Today, the Food and Drug Administration gave full and final approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which had previously been in use under an emergency authorization.
Ever since POTUS 45 legitimized the mainstreaming of blatant lies as an acceptable alternative for the truth, we have observed mass lunacy in the form of the denial of normally authoritative sources of information regarding COVID and vaccines. When physicians have to demonstrate in the streets to draw attention to the exhaustion of the hospital workforce over a disease easily controlled by several available vaccines (the J&J version only takes one shot and does not use the mRNA/viral capsule mechanism), we've sunk to a new low. If we can't trust our doctors to speak the truth, who's left whom we can trust? Shall we ask priests and nuns to opine on medical facts? Shall we go back to questioning the negative health impacts of cigarette smoking? What about driving under the influence of mind altering substances? What about seat belts? How many anti-vax'ers have the same insane distrust of the influenza vaccine? Year by year, flu vaccines are sometimes far less effective than our 3 most widely utilized COVID vaccines and they still limit influenza dramatically from the pre-vaccine era. I'm not angry or outraged, simply saddened and deeply disappointed. When we have ALL been offered the voluntary and FREE opportunity to do the right thing for ourselves and others, on good authority from national experts and nearly universal support of the health care community, our country is still barely over 50% vaccinated when all age groups, all regions and political persuasions included in the count. I didn't realize just how collectively dense and deluded we are as a nation. Freedom to choose does not equate with reasonable, responsible, mature, trusting or any number of other positive attributes that support the selfless and philanthropic act of getting vaccinated.
Well said, sir. As an RN knee deep in the Covid response since March 2020, I can assure you my colleagues and I are exhausted and disheartened. There have been so many needless deaths, it's the equivalent of mass suicide.
Stepping into the language of my former career, I think that while this could be described as mass "suicide", I suspect that there might be a strong case for "mass homicide" in places like Floriduh and Texass (along with some others, but those were the only two I could think of clever misspellings for.)
Southern Oregon, according to the O, is one the nation's hot spots. I was on a thread yesterday with some locals and some of them were opposing mandates, while speaking about the need in some places for field hospitals. One person tried to turn it into a argument about abortion. I had to work hard to remain polite.
That is amazing to me too. A lot of these people are the same people who have complained from the beginning about lockdowns, masks, vaccines, other protocols.
I grew up in Southern Oregon, I have family there still. Those folks are nigh onto crazy. My sister works at a large discount grocer, and is constantly berated about requirements fo shopping there (masks/distancing) that are government mandated. My ex sister-in-law is 10 days out of hospital following a hospitalization for Covid (anti vaccination). They are lunatics.
I have always seen it as place that is beyond the pale and often beyond the law. I just read an article this week about illegal marijuana grows there. I thinking now of the Illinois Valley area. My sojourns to southern Oregon have been to Ashland and Jacksonville and the beautiful awesome Crater Lake. Think we also visited the Oregon Caves. I can't imagine living there. I grew up in northern Indiana and many of my ex-classmates are Trumpers.
Ally, when I first read "...I could think of clever misspellings for," I immediately thought you meant "cleaver." That would be a way of committing suicide. It surely would be a way done by the Taliban.
This made me cry. My nursing colleagues are experiencing moral distress at a magnitude never felt before. Wearing full PPE (not a simple face mask but a tight N95 filter mask, with a respirator hood, covered head to toe in an impermeable gown, gloves, and booties) for 12+ hours, being the surrogate for families at the bedside who can only say their goodbyes to a loved one via an iPad or telephone... this is not work for the feint of heart. We are warriors, indeed, but we are tired. Nurses have been the most trusted profession in America for over 20 years, yet we are now mocked, called 'sheep', and vilified. Our frustration and anger arises from the willful behavior of those who should know better (politicians, and yes, even some renegade health professionals) who have stymied the conquest of this pandemic. I used to believe we were a better people than this, but the truth is now out there.
Wearing full PPE for 12 hours is akin to torture, IMHO. And doing it to care for folks who declined to protect themselves rubs salt into the sacrifice.
