worse than the flu. There is no reasoning with people like that. I've stopped trying.

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I know exactly how you feel, Jan, I have friends in a coffee group the same way. You can't reason with unreasonable people. They only watch and listen to and read right wing media sources, so they get a lop sided severely distorted view view over time. It's a kind of brainwashing, and some people seem very vulnerable to that. Much like followers of a cult.

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They’re incorrigible and Ricketts uses it to garner support—they feed on each other like cannibals. Enough of them will get the virus and become long-haulers—and then they really will be zombies. Today’s unvaccinated are tomorrow’s debilitated, and then who is going to rely on those “socialistic” Medicaid programs? There are things worse than death. . .

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I would have enjoyed watching Ricketts, a sanctimonious fanatic of dogma, get his come uppence!

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I'm assuming those are all rhetorical questions, since we all know the answer.

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This madness is caused by ingesting the Kool-Aid. Here you go folks, give it to your kids first, then you drink up. You will be free, to roam the jungles of Guiana if you wish, as naked and as innocent as the day we were born - not.

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Exactly. Why is this such a bfd?

Your breakthrough cases were the final straw. It’s back to curbside pickup and outdoor garden centers only for this gal.

Fortunately we made it out of Texas alive and feeling a bit safer in California.

Lots of masks here.

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You and me both. As much as some love/hate Amazon, it's curbside and Amazon for this gal too.

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