Parade of Morons

[Winstonm]

A police captain who refused the vaccine and took the anti-parasitic ivermectin to combat COVID-19 dies from the virus

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am stunned that ivermectin didn't work to cure Covid. Ivermectin has been endorsed by Devin Nunes' Cow and this is udderly the best endorsement you can get.

 

I think I know the problem. Ivermectin will work for me but you will need Uvermectin. Your neighbor will need theyvermectin. And if you think there is an usvermectin you're just being silly.

[Winstonm]

 

A conservative radio host in Florida who was openly opposed to the coronavirus vaccine has died of the COVID-19 infection after a three-week battle with the disease.

 

Marc Bernier's final tweet, sent July 30, compared the vaccination and virus mitigation efforts to Nazi Germany.

 

 

And now, like Nazi Germany, Marc Bernier is also history.

[johnu]

‘Hoax’ kills COVID-denying anti-vaxxer who worked for the CIA: report

 

The death of Robert David Steele, a guest on the far right-wing program “Infowars,” was confirmed by a friend of his on social media Sunday. Steele prided himself as one of the first people to identify COVID — which Vice reports caused his death — as a “hoax.”

 

“I will not take the vaccination, though I did test positive for whatever they’re calling ‘COVID’ today,” he blogged on Aug. 17. “The bottom line is that my lungs are not functioning. The good news is that I will survive with a few days off.”

 

Ironic that a Covid expert doesn't know that it is too late to get vaccinated once you get infected.

 

Fellow conspiracy theorist Mark Tassi confirmed his pal’s death on Sunday, claiming Steele was fine until he was treated with an antiviral medication. Tassi claims Steele’s family gave into “shaming” and put the former Marine on a ventilator. According to Tassi, ventilators kill people.

 

Calling “the whole thing suspicious,” Tassi introduced a new conspiracy theory naming “they” as the culprit. He believes the death of people like Steele is part of an effort to undermine Florida’s governor, who has been widely talked about as a Republican presidential hopeful.

 

Tassi and Steele remind of the guy behind the tree in baseball Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean's famous comment,

 

"Stand behind a tree 60 feet away, and I'll whomp you with an optical illusion."

[Winstonm]

 

An Illinois man took out a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and shot his half-brother in the head during an argument over the COVID-19 vaccinations, officials said.

 

Larry D. Cavitt, 68, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and aggravated battery after he allegedly killed his half brother, Joseph E. Geyman, 51, of Tunnel Hill, Ill., according to a news release by the Johnson County Sheriff's office

 

 

 

Probably one of those "Second Amendment people"...

[johnu]

 

 

 

Probably one of those "Second Amendment people"...

I've been informed by the NRA that this is libel and that this was a case of accidental shooting. Larry fully intended to stab his half brother with a knife, but couldn't find one in time. Guns don't kill people, accidents kill people.

[Winstonm]

I've been informed by the NRA that this is libel and that this was a case of accidental shooting. Larry fully intended to stab his half brother with a knife, but couldn't find one in time. Guns don't kill people, accidents kill people.

 

As in, if y'al don't stop I'm libel (sic) to shoot stab you?

[Winstonm]

 

A hospitalized COVID-19 denier whose attempts to be treated with deworming drug ivermectin inspired a far-right harassment campaign against her hospital died early Monday, sparking cries among QAnon conspiracy theorists that she had been the victim of “medical murder.” Before her COVID-19 diagnosis, Veronica Wolski was a prominent Illinois booster of the QAnon conspiracy theory who recorded herself hanging pro-QAnon banners over bridges and flouting mask laws in stores, once declaring, “I have never once worn a mask.”

 

After she was hospitalized in Chicago two weeks ago with COVID-19, Wolski’s supporters in QAnon and other far-right groups besieged the medical center with hundreds of phone calls and even some death threats, demanding that she receive ivermectin, whose effectiveness as a COVID-19 treatment is unproven. Top QAnon leaders like former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn embraced her cause, with pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood calling the hospital and demanding she receive ivermectin shortly before Wolski’s death. On Monday morning, Wood announced in a post on social networking app Telegram that Wolski had died shortly after midnight and called her death a “medical murder,” urging his followers to “go to war.” AMITA Health, which runs the hospital where Wolski died, did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

 

 

 

[y66]

From NYT:

 

Washington State has some of the strictest pandemic restrictions in the nation: Residents must wear masks when gathering indoors, and many workers are under vaccination orders.

