Ron DeSatan is getting all the attention, but of all the killers in red states, nobody has matched Kristi Noem at the top of her game. Case in point: she encouraged the Sturgis motorcycle rally and attended it a little over two weeks ago. Sturgis is the biggest town in Meade County, SD. Here are their cases per 100K as of yesterday:
Look at that rocket — they’re just getting started. I’ve been watching the Dakota case rates and the conclusion I’ve arrived at is that they hadn’t really been hit hard by Delta, yet. That’s clearly changed, thanks to Dollar Store Sarah Palin.
Krazy Eyes Kristi doesn’t get as much attention as DeathSantis and Abbott, probably because the raw numbers of dead bodies in her state aren’t as big as theirs. But let’s not forget her track record — South Dakota’s deaths per 100K beat all the other contenders last winter, and she’s on track to start small but finish big so she can match her achievement from last year:
I know this is the oldest saw in the book, but if the Democrats had some media outlets that messaged anything like Republicans, we’d have Killer Kristi front-and-center every day. There is just so much ammo. Let’s start with culpability:
In other words, Florida did roughly twice as badly as California last summer in terms of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. This summer, however, Florida is doing roughly four times worse in terms of cases and hospitalizations — and nearly six times worse in terms of deaths.
Why has Florida moved in the wrong direction while California has gone the other way? Again, simple misfortune probably plays a part (as do other hard-to-quantify forces). But not every factor is beyond human control. Take vaccination. There are just five counties in California (of 58) where fewer than 35 percent of residents are fully inoculated. In Florida, that number is 23 (of 67). It’s easier for Delta to get a foothold and spread in places where the vast majority of people are unprotected.
Still, vaccination doesn’t explain everything: Statewide, Florida’s full vaccination rate (52 percent) is the same as the national number and just 3 percentage points lower than California’s (55 percent). And Florida has fully vaccinated more of its seniors (82 percent) than California (79 percent).
So as Rajkumar [Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic] explained, precautions are probably playing a big part as well — and here too the difference between California and Florida couldn’t be more pronounced.
When Delta took off, Los Angeles became the first county in the country to reinstate its public indoor mask mandate. The San Francisco Bay Area followed suit soon after, and nearly every large county in California that doesn’t require masks indoors at least strongly recommends them. No lockdowns, no business closures, no official curbs on indoor drinking or dining — just indoor mask requirements and recommendations.
We all know what RegeneRon and Kristi the Death Machine said about masks. Now let’s look at the economy, stupid:
Last year, after Biden defeated Trump, [Brookings Institute economist] Muro looked again and found that the economic output divide has grown even more pronounced. The 520 counties Biden won account for fully 71% of U.S. gross domestic product, while the 2,564 that Trump carried produced just 29%. In other words, America’s economic engine is bluer than ever.
The partisan lean of these 520 economically vital counties has almost certainly helped to protect U.S. growth because Democrats are much more likely to be vaccinated than Republicans. To pinpoint the difference between high-output and low-output America, I asked Muro to compare county-level vaccination data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for blue and red counties. He found that the average share of fully vaccinated people, age 12 and above, in the Biden-voting counties that produce 71% of GDP was 61%, as of Aug. 22, while the share in Trump-voting counties was 46%—a gap that’s grown substantially since April, when vaccination rates in high-output and low-output America were almost the same.
“At this point, reduced vaccination rates align very much with 2020 Trump voting across counties, and that—it turns out—aligns very closely with weaker economic performance,” Muro says. “The irony is that low vaccination rates are likely to slow economic recovery.”
The notion that encouraging ivermectin-gobbling morons to run around spewing death out of their ignorant pie holes is going to goose the economy is laughable on its face and obvious in its consequences.
Wait until kids really start dying, because that’s the next act in this fucking Republican tragedy.
(All the graphs are from CovidActNow.org which is really doing a great job.)
Barbara
In other words, the sense that your life is directed by the hand of fate has repercussions in more than one sphere.
swiftfox
Been using Covid Act Now to track rates in my state. They are quite good at what they do.
hrprogressive
And, the thing is, the death cult shows zero signs of reversing course.
Even a congressman-elect from their own cult didn’t cause them to rethink anything
A lot of innocent people are going to suffer from this.
