Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans don’t trust women.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I was promised a recession.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Where Is Thy Sting?

Where Is Thy Sting?

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: 

That’s Politico, today. Here’s CovidActNow, today:

Over the last week, Florida has averaged 376.4 deaths per day, more than Mississippi, goddam, or Texas. That’s like a 777 full of passengers crashing without survivors every day. It’s 7 Greyhound buses or 54 minivans. Every fucking day. New York has less than one tenth of that number of deaths per capita.

Yes, cases are down. But anyone with more than a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity might remember just how many people this clown has killed on his watch.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  3. 3.

    Almost Retired

    I know the poll was predicated on a Trump-free race, but I do hope that DeSantis’ strong showing triggers TFG in some fashion and causes him to lash out in his own sophomoric (no, actually freshmoronic) fashion.

    In other news, Karen Bass is running for Mayor of Los Angeles! Hurray for us, but bummer for the rest of you.

  4. 4.

    dr. bloor

    anyone with more than a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity

    Happily for Politico, this is not their target demographic.

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    Semi-off-topic, but I’m hopeful that the idiots who have wreaked havoc on airliners will enjoy a near system-wide ban soon (not sure the deep discounters like Allegiant or Spirit would play along? Just a hunch, tho).

    —

    Sept 23 (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines wants other U.S. airlines to share lists of passengers who have been banned during the COVID-19 pandemic for disruptive behavior to help deter aggressive behavior.

    “We’ve also asked other airlines to share their ‘no fly’ list to further protect airline employees across the industry,” Delta said in a memo seen by Reuters. “A list of banned customers doesn’t work as well if that customer can fly with another airline.”

    Delta said since the COVID-19 pandemic it has put more than 1,600 people on its “no fly” list. United Airlines has banned more than 1,000 people.

    House Transportation Chairman Peter DeFazio asked at a hearing Thursday on “air rage” if there are legal impediments to airlines sharing “no fly” lists.

    DeFazio said the Federal Aviation Administration could potentially create a list from airline input. The rate of unruly airline passenger incidents has dropped sharply but remains twice as high as last year, the FAA said Thursday.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    I personally have no problem with DeSantis as a frontrunner.  I wouldn’t mind him attempting a run against Biden.  He may try to be Trump, but he is not Trump and does not have the same kind of national popular appeal as the guy who wrote that finance book and told all those people that they were fired on NBC.  Go for it, DeSantis and his cheer squad at Politico!  Go for it!

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    I posted this on Twitter without knowing you were posting this here:

    It’s just nauseating how Politico keeps throwing its knickers at this clown.

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    considering Politico’s known liberal bias, they have to engage in this type of reporting to ensure that they’re taken seriously by the GOP. /////

  14. 14.

    RaflW

    Meanwhile, I’d expect Florida’s new DeathSantis-selected surgeon general to be every bit as terrible as Florida’s 4,076,000 idiots wanted. I do feel a bit sorry for the 4,143,000 people (and Betty) who wanted anyone else, but not that one person else, to run Florida.

    What a rolling disaster it’s all been – and will continue to be, Politico tonguebaths notwithstanding.

  16. 16.

    SpaceUnit

    You guys are talking about numbers. That’s like math. The base doesn’t do numbers or math. Neither does Politico. It’s all about the Feels.

  17. 17.

    Scout211

    @Baud:

    Yeah, D vs. T will be something.

    Oh, yeah.  That would be something.  However, I am not convinced that TFG will actually run after he pockets all that extra money from donations for the next few years.  The grift is too good and the actual work is too hard . . .

    But I hope I’m wrong.  Those two against each other would be fun to watch.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … RollCall:

    A Washington think tank respected for its prescient forecasts of Treasury Department finances estimated Friday that the Treasury will run out of cash and borrowing room to meet all U.S. financial obligations at some point between Oct. 15 and Nov. 4 if Congress doesn’t raise or suspend the statutory debt limit by then.