 

Across the border in Idaho — where the governor has refused to require masks or vaccinations — unchecked virus transmission has pushed the state’s hospitals beyond their breaking point. Patients are now swamping facilities in Washington as well.

 

As Idaho patients fill wards, Washington hospitals have had to postpone surgeries to remove brain tumors. Emergency rooms are backed up as nurses struggle through brutal shifts.

 

“We are delaying care for people who are in misery,” said Dr. Daniel Getz, chief medical officer for Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane, Wash. “It’s agonizing for those patients. This has real impacts on these people who are waiting.”

 

Some leaders in the state see Idaho’s outsourcing of Covid patients as a troubling example of how the failure to aggressively confront the virus in one state can deepen a crisis in another.

 

“We certainly need [the morons] in Idaho government to do more to preserve their citizens’ health, because we know that their crisis is becoming our problem,” said Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee.

[kenberg]

From NYT:

 

 

 

And it will get worse. Earlier in one thread or another I said I am not up for hoping the antis die, and that still holds. But there is a severe practical problem that has to be dealt with and I think it is very reasonable to, when beds and staff are in sort supply and choices have to be made over who gets treated, to take into account how a patient has behaved.

 

As I say, it will get worse, especially if the idiot gov of Idaho refuses to act reasonably.

 

The gov of Washington could call the gov of Idaho and just say something like "Look, we have a problem. We could try to solve it, or not. But we simply cannot continue taking needed beds from our residents to give to your residents because you are too stupid to act. Your choice, buddy." Freedom? Sure. But responsibility goes with freedom.

[johnu]

From NYT:

Washington State has some of the strictest pandemic restrictions in the nation: Residents must wear masks when gathering indoors, and many workers are under vaccination orders.

 

Across the border in Idaho — where the governor has refused to require masks or vaccinations — unchecked virus transmission has pushed the state’s hospitals beyond their breaking point. Patients are now swamping facilities in Washington as well.

 

As Idaho patients fill wards, Washington hospitals have had to postpone surgeries to remove brain tumors. Emergency rooms are backed up as nurses struggle through brutal shifts.

 

“We are delaying care for people who are in misery,” said Dr. Daniel Getz, chief medical officer for Providence Sacred Heart in Spokane, Wash. “It’s agonizing for those patients. This has real impacts on these people who are waiting.”

 

Some leaders in the state see Idaho’s outsourcing of Covid patients as a troubling example of how the failure to aggressively confront the virus in one state can deepen a crisis in another.

 

“We certainly need [the morons] in Idaho government to do more to preserve their citizens’ health, because we know that their crisis is becoming our problem,” said Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee.

Washington is only 61% fully vaccinated. Besides the minority Republicans in the western part of the state, the eastern part of the state is mostly politically aligned with Idaho (much like eastern Oregon), ie extremely right fringe, anti-masker, anti-vaxxer.

[Winstonm]

And it will get worse. Earlier in one thread or another I said I am not up for hoping the antis die, and that still holds. But there is a severe practical problem that has to be dealt with and I think it is very reasonable to, when beds and staff are in sort supply and choices have to be made over who gets treated, to take into account how a patient has behaved.

 

As I say, it will get worse, especially if the idiot gov of Idaho refuses to act reasonably.

 

The gov of Washington could call the gov of Idaho and just say something like "Look, we have a problem. We could try to solve it, or not. But we simply cannot continue taking needed beds from our residents to give to your residents because you are too stupid to act. Your choice, buddy." Freedom? Sure. But responsibility goes with freedom.

 

We have reached the Monty Python moment with the anti-vaxers where there is no longer argument, only contradiction.