And, unfortunately, a lot of the cult leaders themselves are already vaccinated against it, so it is currently unlikely that they themselves will suffer the most potent outcomes.
And their flock will praise them for it from their ICU beds.
Unfuckingbelievable.
germy
I live in upstate NY, and a few months ago we started seeing Noem in tourism commercials, touting her state as the perfect place for a family vacation.
ciotogist
They’re being used as cannon fodder for a war against Democratic governance in the service of fascism and exploitation and they’re happily signing up for it.
dr. bloor
Meade County would be faring better if they could only push their vax rate over the 30% line. That said, it’s home to a mere 28,000 souls, which means that the virus will have come and gone (for better or worse) before DeathSantis throws Florida into fifth gear.
WereBear
@germy: WOW.
And I’m jaded these days.
jonas
Prediction — there will be absolutely no political price paid for any of this. All these ghouls will sail easily to reelection, if not national office, because of how far they went to show their anti-government, lib-pwning bona fides: literally watching thousands upon thousands of their citizens die eminently preventable deaths and then refusing to change course even long after it was clear everything was burning up. Talk about commitment!
NotMax
Isn’t that like being the tallest Munchkin in Oz?
Barbara
@germy: Not my family. I have been to South Dakota and I am not going back.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@dr. bloor: Meade is blowing the doors off of other SD counties in terms of vaccination. Examples: Dewey: 6.8% Ziebach: 2.8% Corson 7.6%
jonas
@hrprogressive:
Yup.
jonas
@germy:
I saw those too and chuckled: a number of counties in SD had per capita death rates last year far higher than NYC. Heckuva job!
henrythefifth
Wait til colder weather sets in and these stupid people interact more and more indoors….
Matt McIrvin
One limitation of CovidActNow is that they use the CDC’s data, but the CDC’s vaccination numbers can be weirdly spotty in some cases. For instance, their vaccination numbers for western Massachusetts have always been different from (mostly lower than) the numbers reported by the state itself, and I’m not sure why.
In some cases, they’re also estimating first vaccination for a county by taking the number of fully-vaccinated people from the CDC and multiplying it by a statewide ratio, which has obvious limitations.
Also, their risk estimate depends not just on infection levels but also on their calculated R value, which comes from the rate of change of infection levels, which can be numerically dicey to calculate, especially in places like Florida that report infrequently. I think that for a while that was actually making Florida look better than it was.
Baud
@jonas:
Why should anyone pay a political price for implementing popular policies?
Ken
@henrythefifth: I think the kids going back to school will be the next major vector. It’s already happened in Mississippi and other states which start early. There’ve been a lot of districts needing quarantine periods after a week back.
I haven’t seen anything about how that may have contributed to community spread. But I have to think that taking a little agar from each household petri dish, mixing it all together in the big school petri dish, and putting the agar back in the household petri dish five times a week is going to contaminate a lot of petri dishes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ivermectin is a laxative, basically it flushes the parasites out of the horses’ digestive system. So “pants crapping anti-vaccers” isn’t a metaphor.
Also I heard on the internet that there is a Ivermectin production problems due a shortage of tracking microchips. Please pass along.
geg6
I am not one to usually venture into the LGM comments section (too insular and condescending for my taste), but I did while drinking my coffee this morning and found myself spewing coffee and laughing my ass off on this post:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/08/whos-owning-who
jonas
@henrythefifth: Part of the problem has been that down south, summer *is* the time of year when everyone’s packed inside with the AC.
Ken
@geg6: Hmm, is it just me, or is twitter not working this morning? I tried the twitter link in the LGM story and it timed out; same for Popehat and a couple of others I read.
geg6
@jonas:
Yeah, true. But South Dakota winters?
Darwin for the win!
Lyrebird
@Ken: Heart in mouth here as I get my kids’ school supplies lined up, including several clean masks each day. I do not live too far from germy, so rates are not too bad here, but as you say, all that mixing, with new variants coming in… I think they should test the kids every week, maybe the spit tests or something easy like that. Or monitor sewer outflow. 20% random testing might not catch Delta until half the school has it…
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@ciotogist: they will be honored at the Valley of the Fallen after Genaralisimo Hawley takes power & restores America to prominence.
geg6
@Ken:
Yes, it does seem to be wonky. I couldn’t get in a little while ago from a link.
