Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Let there be snark.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

You cannot shame the shameless.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Making Orphans to Own the Libs

Making Orphans to Own the Libs

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This video will break your heart. The pain from the obvious exhaustion of this Louisiana COVID ICU nurse is bad enough. The story she tells about her 14 year-old daughter asking her mother to pray for the parents of her daughter’s friend, who are both patients on this nurse’s ward, is worse.

I agree with John that the only way that we’re going to see a jump in vax rates is stick, not carrot, whether from corporations or government. I agree with Atrios that “pandemic of the unvaccinated” should be “pandemic of the unvaccinated and innocent children” or something similar, now that children’s hospital ICUs are filling up in hotspots..

But goddamit, Republicans need to pay a price for this, and that price starts with residents of every state getting a chance to vote them out.

Reader Interactions

177Comments

  1. 1.

    Cacti

    Dying to own the libs is now a mainstream Republican political position.

    I wish I was exaggerating or being flippant.

  4. 4.

    germy

    Southwest Utah. Stardate eight six twenty one. Just went with my man for a coffee and sandwich to eat outdoors. Not one mask, but ours. Outside, inside, people outdoors doing things on the sidewalk or down the block. Extremely high spread here. ICUs 85-90% full. Not one mask

    — Xeni ❤️‍? (@xeni) August 6, 2021

  6. 6.

    Scout211

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/06/indiana-university-students-ask-supreme-court-block-vaccine-order/5505558001/

    What?  Bodily integrity?  Huh?

    WASHINGTON – Eight college students challenging Indiana University’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to consider immunization mandates for the first time since the pandemic began.
    Indiana’s public university said in May that students and faculty would be required to take the vaccine to attend classes in person with exceptions for religious objections, medical conditions – such as allergies – and those conducting their coursework online.
    The appeal arrives at the nation’s highest court as some employers, restaurants and schools are requiring vaccines. About 40% of the nation’s adult population is not fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    The students filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court, asking the justices to block enforcement of the university’s requirement, which they said violates their constitutional right to bodily integrity under the 14th Amendment.

  7. 7.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    @germy: Throw me in that briar patch.

    You know that the worst cops will be the ones that quit (if any of these whiners actually quit).

  8. 8.

    Suzanne

    Found out that one of my high school classmates passed away last night from Covid at age 41. His wife is sick, too. They have two young kids.

    I don’t understand people.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    I don’t have enough faith in America to believe Republicans will definitely pay a price for branding themselves as the pro-COVID party and dragging out the death, sickness, misery and inconvenience for all of us by politicizing a public health crisis. But I think it’s possible. 

    One thing on that front that’s encouraging: Dems are dropping the gloves and straight-up calling their Republican colleagues “plague rats” (Swalwell!) and telling preening trolls like DeSantis and Abbott to “get out of the way” (Biden). DeSantis really does seem kind of panicky this week, but he’s boxed himself in. He’ll gamble with our lives, and I hope to Christ that reachable people see that.

  11. 11.

    lowtechcyclist

    My wife’s cousin, an evangelical Christian, is in her eighteenth day in the hospital with Covid. She hasn’t been on a ventilator, but she’s been on oxygen. She and her husband, who also got Covid but not bad enough to be hospitalized, have four children, two of high-school age, and two of early elementary school age.

    None of them were vaccinated, of course. And if her husband had waited a few more hours to get her to the hospital, she’d probably have died and left those kids motherless.

    The family doc said it would be a waste of time to get the kids tested for Covid if they’re asymptomatic, which they fortunately are. I strongly disagree: we don’t know what the long-term effects of Covid are – it’s not been around for even two fucking years, so there’s no way to know! – and it would be wise to know whether you’ve had it or not, so when they DO find out what some of those effects are, you know whether you should be tested for them.

    Goddamn evangelicals.

  12. 12.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    @Betty Cracker: Biden should have a town hall with healthcare workers like this nurse who are working in full and overflowing ICUs (especially pediatric ICUs, which are full in Houston).  Not exclusive to CNN, a White House production, prime fucking time.  Let them testify about having 1 or 2 vaxxed patients in ICUs and the rest being unvaxxed.  Make sure that some of the participants are prone to shed tears.  Just keep pounding it home that those governors are running death traps.

  13. 13.

    Hildebrand

    The fact that governors like Ivey and Hutchinson are furiously backpedaling on their own knavery is a good sign – and one that can be used when reporters are talking to other republican governors.  I recognize they aren’t fully taking responsibility for their own short-sightedness, but their change of heart is a good thing for all sorts of reasons.

  15. 15.

    WhatsMyNym

    @lowtechcyclist:

    The family doc said it would be a waste of time to get the kids tested for Covid if they’re asymptomatic, which they fortunately are.