 

No there isn’t.

[johnu]

Right-Wing Anti-Vax Radio Host Who Mocked AIDS Victims Dies Of COVID-19

 

Bob Enyart, a notoriously homophobic right-wing radio host who refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, has died of COVID-19.

However, Enyart might be best remembered for his cruelty.

 

As Denver’s Westword noted: “He would gleefully read obituaries of AIDS sufferers while cranking ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen, whose lead singer, Freddie Mercury, succumbed to the malady.”

 

Enyart’s wife, Cheryl, is also sick with what his website calls “severe Covid 19 conditions.”

 

Both refused the coronavirus shot to protest the use of aborted fetal cells, collected many years ago, in vaccine research and urged others to “boycott” the shot for the same reason.

 

Just for you, Enyart, and good riddance.

 

[johnu]

 

 

One of QAnon believer and opponent of coronavirus safety measures Veronica Wolski's Instagram messages said

 

It (Covid) doesn't affect those who don't believe in it

 

There is no confirmation that Wolski checked out forever while muttering "Stop believing in Covid!!! I am not in the ICU hooked up to a mechanical ventilator. Q will save me."

[kenberg]

We have reached the Monty Python moment with the anti-vaxers where there is no longer argument, only contradiction.

 

No there isn't.

 

I agree that rational argument seems useless, at least for many.

The following occurred to me with regard to freedom from government intrusion into our lives.

 

WW II ended when I was 6, but the draft was still there when the Korean War, aka the Korean Police Action, started in 1950 and of course during Viet Nam.

Maybe the antis could give a little thought to that.

 

Guys got drafted, sent off to war, quite a few did not come back, many came back psychologically and physically wounded.

 

So, when the nation is in trouble, we interfere with personal liberty.

Of course we do.

 

I regard myself as a big supporter of personal liberty. I don't want to tell others what to do, I don't want others telling me what I should do. But sometimes, for the collective good, we must. People other than communists speak of collective good. This nation and all nations sometimes overrule personal liberty to secure collective good.

 

Getting the vaccine and wearing a mask is such an instance. And it is one whole hell of a lot easier and less dangerous than sending marines to Iwo Jima.

 

So my message to any anti that is reading this (yes, I realize it is probably the empty set) is: Face reality. This is a time of need. Do what clearly has to be done. Enough with the "gotta defend my liberty to spread the disease" crap. Get with it. Now. Jesus X, it's effing obvious.

[Winstonm]

This train is bound for Crazy, this train

This train is bound for Crazy, this train

This train is bound for Crazy

The vaccine kills but Jesus saves me

This train is bound for Crazy, this train.

 

This train don't believe in science, this train

This train don't believe in science, this train

This train don't believe in science

Just give me that old time self-reliance

This train don't believe in science, this train

 

This train is slowly dyin', this train

This train is slowly dyin', this train

This train is slowly dyin'

We know the Truth that Fauci's lyin'

This train is dyin' slowly, this train

[Chas_P]

Face reality. This is a time of need. Do what clearly has to be done. Enough with the "gotta defend my liberty to spread the disease" crap. Get with it. Now. Jesus X, it's effing obvious.

 

Both my wife and I have had three doses. We aren't opposed to the vaccine. One question asked of us was "have you ever had myocarditis?" We could truthfully answer "no". But our younger son was born with viral myocarditis and therefore has refused the vaccine up to this point. Do you think he needs to "do what clearly has to be done"? I will grant that there's probably a very small percentage of the unvaccinated who have had myocarditis. But I don't know that. Nor do you. But, whatever the reason, I think we should all be allowed to do whatever we deem to be in our own best interest. You know... the old "my body, my choice" argument. And that's not intended as a condemnation of the pro-choice crowd. I agree with them. If a woman wants to abort her baby, that's her business. The government has no right to interfere. If my son doesn't want the Covid-19 vaccine, that's his business. The government has no right to interfere. Just my opinion.