I do not twitter myself, but I often click on links and hadn’t had trouble this morning until a few minutes ago.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Baud: yup… eisenhower took us into vietnam, but at least he proved his antiwar progressive bona fides on the way out with his military-industrial complex speech
NotMax
Doleful numbers.
matt the somewhat reasonable
The Doyenne of Disease
Starfish
Would you let your 8-year old run a lemonade stand at a superspreader event?
matt the somewhat reasonable
Since Ivermectin is not regulated as a pharmaceutical, is it legal to sell repackaged tins of shoe wax on Amazon as Ivermectin to unsuspecting Flu Partiers? Asking for a friend.
Ken
@matt the somewhat reasonable: I think ivermectin is regulated when prescribed for humans. The solution is obvious, just label it “invermectin” when you sell it. Half of your buyers won’t notice, and the other half think it’s spelled that way anyway.
NotMax
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Actually, Truman specifically rejected the former U.S. position of neutrality and committed the first funding and “advisers” sent to Viet Nam.
Kropacetic
Masks have been the best solution, right from the beginning.
Of course, anyone familiar with today’s Republican Party should have anticipated they would go to the mat for their supposed right to effectively spit in random strangers’ faces.
bbleh
To once again quote Davis X. Machina: “the salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live with his family in a cardboard box under an overpass and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod or a sparrow to put on it.”
They will suffer horribly, and condemn their families to horrible suffering and even death, as long as no damn librul ee-leetist’s tellin’ THEM what to do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
maybe they can use the money to research a pediatric treatment for Delta. Or Lambda.
germy
Unlike here.
/
Jeffery
The GQP embraces the right to die movement.
Baud
@germy:
We’re condescending and insular.
geg6
@germy:
Perhaps, but I almost never get the vibe that every Jackal thinks he/she is the vastly superior incarnation of Oscar Wilde/Albert Einstein/John Marshall. This is the vibe I get there, whether deserved or not.
I mostly read the grave posts, but it wasn’t up this morning yet and I waded into the most pleasant comment thread I’ve ever seen there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Open thread? This seems like an evolution in his public statements
Matt McIrvin
I suspect that both the Dakotas and the urban Northeast are getting a bit of extra protection this time around since their rate of prior COVID infection is so high. But in the Northeast there’s relatively high vaccination also.
Starfish
Did anyone else see this? Was it real? Why was there not more outrage over it?
Basically, this couple traveled to Sturgis while very sick with COVID, and they hung out with a bunch of people.
Kropacetic
@matt the somewhat reasonable: It does have approved uses in humans. But those uses aren’t treating COVID and I’ve personally only seen it in a hospital setting. The preparations these people are taking aren’t designed for humans.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Because they’re DEMs?
kindness
Comparing Republicans & Democrats can lead one to question what their member’s think is important in a person.
I mean Republicans love to elect themselves beauty pagent queens even if they have no actual experience or brains. Palin was Miss Wasilla, Marsha Blackburn was the Oil Festival Queen, Shelly Capito was the Cherry Blossom Princess and Kristi Noem was the South Dakota Snow Queen.
Sure seems to me (some) Republicans like their nether regions to rule their brains. When you think of it in those terms it fits. They’re all to often hormone driven buttheads and assholes.
Starfish
@kindness: Republicans also like to elect people who are good at rodeos in South Dakota. Nothing says “qualified official” like falling off horses and getting trampled.
Ken
The first three clues being:
Baud
@Ken:
Must…. resist… fat shaming…. Republican base… AAAARGHHH!!!
HinTN
@geg6:
amirite?
dr. bloor
@Starfish:
Getting upset over watching natural selection in action is as pointless as telling the clouds to get off your lawn.
germy
@Ken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=400qV7ZpfPA
Can I get it in pill form?