    In an analysis issued Friday, the Bipartisan Policy Center said Treasury would be unable to meet about 40 percent of required payments, from Social Security payments to child tax credits, in the weeks that follow once they cross what the BPC calls the “X date.”

    If that happened, BPC said the Treasury potentially could prioritize payments, including for interest owed to bondholders, and delay payments for other purposes. But the group said such calculations would involve “substantial uncertainty” and potential legal challenges from parties who don’t receive payments in full and on time.

    […]

    It’s good that a “respected” group is putting out a date. That will finally concentrate some attention. Expect more motion on reaching some sort of agreement starting around, say, October 10, so that they have enough time to get it done by midnight on the drop-dead date.

    The last time we went through this, Treasury said that there’s no mechanism to “prioritize payments” and I assume that’s the case still. ?We’ll all go together when we go…?

    The House currently doesn’t have any floor votes scheduled for the weeks of Oct. 4 and Oct. 11, while the Senate is not in session during that second week of October.

    It’s easy for the leadership to put stuff on the calendar, fortunately.

    The BPC estimated that the debt limit would be reinstated the following day at $30.8 trillion, or $2.4 trillion above where it was reinstated on Aug. 1 after the last suspension in 2019. That figure assumes “no significant policy or economic change over the relevant time period,” the group said.

    The House bill is tied up in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance legislation unless all senators grant unanimous consent. Republicans in that chamber say they won’t provide the extra 10 votes needed if all Democratic caucus members stay united in support.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process to raise the debt limit without any GOP votes. Top Democrats, including House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth of Kentucky, have rejected that approach, citing several “parliamentary obstacles” to completing that process before the debt limit deadline.

    Hmm. One has to actively object to unanimous consent to start the 60-vote nonsense. A way out of this would be for Chuck to bring up the bill, ask for unanimous consent, have the GQP either not object or not be there, then pass it with a majority of Team D votes present. The GQP could say they didn’t vote for it, or could even vote NO once it got past the UC hurdle, but they wouldn’t blow up the world by blocking it either. Of course, that doesn’t have enough performative trolling, so it seems unlikely at the moment…

    We’ll see.

    More at the link.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    RaflW

    @Scout211: Maybe a DeSantis/Vance ticket. Two Trump wannabes. Both just making utter asses of themselves to attract a base that is maybe 35% of the electorate.

    Whatever the 2024 ticket, I’m gonna bet it is two white men. Because the GOP still has no concept that women & POC voters will decide 2024. And that pairing would do wonders for contrast from Dems.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    I think the unanswered question is, how much of a lead would DeSantis have if he killed everyone in the state?

  21. 21.

    Ocotillo

    TFG v. DeathSantis would/will be fun to watch. I am enjoying how Abbott has fallen out of favor with the God King. The thing is even if Abbott goes down in the GQP primary, Huffines or West will be just a different flavor of horrible.

  23. 23.

    Ohio Mom

    @RaflW:To continue your off-topic topic, when I took Ohio Son to the doctor on Wednesday, there was a new large sign in the elevator.

    It started with “This is a place of healing and compassion,” and went on (paraphrasing here) to warn that any harrassment of, or violence toward staff will not be tolerated and the police will be called.

    Left wondering if this is in response to an incident or in anticipation. The building we were in is part of a larger complex. The hospital next door had a moment of fame a couple of weeks ago when the wife of an ICU patient went to court because the doctors would not give her husband ivermectin (she lost).

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    DeSantis has to win his second election for Governor before he can run for President. He won the first one by less than 40 thousand out of over 8 million votes cast.

    DeSantis’ national ambitions are well known and not necessarily an asset. Nikki Fried or Charlie Crist might make hay out of DeSantis using Florida voters as stepping stones.

  26. 26.

    J.

    @Betty Cracker: Agree! Though I think the take on the ground here (in FL) is a bit different than what Politico would have you believe. And Jeb Bush had more personality/charisma than DeathSantis and look how he wound up. RegeneRon might win the governorship again, but no way is he going to make it out of the 2024 presidential primary if he runs. (Famous last words?)