    The assumption will be that they had it if their parents did. That’s what testing here has shown.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @germy: Seems like an excellent way of purging the police force (and probably also the military) of people who shouldn’t be in those jobs. See also: healthcare workers refusing vaccination mandates.

  18. 18.

    West of the Rockies

    @germy:

    I maintain that sworn LE officer is a position that should require a BA/BS to generally assure a brighter, more thoughtful work force.

  19. 19.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: They probably consider 3 to be a large number.​

    When you’ve blown off eight of your fingers with M80s while celebrating the 4th…

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    The good news, such as it is, is that the Delta Surge does seem to have frightened a noticeable number of holdouts into getting their vaccinations. Looking at the CDC numbers and looking at “people getting first shot”, nationally the rate has nearly doubled since the low in early July and is now above 400k/day. Hotspots like Alabama and Louisiana have rates up 4x (starting from a very low baseline of course). Florida a bit more than double.

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @Cacti: I don’t think it’s “dying to own the libs” so much as a really, really toxic version of “hold my beer”.

    Slate (from 2011):

    Wolf Blitzer put a terrific question to Rep. Ron Paul at last night’s CNN/Tea Party Express Republican debate in Tampa, Fla. What should happen, the moderator asked hypothetically, if a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it—and then becomes catastrophically ill and needs intensive care for six months? When Dr. Paul ducked, fondly recalling the good old days before Medicare and saying that we should all take responsibility for ourselves, Blitzer pressed the point. “But, Congressman, are you saying the society should just let him die?” At that point, the rabble erupted in cheers and whoops of “Yeah!”

    This was indeed an appalling, mob-mentality moment—more medieval, even, than the crowd applauding Gov. Rick Perry for winning the death-penalty derby at the previous debate. What it clarified, however, was less the cruelty of the Tea Party crowd than the absurdity of the health-care positions of all of the Republican candidates. The GOP contenders relentlessly attack “Obamacare” as “socialized medicine.” But they won’t speak up for either of the other two choices available to them: the arguably more socialized system we have hitherto lived with or the Blitzer option of letting the uninsured die in the streets.

    The rhetoric on their side has continued to spiral down, and politicians on their side get rewarded (with retweets, attention) by staking out maximalist positions. It’s a tribal thing inside their tribe, showing how pure they are…

    I’m trying to think of an analogy endpoint, something so ridiculous that even they won’t go for it, but I’m drawing a blank. “I burned my own house down to protect my freedom!! MAGA!!1” They’d end up on FoxNews and have a book deal and get a few hundred k on GoFundMe. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Montanareddog

    @dmsilev: The post-Iraq invasion experience of summarily disbanding Saddam’s armed forces was having a lot of disaffected ex-military with easy access to guns wreaking havoc. I am not sure that throwing out anti-vax US military would be such an unequivocal win as is often assumed.

  29. 29.

    Sure Lurkalot

    And then there is Texas, where now a school does not have to inform parents of a positive case or do any contract tracing but you can still send your kiddo to school even if a close contact with an infected student.

  30. 30.

    smith

    @Another Scott: I think owning the libs on a particular issue is what touches off the downward spiral you describe. Thereafter it’s competitive purity signalling to the rest of the tribe with no braking mechanism so it gets ever more extreme.

  33. 33.

    Starfish

    @Montanareddog: Keeping them is a blow to military readiness. They can infect everyone they work and train with. It won’t be that many because way more people like to run their mouths than act in a way that might have consequences.

  35. 35.

    Montanareddog

    @Starfish: I agree with both of your points (military readiness, and mostly just performative-gobshitery). I am pushing back on the notion that it is a win-win with no potential downside.

  38. 38.

    Yutsano

    Speaking of dying to pwn the libz…

    Ashli Babbitt’s family filing a $10 million wrongful death suit against US Capitol Police. Their attorney says she was ambushed by the officer who shot her, and was given no warning or verbal command. pic.twitter.com/XUAyEuh0yk— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 6, 2021

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Montanareddog:

    I dunno, given that there are already more guns than people in our fine country, it’s hard for me to see even tens of thousands of suddenly former police and military making that much of a difference.

    And wrt the military, only a small fraction of them are infantry.  While they’ve all been through basic, most of them don’t handle guns on a regular basis.  My next-door neighbor is active-duty USAF, and I bet there are a few thousand people in my county who are more skilled with guns than he is.

  41. 41.

    Scout211

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/us/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-covid/index.html

    And don’t forget, Sturgis motorcycle rally starts today and goes on for 10 days.

    Steve Sample, a 67-year-old land surveyor from Arizona, will be attending the 81st annual Sturgis rally. It’s his fifth straight year, and he will be there with his wife, who is vaccinated against Covid-19, he said. He is not.
    “I’m going to go every year until I die, whether Covid kills me or a head-on collision,” he said. “That’s the way I am.”