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@kindness: rich lowery is seeing starbursts everday
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The irony is that Scalia didn’t retire and we had the opportunity to take back the Supreme Court. But you know….emails and speeches.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Kropacetic: I just got a 1% ivermectin solution from my doctor. Said doctor is a dermatologist and it goes on my face. I am fortunate in that my circle of friends are vaccinated and won’t try to eat it.
dr. bloor
@Baud: Watching Breyer struggle over his decision given the last two data points makes him look more clueless and less decisive than Tony Kennedy, which is not a good look.
brendancalling
@hrprogressive:
I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I’ve been following a subreddit called “Herman Cain Awards.” It’s basically screenshots from the FB pages of covid and vaccine deniers making all sorts of quack claims—and almost every single one ends with them dying, some of them denying FROM THEIR ICU BED that they have a disease at all. It is the saddest shit I have read in a long time, and it’s basically first person testimony on “dying to own the libs.”
dr. bloor
@Bluegirlfromwyo:
In fairness, the clover flavor is pretty hard to resist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Starfish: to be fair, Noem became a Republican star by lying about a tax bill on the family ranch when her father died.
Baud
@dr. bloor:
Right. If you want to struggle, do it privately, not in the press.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
Probably. After this weekend I am going to be scarce around Sighthound Hall until I see how the next few weeks go. Bro’ Man’s husband is teaching in a D.C. school, and their two kids will be in Arlington County schools (kindergarten and first grade). They’ll be masked, but, as you said, any time you get two or more kids together it’s a germfest. I hope it all goes smoothly, but . . .
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: I don’t see the problem, Willlllburrrrrr.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
Just went to a couple of Twitter tabs (in Firefox) and opened a new one (Popehat), and they are working fine for me.
catclub
@Ken: I am pretty sure that ivermectin is the key ingredient in dog deworming (heartworm) chewable treatments.
plus dosing not in 500kg increments! Should i start re-selling it?
Peale
@Starfish: because, TBH, if it’s fake it’s not that funny. And if it’s real, I couldn’t care less about the Sturgis attendees getting sick. Obvious super spreader event results in deaths is not something I care about any longer.
catclub
@dr. bloor: Getting upset over watching natural selection in action is as pointless as telling the clouds to get off your lawn.
Subtle Charlie Watts reference!
sdhays
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Those numbers don’t take into account the massive “natural vaccination” campaign Noem waged on her citizens last year.
New Deal democrat
The 10 worst hit States by rate of infection last autumn and winter were: AZ, IA, MT, NM, ND, RI,SD, TN, WI, and WY.
Of those, only 2 – TN and WY – are even in the top 25 States for rate of infection for Delta. The rest are in the bottom 25, and 2 – WI and RI – are in the bottom 10.
Ken
@catclub: Ah, so for your ivermectin source, the clues would be:
Starfish
@Peale: It was hypothesized that the Sturgis superspreader event led to the increase in COVID in a lot of the midwestern and western states last winter.
This is not just what is going on now in South Dakota. It is going to spread to all the surrounding states.
I am concerned about the number of COVID cases in my state among the children still too young to be vaccinated.
This is going to spread beyond the anti-vaxxer revenge fantasies.
Here is a paper by some economists from last year.
http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Speaking of the Supreme Court, they knocked down the CDC eviction moratorium under cover of darkness—the “shadow docket.”
Mike Duncan on Twitter:
Mark Joseph Stern (thread):
JPL
OT The AJC is reporting that a female filed a police report against Herschel Walker in 2012. sad
link
Another Scott
Mississippi has been on fire for weeks (new daily cases above 100/100,000, R ~ 1.3 or higher). They may, finally, be on a plateau or on a down-slope. But it’s clear that they don’t have it under control (~ 46% vaccinated with at least one dose).
I wouldn’t be surprised if areas with low vaccination rates go through several more waves in the next year or two. It’s so senseless… The rest of us have some cause for optimism:
(repost)
We need to keep trying to vaccinate everyone as quickly as possible. Even 70% of the entire population may not be enough to ultimately crush the virus, but it’s clear that the US is far from where it needs to be.
The next 90 days could put most of the country on the road to getting the virus under control, if we can keep up the vaccination rates. We still need to ramp up testing, variant sampling, and contact tracing.
The science is continuing to be correct in pointing the way out of this mess. We have to do the work to get it done. In the mean time, wear your mask!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
She will almost certainly be the GOP’s VP nominee in 2024.
