So if you don’t want to get vaccinated, polish your fucking resume and get the fuck out:
President Biden’s expected announcement of a vaccine mandate for federal workers has splintered groups representing large numbers of employees, raising questions about compliance and enforcement as the White House attempts to arrest the spread of the coronavirus delta variant.
Some sectors of the federal workforce, including groups as disparate as law enforcement officers and postal workers, raised immediate concerns about the requirement, sending an early signal of looming problems.
The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents more than 26,000 federal officers, has blasted the idea, saying that it believes requiring vaccinations represented an infringement on civil rights.
“There will be a lot of pushback. It’s going to be an avalanche,” President Larry Cosme said, warning that many of the group’s members at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security would be opposed.
Ask me how many fucks I give about law enforcement whinging about their civil rights.
Just Chuck
And where were these mooks when their fellow officers were being beaten to death on 1/6?
hells littlest angel
Any cop who refuses to be vaccinated should be required to spend the first ten minutes of each shift in a chokehold — surely they wouldn’t call that a civil rights violation.
dc
@Just Chuck:
Beating them with the rest of the terrorists.
danielx
As with so many others these day:
Fuck those guys. That’s all I got.
Mike in NC
The local McDonald’s here is hiring at 12 bucks an hour.
dr. bloor
Well, we’ll see what happens, I guess. I’m not so sure a collective of overgrown children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder who also happen to be backed by unions are going to be so easily disposed of.
Searcher
Damn, and here I was convinced that Biden wouldn’t do anything to get rid of the shittiest 20% of law enforcement.
NotMax
Tantrums are the new black.
//
HypersphericalCow
In the tech industry that I work in, a lot of employers are moving back to a hybrid home/office schedule (i.e., two or three days a week at home, the rest at the office). But you absolutely need to be vaccinated to come into the office.
Betty
@dr. bloor: It certainly isn’t helpful.
Kay
Yay engineers! Very sensible.
I’m opposed to the Department of Homeland Security and yet here I am, stuck with them seemingly forever. Boo hoo.
Another Scott
Let’s see…
Roughly 2.1M civilian federal employees.
Roughly 1.4M active duty military.
2.6E4 / 3.5E6 x 100% = 0.74%
Yeah, an avalanche. Yup. [groucho-roll-eyes.gif]
(sigh)
To be clear, I know that the rest of the workforce isn’t 100% behind the mandate. The point is, a noisy minority isn’t representative of the whole.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
Meh. They’ll challenge it in court and they’ll win or they won’t.
Cacti
Thanks to those Unitary Executive SCOTUS rulings and the Reagan precedent with the Air Traffic Controllers, Biden should feel free to fire any recalcitrant federal employees.
dmsilev
What Biden actually announced isn’t technically a mandate, “get vaxed or get a different job”, it’s more of a “your life will be substantially more annoying if you don’t get the shots” encouragement. The refusers will have to be tested once or twice a week, socially distance, will have limits on official travel, etc. etc. It’s basically similar to what NY and CA and some other places have announced.
I think real mandates are coming and this is just phase one, but at least at this point the whiners are whining about being forced to inconvenience themselves at worst. No sympathy.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m fucking sick and tired of cops and their incessant whining. If the shot is mandated at your job and you don’t want to take it, then go find a new fucking job. Our Constitution does not grant you rights to a job without conditions. We keep acting like a third-world nation and we’ll soon become one. What’s ironic are those morons who say they aren’t getting the shot because they don’t want to be a part of some experiment.
Heads up motherfuckers… you’re now in the control group that chose the placebo and things aren’t looking too good for you…lol!
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
If Blue Lives Really Matter, shouldn’t the unions be in favor of vaccines? To protect their dues-paying members whom they value so highly?