    A report by infectious disease experts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and South Dakota health officials traced 649 Covid-19 cases around the country and at least one death to the 2020 rally. The report said the “true national impact” of the rally on the pandemic is likely underestimated.

  42. 42.

    cain

    @germy:

    Then they are violating their oath of office. Fuck em – we don’t need more assholes on the police force. Let em go and get new ones. If there is one union I don’t give a fuck about – it’s the police union.

  43. 43.

    karen marie

    @lowtechcyclist: Maybe better not to know given that when Republicans take back the House and Senate they’ll rescind the law requiring health insurers to cover preexisting conditions.

  45. 45.

    Scout211

    @Yutsano:

    I don’t know how that attorney can say there was no warning.  In the NYT video, you can hear multiple people shouting “gun!” “gun!” and you can see clearly through the windows a police officer with their gun drawn and holding it for a period of time before shooting.  But I guess that will come out later.  IANAL

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211: I remember last summer, you could just see the case and death numbers radiate out from SD in the wake of Sturgis.  It was one hell of a super-spreader event.

    Guess they’re gonna see if they can do it again, and I certainly wouldn’t bet against them.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Yutsano: “Um, what was Ms. Babbitt doing in the Capitol?  Was she authorized to be inside the building?  What was Ms. Babbitt doing inside a broken window? …”

    I somehow don’t think the case will go anywhere, but they got their retweet so I’m sure they’re happy.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    scav

    Either their God wants a lot of orphans (special offer reserved for the unvaccinated!) or it’s a Do It Yourself Rapture.

  52. 52.

    cain

    @Another Scott:

    Never mind that the vice president of the United States was only feet away. I think Ashli’s family is going to get very embarrassed when the facts come out.

    That said, some clown lawyer probably convinced them and everyone is going to try to get money from right wingers to fight this and in the end – they hope everyone comes out a bit richer.

  53. 53.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @brendancalling: Children in cages is what did it for me, taken from their families with no plan to reunite them. Every single one of them should fry in hell for that.

  54. 54.

    Shakti

    @Scout211:

     

    @Yutsano:

    Ashli Babbitt should be dishonorably discharged from the Air Force posthumously. Not only should the government not pay one red cent towards her shitty family, they should have to pay the government’s costs in this suit at minimum and any monies they raise from GoFundmes and the like should be confiscated starting at one penny and going to infinity.

  55. 55.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Yutsano: ​
      what’s next Al Qaeda suing the Seal Team Six for not issuing a warning to bin Laden.

  56. 56.

    New Deal democrat

    @Betty Cracker: The top 5 States for new vaccinations *per capita* in the past week have been AR, FL, MS, LA, and TX.

     

    Gee, what do they have in common?

     

    Fear is a powerful motivator.

  57. 57.

    sab

    I finally figured why Oficer Fanone’s accent fascinates me so much. In my mis-spent youth I went to law school in Tennessee. My roommate for two years was from Bethesda, MD. Her maternal grandfather was an orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn. She broke away from all that and became a biker chick in rural Maryland. For a while she worked as a cook on a shrimpboat in the Gulf. Her accent was a lot like his.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    A lot of the police forces seemingly want a very moldable/compliant  work force, having people with higher education can muddy those waters, so to speak. It’s like the military to a degree, a large part of it does not need to be highly educated but highly motivated. Other parts can require a year or more of specialized training, to keep things running, and more of those people are less likely to appreciate some aspects of military life.

  59. 59.

    sab

    I finally figured why Oficer Fanone’s accent fascinates me so much. In my mis-spent youth I went to law school in Tennessee. My roommate for two years was from Bethesda, MD. Her maternal grandfather was an orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn. She broke away from all that and became a biker chick in rural Maryland. For a while she worked as a cook on a shrimpboat in the Gulf. Her accent was a lot like hers.

  60. 60.

    Gvg

    University of Florida just announced they are back to masks indoors. This is in defiance of the Governor and legislature and we do really always need funding so this is a fairly big deal. Also strongly recommending vaccination by August 22nd. Not an actual mandate but stronger statement than before. I found the naming of a date interesting and also they recommended either Moderns or Pfizer but didn’t mention J&J.

    regular school starts in 1 week, university in 2 weeks. It was supposed to be a normal fall, announced way back in May…so this is a change in plans.

  62. 62.

    Richard

    @germy: Also Southwest Utah here. What you are reporting is the truth. Starting to see a few more masks, maybe as many as 15% in busy public spaces. We are headed for another spike.

  63. 63.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Children in cages is what did it for me, taken from their families with no plan to reunite them. Every single one of them should fry in hell for that.

