Life and hope. https://t.co/miRpx2ozW3
— Fred Will Not Subscribe To Your Newsletter (@LesserFrederick) September 10, 2021
*the* most important element of the story to date has been the business community’s lack of pushback against WH —the Business Roundtable actively supports the mandate
that means press reduced to, ‘GOP Upset.’ and honestly, who cares??
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) September 11, 2021
Our Media Betters are abso-fekkin-FURIOUS that we — even the Very Serious business community — refuse to believe their narrative about failing Democrat Biden’s latest blunder…
Be better @AP and @ZekeJMiller. A doctor applying a tourniquet is not launching “a war”on their bleeding patient. First responders pulling flood victims to safety is not “a war” on drowning people. And no, this is NOT “a war” on the unvaccinated. It is a war on COVID. Seriously. https://t.co/8M1CP6tCua
— Mark Lukasiewicz (@DeanLuk) September 10, 2021
The quiet part of Biden's requirement: A lot of companies want to put vaccine requirements into effect but aren't because the labor market is tight and they don't want to lose employees. They're happy to have an excuse to do it. https://t.co/RIYRJRAV8j
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) September 10, 2021
this is GOP’s Achilles heel—they needed biz to hate the mandate. they don’t, which leaves GOP w/ zero wind in its sails https://t.co/ZiZO6UFOqE
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) September 12, 2021
Hyperconservative Max Boot, of all people!
Opinion: The hyperbolic GOP reaction to Biden’s vaccine mandate shows why it’s necessary https://t.co/APjY9pbLqk
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 10, 2021
The Office Limbaugh Listener Early Retirement Plan. https://t.co/QcVKxdHBzy
— zeddy (@Zeddary) September 10, 2021
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Ever since the Iceland Volcano started erupting last March I’ve been addicted to youtube videos of the eruption and lava flows. It has been amazing how public this eruption is and how it is shared with the whole world every day by amateurs. Keeping all of us volcano addicts up to date. After going quiet for about 5 days Geldingadalir Volcano started to erupt again yesterday and my favorite you tube channel (Traveller in the whole world) has 2 amazing videos up of the new vents and looking down into the “old” crater too with his drone footage. Also he has a ground level video up too! I so would like to go there!
From Traveller in the Whole World.
– Ground level September 12, 2021
Drone September 12, 2021
Drone view with the lava spilling out of the main crater August 9, 2021
raven
There is going to be a hell of a fight between faculty and admin here in Georgia.
Soprano2
I’m really hoping my employer will use this as cover to mandate the vaccine for employees. We need those police to be vaxxed!
Lyrebird
Thank you AL for once again bringing some light!
I noticed that all the print papers I saw in the checkout line had some mention of GOP dislike of the mandate, but the headlines commemorating 9/11 were all bigger.
Totally agree with David And’s “designated a-hole” theory.
Glad BJ is here to bring some laughs as well as hard truths.
debbie
It just isn’t logical to think businesses would object to the mandate. Businesses will have to bear the added cost of COVID care and deal with outbreaks/shutdowns.
The Dangerman
A vocal minority doesn’t want the shot but wants to work with us, eat in restaurants with us, go to games with us, and etc; what part of fuck off you sick selfish fuck do they not understand?
raven
@The Dangerman: The “vocal minority” in Georgia is celebrating that the gov has stood up to the radical leftists.
Elizabelle
Max Boot is not so much a “hyperconservative” any more.
He has been on the Jennifer Rubin path for many months now. Quite the pleasure to read, with some exceptions.
Just Chuck
Ladies and Gents, your Pro-Life Party.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): In 2010 (?) my dear wife and I were stranded in Europe when another Icelandic volcano erupted and European airspace was shut down.
Ohio Mom
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): Those are great videos. What a marvelously weird planet we get to live on.
Suzanne
Read a story about a rural hospital which will be pausing providing deliveries because they don’t have enough nursing staff who will get vaccinated. I would be pissed AF if I lived in this rural area and their terrible decision reduced access to medical care in my region. For fuck’s sake.
In related news, my FIL was diagnosed with melanoma this week, and the prognosis is not good. Of course, it is a week after he and my MIL closed on a new farm about an hour further out of town. And he already can’t drive due to epileptic seizures. I am talking to him about getting into one of the big cancer centers in the country. But transportation is going to be a giant hurdle. Rural parts of this country have terrible healthcare.