//
cmorenc
Haven’t all members of the armed services been required to be vaccinated against multiple diseases ever since several decades ago? OTOH, SCOTUS in 2016 (ND v Schmerber) ruled that searches incident to arrest permitted warrantless breath tests, but not warrantless breath tests. Even though the line of cases on the issue including and precedent to Schmerber are in a criminal context, and going back to 1905 in Jacobson v Massacussets the court upheld fines for defying a mandatory municipal requirement for smallpox vaccinations, nonetheless we can hardly be confident that the present composition of SCOTUS will support mandatory vaccination requirements.
dmsilev
@Baud: So far, there have been two high-profile lawsuits about vaccine mandates, one for a big hospital in Houston (“get vaccinated or get fired”) and one for a university in Indiana (“get vaccinated if you want to go to class in person”). In both cases, the judges ruled that mandates were perfectly valid. Doesn’t mean that some lunatic of a judge might find otherwise in a subsequent lawsuit, but it’s at least a good initial track record.
dm
I mentioned this the other day, but I wonder what stance the Federal Law Enforcement Officers’ Association takes on urine tests — I assume they have to do that, since federal contractors do (though in my experience it was effectively only a condition for getting hired).
Kay
I’m not worrying about the vaccine whiners anymore.
This is wonderful:
It’s also a repulsive, rip off business that deserves to go out of business.
UncleEbeneezer
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): Especially given that Covid was the number one killer of police officers in 2020. What’s that expression “Blue Lives something something?”
HinTN
@Cacti: That’s what I’d like to hear our legal beagles address is the applicability of the Reagan ATC action
ETA: Far more appropriate action in this case that in Reagan’s, but that’s my liberal bias showing.
dmsilev
@Kay: That is good news. The amount of money sucked from families of prisoners pretty much “because we can” is just appalling.
sab
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): They stupidly don’t even think there is a risk, although #1 cause of police deaths in last two years has been Covid.
ETA : More dangerous than actual guns, which everyone has these days.
UncleEbeneezer
@cmorenc: Military already requires more than a dozen vaccinations. Anyone in the armed services has ALREADY been forced to show proof of vaccinations.
dmsilev
Via WaPo:
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
It’s funny because when it first started here our local police were more worried about it than anyone- to the extent that I was a little taken aback, then they realized the proper political position was to follow the Trumpsters. There was a brief window where conservatives could have turned it around and been normal. Oh, well.
FNWA
If you have to have your MMR to go to nursery school, you have to have your COVID vax to go to work.
Kay
@dmsilev:
It enrages me. The definition of a captive market. There are businesses that have no business existing and that’s one of them.
Mike in NC
@dm: With more and more states decriminalizing or legalizing weed, it makes no sense for so many companies to still require pre-employment urinalysis tests.
NotMax
@dmsilev
Well, there goes Hobby Lobby’s plan to have the Pentagon fund building a nuclear ark.
//
dr. bloor
@sab:
They also vote pro-gun, so I guess we should given them style points for being consistently self-destructive.
dm
@Mike in NC: Well, yes, but if the company is a federal contractor, they don’t have a lot of choice.
I suspect that a lot of those putative Federal employees whinging about how requiring a vaccination infringes their rights were able to find a way to accept having to take a urine test.
Ken
Elgin AFB, Florida; Fort Chaffee AB, Arkansas; Fort Leonard Wood AB, Missouri; Warren AFB, Wyoming; …
Kay
Good idea. I received a vaccination at a public school. That was before people were insane. I don’t recall which one it was. We also had eye exams. That’s how I found out I needed glasses, which was quite the revelation because you don’t know you need glasses that young- you think “blurry” is how people see.
raven
@Ken: Stewart, Benning, Warner Robbins.
trollhattan
And thus, for the first time ever, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association became interested in civil rights. Amen.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: They were just worried that their authoritarian supporters might get it via bootlicking! ?
trollhattan
US and Turkey women had one of the greatest volleyball matches I’ve seen. US wins two sets, going away, Turkey wins next two sets, going away. Rubber match was back and forth until a couple US substitutions tipped the scales in our favor. Wowzers. Plenty of top competition in this tournament.
raven
First lady Jill Biden has been sent to the Walter Reed military hospital for a procedure, after getting an object lodged in her foot last weekend on a beach during a series of official events in Hawaii.