    I still don’t understand how nobody is being charged with several thousand counts of child abuse.

    I’m not gonna worry about heaven or hell, but everyone involved in the planning of that abomination should never see the outside of a prison as long as they live.

  64. 64.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    It’s really amazing how much right wing thought these days is based upon initial information about the virus, and the assumption that nothing can change all that much.

    They “know” that you’re likely to be asymptomatic, unlikely to die, and that kids won’t ever get a severe case, because they heard that early on, before we learned more. That any of those things can change is dismissed.

    Seriously, they don’t even think things can change between pandemics! E.g.: Kavanaugh wrote a decision disallowing restrictions on church attendance, even though the case was moot (restrictions had already been lifted), to ensure no one could restrict church attendance again without the decision being overruled.

    Hence, if Smallpox II (as contagious as Covid-19, but 30% fatality, just like Smallpox-Classic) comes into existence and spreads, that means churchgoers could be killing thousands while a restriction works its way through courts.

    And, with all due respect (I’m sure you’ve guessed I mean “kind of a *negative* respect – it’s impressive to be that dull witted”), it did take me a couple seconds to realize how completely moronic and destructive that decision was. It is, in a way, much like governors forbidding local attempts to control the spread, but, you know, lasting until the SCOTUS has all justices possessing more brains than a breath mint. (No, Kavanaugh – not collectively, each individual. You’ll always be the drunken asshole who should have been rejected 90-10 or better, for that speech you gave under oath, much less all the lies you told under oath; *AND*, dumb as a box of Ritz crackers. Hell, store-brand Ritz-substitutes.)

  65. 65.

    Gvg

    @cain: I tend to think the apple didn’t fall that far from the tree. In other words, they are just as bad as she was, and they marinated her in it. Their words and actions since have convinced  me they are partly responsible for how she turned out.

  66. 66.

    theturtlemoves

    @Scout211: ​  Having grown up 17 miles from Sturgis, I have a particular distaste for that whole affair. Bunch of loud posers who bring their bikes on trailers and then pretend to be “rebels” for a week before going back to their dental practices. To this day, I refuse to ride a Harley (currently own a Yamaha) and refer to myself as a motorcyclist, not a biker.​

  67. 67.

    sab

    @Ruckus: My husband’s friend the retired cop ( age about 70) thought the same thing here in Akron and it was a disastrous decision, which he is the first to admit. The soldiers turned cops don’t take orders. They argue about everything. They love having a union. They don’t care about departmental objectives. And they know they can’t be easily fired, and they certainly aren’t at risk of a general or dishonorable discharge. So they are pretty much out of control. And twenty years into it their own superior officers agree with them, because they came through the same pipeline.

  68. 68.

    louc

    @Scout211: I think the purpose of the lawsuit is to to get the name of the officer who shot her out in public so they can persecute him.

  69. 69.

    PenAndKey

    @Montanareddog: who said anything about kicking them out? Parade march their asses down to the nearest vaccination site and order them to the administration tables single file. They lost the “right” to refuse mandatory vaccinations when they signed up for service.

  73. 73.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    My county has just been moved back into the “area of substantial transmission” status. I am so furious at people who refuse to get vaccinated. We could be done with this, but no, you’d rather drink fish tank cleaner.

  78. 78.

    Another Scott

    @Gvg: Wasn’t there a story/tweet this week that at least one of DeSatan’s orders wasn’t actually a legal document, but more of a bunch of campaign stuff translated into Whereases that had no legal weight?  If so, great.  If not, fine.  I hope that everyone with power in these places starts standing up for the truth and sensible action and pushing back against this performative political nonsense that is still getting people killed…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    sab

    My next door neighbor growing up was a very, very wonderful old lady originally from San Francisco, until both her parents died in the 1918 flu pandemic when she was 12. She got shipped off to Boston with distant relatives. It changed her whole life, not in a good way. She eventually ended up in Ohio. Her parents had had no choice. There wasn’t a vaccine and the pandemic went on for four years. I just can’t wrap my head around current parents risking that for their children. And her family had money as a buffer. A lot of these parents don’t.

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat

    My forgiveness for Republicans was over when they made him their nominee knowing fully well that he was beholden to Russia

    And I completely cut off my Jill Stein voting friend after she defended the Muslim ban.

  82. 82.

    Scout211

    @Another Scott:

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/us/florida-school-mask-mandate-law/index.html

    But several legal experts told CNN the executive order does not actually ban mask mandates in schools and is more political speech than legal directive.
    “It is a loosely written riff on the governor’s political views on masking and parental rights chock-full of entirely unenforceable ‘Whereas’ clauses designed to garnish newspaper, television and Twitter soundbites, rather than judicial support in the event of inevitable lawsuits,” CNN legal analyst Paul Callan said.