My mom was an RN why back when 1930s etc. worked in poorer section of NYC as a public health nurse. # Cannot imagine the sheer frustration alone in being denigrated for DOING YOUR JOB & saving peoples lives. There should be an actual true public outroar towards these people who truly ARE sheep - allowing it to go on & treating all of this as if it were "one side" of the issue - rather than the absolute CAUSE of this pandemic right now is just asinine! Of course you & your colleagues wear full PPE! Thank God for that. The thought (or lack of) process in these individuals - whether "politicians" or folks who follow behind? Beyond belief. Thank you and all others for doing your humane jobs. (sorry not putting as well as I should)
This work is extremely physically demanding in ordinary times. To be doing it in full PPE is beyond description. I only occasionally have to put all that on for a half hour or so at a time to test an ill student and I can barely stand it. I DO NOT know how you and your colleagues are doing it 12+ hours a day over and over and over again. It's incredibly concerning to me that so many nurses are not getting vaccinated themselves, which contributes to others not trusting the vaccine either. So not only are some of us exhausted in every way by the work, but there is also the tension of knowing some of your colleagues, maybe many, depending on where you work, are contributing to the problem. But we bite our tongues for the sake of not making morale any worse.
Well, as of yesterday, with FDA approval of Phizer vaccine, hospitals & nursing homes, schools as well as many other businesses can now make it a condition of employment to get vaccinated. Especially in the health care field is this necessary.
Yes, and I caught a bit of an excellent Q&A session on Maine public radio this afternoon in which the doctor being fielded questions was asked about the mandate in Maine for HCWs to be vaccinated. He very calmly and reasonably explained that for many years being vaccinated and/or tested for several diseases we could unknowingly give to colleagues or patients has been a condition of employment and Covid-19 and the associated vaccines are no different. He maintained that it is still a personal choice; one can choose to accept the conditions of employment or go elsewhere. Loved the low key no nonsense approach.
Just try to remember there are many of us out here who admire, respect and think of you often. Please pass on to your colleagues that you are appreciated and are amazing!
Opponents to vaccination and masks have emphasized their personal rights. But rights alone do not empower doing whatever one wants to do. All rights come with responsibilities. Among the primary responsibilities that we all have is active consideration of the well being of those around us.
One responsibility for not being vaccinated ought to be their covid-related healthcare costs are on them, not the public dole or commercial insurances.
I too am "saddened and deeply disappointed", but conclude that in protection of my loved ones and fellow reasonable citizens, I need to repel these people. They are, in fact, mentally and physically dangerous.
There are multiple reasons why people are hesitant to take the vaccine, so it is not a homogeneous group. But those who are also against masks and other public health measures are the group that needs to be called out. We need to say it like it is: their vaccine hesitancy is because they are afraid, unwilling to take even a small personal risk to help everyone else; and they are against masks because they fear asphyxiating themselves with their own halitosis.
I live in Portland, Oregon. This morning, I visited a hospital for tests needed before major neck surgery next month. I spoke at length with a nurse practitioner, who made no secret of her utter frustration with people who refuse to get vaccinated. "I can't believe we're going through this again," she said, shaking head.
The hospital is packed with Covid patients, most unvaccinated from rural counties and who don't understand that they could be depriving local residents of emergency medical care. She said most of the deaths are people in their 20s and 30s. And, as we've all heard before, some critically ill Covid patients plead for vaccination, only to be told it's too late.
There's a chance my surgery could be delayed because of the Covid surge, she said. If it isn't, my wife must drop me off at the hospital and wait not there but at home to hear from the surgeon. In the end, that's not a big deal unless something goes awry.
Like many critically ill Covid patients, I will be intubated. Of course, some of them never wake up. I will but won't remember the invasive procedure, though a sore throat will be a stark reminder.
Let's face it; hospitals are "concentrators" of sick folk. Hospitals go to great lengths to protect one patient from another, and there is no published evidence I know of claiming that you are more likely to contract COVID by entering a hospital than you are by entering a grocery store. Masks, distancing, hand washing are effective deterrents. Vaccination protects you very well when you enter that environment for elective health care. But, 90% of the disproportionate occupancy of hospital beds and ICU beds by COVID patients would be avoided by preemptive vaccination. Prolonged ventilation of severely injured lungs leads to tracheostomies, durable IV access, feeding tubes and other procedures, which means that critically ill COVID patients are entering operating rooms and other procedural suites as well. A stressed health care delivery system is not the place I'd prefer to receive care if I had a choice in the matter.
Today, Oregon governor Kate Brown reinstated a recommendation for use of masks in outdoor public places due to the Delta varient surge here. Oregon is in the mid-to-upper ranks of states with vaccinated populations, but absolutely not immune to the impacts of a viral surge on the health care industry, particularly hospitals, where the sick are concentrated. An increasing number of reports document breakthrough infections in vaccinated persons, but, thankfully, generally not serious enough to result in hospitalization. My former associates testify to the realities of hospital based practice in our major metropolitan hospitals. I actually do have some insight into the situation; and no hospital is spared. It is not unsafe to enter a hospital, particularly if you are vaccinated, but you'll be in proximity to more ill persons with known COVID than elsewhere in public.