Steeplejack (phone)
I am really pissed that Portland, OR, caved and exempted their police union from their vaccine mandate. That would have been a perfect opportunity for police reform when (or, more likely, if) any of the assholes made good on their threat to resign.
raven
My poor bride and her committee have worked so hard again but the dog parade is in doubt. The already cancelled Athfest for the second time.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: But there still has to be football, right?
eclare
@raven: That is terrible. The unvaccinated continue to take away our right to enjoy life.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: The University of Georgia is not under the control of Athens-Clarke County. Do you know of a school that has cancelled football this year?
debbie
@raven:
Can they find a more open space or have a reverse parade?
Suzanne
@raven: Can they make vaccines mandatory for the event? Some of the venues around here are doing that.
The Dangerman
@raven: Does USC count?
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I do not, but then again I’m not a football fan.
Kay
@debbie:
It’s the same “logic” that told them blue state governors were wildly enthusiastic about closing schools and shutting down businesses in the first year of the pandemic. Yes, governors love that- they love when kids don’t go to school and no one is working and tax revenue dries up – they think that’s great.
The whole premise was always idiotic. There was never an end game for this supposed “power grab”. The blue state governors never got anything out of it. Authoritarians order people to do things because they want something out of it- what did those governors want? Fewer people in the hospital. God, what a devilish scheme! Thank God the Trumpsters exposed it!
Mike E
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): My friend went there at the end of June… I envy his timing because a) he survived the volcano and b) he returned right before their covid lockdown soon afterwards
Ruckus
@The Dangerman:
All of it.
Suzanne
@Kay: You know what just makes me craziest about the stupidity of this? The fact that they hate liberal college-educated coastal elitists so bad, but they sure do want our money.
eclare
@Suzanne: You would want to deliver a baby where you and the baby would be cared for by unvaxxed nurses? OK.
Best of luck to your FIL.
Chief Oshkosh
@The Dangerman: Only to 20, and that’s only if Chip takes his docksiders off and counts his toes.
(Bo Gruins!)
burnspbesq
@raven:
Going to be a one-sided fight, if what happened at LSU is a guide.
Suzanne
@eclare: Oh, absolutely not. I don’t even want to walk through a parking lot with unvaxxed people. I’m just saying that if I lived in a place with already-limited healthcare options, and a bunch of providers were so fucking dumb that they had to close part of the hospital…. My God, would I be livid.
pluky
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): @Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
The scale of this is awesome. Hard to picture the Hadean when essentially the whole surface of the planet was like this.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: That was Lewis County, NY, IIRC. Alabama with snow.
eclare
@Suzanne: They are not dumb. As I understand it, former governor Cuomo mandated all health care workers be vaxxed. I’m all for it, no shot, no job. The quicker we get this over with, the quicker things go back to normal.
FYI, I live in a city of 1 million, and if I ever had a baby I’d have to drive at least an hour to a hospital with maternity care. All of that has moved to the suburbs and exurbs. Healthcare access is not just a rural problem.
Signing off before I say something I can’t take back.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): Glad to hear the volcano has more BOOM! in it!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@The Dangerman: As a school? No.
mrmoshpotato
@Lyrebird:
Gonna have to find that.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Governor Whitmer woke up one morning and said “I think I’ll tank the entire hospitality industry in Michigan just because I can“.
That’s any governor’s dream, really. A giant, intractable, expensive problem. She didn’t have one, so she made one up. She said “I wonder how I can lower tax revenue this year? I know! Don’t let Trumpsters go to bars”.
Suzanne
@eclare: Healthcare workers who won’t take the shot? “Dumb” might be too nice a word. Ughhhh.
You are right that healthcare access is not just a rural problem. It’s been a large and growing problem for rural America for much longer than the pandemic, though. And it’s getting worse. Here’s Becker’s:
Ughhhh.
Comrade Colette
@raven:
Ugh.
Monsieur Colette works at Flagship California Healthcare University of the Most Liberal City in America.* The only fight between faculty and admin is over who gets to drink from the firehose of grant money coming in for COVID research. Everyone is vaxxed.
*name changed to protect the completely obvious.
mrmoshpotato
@The Dangerman: Haha!