  83. 83.

    RSA

    @Scout211:  “I’m going to go every year until I die, whether Covid kills me or a head-on collision,” he said. “That’s the way I am.”

    Everyone should have ambitions in life.

  84. 84.

    cain

    @theturtlemoves: ​
     
    Harley’s aint that good – just an obnoxious sound.

    My favorite motorbike is the Royal Enfield Bullet – what a sweet low bass sound. My uncle use to have it when I was a kid. A solid very heavy bike, but super nice. The Indian army still uses it – and it’s exclusively made only in India. It has a cult following just like the Harleys do here. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Enfield_Bullet

  90. 90.

    cain

    @RSA: ​

    This asshole thinks that it is some personal choice – but he’s actually a carrier and can spread it to others. How will he feel when he is directly the cause of spreading a disease to a loved one and he gets accused of directly involved in killing said loved one?

    ETA: OMG! #90! I don’t think I ever gotten 90 – yaaaaayeeey meee!!!! ????

  96. 96.

    Kent

    @Scout211: No way this suit is being driven by actual college students.  It is their MAGA parents and attorneys who are using them to make a point.

    I’m willing to bet that a huge majority of unvaccinated college students are going to get the shot when they show up for school and parents aren’t looking over their shoulder anymore.  Schools will send them to the campus health center and when given a choice between weekly deep nose probes and other restrictions or getting the shot, most will just get the shot.  If the health centers are smart they will have vaccine available to give every student who walks in a choice, get your nose deep probed or get the shot and not have to come back.  “We can do it right here and now”

  97. 97.

    Scout211

    Some good news:

    https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-08-06-21/h_659fc12dcfa46000e7b2b2579d3ea0b8

    An Arkansas judge temporarily blocked the enforcement of the state’s law banning mask mandates in schools in response Friday to two lawsuits — one from a school district, and one from parents — who want schools to be able to require masks if they so choose.

    The preliminary injunction was issued by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox, after the state’s general assembly held a special session on the matter on Thursday without amending the state’s law.

    With the injunction in place, school districts can now enforce mask requirements, while the suits continue.

    The law “cannot be enforced in any shape, fashion or form,” Fox said during the hearing on Friday.

  99. 99.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t have enough faith in America to believe Republicans will definitely pay a price for branding themselves as the pro-COVID party and dragging out the death, sickness, misery and inconvenience for all of us by politicizing a public health crisis. But I think it’s possible. 

    I feel like the ones who we were going to get to come over to our side for this reason have already come over. My experience with people who make bad decisions for emotional reasons is that the anger over the negative outcome causes them to cling more tightly to their decision.

  100. 100.

    RSA

    @cain:

    This asshole thinks that it is some personal choice – but he’s actually a carrier and can spread it to others. How will he feel when he is directly the cause of spreading a disease to a loved one and he gets accused of directly involved in killing said loved one?

    That’s the least understandable part, for me.  It’s like a drunk driver saying, “If I crash and die, so be it,” without thinking of the other drivers on the road or even his own family in the same car.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    Have a HS buddy who became a CHP at 21 yrs old, and did 30 yrs on the force. He told me after he retired that the entire force was far, far different than when he signed on and that it really started to change after he had his 20yrs in and had decided to do 30. He could barely recognize it when he retired. He said that he would never have become a cop if it was like when he retired.

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    @Richard:

    we got a LOT of strange looks on our family trip through AZ and UT at the end of July…even just popping in to pick up take-out (which is all that we did)

    oh well, they’ll learn (or die)

  106. 106.

    japa21

    Effective yesterday, Costco went from allowing vaccinated employees to go maskless (and they had to show proof of vaccination) to requiring all employees and people that work in a Costco (including demonstrator such as myself) to wear masks. I never stopped wearing mine.

    Mask wearing had gotten down to about 40-50% of shoppers but has gone back up to about75%. This is in Chicago suburbs.

  108. 108.

    Jim Appleton

    @Ken: It’s a floor polish!  And a nuclear reactor fuel buffer!  You can eat it all day long with broken glass and mayonnaise!  But don’t be fooled by those stoopid vaccines …

     

    //

  109. 109.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:My county has just been moved back into the “area of substantial transmission” status. I am so furious at people who refuse to get vaccinated. We could be done with this, but no, you’d rather drink fish tank cleaner.

    We could have been essentially done with this by July 4th, 2020.

    But it was a “hoax”, and we had to get those churches open by Easter, and mask-wearing is for pussies, and it’s “just like the flu”, and we all needed to “go on, live our lives, not be afraid of the virus”.

    I used to just want him in jail…

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know. They never seem to answer for their actions.