JPL
@Steeplejack: If by some miracle the democrats can make gains in the midterm, Biden needs to add justices to the Supreme Court.
JPL
@Mike in NC: Marjorie is giving her a run for her money.
Villago Delenda Est
More depraved indifference to human life on display in South Dakota. Noem wants to compete with the big boys, it seems.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
the gains required would be not just seats in Congress but in public interest judicial reform
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack:
The Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court must be nullified.
catclub
So Nikki Haley gets no more love?
Peale
@Starfish: I’m holding my ire back until the kids can be vaxxed. But shortly after that, I’m officially done caring about the disruption these people cause. Every trip to the hospital for them is money they don’t have to hand to buy another gun, donate to nasty Bishop SexObsessed or Reverend Lovestohate, or Josh Hawley’s campaign fund. They’ve pretty much been able to break everything so I want them broken and wailing. Sorry if that makes me a “bad person”. But I’m done feeling threatened by them.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@JPL: given herschel’s acknowledged psych issues, the fact the gqp is willing to trade on his heisman for the dawgs to get an even more rubbery-stampy j.c. watts is exasperating.
evodevo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe the last couple SC decisions had a hand in changing his mind…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT:
The Moar You Know
@JPL: Even if we gain at the midterms – a questionable assumption at best – I don’t see that happening. FDR was far more popular and had commanding majorities in both the House and Senate and could not get it done. Biden has none of those things. Not to say he shouldn’t try, but it’s a true Hail Mary move – not likely to succeed.
opiejeanne
@brendancalling: Holy Cow!
Anoniminous
@New Deal democrat:
NM was in the top due to the outbreak and subsequent deaths in the Pueblos and on the Navajo reservation. According to treaty the Federal Government is supposed to provide health care to the People and as usual the Feds did nothing. Should do better this go-round as their vaccination rate is over 70%.
geg6
@HinTN:
Yes. LOL.
West of the Rockies
I’m judging the legions of attendees to the rally. General ages looked to be 40-70, mostly (might I say grossly white), and pleased as hell with themselves. Hairy, overweight, and still thinking themselves magnificent.
If a bunch croak from their own stupidity and selfishness, c’est la vie.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know: it’s long term movement, and we should call it “Judicial Reform”, it’s a mistake to start (and finish) at the top. Same basic problem we– the broad left– make with ignoring the other branches of government and state legislatures.
Anoniminous
It feels really weird to be rooting for the Insurance companies …..
but Insurance companies are now asking COVID-19 patients to share in the cost of their treatment …
good for them
Almost Retired
@West of the Rockies: Against our better judgment, my wife and I made a pass through Sturgis the night before the rally opened on our massive “two weddings and a funeral” road trip across some of the Continent’s most COVID-infested Counties. No masks, except for us – although no one commented or gave us the side-eye, and everyone masked up as required at the National Parks in SD.
But the (mostly) older attendees at Sturgis appeared to be an absolute fiesta of co-morbidities. In tight-fitting leather. I am sufficiently self-aware to know that at my age, I would not look good in ass-less chaps. Not everyone there had that level of consciousness.
Ksmiami
@Steeplejack: there are ways of taking care of injustice through other means. The Supreme Court should be curtailed
James E Powell
@Mike in NC:
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just recalling that predictions as to the nominees made more than two years prior rarely turn out.
Also too, if Trump is the GQP nominee, he will choose someone stupid and devoid of personality like he did the first time.
Eunicecycle
My daughter works at a clinic near a major Ohio university. She’s been doing a lot of Covid tests on college students, even though there is free testing on campus, because they don’t want the university health center to know if they are positive. In the last week she had almost 90% positive tests, only 10% vaccinated.
Ksmiami
@West of the Rockies: Welcome to my world. I don’t Even think they should be allowed to take up space in a hospital…
rikyrah
YardySpice ?? ?? (@ABlackTweeter) tweeted at 7:13 PM on Thu, Aug 26, 2021:
Basically, on January 6th two Black men saved this country from a terrorist attack on the US Capitol. https://t.co/GwTc6TlKbK
(https://twitter.com/ABlackTweeter/status/1431047299698872322?s=03)
catclub
When Mike Pence (Mike Pence!) shows too much independence and backbone, you are looking for a jellyfish.