Kent
Well, this is one way to flush out the most fascist MAGAt Trumpers from ICE and some of the other Federal agencies. So win-win.
raven
@trollhattan: There are so many different ways to watch that I’m trying not to spoil stuff for others. YMMV
Martin
@Mike in NC: $19 is the minimum here for food service.
matt the somewhat reasonable
plague rat rights?
dr. bloor
So who’s the first to compare mandated masks for Federal employees to yellow stars? MTG? Lil’ Ben Shapiro? The possibilities are endless.
scav
The Thick Blue Tantrum coming over all civil rights enthusiasts.
How cute.
(As noted) How not unexpected.
Clearly, they just see their infected status as something else in their arsenal of lethal accepted procedures.
WaterGirl
@raven: Ugh.
NotMax
@raven
At summer camp where I worked, when the older campers grew restless and disenchanted with volleyball before the activity period was over, we invented medicine ball newcomb as a stopgap.
Tired out the little buggers right quick.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
36-year Club Fed employee here.
I’m sure, ignoring the Fed Cops for a moment, that much of the hostility will break down along political lines. I work with two RWNJs (virtual team, one is in OH the other in WV) who have until now refused to get vaccinated. The loonier of the two works from home fulltime so might be able to skate on this; he needed to retire 5 years ago so who knows, maybe this will force his ass out. The other one will most likely push the issue in the office because he knows how conflict-adverse (and mediocre on a good day) most GS-15s are..who will then try to get GS-14 team leaders to do the actual enforcement. Good luck with that.
But good on this….except it’ll be a moot point until probably mid-October because for the most part, at least my department is in no hurry to get anybody back into the office. Yeah, a couple of hidebound GS-15 managers I deal with *hate* not having people in the office under their thumbs (also people who needed to retire years ago) but for the most part, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how flexible gubmint managers have been about this new work paradigm.
JPL
Why is that republican governors think that you can only be open for business, if you are unmasked? I don’t get it. Maybe they had a bad experience trick or treating.
The Moar You Know
@cmorenc: nope, and right now at least 40% of the military isn’t vaccinated against COVID. I think they’re waiting for Moderna/Pfizer to go off EUA, which is ridiculous, as they made anyone going near Iraq get the anthrax vaccine, which was so experimental they never even bothered to get an EUA for it.
The real problem is that 40% of the military thinks they swore an oath to Trump and not the United States of America. How you fix that problem I do not know.
prostratedragon
Defund the anit-virus police!
RaflW
Police unions are a fucking cancer on this country. I get that employers can abuse their positional power, but the nearly uncontrolled, fascistic power of “Fraternal Orders” and all that shit just infuriate me.
I hold the Minneapolis police union at least partially culpable for George Floyd’s death (and other unjust murders by cop). Chauvin was dirty and troubled. And protected far too long by his union.
Fuck ’em.
Ken
A pact with the forces of evil where their part of the bargain is mass human sacrifices?
encephalopath
The authorities of law enforcement can obligate people to interact with them regardless of whether people want to, even if they have done nothing wrong.
If I can be forced to be in an enclosed space with those fuckers with no recourse, they damn well can be made to get vaccinated. My civil right not to have them give me a deadly virus is certainly the superior claim here.
rikyrah
If they want to give up their good government jobs with benefits, so be it?
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): If Blue Lives Really Mattered, why aren’t the Capitol Police taken more seriously by their union? Also //
Another Scott
Psst! Want some free, paid time off??
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@dr. bloor: Another unhelpful union chimes in.
Guy is newly elected president of SEIU 1000 and is acting suspiciously Republican, so far.
JPL
@Ken: Metal detectors in schools are okay, but masks mandates are bad. jfc
sab
@JPL: Just arm all the little guys and we won’t need those metal detectors.