    I do think it’s time for lots of social punishment until people get their damn vaccinations. Seriously. I would enjoy a mandate that everyone in public has to be vaccinated or sealed in a bubble suit. And make them prove it.

  111. 111.

    japa21

    @Scout211: ​
      Republicans are such interesting creatures. Where they control the power in a state, they refuse to allow local governments to have any say about masks. In Illinois, when Pritzker issued a mandatory pre-school and K-12 mask wearing, including private schools, the GOP was up in arms, saying it should be the local governments and school boards that decide.

    I think someone wrote a law that described this phenomenon. Somebody named Cheek or Creek or whatever.

  112. 112.

    Jeffro

    @japa21: that’s fantastic!

    Every business, institution, school district, etc that mandates vaccinations and masks builds momentum for others to follow suit and isolates the pro-disease freaks who have NO concept of “responsibilities” that go with all their blessed “rights”

  113. 113.

    RSA

    @japa21:  Effective yesterday, Costco went from allowing vaccinated employees to go maskless (and they had to show proof of vaccination) to requiring all employees and people that work in a Costco (including demonstrator such as myself) to wear masks.

    Good for you, and good for Costco.

    Disingenuous people sometimes ask why even vaccinated people have to wear masks, when it’s the unvaccinated who are most at risk. An honor system works only if everyone (more or less) is honorable; that’s not the case with anti-vaxxers.

  114. 114.

    burnspbesq

    @Scout211:

    Judge Easterbrook told them in no uncertain terms that they were full of shit.

    The only thing that worries me is that Barrett is the Circuit Justice for theSeventh Circuit, so she will likely punt on this and force the full Court to waste time and resources.

    And when this is over, that asshat Bopp should be sanctioned.

  115. 115.

    Elizabelle

    Haven’t read the thread, but — that nurse has not failed her patients.  Her patients failed their own damn selves, and their loved ones.  I feel very sad for any patients who could not be vaccinated, for medical reasons — or who had medical conditions that lessened the vaccine’s effectiveness (we had a vaccinated teacher with rheumatoid arthritis die a few weeks ago).

    But the rest of the carnage: it’s on the psychopaths who dissuaded the patients from getting a life-saving FREE vaccine, and on the patients who figured it out too late.

    I hope that nurse’s message goes viral and saves some lives.

    But I feel so badly for her, feeling so personally responsible for patients who would not protect themselves.  It’s on the patients.  And the sociopaths/psychopaths/Republicans and anti-vaxxers (mucho overlap in that group).

  117. 117.

    Redshift

    @James E Powell:

    I feel like the ones who we were going to get to come over to our side for this reason have already come over. My experience with people who make bad decisions for emotional reasons is that the anger over the negative outcome causes them to cling more tightly to their decision. 

    There’s a Twitter thread I need to dig up from a sociologist about how there’s actual research on this, and how to combat it. Short version is that it’s very uncomfortable for people to admit to themselves that they’ve been conned, and it takes a certain kind of attention from people in their in-group to get them through it.

    The positive part is that the people telling us not to be mean to anti-vaxxers are wrong. It won’t help, but it won’t make it any worse, so we can take out our anger on them all we like.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    My father was 1 in 1918 during the last pandemic. His mother and father crossed the country in a horse drawn wagon with him, from Kansas City to LA. Not being around other people might have saved their lives. Also remember that while there were some big cities at the time, the population of the US in 1918 was around 100 million against a population now of over 3 times that. Less exposure equals less transmission. But that pandemic killed more because we had no vaccine at all and many fought wearing masks of any kind and there was no way to have food or housing or healthcare, even a limited as that was, other than work or be wealthy. Stay home and starve, work and get sick. And people started work a lot younger, even at 8 or 9. It’s a wonder more didn’t die.

  121. 121.

    Mary G

    @Elizabelle:

    (we had a vaccinated teacher with rheumatoid arthritis die a few weeks ago)

    Well, that got me pulling my mask back up over my nose even though I’m sitting here alone at my desk at home. I am so fucking angry every time I read some asshole (looking at you, Nate Silver) say that it’s just a very remote chance someone will be infected. It’s not in the slightest bit remote for me.

  122. 122.

    Splitting Image

    @Ken:

    Do try to keep up. It’s horse deworming paste now.

     

    So these people are now literally paste-eaters?

    Well, it’s been a long time coming.

  123. 123.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    The lawsuit will get tossed right away.

    Normally I agree that frivolous cases should be dismissed as quickly as possible, but discovery in this case could get interesting.

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    I should have said likely drove there. Very few ride very far to go to Sturgis. A motorhome or pickup towing a trailer, motorhome being more likely, gives them some place to stay on the way and when there, given the number of motels and price per night within 50 miles of Sturgis.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Splitting Image:

    Not library paste as some used to eat decades ago, far worse than that. Horse deworming paste.