I did, in fact, get your point. If you read carefully, you'll distinguish what I said from fear-mongering. My goal was not to scare anyone, rather to further illuminate consequences of decisions made by persons who haven't availed themselves of vaccination at this point where they are broadly available. The first half of my initial comment today established what I think about the overall safety of entering a hospital. The second half spoke to the level of stress and fatigue that is a current reality in hospitals. You are free to do what you wish, think what you wish, feel what you wish to feel about the facts.
If I wake up with superpowers, I will compel Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott to spend one week working in Covid ICU units and then publicly describe their experiences and observations. What they do next will show us if they have empathy for other people. Or are just brazenly ambitious, power-hungry politicians for whom human suffering is an acceptable means to an end.
Michael, You have prescribed a forced empathy treatment. What do I think of already sick and suffering patients being exposed to DeSantis and Abbott -- not so much.
Yes, I imagined lying in a hospital bed and awakening to DeSantis' face. Oh, Cynthia, I saw that now as I wrote it. Excusing me, while I go to throw up.
Okay, I'll be the meany in the room - if they are people who CHOSE not to be vaccinated and/or wear masks, I think there is some justice in their awakening to the faces of those two.
Hi meany. There is no guarantee that all the patients D and A might encounter are anti-vaxxers with covid. Hospitals cannot fill beds according to D's and A's work schedule. You re also ignoring the nurses, aids and other hospital staff. You don't want to mean to them, do you?
OK, here's my ultimate meany moment...when the beds and supplies run out, how about they go to the back off the line...? ( I know there is no line, but...)
So mote it be. I don't think they could make it for a week. I would settle for a 24-hour shift where each idjt would be responsible for physical care of actual patients.
I hope out of this we stop seeing wars as solutions to anything. A retired Air Force colonel one said to me that the military's job was to keep the peace, not to make war. That has always stuck with me. Unfortunately, just like drug lords are economically dependent on selling drugs no matter what the cost is to the populace; the Defense Contractors are economically dependent on selling weapons again at a very high cost to the populace. The politicians are addicted to these campaign donors.
Today I saw a Facebook comment pointing out that criticism of the USPS for losing money is unwarranted: "It's a service. It doesn't lose money. It costs money. No one says the military loses $750b a year." (Thank you, Joan.)
With Republican moves toward privatization of public services USPS, education, and the military, can we imagine reading, "The privatized military is successfully operating at a profit." Or how profit motive, rather than national defense, would be governing life and death decision-making on a worldwide scale???
Medicare Advantage plans are a great example of privatization of healthcare. They are paid by the number of people enrolled in their plan. The insurance companies use the Medicare dollars to advertise their plan to sell it. The more enrollees the more money they are paid. If you are a high user they will offer you a free work up then you can be part of the high risk pool and the for profit insurance company will be paid more money by Medicare for those patients. They make their money my limiting tests and interventions. They sell their plans by the perks like meals after a hospital stay. I would rather have my healthcare dollars go to providing healthcare than advertising plans so they can make profits.
I’m very happy with my MC plan. “Perks” like vision and dental coverage, which are not covered by standard Medicare, add to my overall health status. I’ve got holistic coverage rather than piecemeal coverage.
My Medicare Advantage plan has been more than reasonable in covering my care. Aside from the year-long delays in getting from a vertebrae displacement, requiring numerous hoops to go through before authorizing the necessary surgery, my copays were $30/doctor visits, $0/MRIs, $10/PT visits , $100/spinal injection, and $250/surgery & 2 day hospital stay. I added up all the charges on the various statements I received for the surgery and they totaled $105,000. They are losing money on me.
As a provider the authorization process and having to justify why the patient needs the procedure to the insurance company is all about the insurance making money by denying services. If you decide you are not happy with your advantage plan after 3 years then supplemental plans have the right to deny you coverage based on pre existing conditions . Many specialists are not willing to be on their panels because of this. They also reimburse the providers at a lower rate and if the paper trail is not complete the provider is denied payment for their services. Where I live it was impossible to find mental health providers who would accept the advantage plans.
I was recently gobsmacked to learn that a routine blood test for cancer was not routinely covered by a patient's Medicare coverage (no idea which plan she has) even though she has a history of cancer!