I loved my first and second grade teacher, but I would have happily shot my third grade teacher, and also too my
fifthfourth.Bill Arnold
Federal law enforcement personnel might believe that they, at least, have the right to kill arbitrary numbers of random people, but they do not.
NotMax
@JPL
Students being magnetized will make it much easier for the cheerleaders to form a pyramid.
//
UncleEbeneezer
@The Moar You Know:
Roger Moore
@HinTN:
PATCO went on strike despite a law specifically forbidding federal employees from doing so. Reagan was on very solid footing in firing them. Unless and until these bozos do something similar, Biden won’t be able to fire them en masse. I expect they will take the example of PATCO to heart and be smart enough to restrict their actions to the courts, but if they are dumb enough to strike over the issue, it would be a perfect opportunity for Biden to clean house.
JustRuss
It’s a smart play. Making it inconvenient peels off a chunk of vax resisters, leaving just the die-hards unvaxxed. Hopefully at that point it will be a significantly smaller number and some of them will cave when it’s mandatory, leaving small core of refuseniks to deal with.
It’s like this Biden guy know what he’s doing.
The Dangerman
I seriously don’t give a shit if people don’t vaccinate as long as they can fucking work remotely, stay the fuck out of bars and restaurants, stay the fuck out of stadiums, and most importantly stay the tuck away from me. The fucking barely brachiating Luddites can all go fucking live in a cave if they want. Fucking Trumpy troglodytes piss me off. Maybe that is obvious.
schrodingers_cat
OT: Both the ends of the horseshoe vote to keep Afghan translators out of the US.
Anonymous At Work
It’s instructive that they went immediately to “civil rights”. That indicates, to me, that their union contract and terms of employment as a federal employee do not forbid a vaccine mandate in the slightest. The biggest bar to a vaccine mandate at the federal level was always going to be the specifics of employment contracts, either as individuals or as part of a union.
Baud
@NotMax:
Yeah, but they do a flip and they fly off into space.
Steeplejack (phone)
Bipartisan infrastructure framework—how it’s going.
kindness
What I find really crazy about this is most jobs already require people to be vaccinated for all kinds of things. But somehow adding Covid to that vaccine regiment is just a bridge too far.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Can you be more specific? What was the vote about?
dr. bloor
@trollhattan: Unlikely to be Republican as much as someone just looking to flex because they can. I was actually in SEIU for a period of time way back when; while they overwhelmingly did good things for people who deserved good things, leadership can be tired and obvious at times.
Roger Moore
@FNWA:
My employer recently required me to provide proof of vaccination or a positive titer for mumps and chickenpox. That’s on top of having to provide the same thing for measles and rubella that I had to provide when I started working here. And I’m not allowed in most of our campus unless my influenza shot is up to date. This kind of thing is absolutely bog standard for any employer with enough workers to be a serious risk for spreading communicable diseases. They’re only raising a stink about it because Trump and Co. have made it a big political issue.
Rocks
@The Dangerman: NO, really, we wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t said so.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:6 House Democrats voted No against $2.1B US Capitol security/Afghan relocation bill: Bowman (NY) Bush (MO) Ocasio-Cortez (NY) Omar (MN) Pressley (MA) Tlaib (MI)
Link
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Ok, thanks. For some reason, I thought that vote on capitol security happened a long time ago.
ETA: In fairness, they voted against police funding when Nancy had plenty of votes to spare. I doubt they had an objection to the Afghan relocation part.
debbie
No vaccine? Then no medical bills paid for you when you get COVID!
JPL
@NotMax: Rod Serling could help create an entire season of Twilight Zone, simply using republican talking points. Imagine if you will
dr. bloor
@schrodingers_cat:
@BettyCracker
Incoming.
I’m going to guess this is a Bernie-esque “The bill was 99% great, but that one thing was unacceptable” move.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They are just following the xenophobic footsteps of the magic grandpa. No visas for Afghan translators. This is the company they keep.