Kelly
@Steeplejack (phone): Long before Covid Oregon passed a number of stupid vaccine exemption laws. Police and health care workers are exempt. Also you can exempt your children from all school vaccinations is you watch a short pro vax video on the web and print the confirmation at the end. Oregon and much of the PNW have a lot very aggressive and bipartisan anti vaxers.
eclare
@Suzanne: You called the provider who fired them dumb. I was responding to that.
Out. Or do you mean the nurses? When I hear provider I think of the CEO of the healthcare system, not nurses.
Maybe I misunderstood. Are you referring to the nurses?
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: Yep.
“I know, let’s make our shit town even shittier!”
Where is the FTFNYT’s diner interview with the highly principled L&D nurses who want to put neonates at risk of a deadly respiratory infection?
Anoniminous
Local moron in our rural area went to the hospital with serious Covid, had the kid, went into a coma, woke 4 days later, didn’t remember having the kid, and now the ObGyn has tested positive.
Suzanne
@eclare: No, I did not. I said:
The nurses, who are healthcare providers, are being so fucking dumb/evil/self-absorbed that their leadership has to close. Reading is fundamental.
James E Powell
@raven:
Where are the students and their families on this?
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Pritzker did that in Illinois too!
Those! Dastardly! Bastards!
eclare
@Suzanne: So is writing. Why didn’t you just call them nurses if that was what you meant?
Anotherlurker
I just discovered The Herman Cain Awards site.
I AM a bad person! lol!
James E Powell
@Kay:
That is pretty much the argument in favor of recalling Governor Newsom.
I’m seeing tons of ads on football games this weekend and the message is “Everything that pisses you off is Newsom’s fault.”
I hope. I pray. I text registered Democrats.
mrmoshpotato
@Kelly: Hey kids! Do you like measles? Mumps? Rubella?!
Anya
Can someone explain to me Rose McGowan’s logic in supporting Larry Elder. Also, I don’t even understand her accusation against Gov. Newsom. Basically, his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom once tried to make a settlement with her on behalf of her client. What does that have to do with Newsom as a governor? And even more puzzling, Jennifer Siebel’s sister’s husband was accused of battering his wife and somehow it’s a Newsom scandal or something. I just don’t get what makes her support someone like Elder who is not known for his support of sexual abuse survivors.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Anderson’s “designated asshole” theory.
TL;DR — Biden has provided cover for every employer who wanted a mandate but didn’t want to deal with angry employees. They can now say, “Hey, not my fault.”
Kelly
@mrmoshpotato: PNW anti-vaxxers are bipartisan so they must be right!
Suzanne
@eclare: Because I don’t know if it was exclusively nurses who refused. In the linked story, they referred to “staffers”, so it could be techs, physicians, or other support staff. We often use the catch-all term “providers” for all of these people in clinical roles.
mrmoshpotato
@Kelly: Mmmmmm Sunday night football – and sarcasm!
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: Oh, it was a post. Thanks!
Llelldorin
Max Boot is a Republican from an earlier era when a lot of them were dangerously smart. I’m trying not to be depressed that “paste-eatingly stupid” seems to be working out slightly better for them.
Suzanne
@James E Powell:
I know we frequently discuss how evil a lot of the GOP puppet masters are, but I don’t know if we really give enough attention to how fucking moronic lots of them are, too. They have scads of people eating horse laxatives to own the libs. Just mind-bendingly stupid.
Comrade Colette
@Anya: Trauma, mental illness, and anger can make people irrational? A fierce desire to make someone pay for (a) one’s suffering and (b) not relieving or believing one’s suffering can make a person light on everyone even tangentially connected to the perp?
I dunno. I feel great pity for her, but I also know that being traumatized/mentally ill and being an idiot or an ass are unrelated and can co-occur.
dmsilev
@Anya: I don’t pretend to understand it, especially given that Elder himself has been accused of some not-nice behavior by former partners (brandishing guns at them being the one that comes immediately to mind).
She said something about basically being pissed off at the entire Democratic Party, and that’s probably the root of the issue.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne: Drink bleach, inject disinfectant and put a lightbulb up your butt! ?
Geminid
Today’s Washington Post had an article on this subject today. The reporter interviewed Bob Harvey, CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. The organization’s members include ExxonMobil, Chevron Oil, and Wells Fargo Bank. It represents businesses from eleven Houston-area counties, nine of which voted Republican last November. After President Biden announced the vaccination mandate, Mr. Harvey wondered if he’d hear from protesting Partnership members, but he was not surprised when none called.
dmsilev
@Elizabelle: I’d say that’s mostly the case, with the one big exception being foreign wars. When Biden started the Afghanistan withdrawal, Boot went all neocon, whereas Rubin was much saner in her perspective.
Suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: Hey, at least buy me dinner first.
jl
Gosh golly gee, what would George Washington think? The founders would be horrified.
Actually, the founder Benjamin Rush would be horrified since his extremely progressive vision of many fields of medicine was balanced by his benighted Medieval bigotry on infectious disease. He probably should have been tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail like a mob wanted to do during the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic.
OTOH, Washington survived smallpox so he understood that even a vaccination to prevent it that was many fold more dangerous than what we have now for covid and dozens of other disease was a good deal.
Anya
@Comrade Colette: I have great sympathy for her and I understand her anger at what happened to her and all those people who were complicit but blaming Newsom for something he has nothing to do with is very odd. She’s also tweeting about “what did Newsom know and when did he know it” WTF! His wife is a lawyer who is bound by lawyer/client confidentiality to not discuss her work with her husband. It feels like reaching to me.
@dmsilev: This is my thing. If you want to lash out against every asshole who disbelieved victims and didn’t teat them nicely, then don’t support this guy.
Immanentize
@raven:
That fight began last week at UT Austin, including faculty broadsides at the Uni. President.
Hook ’em!
dmsilev
@Geminid: Yep, there’s a collective-action problem for businesses. If they think “a vaccine mandate will cause people to quit, and we’re already having trouble hiring people for the wages we’re willing to pay”, they won’t institute a mandate even if they think it’s generally a good idea. However, if Biden and his administration come along and make all moderate to large businesses impose mandates at the same time, that goes away.
jl
@Immanentize: Not sure which group is on what side, but I’d bet the administration has its head up its ass and will be working hard to, not to put too fine a point on it, pull out some turds and scatter them around to the disgust of all.
But, I might be wrong (about academic administration though… hard to be wrong about that miserable crowd)
Chetan Murthy
@Geminid:
Who’d’a thunk that an oilman would come to appreciate value of collection action. Who’d’a thunk it.
Immanentize
@jl: Admin in the pocket of the lege. Trying to kill students and faculty alike.
The eyes of Texas are upon you!
Starboard Tack
@Anotherlurker:
Another good collection of covidiots.
https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/
Immanentize
@Chetan Murthy: It is the designated asshole theory at work. Not only parents, but businesses use it to avoid blame. You know who was an expert practitioner of “don’t blame me, blame the feds?” Wallace as Governor of GA in his later years. And he got a lot of change to happen that way.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: With regards to the horse-dewormer thing, the local paper had a story this morning about how area tack stores were having problems with people trying to buy the stuff. To the point that they were selling out despite their best efforts to only sell to people who actually have horses and couldn’t get more from their distributors, and those actual horse people are starting to get very worried about parasite problems with their animals.
How did we get to this point? I mean, intellectually I sort of know the sequence of steps, but there’s a part of me that can’t really believe that we’re where we are.
Comrade Colette
@Anya:
The enemy of my enemy is my friend? ??♀️
It is reaching. I guess I can understand her acting as if Newsom and Siebel are a unit and share/agree on everything, because people tend to treat married couples that way even though it’s bullshit. It’s probably not even that rational – she just associates him with her and thus hates both.
I’m 100% not making excuses for her support of Elder, of course – just speculating wildly about someone I don’t know and will never meet, but who seems to be emotionally bleeding out in public.
Roger Moore
The thing that’s most infuriating to me is that even if this is successful and we manage to get back to something resembling normal, the GQP and their allies in the press will give Biden zero credit. It will all be because of the wonderful vaccine Trump gave us, not because Biden managed to get everyone vaccinated. It’s the ultimate “heads we win, tails you lose” situation, and the media is enabling it.