  27. 27.

    RaflW

    @Major Major Major Major: LOL!  Of course that is my inelegant short hand for “including all the valued Florida BJers like Betty who must suffer for the fools in their midst”. Turns out I’m a failed insult comic instead.

  31. 31.

    Ocotillo

    Since it is an open thread has it occurred to anyone that if a GQPer wins the 2024 presidential race they will pardon any of the 1/6 mob that has been convicted at that point.

  32. 32.

    Anoniminous

    Since The Thread, She is Open ….

    Bitcoin outlawed in China as country bans all cryptocurrency transactions

    “China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies intensified today, with the country’s central bank announcing that all crypto-related transactions are illegal.

    “There are legal risks for individuals and organizations participating in virtual currency and trading activities,” the People’s Bank of China said in a statement jointly issued with nine other government bodies. Even Chinese nationals working overseas weren’t exempt, with the government saying that they, too, would be “investigated according to the law,” according to a report in the Financial Times.”

    Cryptocurrencies are a complete waste of electricity.  So: Good One Them.

  33. 33.

    RaflW

    Of course, it’s not just Florida that is a loony land.

    @jackhealyNYT
    I’m outside the Arizona State Capitol where there’s an anti-vax Medical Freedom Rally on one side of the street and preparations for an election fraud protest on the other.
    11:02 AM · Sep 24, 2021

    nb: Really, really wish reporters wouldn’t just accept the framing of ‘medical freedom’, even if that’s the official title. Just say there’s an anti-vax rally on one side. At least “election fraud protest” leaves room for one to interpret that as being a rally in favor of fraud (they are!!).

  34. 34.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    “,… leaving De’Santis standing strong on the bodies of his dead constituents waiting for his second apology for the Pandemic” – Politico

    And we complain about the NYT?

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    @J.: I hope the media hype around DeSantis will end the way the media hype around other alleged GOP up-and-comers (Pawlenty, Walker, etc.) did. But I don’t discount the possibility DeSantis could win the nomination and then win the presidency, making all our worst nightmares come true. The time to stop him is next year.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Fried or Crist, whichever wins the Democratic primary: “The citizens of Florida want a Governor who will fight for them full time, and for all four years! If DeSantis wants time to run for President, lets let him have it!”

  38. 38.

    Just Chuck

    But anyone with more than a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity might remember just how many people this clown has killed on his watch

    Which is why he’ll sail to re-election.

  39. 39.

    Searcher

    In addition to Mississippi overtaking NJ as the state with the highest number of COVID deaths, per capita, Florida has decent odds of overtaking NY if they maintain the momentum they’ve had for another 3-4 weeks.

    Six months ago I would have said — did say — this would never happen, that with the vaccine available NJ & NY would finish the race with the most deaths per capita.

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    @Ocotillo: Do you think Allen West can beat Abbott in next year’s primary? I figure if Texas Republicans are like the ones in Virginia, West can make a good showing with his radical line. But I’ve thought that Abbott would still win, although maybe cut up some and needing to replenish his war chest.

  44. 44.

    Citizen_X

    @Geminid: Nikki Fried or Charlie Crist might make hay out of DeSantis using Florida voters as stepping stones.

    Especially all the dead ones.

  45. 45.

    TEL

    At this point the Florida case numbers look like a dip, not a trend – it’s a single datapoint. It could be actually going down, but it looks too early to tell.

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ohio Mom: Supposedly a lot of doctors have been threatened or attacked for not pulling a miracle out of their ass from the Horse Laxative cultists when one of them gets sick. Likely the medical community is drawling the line.

  47. 47.