5 House Republicans voted No against $2.1B US Capitol security/Afghan relocation bill: Good (VA) Massie (KY) McClintock (CA) Norman (SC) Roy (TX)
I don’t trust the Squad and their performative outrage over select things that leads them to vote with the Rs.
raven
@dr. bloor: Who cares, it passed.
sab
@NotMax: So true(?)
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat:
Warning – Politico:
It often takes courage to resist legislation being rammed through. Sometimes, those voting no are absolutely right.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@NotMax:
That’s repellant.
//
sab
@sab: Damn. With easier guns I probably never would have finished elementary school.
ETA: Possibly there goes reading, and absolutely pre-algebra
ETA: But no way my parents would have financed my gun fantasy. Had they had guns I would have found them, but they didn’t.
dr. bloor
@raven: I care, and I wouldn’t even be surprised if they had clearance from leadership to do so. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. However principled their votes might have been–and I have no clue–every time this happens it represents an opportunity for ratfuckers to stir up trouble.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: My little yellow booklet records a shot for bubonic plague.
evodevo
Just sayin’ – there are a LOT of MAGAts pulling down pay at the PO…I had to work with them for years…unrecalcitrant Fixed News viewers at best…so, not surprised at the vaxx pushback
raven
@Another Scott: Especially if the no vote doesn’t mean shit.
dr. bloor
@Another Scott: Yeah, careful deliberation and big-picture thinking are practically Ilhan Omar’s brand, right?
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Fuckin A and no one asked me shit.
raven
@evodevo: I’ve always said getting fired from the PO was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Baud
Via LGM
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: This argument is a lost cause. Some minds are firmly made up about AOC, et al.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. I just want to get right their justification for their votes.
JPL
@West of the Rockies: ?♀️?♀️
burnspbesq
@trollhattan:
Ok, fine. Give them there meet-and-confer, and then impose the mandate.
BC in Illinois
From a Facebook friend:
I think that the Nuremberg Code is a nice touch.
mrmoshpotato
Guess who won Olympic medals!
debbie
@BC in Illinois:
They always think they’re so fucking smart using that strategy. I would demand they recite it word for word without notes if they want to be taken seriously.
waratah
@Mike in NC: the local McDonalds have been paying much more than that in Australia for a long time and must be making a profit because they have not closed.
Another Scott
@BC in Illinois: “(P.S. I am a also a soverign citizen and therefore you are violating my rights if you call me a kook.)”
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
evodevo
@raven: Yeah…pay is good, but lots and lots of rednecks there…however, they soon learned not to discuss politics when I was in there casing my route LOL
dmsilev
@BC in Illinois:Oy. It’d be easy enough to write a canned set of responses to that, but since whoever wrote it is clearly not interested in any sort of good-faith debate, why bother? The proper response is “Your choices are to take this vaccine or to have a set of swabs stuck up your nose twice a week, wear a mask, and stay at least ten feet away from all other people while on-site, all for the indefinite future. It is your choice.”
Also, since they refer to “statutory legal requirements”, they should be able to cite the specific parts of the US Code which underlie their claims.
mrmoshpotato
@BC in Illinois: What the batshit crazy, Batman?
They know there are uninhabited island where no one will bother them about vaccines or anything else, right?
And they can have all the FREEDUMB! to themselves!
RSA
@The Moar You Know:
Part of it would possibly involve changing the oath of enlistment:
… because some people apparently confuse the holder of the office at a given time with the office itself. (Federal civilian employees swear a similar oath, but it’s all about the Constitution, rather than the military hierarchy and the UCMJ.)
Princess Leia
@trollhattan:
Wonder if this will effect the recall. Sigh.
Ken
@dmsilev: “We also offer option 3, which is to have a positive test for COVID antibodies, indicating you have acquired natural immunity. To generate the necessary antibodies, we suggest sitting unmasked in an ER waiting room.”