From the wide variance in responses, it seems that the disparities among communities, providers, and companies point to the real problems with MA plans - there is no equity. I believe the impetus for Medicare-for-all is that there would be equity of benefit and that doesn't seem possible with private insurance staying in the mix and with differences between states. We older white folx with decent coverage in areas with plenty of providers in our plans' networks feel no need to change because we may be getting better coverage than we've ever had before in our long lives. However, it's clear even from this small sampling that there is a big equity issue when the entirety of those "covered" is considered.
For me, it was a no-brainer to sign up for the County provided PPO medicare supplement. My monthly payment is $385 but I've had no co-pays other than for my meds, no charges for labs etc. The only significant bills since 2014 have been $200 for my knee replacement surgery and $90 for meds (I brought all my own meds with me) during my 2 week nursing home stay (which WAS covered!) after the replacement and $650 for a ceramic crown on my dental coverage (that was my co-pay; the total was $1300) (My 35 years as a nurse @ the County Nursing Home has served me well.)
It often does. The US war in Iraq, Geo W edition, was sold to the country based on lies. It’s real purpose was twofold: family feud between the Bushes and Saddam Hussein, and opportunities for war profiteering.
THIS, is the eye popping immorality of our current "military". When we don't have enough volunteer soldiers to do our bidding, we hire out the job(s). We enlist and train our soldiers on the idealism and patriotism of defending our country. They work ALONGSIDE their buddies who are "private contractors". Their buddies make at least 5x the salary our soldiers make. Our soldiers do not "reup" when their enlistment is over, instead, they do the same job they had been doing, except now they're bringing home $200,000/yr instead of $40,000. Who can blame them?
I am glad we're out. Maybe we'll need a draft in our next war, then I predict we won't be fighting for 20 years.
The draft was the basis for much of the anti war sentiment among the young adults in the 60s. There was great resentment of the college deferments from those who didn’t attend college, and a growing understanding of the inequity among those who did. All supported by the music of the day.
Re-instituting a draft will be effective only if the sons and daughters of the Senators, Representatives, and military-industrial complex are not allowed exemptions because of bone spurs or other doubtful disqualifiers.
President Biden’s one statement days ago, and not highlighted at all in any media source that I saw was this. Wars cannot be waged anymore to counter terrorism. There is technology, there are intelligence and counter-measures now that are more effective and that will be pursued over war on the ground.
If one really engages with younger generation on war, this is usually their comment including words like “old school” or comments like “stupid people killing war machine”. At this point I usually ask them if they are referring to the military industrial complex. “Yeah, guns and money.” Mentioned hundreds of times in their music and domestically on our streets.
It is also important for legit news outlets to stop pandering to the lies of Crocker and Panetta, who are both--inexplicably in my book so they have to be on someone's payroll--gleefully trying to destroy Biden.
Notes from the Press Paroxysm as the Evacuation Flights Continue
paroxysm | ˈparəksɪz(ə)m |
noun
a sudden attack or outburst of a particular emotion or activity: a paroxysm of weeping.
• Medicine a sudden recurrence or attack of a disease: paroxysms of ataxia and shaking.
I had to look up paroxysm and it meant what I hoped it would. Here's the opening paragraph for this piece and the link to finish it. Particularly insightful for people like me who need to understand why it's going down like it is in Afghanistan and how the media is doing a piss-poor job reporting about it.
<start snippet>
By Josh Marshall
|
August 23, 2021 10:48 a.m.
On the Sunday shows yesterday and across newspaper editorials you can see repeated claims of a military debacle for the US in Afghanistan, perhaps the worst in decades, perhaps the worst ever. Seriously, look at the quotes. And yet as far as I know not a single member of the US military has died or even been injured in this operation. In fact, it doesn’t appear that a shot has even been fired in anger against them. We don’t judge military victories or defeats by body counts or casualty lists. But surely this figures into the equation. The US withdrew its forces according to plan. It then reoccupied the civilian airport in Kabul. Since last weekend the US military operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport has overseen the evacuation of more than 40,000 people, and it continues at a rapid clip. So about 36 hours of confusion and then a fairly orderly and rapid airlift over the last week.
The only good thing about the Afghanistan reporting is that if Trumpers and other GOP loyalists think the press is blindly pro-Democrat, this proves them wrong.
“The press” only cares about profit. Since Biden has been President, their viewership has decreased simply because people are breathing a little easier. They need to seek chaos to bring their viewership back to pre-Biden levels. It’s infuriating. Fox is fox, but all the legitimate news outlets are no more concerned about the good of the country. It’s all capitalism run amuck.