    They will eat horse deworming paste rather than get a vaccine made for, you know actual fucking humans.

  128. 128.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Shots for MAGAts!

    VAX in the arm, or two shots in the noggin.

    Species traitors will not be tolerated.

  130. 130.

    Kent

    @Betty Cracker:I don’t have enough faith in America to believe Republicans will definitely pay a price for branding themselves as the pro-COVID party and dragging out the death, sickness, misery and inconvenience for all of us by politicizing a public health crisis. But I think it’s possible. 

    Arguably they already have.  Most other world leaders saw their popularity increase during 2020 by simply attempting to do a competent job of managing the pandemic.  Trump was one of the few who tanked his own approval by politicizing the pandemic.  In an alternate history he might have walked to re-election by doing a halfway competent and reasonable job.

    Luckily for us I guess, he isn’t a halfway competent or reasonable man.

  131. 131.

    dexwood

    @scav:  Do It Yourself Rapture. Made me chuckle. Too bad they willingly take the innocent, the unvaccinated for reasons, with them. Stiil, a good band name.

  132. 132.

    Jim Appleton

    @Elizabelle:   Agree.

     

    I so hope I’m wrong, but it looks like the Delta surge has long yet to peak, and that the worst affected will be imbeciles and innocent children.

     

    How can the guilty not be thrown into the lake of fire, to the defeat of stoopid R’s?

  133. 133.

    RSA

    @germy:

    Radio “Shock Jock” Dick Farrel dies of Covid. Who could’ve seen this coming?

    I’ve read a good number of stories about people wishing on their deathbeds that they’d gotten the vaccine. Some famous people, even.

    What I haven’t seen is someone saying, “I apologize to anyone I convinced not to get vaccinated. Any illnesses or deaths are on my head.” That would garner my respect—okay, I exaggerate.  It would lessen my contempt. Otherwise? The world is a better place without you.

  134. 134.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    Is that a promise? Sounds like an unauthorized walkout, and time to decertify.

  135. 135.

    geg6

    So fucking sick of these people.  The two people in our suite of offices who are unvaccinated piss me off so bad, I can hardly look at them.  We’re back to everyone masking in campus buildings as of yesterday.  All of vaccinated people are masking properly, only taking them off in our personal offices when alone.  These two assholes have been swanning around with their masks below their noses.  I want to murder them.

  137. 137.

    Caphilldcne

    @germy: idle threat. Thousands of people swore they’d leave the military once gay service members were allowed. Something like 4 of them followed through.

  138. 138.

    trollhattan

    @RSA: ​
     
    Our county indoor mask order is back in force and I’m pleased to report my trip there this week showed compliance, staff and customers alike.

  143. 143.

    Mary G

    This makes me feel better, from WaPo:

    In the next week or two, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to review data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting the use of additional vaccine doses for the immunocompromised. If officials are persuaded, they will amend the emergency use authorizations for the vaccines to permit the extra inoculations. Advisers to the CDC and the agency, in turn, will urge people with certain medical conditions to talk to their doctors or pharmacists about getting the shots.

    Immunocompromised patients represent about 7 million adults in the United States, including those who have received organ transplants, patients on cancer treatments and those with rheumatologic conditions and HIV, according to the CDC. They are more likely to become seriously ill from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and might more frequently spread the virus to others, experts say.

    “It is extremely important for us to move to get those individuals their boosters, and we are now working on that,” Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday at a White House briefing. He said many immunosuppressed people did not have a vaccine response “that we feel would be adequately protective.”

    Fauci gets me. Another Ouchie it will be at some point.

  144. 144.

    Caphilldcne

    @Montanareddog: they’ll just go get vaccinated. Just like they’re required to do everything else. Source: I was an Air Force officer and a military brat. We don’t need the very few who decide they won’t do it.

  145. 145.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Mary G: please be careful- I am fully vaccinated and have been since February. I went(drove) to see my daughter. my niece and my daughters two other bridesmaids for a small bridal shower. This past weekend, In the FingerLakes in New York. We sat outside at a winery a a small widely separated table  and had drinks. We went to dinner once, outside and all the restaurant staff were masked. Hand sanitizer stations everywhere and we used them. We are all vaccinated.  We all came down with sniffles sore throat and headaches by Wednesday.  We all have been tested and have symptomatic COVID-19.  The new variant is infectious as Hell.  I am 59 but the other four women are healthy women in their twenties.
    I took a chance to go visit my kid. Hoping all of us have a mild case and no long term consequences.

  148. 148.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @RSA: It’s like a drunk driver saying, “If I crash and die, so be it,” without thinking of the other drivers on the road or even his own family in the same car.