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: Citation for that?
dmsilev
@Ken: Actually, a bunch of the anti-vax set already are trying out the “but I have natural immunity because I had the disease” angle. Doesn’t fly and shouldn’t be encouraged; studies have shown that the full vaccination course gives a stronger immune response than most cases of the disease.
Ken
@dmsilev: “To verify your natural immunity, you must take an antibody test at your own expense and provide us with the results. The test must be repeated every month to verify that your antibody levels remain sufficiently high.
“As an alternative to demonstrate your immunity, you may snort two ounces of this solution (ingredients: distilled water and live virus, the genome and structure of which are publicly available) daily for two weeks. You will receive an unpaid leave of absence for the period of this test, with no accrual of vacation time during the leave.”
(And you thought your HR department was bad….)
zhena gogolia
They are such whiny ass titty babies. So sick of them all.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
Just watched Russia-China—another five-setter. Went down to the wire.
ETA to remove spoiler.
J R in WV
@Mike in NC:
Actually, they should be urinalysis testing for illegal drugs, like Meth in tweaker pee, Fentanyl in junky pee, etc. Weed isn’t illegal, do they still test for coffee? Thought not.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike in NC: I had to pee in a cup to get the job before my current one, and the reason I was told (true or not) was that the company had federal contracts, so it was easier to just screen everyone (though I never worked on one).
Matt McIrvin
@J R in WV: Weed is still illegal according to the federal government. It’s just states that have legalized it, and the feds could crack down but currently choose to look the other way.
trollhattan
@Princess Leia:
Yeah, the recall barometer is spinning like a top and it’s tough to get a sense on how it might go. On one front voters agree, it’s too damn expensive.
Roger Moore
@BC in Illinois:
The stupidest part is that a lot of the information they’re demanding is already provided. At least when I got vaccinated, I got a nice packet of information that included stuff like the type and frequency of adverse reactions and the exact contents of the vaccine. But the phrasing of some of the questions (“mRNA gene altering therapy”) shows they aren’t really interested in the answers.
Another Scott
I guess this thread is sufficiently open now.
(via darth)
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I think it would be great to increase the signature requirement, but I think the “only for a specified list of reasons” is likely to be a dead letter. Unless you’re going to demand some kind of legal judgment that the office holder’s activities were illegal or unethical- in which case they will probably be forced to resign before it gets to a recall- it’s just a matter of wording. Instead of saying the office holder deserves to be kicked out for doing a bad job, they’ll say their actions rose to the level of unethical and/or illegal. There’s no substantive difference from what we have today.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: I suppose it might be vaguely amusing to write a blandly literal set of responses (“no DNA-altering mRNA substances”, since that’s not what mRNA does), but it’s not like that would make a difference. Best to start out by assuming this “list of questions” is offered in bad faith and respond accordingly.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
What little yellow booklet? From the US Army? I never got anything regarding my “medical care” in the Navy! Maybe you have to be an officer?
You think the VA could discover my vaccine data? 1970?
burnspbesq
@Another Scott:
Not this time.
Baud
@trollhattan:
@Roger Moore:
If people are really tired of antivaxxers, the recall should be a no-brainer, especially for a good state like California.
Cacti
@Kay: Most Americans have no idea how much of the modern prison industry is structured around extracting money from the families of inmates, under near-extortion conditions.
Another Scott
https://reut.rs/3iYgF5J – the J&J vaccine production in Baltimore is resuming.
Good news.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Yeah, that list of questions is just one of those things dumb people do to make themselves feel smart. They’re sure their brilliant list of questions will stump the stupid vax Nazis, not realizing almost everything they’re asking is either nonsense or already answered in the material that comes with the vaccine.
HinTN
@encephalopath:
You willing to take it to trial?