    Just Chuck

    @Anoniminous: Speaking as someone who would love to see blockchains evolve to something interesting, I for one would love to see cryptocurrency die.  It’s sucking out all the oxygen from research areas in favor of grubby, sleazy, greedy, venal bottom-feeders obsessed with making a few bucks on electricity someone else is almost always paying for, if not just stealing the computing capacity outright.  And they never shut up about their stupid exchanges, their mining rigs, or their grade-school takes on economies.  And BTC is bar none the worst about it: I’m sure the locusts would move on to another coin, but maybe it’d be one not so stupidly designed around brute force.

    Maybe blockchains will always be a solution looking for a problem, but I can’t help but think we could have something like internet-wide Git repositories (git is already a simple blockchain) with provenance for all commits included in releases.  Possibly replacing package repositories as we know them.  Or maybe not, but anything’s better than the infestation of cryptokiddies we have now.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @Citizen_X: The Democratic candidate might refrain from saying DeSantis wants to walk over dead Floridians on his way to the White House. That kind of messaging is what independent PACs are for.

  49. 49.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RaflW: Well, to be fair I was part of Adam’s team that kidnapped the CyberNijas and replaced with cyborg identical clones.  Hail Soros and all that you know.  But that was just to get CyberNija to cough up with the audit results they already had.

  52. 52.

    Jeffro

    wingnuts don’t care about how their leaders handle or don’t handle Covid…they could care less.

    all they want is someone who tells the libs to sit down and shut up.  That’s it.  That’s their entire eligibility test.

  53. 53.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @TEL: Florida is also pretty weird about their reporting. Not to mention, is it just the new Health Commissioner simply redefined Covid deaths just to make the numbers look better.

  54. 54.

    matt

    There’s no greater qualification to be a top-flight Republican politician than having a ‘reality distortion field’, i.e. lying.

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @J.: I did! It’s certainly possible that DeSantis tacked too far right and will face a backlash. As Mair points out, a lot of what he’s doing is deeply unpopular. There’s a lot of evidence the same thing happened to Trump nationally.

  59. 59.

    The Moar You Know

    DeFazio said the Federal Aviation Administration could potentially create a list from airline input.

    @RaflW:  My father, father in law, and mother in law all worked commercial aviation their entire careers. I want the airlines handling this, or even more preferably, their unions. I don’t want the FAA touching this because the next Republican president will grant amnesty to every person on the list.

  61. 61.

    RaflW

    I’m a paid subscriber to High Country News (I live part-time in the CO Rockies, and having a funded independent, rock-solid news outlet matters. A dear friend of my dad’s was one of the founding journalists of HCN decades ago).

    Related to the hospital threat sub-thread here:

    Tamalee Robinson [Flathead County, MO, interim public health officer] had worked through anthrax scares, smallpox outbreaks, H1N1, even Ebola, but she had never faced protests or been threatened like this. “None of those were politicized the way this was,” she said.
    …

    The public outcry against pandemic restrictions may appear to be a grassroots phenomenon, but it’s not that simple: Regional and national networks have been hard at work organizing opposition in local communities.

    Lori Freeman [CEO of the National Association of City and County Health Officers] agrees with anti-extremist experts that after COVID-19 hit the U.S., public health was targeted by militia groups and a constellation of far-right, anti-government activists who have long tried to claim the American West as their haven.  …

    I believe anyone can read a ltd. number of HCN stories for free. It’s a harrowing but vital read.

  64. 64.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Anoniminous:

    Cryptocurrencies are a complete waste of electricity. So: Good One Them.

    Nah, we should be focused on having crazy amounts of electricity at our disposal, not tearing down toys. It’s actually a lot less emit-y these days, too, a situation that will be improved further when they all leave coal-happy China.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    But anyone with more than a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity might remember just how many people this clown has killed on his watch.

    “But I need a supermajority.” -Adlai Super-Stevenson

  66. 66.

    Ocotillo

    @Geminid: I don’t think West would beat Abbott and with Huffines splitting the craziest vote Abbott will probably land the nomination again in the 2022 primary.  Rand Paul endorsed Huffines and TFG has been putting the squeeze on Abbott recently though which adds a new wrinkle.