Immanentize
UGH! Environmental controls out in my building tomorrow. Humid, heat, no air conditioning. 2hour class with 90+ masked students in a room without opening windows that seats 100. I need to go cancel class…
Suzanne
@dmsilev:
Same. Like, I know this is all true, because I see it and remember it. But I feel like I’m in Wonderland sometimes. I find myself getting incredibly sad about it. American life is pretty fucking bad, and it will be worse for my kids, and I am really, really tired.
piratedan
@Immanentize: seems to me that the profs and ta’s could walk into the admin offices and drop off the lesson plans and say here ya go… teach em yourselves.
dmsilev
Bunch of whiners in LAPD sue over vaccine mandate:
Later on in the article…
Jeffro
@Kay:
@Suzanne:
@Kay: they think that somehow, the Democratic powers-that-be (governors? Bill Gates? who knows) somehow ordered the shutdowns in order to kneecap trumpov. Because that’s all it was about – bringing the economy to a screeching halt, in order to get people mad at DJT and sneak all those mail-in ballots in.
I’m quite serious. My increasingly “enlightened*” mom has a neat little graphic up on her FB page that starts with “They closed your businesses. They closed your schools.” and goes on to “They allowed protests. They allowed multiple funerals for people that fit their agenda” (WTF?)
*meaning she is all of a sudden an expert on Afghanistan, vaccine science, and Robert E Lee’s resume’.
Anyway, it’s all tied to the loss of white privilege. They are desperate to assert that NOBODY tells white people what to do, full stop.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize: Definitely!
jl
@Immanentize: Color me shocked. I’m lucky to work at places where the admins are on the right side of the issue. But also, health sciences faculty have been kicking their butts and hectoring them on best practices for over a year now.
Immanentize
@piratedan: You can’t just do that, but there is certainly a version of “mortar board flu” happening
Starboard Tack
@Roger Moore:
I think once it’s in the rearview, the GQP will blame Biden et. al. for not convincing the covidiots to get vaccinated sooner.
Jeffro
@Geminid: why it’s almost like…like Biden & Co helped solve America’s collective action problem by being willing to take a little heat.
Nice change from Mr. “I take no responsibility at all”
ETA of course dmsilev got there first, my bad
Immanentize
@jl: I do too. So I am not at all anti-admin here. The law school started two weeks! before the rest of the schools, so we got all the crap rolling downhill first. And although slow, they responded quick enough, I guess, increasing mask mandates to all spaces except cafeterias when eating.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
My employer has some on-site housing for people like him who don’t need inpatient treatment but can’t manage the travel for every appointment. I would guess most of the big name cancer centers have something similar or have arrangements to get people apartments or something. It would obviously be a big deal to have to move to the city for the duration of treatment, but it might be easier than trying to travel for each appointment.
Jeffro
Just keep reviewing the sequence of steps, over and over. it’s the only thing that helps.
Comrade Colette
@piratedan:
Two friends who are tenured profs at UT Austin are in the process of doing just this – the first one started by telling all students they must be vaccinated (provide proof to the professor’s satisfaction) or they will not teach, either in person or remotely. They’re both senior enough, famous enough, and close enough to retirement that they can just start there, let students complain if they want, and let the whole admin process play out. They’re using their privilege for good. I’m kinda hoping their names don’t come up in the news, though, because I know death threats would be the next step.
Immanentize
@Comrade Colette: bravo to them. I salute them.
ETA this is the time to use that bank of privilege for the good of many.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
We also often use “providers” to refer to the organizations. Mayhew does it all the time.
jl
@Jeffro: I’ll probably get yelled at for saying this, but I have a smidge of sympathy for some of the dingbats.
I’m in the SF Bay and my only regret about the March 2020 shutdown is that we didn’t have enough info to do it a month earlier when good infectious disease control practice would say it was time to call it.
But US public health practice all through the epidemic has been very mediocre. US shutdowns have been very inefficient, and compared to other countries that have same Western traditions we do, and populations with same extreme distaste for masks, woefully ineffective.
I don’t have sympathy for the lunatic Trumpsters, but I can understand why some people are angry and cynical. There has been a tradition in this country for decades to make the ‘lesser’ ordinary people eat shit and then scold them for not eating it fast enough. I can see how US pandemic control policy looks like another instance of that.
I hope Biden’s new control initiatives work. We need access to better masks for workers in high risk settings. I’ve read there isn’t a shortage of N95s now. We need rapid antigen tests that are proving to be excellent tools in almost a dozen countries by now for getting back to a normal normal until have high enough vaccination coverage. We should have a crash mini-Manhattan project to improve ventilation all over the country, starting with schools and old folks homes.