    Calls to mind the old expression

    I want to die like my Grandpa did, in my sleep – not like the other people in the car he was driving at the time…

    :^D

  149. 149.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Baud: ​
     

    Wouldn’t it be a hoot if Eye of Newt is found to cure covid?

    Toad vomit was a sure cure for the Plague, according to Isaac Newton who was a REAL scientist-y type, invented gravity and rainbows and principiated Mathematica so he must have been onto something. Big Leech hid this info from the public though.

  151. 151.

    Cacti

    I just saw from my anti-vax cousin that US News and World Report has decided to “both sides” the vaccine issue.

    Giving an article to Dr. Marty Makary (laproscopic surgeon, not a virologist/immunologist/epidemiologist) to spread the anti-vax gospel.

    Not linking because fuck them.

  152. 152.

    Richard

    @Jeffro: I’m sorry about those strange looks. Maybe you misread some of them? We have a long history of being perceived as hicks.

    Unfortunately,  it is mostly true. Look at that Senator Mike Lee that we have inflicted on the Senate. Education is not valued in my state.

    Cowboys are great, family values, and the Church. I have lived with these people for 40+ years.

    I still admire their vision of an agrarian utopia. I still admire their respect for knowledge and personal responsibility. I still care about the Mormons.

    They seem to have lost their way. They seem to have lost their vision, when it comes to politics. Nowadays, they just vote whatever their bishop tells them and go back to their toys and television.

    Disappointed.

  154. 154.

    Another Scott

    @sab: (Not to pile on, if others have already answered.)

    No, 2020.  See the date in the URL.

    Several countries stopped the virus before the vaccines were available.  Public health measures work.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  155. 155.

    Suzanne

    @Richard: My classmate who died last night was LDS. I hope that it wasn’t at church that he decided not to get vaccinated.

  156. 156.

    Betty

    @West of the Rockies: It might help, but it is partly a peer thing. Bright young family member,college graduate, recently joined a Sheriff’s Department and has gone full QANON. Parents and grandparents can’t reach him.

  159. 159.

    Mary G

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I’m basically back to square one, staying home with no visitors, making housemates wear masks in common spaces at home, windows open and fans blowing away from me, etc. Have put a hold on further home improvement projects though the bathroom remodel is almost done, because though everyone who has come has been masked up, the county figures are going up just like the first two waves.

    I’m sorry you had to get a breakthrough case and hope it’s quick and mild.

  160. 160.

    James E Powell

    @Hildebrand:

    The fact that governors like Ivey and Hutchinson are furiously backpedaling on their own knavery is a good sign – and one that can be used when reporters are talking to other republican governors.

    Reporters seem to find the holdouts more newsworthy. They go for conflict even if they promote evil to do so.

    What’s working for me are the governors who are saying they are sick of this shit, get vaccinated.

  161. 161.

    Skepticat

    A friend posted this today, and it’s painfully true.

    What began as a virus now has mutated into an IQ test.

  162. 162.

    James E Powell

    @germy:

    I do not believe that sheriff’s department employees are going to quit in droves. They will cry & moan, like they always do, but they have mortgages, child support obligations, car payments, just like everybody else.

    Call the bluff. If someone is willing to quit over this particular vaccination – they have no doubt had others – then they ought not to be working public service.

  163. 163.

    Just Chuck

    The worse the GQP is and does, the more they’re rewarded for it.  The MAGATS want more and worse, and the rest are just unthinking Etch-a-Sketches.   They never pay a price.  The only way they will is if enough of their constituents die to seriously affect the numbers, but thankfully Covid isn’t lethal enough to make that happen or we’d all be in big trouble.

  171. 171.

    Peale

    @texasdoc: New York City appears to be heading that way. After next week, the nurses at my partner’s hospital are being pulled from surgery to work ICU again. It’s just a matter of time before we’re stuck. Someday I’ll get these cataracts removed. Some day.

  172. 172.

    SFAW

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Paging Omnes!

    I thought he did corporate work, not clown work. And what would clowns use a lawyer for? Do something such as file a suit against VW because they could only fit 10 in a New Beetle, instead of 15 as they were promised?

  176. 176.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Mary G:  thank you, it’s been like a bad head cold with extreme fatigue at times. The others report similar so far, I am isolating away from my husband as much as possible and he is negative so far. Even though the girls and I were careful we knew it was a calculated risk and we lost.

  177. 177.

    Bokonon

    @cain:  What I want to know is … who is paying for this lawsuit?

    I would wager money that the funds are being fronted by some right-wing dark money group. For sinister purposes of laundering this whole “Ashli Babbitt was ASSASSINATED” narrative through the courts.

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