    (I shudder that a Rand Paul endorsement means anything beyond ridicule but that’s the world we live in now)

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: DeSantis has to get the votes of more than the wingnuts, though. I’ve read people here who say that despite his hard-right intentions, DeSantis ran a relatively bland, thematic campaign in 2018 in order to gull the independents. Kind of like what Glenn Youngkin is trying to do in Virginia this year.

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    I do not believe that Biden is going to decline to run again if he’s alive and physically able. If the Democratic nominee is anyone other than Biden, barring his death or a health catastrophe, it becomes an admission of party failure and they probably get crushed in a landslide by either DeSantis or Trump. Biden has got to know that.

  70. 70.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TEL: Compare with neighboring states. The Delta wave seems to have burned through a lot of the susceptible people all across the South. I think the drop in cases is real, though the cases surely aren’t being counted accurately.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: DeSantis ran as a MAGA-head in the primary to defeat the boring establishment GOP fave, but it’s true that in the general, he didn’t run as a hard-right Trump sycophant. He proposed some un-Republican-like policies such as higher pay for teachers and more environmental protections, which fooled some people into thinking he was middle of the road. Now they know better, I hope.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @matt: Also, talking out of both sides of their mouth is now a neccessary skill for Republican politicians in purple states. They use coded language to reassure their base base, while persuading Independents that they are earnest, responsible men.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Just Chuck: I really wish something other than git had become the universal standard for distributed version control. And I’m speaking as someone who got proficient enough to move repositories between different hosting systems.

    (I have no opinion which of the others should have been it–it’s just, git is so infected with the nerdview of Linux kernel developers. It’s extremely powerful, but the baffling command syntax, the incomprehensible help docs, the ease of doing actually destructive things… it’s got issues.)

  75. 75.

    Anoniminous

    @Just Chuck: ​
     

    The unsolvable problem with blockchain as the spec is currently written: Combinatorial Explosion. K, or the degree of freedom, can be adjusted for difficulty. For K=1, the optimization process is easy (as search is performed in only 1 coordinate). The difficulty of finding a local minimum increases exponentially as K increases until the system undergoes thrashing.

  76. 76.

    PPCLI

     But anyone with more than a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity can see…

    But I need a majority!

    — Adlai Stephenson

  78. 78.

    Kay

    Ben Collins
    @oneunderscore__
    A quick thread:
    It’s hard to explain just how radicalized ivermectin and antivax Facebook groups have become in the last few weeks.
    They’re now telling people who get COVID to avoid the ICU and treat themselves, often by nebulizing hydrogen peroxide.

    Just gets crazier every day.

  80. 80.

    Anoniminous

    @gvg:
    By inference since there’s little point in paying a big electric bill for something worth nothing.

    @Steeplejack (phone):
    Yep. With a major financial meltdown in the Real Estate Sector looming they don’t want money needed to control the problem(s) leaving the country and exacerbating the problem

  81. 81.

    rikyrah

    @RaflW:

    Sept 23 (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines wants other U.S. airlines to share lists of passengers who have been banned during the COVID-19 pandemic for disruptive behavior to help deter aggressive behavior.

     

    Absolutely. Don’t let them fly – PERIOD.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    @RaflW:

     

    Meanwhile, I’d expect Florida’s new DeathSantis-selected surgeon general to be every bit as terrible as Florida’s 4,076,000 idiots wanted.

     

    He is SO being setup as the patsy when it all comes crashing down. It’s obvious.

  84. 84.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Cameron: Yes, well the old fake numbers were making Death’Santa look bad, time for a new Health Commissioner to make up new numbers. Like CyberNijas, they’ll keep on faking the numbers tell the get it right.

  88. 88.