Cmorenc
@Matt McIrvin: Even during the Trump Administration while ardent marijuana opponent Jeff Sessions was AG, they showed no meaningful interest in reigning in the states where recreational weed was legalized under state law. True, neither did they do anything to loosen federal restrictions that make conducting weed business needlessly cumbersome.
MomSense
With the benefit of hindsight, it strikes me that we really erred by ignoring/enabling the anti vaxxers for so long. How many measles and whooping cough outbreaks have we gone through? Why do seniors have to get boosters for diseases we took care of in their childhoods?
About two years ago our state legislature passed a law that ended the philosophical and religious exemptions for vaccine requirements for admittance to k-12 schools. It just took effect in time for start of school this year. I remember soon after that a woman with a repeal petition stopped me in front of the post office. She was not expecting me to tell her I thought it was unconscionable and she should be ashamed of herself. Lately I’ve been getting into it with parents of my kid’s friends, acquaintances, friends, farmers from the farmers’ market. They keep wanting to dialogue, blah blah blah. No. Enough. We are in a crisis. They are threatening all our lives and livelihoods. They are selfish, and malevolent. I’m so done with their bullshit. Heaven forbid they or their precious progeny have anything fucking impure enter their pristine bodies. I see these same smug sociopaths promoting supplements and posting photos in their bathtubs with their stupid bath bombs. They have no clue what is in those supplements.
Fuck their “self-care”. If you are so concerned about your wellness and so callous to the sickness and deaths of others you are not wise or whatever. You are evil. I’m just done and I’m not going to be nice about it anymore.
burnspbesq
@BC in Illinois:
The only appropriate response to that is “you have 15 minutes to clear out your desk, and then security will escort you from the building.”
Baud
@MomSense:
Agree.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think people are angry about antivaxers, but they’re also fed up with Newsom. He’s done a pretty bad job of dealing with the pandemic, and I would love to have someone more competent in charge. If we would get a proper election to replace him instead of the shit show the state constitution provides for, I’d be seriously thinking about voting him out. Of course the real world alternative is a group of people who would make Ron DeSantis look sane and competent, so that’s only a pipe dream.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Right. But if people are more fed up with Newsom than with the antivaxxers, then they don’t really have their priorities where they need to be. There’s really no chance the antivaxxers and all around fascists don’t win big if Newsom is recalled, is there?
MomSense
@debbie:
I think I would ask for the list of ingredients in all the food and drink they’ve consumed, and all the personal care products they’ve used in the last two weeks
JaneE
Your job is to protect the people. A good many people already think that you think your job is to kill people. You just proved their point.
MisterForkbeard
@BC in Illinois: Trolls. Like others have said, the answers to all of their questions are already out there and entirely negative. The vaccine is safe, it’s not “experimental”, they’re not under duress, etc.
The bottom set of demands (A doctor has to make me get it! You have to take care of literally any and all health consequences afterwards! Don’t discriminate against me because I’m an idiot!) is both stupid and unenforceable, and they ARE refusing to take the vaccine. They’re just trying to make libs mad while they do it.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just saying that there are people who probably should support Newsom but whose support is wavering because he’s done a crappy job. They can’t do anything about antivaxers, but they can do something about Newsom, and there’s a temptation to do what they can even though it would be incredibly counterproductive.
This is what is known as the kinetic fallacy, and is very popular among politicians:
People who are angry and frustrated may take advantage of the opportunity to let their frustration be known, even if they’ll regret the outcome immediately. It’s stupid, but people aren’t perfectly rational.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, it reminds me of how we ended up with Trump. I hope California saves itself.
Darren
It’s crazy that the most obvious things in the US get so entangled in political knots. Here in Vancouver (Canada) the police union, which isn’t usually what you’d call progressive, complained loudly when it’s members weren’t prioritized for vaccination in the way that, say, long term care home workers were. Same with the border guards. Vancouver City Centre, my ‘hood, just hit 87% of over 12s with dose one and almost 70% with two. It’s a bit lower in more rural areas, which here as there are more conservative, but the reasons seem more related to access and opportunity than ideology. All a bit baffling to the likes of me who grew up in the UK in the early 70s and got jabbed for all kinds (I just missed the smallpox shot, but got all the rest). Nobody thought twice. And nobody asked what I or my parents thought about it.