Edit: cheap rapid antigen tests. US manufacturers are pumping them out at a cost of a few pennies each for export to over a dozen countries, where they are sold for a buck or less, or distributed free. We have two approved that cost $12 bucks each and are in very short supply. One brand shut down a US factory for reasons I can’t fathom.
JWR
@Anya:
Read her Views and controversies section over at Wikipedia. She’s a fabulously well to do person with way too much time on her hands and most probably an addiction to Youtube rabbit holes. You know the type, a moron. How else to explain her Larry Elder endorsement?
jl
@JWR: She’s turned into a professional ‘aginner’ contrarian.
Whatever it is, I’m against it, and cue the Grouch Marx song now.
jl
Groucho Marx sings ‘I’m against it’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_qBsHuJb40
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: Yes, I brought up that option. My BIL just moved to Minneapolis for a new gig, so I talked to my FIL about Mayo Clinic in Rochester (obviously a little ways out of Minneapolis, but doable) and he seemed to like that idea. My FIL is a bit of a left-wing conspiracy theory type and getting him vaccinated took a little bit of convincing/browbeating. The biggest hurdle will just be getting him to be willing to see someone new, as he often wants natural or supplements in lieu of pharmaceuticals. But he expressed some dissatisfaction about the doctor he saw in Fayetteville, so fingers crossed. He likes to visit family and friends. I volunteered to take him to Cleveland Clinic, if he wanted.
Kay
@Jeffro:
Nope. That only worked as long as they could predict that the pandemic would “disappear” when Trump was gone. They said it would. It didn’t.
They’ve moved the goalposts over and over. First the pandemic was imaginary and then when it became absolutely impossible to deny they announced that none of the mitigations worked and hundreds of thousands more people had to die. They’re now bragging that they manage to keep some portion of sick people alive with their “tonics” or whatever, as if that’s an excuse or a validation of their theory, and it doesn’t have anything to do with their original theory. No one ever asked them to “cure” extreme covid. The goal was for fewer people to get it. They haven’t been consistent at all. It’s still a theory in pursuit of reality. The virus beats them over and over. They no sooner move the goalposts than they have to move them again.
jl
@Kay: Deadly viral epidemics deliver reality therapy much quicker than the climate can.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: The other word we use for the “provider” (at the corporate entity level) is “system”, and that also gets confusing, because there are all types of systems within a healthcare system. Typically, the term most frequently used for “people who work within a hospital” (or a system) is “provider”, because it can apply to clinical and support, employees or contractors or physicians with privileges, etc.
Anya
@Comrade Colette:
“emotionally bleeding out in public,” aptly describes her. This is why I feel so much compassion for her. And it sadness me that her pain lead her to abandon her principles.
smith
Re the dire straits of rural hospitals: As I recall, one rationale for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare was to help keep rural hospitals from going under. Of course, Republicans break everything, so 12 states have continued to refuse Medicaid expansion. Of the 138 rural hospitals that have closed since 2010, 90 (65%) were in those 12 states. Just compare this map with this one. It gets wearying pointing out that the unspoken platform of the GQP is death and destruction for all.
Roger Moore
@Starboard Tack:
They’ve been doing that all along. On the one hand, they’re fighting to prevent any kind of mandate. On the other hand, they’re bitching that people aren’t getting vaccinated because we aren’t kissing their asses hard enough. I expect that from Republicans. I’m still pissed that the media is going along. I should know to expect it, but it still makes me mad.
Kay
@jl:
Agree. It’s really very much like climate change, but accelerated. More and more I think it’s a generalized reaction to a whole set of changes that they simply are not equipped to handle, I mean, no one is handling them GREAT, we’re all struggling, but they’ve decided to express this fear in the most damaging and least productive way possible. I think it’s laughable they claim other people are afraid- they’re terrified. It’s turned into one long, incoherent blood curdling scream.
dww44
@raven: Yes, I can see that. Particularly when the admin reports to a Kemp and GOP controlled Board of Regents that has bought into the anti-vaxx and anti-covid mitigation measures. They are so determined to own the libs that they will kill themselves and the rest of us just to prove some point. Good on the faculty for standing up for science and common sense.
Unrelatedly, spouse’s cousin’s wife, 70 years old and fully vaccinated, contracted covid very recently, went into ICU on 9/7 and died on 9/9. Very S. Georgia/N.Florida area. She did have comorbidities.