    Just Chuck

    @Matt McIrvin:
    I personally wish Mercurial became the standard, but alas the awesomely unfriendly hodgepodge that is git ultimately won out. You might get a kick out of the Git Manpage Generator.  My boss was particularly fond of git-slay-comitter

    UX-wise I also liked later versions of Perforce, especially the streams UI, but the whole stateful perforce client thing is still pretty awful, pretty much assumes you’ll only ever use one depot at a time.

  89. 89.

    Searcher

    @Matt McIrvin: Eh, git has an amazing property in my opinion.

    If you just push, pull and make basic commits, it’s a reasonably simple, fool proof system.

    If you start creating branch systems or try to mash your commits to make your 27 incremental commits into a single beautiful one, you rapidly begin shooting yourself in the foot in a way that quickly requires An Expert to fix.

    Git is a tool to punish people who think they are smart.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Facebook/YouTube execs at a recent med tech conference said they’ve removed all sorts of COVID misinformation but claimed that won’t solve the problem. According to them, you have to create “engaging” content that gives people the truth. Right, bros. Good luck with that!

  91. 91.

    horatius

    @Anoniminous: ​
     
    And how the fuck do you find global maxima and minima. How is it useful as a platform if that’s not possible? And how the hell will the ledger scale if all transactions have to be present in all ledgers for a transaction to go through? Or if you remove that requirement, how do you verify the integrity of the ledger, without validating the entire source from currency generation and the ownership logs onwards?

  92. 92.

    GrueBleen

    @dr. bloor: ​
     
    Anybody with even a tiny bit more than “a goldfish’s worth of mental capacity” wasn’t going to vote for DeathSantis anyway. So Florida is still a Democratic dead loss.

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @Ohio Mom:

    I’ve seen those signs around here too. I think it’s the current atmosphere, not any specific incident.

    I went to get my oil changed and I walked in, ready to mouth off at anyone who questioned my mask. No one did, and I admit to being a bit surprised.

  94. 94.

    Just Chuck

    @Anoniminous: There isn’t really a single spec for blockchain, it’s really just about chaining hashes together, and the interesting things you get out of that.  Stuff like Macaroons for example use a chain of HMAC hashes to encode authorization claims in cookies, and it turns out to be massively useful — and unused because the ecosystem around them is still crap, but the shine has worn off of JWTs enough that they might see some popularity again.  Sticking every single transaction on the blockchain and re-validating every time is silly, but just a metadata blockchain could go interesting places.

    I do think blockchain is awesomely overhyped and often being used where it’s not appropriate, but there is still something to it, if perhaps at smaller scales than people are attempting it at now.

  97. 97.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Betty Cracker:

    According to them, you have to create “engaging” content that gives people the truth.

    So the answer is more Herman Cain Awards type shit? Drives engagement, and has an important, truthful, potentially lifesaving message!

  98. 98.

    Captain C

    @Baud: Not possible.  There would be an expedition of Jackals to stop him before he got to Betty Cracker and Adam Silverman.

  100. 100.

    Villago Delenda Est

    POLITCO is worthless. As Charlie Pierce says, “Tiger Beat on the Potomac”. Recycled GQp agitprop for Villager vermin.

  101. 101.

    smith

    @Kay: In general, anti-vaxxers staying out of the ICU and treating themselves with the magic cure of the moment seems appropriate and certainly consistent with an anti-science mindset. Better to decrease the surplus population, etc.

    On the other hand, my sister the contact tracer says there is a common pattern in the infected, unvaxxed families she deals with: usually there is one person who is the family bully (and it’s not always the Dad) who forbids other family members to get vaxxed. This person has all the others thoroughly cowed, so the whole family stays unvaxxed and gets infected. The bully also often prevents a sick family member from going to the hospital until they are extremely ill.  I could easily see this dynamic playing out all the way to the end, with the bully pumping hydrogen peroxide into Nana or a child unto death.