Just Chuck
@jonas: When you’re a suicide cult, the deaths just show you’re doing it right.
Anoniminous
@Eunicecycle:
A combination of stupidity and Dunning-Kruger is bringing us to the edge of a national Mass Casualty Event — a situation when medical services resources, such as personnel and equipment, are overwhelmed by the number and severity of casualties
Ken
Or a relative.
catclub
Those numbers are crazy. Actually, self-selection for non-vaccinated students, and only those who are sick enough to think they might have covid. so not that crazy after all.
What are the state health department requirements for reporting?
Those number should get back to the university.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: Pence was the perfect toady right up to the final two weeks of his term in office–it turned out that literally overthrowing American democracy to reinstall his boss and himself was the bridge too far.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: That is true.
Eunicecycle
@catclub: I think this might be a case where HIPAA actually applies! She tries to educate them when she calls with results but that’s all she can do. She’s also pregnant and has 4yo twins so is worried about being exposed so much, even with PPE.
cain
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose: inside his underwear?
trollhattan
Covid could bang around the globe for years the way it’s being (mis)managed. We’re living with its ability to mutate and become more effective; what if it becomes as infectious as measles? Nothing is going to convince dead-enders to get a vaccine. IDK what we’re supposed to do from the bleachers while the cult keeps culting.
WaterGirl
@dr. bloor: In all fairness, he looks less clueless than he did the last time he made a retirement announcement.
WaterGirl
@JPL: To me it’s sad that they didn’t wait until the general election when they would be stuck with him running against Warnock.
I say this having not read the police report, so if he raped someone it should be totally up to the woman when she wanted to release the information.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The public does not particularly care about judicial reform one way or the other.
This means the right-wing anti-reform media blitz will have a bunch of undecided people to influence to their desired outcome, if Democrats try anything to upset the status quo.
I don’t see how Democrats can generate enough support for reform to overcome this.
Better place to start is having the rules of conduct for federal judges extend to the SCOTUS. It’s a small step, but it takes something like recusal out of a SCOTUS member’s hands and makes it part of the law they need to follow.
Edit: Incrementally grind down abuses Republican justices engage in
dr. bloor
@Almost Retired:
All they’re really worried about is that they look better in those chaps than the other morbidly obese, graying white guys with hairy asses.
hotshoe
@Barbara:
I would like to go back to South Dakota — if I recollect correctly, their scenic places are more accessible than some of the other mountain states — and it’s not as if staying away will send the state population a message that we’re boycotting them because they’re insane.
What we could really use is a social movement to get liberals to move to SD and overwhelm the stupid with blue votes. Some thousands of work-from-home google employees, etc … the local food and coffee would end up much improved ;)
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, but does he like beer as much as Justice Rapist does?
randy khan
A good chunk of Florida’s vaccination rate (which, last time I checked, was sitting just at the national average) comes from a combination of its higher-than-average percentage of people over 65 and a somewhat above average vaccination rate for that group (a few points above the very high national average). Its vaccination rates for the 18-64 and 12-17 groups are both below the national average, although not nearly as bad as the worst states.
JPL
@WaterGirl: The woman died a few years ago, but the police report says he threatened to kill her. She wanted to break up with him. His ex-wife has also mentioned abuse.
Matt McIrvin
@randy khan: There is also more geographic variation in vaccination rates from county to county than in most states–urban South Florida and The Villages have very high rates; rural counties especially in the Panhandle have very low rates. I suspect this makes it harder to keep COVID out of even the areas where there’s a lot of vaccination.
Matt McIrvin
@hotshoe: The country’s reddest low-population areas get more and more Republican by making it socially unpleasant and economically unprofitable for young people, minorities and liberals to even be there. And then the remaining residents wonder why the place is dying and get even more resentful. Literally making the place awash in disease germs can’t help.
The Dakotas had a recent, widely touted boom because of fossil fuels, but these things don’t last.
Geminid
@Mike in NC: Kristi Noehm has to win reelection next year to be considered for the 2024 Vice Presidential slot. This is not a certainty. In 2018, Noehm beat Democrat Billie Sutton by only 11,500 votes out of over 330,000 votes cast. Noem’s record is spotty, and her national ambitions will not neccesarily help her with South Dakota voters next year.