Ken
Always a bad sign when someone’s page has that section. Not quite as bad as when it starts “‘Butcher of the Balkans’ redirects here.”
Suzanne
@smith: I have unfortunately been a part of more than one exchange in which a rural person says that rural areas will secede and urban areas will starve because “we grow all the food”. To which I shrug and say, “Urban areas have all the medical care”. Try it, fuckers.
In all seriousness, healthcare shortages and lack of access was a huge problem before the pandemic, and now it’s catastrophic. And it’s also generational: we do not have enough med school graduates or enough nurses for future needs. There is no good news on this issue.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: That’s so weird. Like, urban areas also have all the money, are they not going to sell the food they grow? How are they going to keep growing it when they can’t buy fuel or equipment?
Roger Moore
@Kay:
We know that it’s always projection, so we can safely assume the Republican governors are trying to hamstring Biden the same way they accused Democratic governors of doing to Trump. The interesting thing is that they are using completely different tactics. Instead of trying to damage the economy by shutting down, they’re trying to damage things by staying open in the dumbest possible way.
Kate Beetle
@Suzanne: and the current crisis is making it so much less attractive as a field, hell, the ones we have are burning out and talking about quitting. Nurses and doctors putting out tic-tok videos just sobbing in their cars at the end of hellacious days. Yeah, I’d want to sign up for that.
As an aside, we’re running out of veterinarians as well. Same training levels but lower pay.
smith
@Suzanne: The part about the food is hilarious, too, since so much of our food is produced by giant agribusinesses now. I’m sure they’d be pleased to give up the lion’s share of their markets because the local Goobers want to pitch a hissy fit.
JCJ
@Suzanne:
Before traveling to a far off medical center it might be worthwhile to first be evaluated regionally. The University of Wisconsin has outreach clinics and many specialties participate in patient review with the faculty there. Evaluation for melanoma should include testing for targetable mutations which is standard. Initial treatment is typically determined by this evaluation.
Geminid
@jl: The little I’ve read about Rose McGowan’s behavior reminds me some of Naomi Wolfe’s. I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s anger at a world which gave them fame but has now turned the spotlight to others.
McGowan has spoken of experiencing deep depression. It could be that she has jacked herself up with anger as an alternative. Obsession can mask depression, at least for a while.
Geminid
@Jeffro: When Governor Northam issued his statewide mask mandate last year, you could almost hear Virginia business owners heave a collective sigh of relief. Now they could tell the cranks and the soreheads, “Don’t blame us, your beef is with the Governor.”
Nettoyeur
@Elizabelle: Yes, Max has abandoned the GOP Big Man Theory of History over Trump, but he is still committed to his “winning small wars” ideas (wrote a book on that) which is 21st C neocon speak for a return to the colonialism which consistently failed over the previous century, from South Africa to Iraq to India to Suez to Algeria to Central America to Indochina, then back to Africa and Iraq again. He made good press + $$ off another neocon potboiler about how history would have been different and much better of only we had listened to the now forgotten Edward Lansdale about Vietnam (guy thought Vietnam was the Phillipines all over again, except that it wasn’t). I bet he will soon work up another alternative history if-only book about some other ignored genius whose ideas would have “saved” us in Afghanistan. Max has no military experience as far as I can tell, so all this is about as useful as Harry Turtledove, has less insight than the Raj Quartet, and is less entertaining than the Man in the High Castle. He is intelligent and sincere about seeing the light about the true nature of the GOP, but he needs to leave the Upper West Side 101st Keyboard Brigade and get some real world experience. He could start by listening to Frontline Afghan vets–enlisted and non-coms about their experience as roided up robot soldiers trying to survive until their next ration home.
sab
Cleveland Plain Dealer had a big headline in Sumday paper about how business leaders object to the vax mandate, amd then in the actual article quoted a bunch of busimess leaders who welcomed the mandate. The only quotes against the mandate were from Republican politicians and former poloticians. Grrr.
Note to self: headline writers don’t always agree with the reporters, so read the articles.
JWR
Hear, hear.
jl
@Kay: Very prolonged lack of control of crisis that greatly increases the risk of death in the near future makes makes people crazy.
For people entertained by truly ghoulish US history, check out the Great Vampire Epidemic of New England.
Tony Jay
@jl:
Is that the one Stephen King wrote a thinly fictionalised memoir about?