[kenberg]

Both my wife and I have had three doses. We aren't opposed to the vaccine. One question asked of us was "have you ever had myocarditis?" We could truthfully answer "no". But our younger son was born with viral myocarditis and therefore has refused the vaccine up to this point. Do you think he needs to "do what clearly has to be done"? I will grant that there's probably a very small percentage of the unvaccinated who have had myocarditis. But I don't know that. Nor do you. But, whatever the reason, I think we should all be allowed to do whatever we deem to be in our own best interest. You know... the old "my body, my choice" argument. And that's not intended as a condemnation of the pro-choice crowd. I agree with them. If a woman wants to abort her baby, that's her business. The government has no right to interfere. If my son doesn't want the Covid-19 vaccine, that's his business. The government has no right to interfere. Just my opinion.

 

Going back to my analogy with the draft, exceptions were made. I won't try to sort through when that would be right with the vaccine, but I can imagine cases when I might be so. With my shot, actually with the second but not the first, after I answered a question about my health history the one who was to give me a shot excused herself for a brief discussion with her superior. And then she said it was ok and I got my shot. So yes, sometimes special cases arise.

 

 

But that's not what's holding up the train here. It's I don't wanna and you can't make me, nanyh, nanyh, nanyh". Large numbers are dying, the virus is spreading, the virus is mutating, and as I said before, delta is not the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Sure, we have to make allowances in special cases.

A country addresses a problem of this magnitude and some coercion is clearly needed. I was a serious pain in the butt as an adolescent, partly I am proud of that, partly I am embarrassed by that. partly I regret that, but anyway I grew up.

[akwoo]

I don't like coercion.

 

I also think, given how many people are refusing the vaccine (and I agree a few of them have good reason), that God should admit He made a mistake in creating humanity with so many idiots and jackasses, wipe us out, and start over.

[kenberg]

I don't like coercion.

 

I also think, given how many people are refusing the vaccine (and I agree a few of them have good reason), that God should admit He made a mistake in creating humanity with so many idiots and jackasses, wipe us out, and start over.

 

I don't like coercion either, which in a way gives my argument strength. For example, I do not like the community service requirement that many high schools have. I was a Boy Scout, and we did some community things, but I joined voluntarily. And that's why I used the draft as an analogy. I do not at lall like the proposal that surfaces from time to time that young people should now be subject to some draft-like thing to serve the country. That's both intrusive and stupid. So we should go very slow on coercion. But we have a serious issue before us, and God, or who/whatever, did create these people that seem indifferent to a deadly virus that is spreading, mutating and killing.

Time to bring in the coercion.

There are such times, this is such. Live in a cave or do what is needed.

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

I don't like coercion either, which in a way gives my argument strength. For example, I do not like the community service requirement that many high schools have. I was a Boy Scout, and we did some community things, but I joined voluntarily. And that's why I used the draft as an analogy. I do not at lall like the proposal that surfaces from time to time that young people should now be subject to some draft-like thing to serve the country. That's both intrusive and stupid. So we should go very slow on coercion. But we have a serious issue before us, and God, or who/whatever, did create these people that seem indifferent to a deadly virus that is spreading, mutating and killing.

Time to bring in the coercion.

There are such times, this is such. Live in a cave or do what is needed.

 

Ken, I think you nailed it yesterday when you wrote these people are acting and thinking like teenagers (my paraphrase). They must be required to experience the legal consequences of their choices - higher cost for health insurance, inability to go to public spaces such as grocery stores, no access to public transportation, and no jobs.

 

If they want to act like a children, they should go to their room and stay there until they grow up.

[hrothgar]

If my son doesn't want the Covid-19 vaccine, that's his business. The government has no right to interfere. Just my opinion.

 

Getting vaccinated against an infectious disease is not an individual choice.

The failure of individuals to get vaccinated increases the spread of the disease in communities and the likelihood that new variants will develop.

 

State and federal governments in the US have mandated vaccination for centuries.

This situation is not an different.

 

In the case of COVID hospital rooms across the (unvaccinated) South are full of unvaccinated individuals suffering from COVID.

Trauma patients are being stacked up in hospitals

Cancer patients are being denied treatment

 

This is the cost that idiots screaming about their freedom are imposing on society.