KrackenJack
@trollhattan:
Only one change is needed: The outcome of a successful recall is the Lt. Gov. is sworn in as Governor.
A 2/3rds vote by both houses can put that initiative on the ballot.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
It reminds me of how we got Trump as well, though Schwarzenegger is the one who springs more immediately to mind. Unfortunately, any likely replacement would make us pine for the days of The Governator. Fortunately, there are some factors that would reduce the amount of damage the replacement governor could do:
The replacement could still do a fuckton of damage by taking counterproductive executive actions related to COVID, of course.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
What would happen if the Republican winner died after assuming office? Before?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
IMHO all the more reason not to support a recall.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think that if the winner died, the Lt. Governor would take over, and I think that would be true regardless of whether they died before or after taking office. And I will point out it’s not absolutely guaranteed the replacement would be a Republican. There are something like 46 candidates on the ballot, and it’s a plurality contest, so the outcome is a total crapshoot. The Democrats have (stupidly, IMO) discouraged any serious candidates from running and refused to endorse anyone, but we could still try to settle on the least worst candidate on the ballot and push for them.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I agree, though that’s a fuzzy rule. That’s not how I feel about Newsom- I’ll suck it up and live with him until I can try to run him out in the next primary- but I can understand people thinking someone is so bad we need to get rid of them right away, even if the next election is only a year away. IMO, there are basically two valid reasons for recalling someone:
The second one is more likely for lower-level offices, but it could happen any time the candidate has a thin enough record that the voters can be legitimately surprised by their actions in office.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV:
From the army. In Basic. Being an officer had fuck all to do with since I wasn’t one when I got it.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Only if they can do it competently and consistently. So far, not so much! We have plenty of vaccine, just not enough arms volunteering.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
We didn’t get squat regarding our vaccinations, back in 1970. Nada. Interesting.
Another Scott
@J R in WV: We’re not safe until we’re all safe. Billions around the world need shots too.
I remember thinking a year or so ago that 1M shots a day would still take around 22 months to get all of the USA. We’re not doing that badly, really, and 0.5-1M shots a day in the USA is still nothing to sneeze at. Even though in a sensible world we would be doing better…
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Considering how much NTEU has been pushing vaccination, I don’t expect much opposition in the IRS. I expect some for sure, but it won’t have union backing.
SWMBO
Haven’t read the comments yet.
I hope the LEOs go out on strike. I think there should be a loop of Reagan when PATCO went out on strike.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ZTCPJ39LA
rumpole
Biden headed for an air traffic controller moment.
Glory b
@Another Scott: I’ve worked in government most of my career, law enforcement unions are NEVER on the same page as the other employee unions. They always hold themselves separate from the rest of us.
Their opinion on what will happen with the entire workforce is useless.
SWMBO
@BC in Illinois: Cute. The company should then respond that they work in an at will state where the company doesn’t have to provide a reason for termination of employment. Ask any gay person if they have ever been fired for just being who they are.
If the person tries the old “religious exemption” gambit, ask them if Jesus is hiring and what is he paying?
I am beyond livid at this point. My aunt in NE Arkansas had a stroke last weekend. They did a tPA (clot buster procedure) on her and it worked. She made it through just fine. She needed to be in ICU for intense monitoring to make sure there was no bleeding elsewhere. They had to airlift her to Memphis because there were NO ICU beds available. These anti vax idiots aren’t just hurting themselves.
I have come to the point that I still don’t wish death on anyone. But I will watch with a certain amount of pleasure if these assholes suffer…
Kayla Rudbek
My federal law enforcement relative was vaccinated I think in March, about a month before I was if I recall correctly. So they’ve had plenty of opportunities. I’m with our host on this one.