    I gues it’s not in any way surprising that this kind of  family abuse seems to be rife among anti-vaxxers, since bullying appears to be the go-to interpersonal strategy for Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, et al. Like all kinds of domestic abuse it is mostly hidden and would be extremely difficult to deal with from the outside. Still, it’s useful to remember that not all anti-vaxxers are that way voluntarily.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: Well, I gotta say, if they are urging their cultists to avoid the ICU, then good. Fuckem. Let em all die shitting and puking. Better than hogging hospital resources.

  105. 105.

    Barbara

    @smith: ​ Yep, no doubt, bullies play a big role in anti-vax movements, which is kind of ironic because their appeal to those they are browbeating is often couched in the idea that they don’t want to be sheeple following the herd. No, they want to be a sheeple who follows the flaming crackpot leading them over the cliff. I wish more people could come up with a retort like that.

  108. 108.

    Winston

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Florida is also pretty weird about their reporting. Not to mention, is it just the new Health Commissioner simply redefined Covid deaths just to make the numbers look better.

    And they think we don’t notice. Pretty much anyone in Florida now knows someone who has died and question why we had to be the epicenter of a worldwide pandemic, twice.

    eta and that’s WITH cheating on the stats.

  109. 109.

    randy khan

    @Scout211: 

    I personally have no problem with DeSantis as a frontrunner. I wouldn’t mind him attempting a run against Biden. He may try to be Trump, but he is not Trump and does not have the same kind of national popular appeal as the guy who wrote that finance book and told all those people that they were fired on NBC. Go for it, DeSantis and his cheer squad at Politico! Go for it!

    It makes me think of the West Wing Presidential election season, and the candidate against Bartlett when he ran for reelection, who was Florida’s proudly know-nothing governor.

  110. 110.

    Winston

    I’m glad I cajoled my gf in Michigan to get the vax. She spent all day Monday with her grand daughter and greats, and comes down with a cold on Wednesday. Can’t get tested for Covid until next Wednesday and has all the symptoms, but still thinks it’s just a cold. Still have to check with her twice a day and told her if she has any breathing problems to call 911.

  111. 111.

    VeniceRiley

    @Winston:  that’s going to keep them from getting FEMA funeral money. We should make an issue of it. Crackers think they “deserve” help.

  113. 113.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay: 

    Just gets crazier every day.

    It has been heading down this path for a while. They’ve rejected reality hard, but reality keeps trying to find its way back in. The only way to keep it out is to get crazier.

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    Facebook/YouTube execs at a recent med tech conference said they’ve removed all sorts of COVID misinformation but claimed that won’t solve the problem.

    Yes, because they let the problem get completely out of hand before doing anything about it.  This is an argument in favor of crushing this kind of misinformation before it takes root.

  115. 115.

    Bokonon

    Maybe this is sort of like corporate America, where layoffs and cutbacks have become a sign of “toughness” and resolve.  Which means that they now happen all the f$#!*(* time, like a kind of cruel throw-people-into-the-volcano sacrifice for Wall Street and the gods of capitalist prosperity.

    So in the GOP … maybe showing a body count on your watch now demonstrates how highly committed you are to the principles or freedom and small government!   No bleeding hearts here!  You are perfectly willing to have other people die to demonstrate your toughness!

  116. 116.

    J R in WV

    @smith: ​
     

    … bullying appears to be the go-to interpersonal strategy for Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, et al.

    I saw where a husband-bully attacked (punched in her face!) a nurse for vaccinating his wife-target without husband-bully’s permission! Arrested, taken away IIRC.

    Hopefully in jail for long enough for wife to become fully vaxxed!!

    Maybe with luck bully will receive his very own virus infection while in custody? I am SO Done with those monsters!

  117. 117.

    dave319

    @Baud: Tiger Beat Off In Mcconnel’s Trouser Pocket is more like it, with apologies to Charlie Pierce and for the loathsome mental image.

  118. 118.

    Origuy

    @Searcher: 

    Git is a tool to punish people who think they are smart.

    If I still had an office, I would have that embroidered and put above my desk.
    (We were all so productive working at home that they decided we didn’t need a cubicle of our own. )

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