 

I sincerely hope that hospitals stop admitting COVID patients who refused vaccination without a damn good medical reasons.

 

They have the freedom to choose not to get vaccinated.

And we have the freedom to watch them die in the streets.

[kenberg]

Below are some thoughts I agree with. More extensive and careful than what I say, but refecting my line of thinking.

 

 

https://www.washingt...d-anti-vaxxers/

 

A sample:

 

 

Before the magnificent multibillion-dollar project to find a vaccine for covid-19, there was a guy from Montana with the brilliance of a great scientist and the swagger of a cowboy. Hilleman created more than 40 vaccines. In the 1950s, he and his team stopped a rampaging pandemic. Across his career, he saved millions of lives. A person who saves one life is a hero. What do we call the person who saves too many to count?

 

Don't answer that. Not now, amid the anti-vaccine backlash of a spoiled, forgetful species. Hilleman worked his pinprick miracles at a time when Americans knew and feared the deadly terrors of communicable disease. We will know, and fear, them again if anti-vaxxers prevail.

 

[Later his own reflection on when he was 10:]

 

I was not at all afraid of measles, mumps or rubella. Like covid-19, they were all diseases that infected children but rarely killed us. They wrought greater havoc on adults in our lives, and on their unborn children. What I feared — deeply, desperately — was needles. That walk from the gym to the library, perhaps 100 feet, was the longest of my life. If a man with a scar, a dripping knife and a white panel van had appeared and offered to save me, I would have run to him. The room swam as I felt my shirt sleeve pushed up. Then I was stung and swabbed with cold alcohol, and staggered away like a branded calf.

 

 

[And then he remarks:]

 

 

Can you imagine what hay Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ® and his fellow vote-grubbing vaccine skeptics would have made with the picture of 300 alphabetized schoolchildren shuffling along to be stuck? At age 10, I would have greeted the demagogues as liberators — but as the Bible advises, I've put away childish things. I thank heaven for Hilleman and John Enders, Albert Sabin, Jonas Salk, Emil von Behring and countless other virologists who transformed the world with their life-preserving vaccines.

 

 

 

 

This stubborn refusal to cooperate with efforts to beat back the virus is wrong on so many levels. Personally, it is stupid. And it is irresponsible. And it goes against history, as the comments above suggest. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

 

[Chas_P]

Getting vaccinated against an infectious disease is not an individual choice.

Really? REALLY? BIG BROTHER is now in complete control? REALLY?

[Gilithin]

Really? REALLY? BIG BROTHER is now in complete control? REALLY?

Do you think it should be a personal choice to wear a seatbelt? To get car insurance? To wear (some minimal amount of) clothes in public? To shoot someone on 5th Avenue? To be able to have sex with children? Not everything should be a free choice.

[kenberg]

Really? REALLY? BIG BROTHER is now in complete control? REALLY?

 

yes, really. for this issue, really

 

In the op-ed piece above the guy describes childhood as I remember it (although with different vaccines0 I could get my shots or I could... well if there was an alternative I was never aware of it I suppose mothers could home school. If a person or family wanted to become cut off from society, that was possible then and I suppose it is possible now. But for those of us who wish to live in society, some rules apply, getting a shot to help bring a vicious multiplying virus under control should be one of them.

 

this is not some crazy idea thought up by crazy lefties or crazy anybodies. Requiring vaccines seemed natural to me and to my mother and to everyone I knew when I was 10 and it seems natural now. I never minded getting shots. I do recall crying when the nurse said I needed glasses but then I got my glasses and no one could have taken them from me.

 

I repeat I do not like coercion, I also make exceptions and then can favor coercion. And we, and by "we" I can mean anything from "everyone I know" to "the nation as a whole", always have made exceptions, always will make exceptions, and always should make exceptions. It is very possible to support freedom, oppose oppressive government, and still believe that we need to impose rules to fight this virus. Free choice is very good, but we are not cavemen, and we have responsibilities. Actually, I think even cavemen realized that.