J R in WV
@catclub:
Looking at our pups heartworm treatment. Nope. Milbemycin oxime/prazequantel is what the package says. Now, that could be a patent-avoiding derivative of ivermectin, who knows…
“NOT FOR USE IN HUMANS!!” It says. “Treats common intestinal parasites including roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and tapeworms. ” Yuck, just reading and typing those names, yuck!
sdhays
@gene108: The Court clearly doesn’t care about quaint things like “laws”. I don’t see any law telling them when they have to recuse themselves actually having an effect or even being considered “Constitutional” since “Constitutional” now means “whatever the Conservative Majority considers convenient for the current moment – to hell with Congress or even the text of the Constitution itself”.
I think these recent decisions are going to continue building, culminating in a rollback, if not overturning, of Roe v. Wade, which I think is coming next year (at least a ruling on a challenge from Mississippi). They are going to just get worse and worse and they are going to force the public to either care about judicial reform or accept a radical transformation of the American status quo to a much more Conservative one.
Another Scott
@James E Powell: I’m sure we all remember that he “picked” Pence last time and almost immediately wanted someone else. Pence got the job to make sure the “evangelicals” were on board. So, someone like that would be top of the list the next time, also too.
Falwell, Jr isn’t doing too much these days, is he??
[ spit! ]
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
@zhena gogolia:
I disagree — way more than two black men, lots of them, and a few white co-workers were there too. But all heroic for sure!
Just Chuck
@James E Powell: I think Pence is servile enough that he’d sign on as running mate again. But then again, the Trumpanzees would loudly belch out their hecklers’ veto …
So my first real guess would be Pillow Guy.
Eunicecycle
@J R in WV: I’m getting stomach aches from so much talk about worms and dewormers. Yuck.
West of the Rockies
@J R in WV:
I get her point, but, yeah, too reductionist.
Roger Moore
@Kropacetic:
FWIW, the FDA also regulates veterinary medicines, and they require the same quality standards for veterinary drugs they do for human drugs. The reason veterinary drugs are cheaper is that a) they’re mostly off-patent and B) in many cases people will consider euthanasia as an alternative to an expensive treatment.
Roger Moore
@Peale:
You should. If there’s one thing the past month should have taught everyone, it’s that enough sick people overwhelm the medical system and start killing anyone else who needs emergency treatment.
hotshoe
@Matt McIrvin: True, I would be personally worried about moving to SD, Idaho, eastern Oregon — I get the adrenaline shakes (in a mostly blue town) when I turn a corner by my house and see the Trump flag still flying at the whacko couple’s. I really cannot imagine staying sane if I moved to an isolated red town and every interaction with any person at the gas station or grocery store was drenched in their hateful politics.
Not surprising that other decent people feel the same: neither the pretty scenery nor the chance to make political reform are worth the risk of deliberately moving near the Death Cult.
It’s different if you have family reasons to live there, born there, whatever, but I can’t really ask anyone else to move there on purpose just to fix the politics.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve been wondering if something similar is causing the relatively high breakthrough infection rate in Israel. Yes, the Israeli population is heavily vaccinated, but Palestine is very low, and there’s enough interaction between the two to make spread into Israel a real threat.
TriassicSands
I saw a reference to Governor DeathSentence, which seemed, to my ear, somewhat better. But tastes vary.
catclub
@J R in WV:
Ivermectin – VCA Animal Hospitals
https://vcahospitals.com › know-your-pet › ivermectin
Ivermectin is most commonly used as a heartworm preventive in dogs and cats. It also used ‘off label’ or ‘extra-label’ for treating a variety of internal and …
Roger Moore
@Just Chuck:
I don’t think Trump is going to run again, at least not successfully. He’s going to be in much worse physical and mental health in two years, and it will show if he tries campaigning.
catclub
Somebody else said ‘ Family’ so Ivanka. The rubes would love a dynasty.
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore: The problem in Israel is the ultraorthodox refuse to be vaccinated. They have huge families of 7 to 10 kids so lots of opportunities for unvaccinated to interact with the vaccinated.
bk
@catclub: Can’t pick Ivanka because they are both domiciled in Florida