Cheri, There are solid news and public affairs reports available to us in various forms. Fox stands for itself not other outlets. Corporate ownership of media, particularly of local television news, has negative effects, but that is not the entire picture. I was an associate producer of the daily news broadcast of a local public television station and worked in public affairs for many years in commercial and public television. It is disquieting for me to read generalizations, which state that 'The press' only cares about profit'. Many reporters, researchers, production staff, writers, etc., of public affairs programming work very long days, endure many sleepless nights, dig hard to get the facts and find good sources. That does not include the deadlines, synthesizing information to compose a meaningful story and a lot more. Where do we get the investigative pieces; up-to-date news of the day; deeper understanding of public figures and the functions of government; entertainment reviews; innovations; business outlooks; sports reports, etc.? Imagine Democracy without the Free Press.
What you describe was my experience working as reporter/anchor in two commercial stations (ABC & NBC) in Orlando back in the mid-80`s....hours and hours(happily) covering space industry, hurricanes, local politics, theme park fueled growth, water, Cuban connection, etc. Producers worked long and hard to get a good news orogram on the air. At that time one of the stations was locally owned and we had to attend to community needs to keep our license. It is such a different story now as outside companies own the stations. In one case, recently, the first thing they did was to cut ( significantly) the news staff, firing or retiring the highest paid veterans who actually had networks of sources and historical memory. The suspicion by those who work there is that the outside owners/investors will keep the station for a few years and then sell it to someone else. Having been a hard working reporter I am the first to stand up for hard working journalists. It is not their fault that journalism is often the victim of absentee ownership.and changing business models in the local commercial arena. The first 11 minutes of local news casts in our commercial stations are typically a "crime and accident" police report; no one is assigned to cover local government as a "beat" and I cannot remember the last time I saw an in -depth,investigative report done by a local reporter. News directors cannot afford to dedicate a crew to that kind of time consuming digging. I hear this repeatedly from friends still in the business and from those who have had to leave it to teach or do PR or other work.
Our local PBS station (under the umbrella of a University) is constantly struggling for money to do what it does best but getting the best national PBS programming costs local stations more money than people realize. Frontline and other similar investigative programs take time, personnel and money that local stations do not have. And every year someone in Washington objects to "paying" for PBS!!!
So, while I am a cheerleader for good journalism I am watching it gasping for breath locally, both because of changing business models and because the news competition arena has exploded with 24 hr news channels and ubiquitous social media sites. Our local NPR radio station (also always needing money) is an oasis of good programming. Not sure how long they will be able to hold on.
Thank you for your continual, substantive sharings here. You must have been a great producer.
Carol, your comment strongly registered with me. One of the big problems we have in our country is the drastic weakening of local news on the air and in print. It is a crisis and part of our loss of community. When I was an executive producer of a consumer documentary series on WCBS-TV, everyone was fired except for me and my boss. It was brutal and unforgivable as well as the beginning of the end of my work there. The Free Press is crucial for democracy. It is deeply wounded as is so much else.
I am continually amazed at the quality of NPR and PBS, and the failure of large portions of the public to recognize the true gems that are readily available to them!
Today most of the good investigative reporting comes from independent sources written by journalists let go from their old jobs thanks to the corporate media profit motive. Don't get me wrong there are still some good M$M corporate journalists but they are becoming fewer and farther in between.
Local media outside public TV and Radio is just about gone thanks to corporate buyouts and consolidations particularly by hard right wing concerns.
Christopher do you have data to support your claims? My practice is to hesitate in making generalizations without supporting evidence. The other day, I read a very negative comment you made concerning Rachel Maddow's journalistic achievements for the last number of years. I am a viewer of her show and find the quality of her original research rare and exceptional. She was the first to break the Flint lead and possibly Legionella bacteria crisis on a national basis, and she stuck with it. That is just one example of her modus operandi. Again, I did not read the basis for your fault finding.
Here in Columbus, OH we no longer have a local paper. The Columbus Dispatch was once a staunch Republican paper with a lot of clout. Nowadays it's trucked in from Indianapolis and is hard to distinguish in size from a supermarket flyer.
Yes I was pretty hard on Rachel but all my examples were true and I also praised her for her pre MSNBC. I omitted the days, weeks and months of her Russiagate baiting which was obviously done to drive up the numbers for advertisers. Many shows teased BREAKING NEWS only to fizzle at the end.
It's very easy to verify the plight of journalists in the 21st century. "U.S. newsroom employment has fallen 26% since 2008"
Rachel is more of a documenter than a journalist. She didn't get her doctorate for being afraid of intensive research. If you've ever seen video of her working you see the joy she gets in digging for facts. I'll never challenge her research or love of tying things together much like HCR.
It's a bit of a fool's errand to not speak glowingly about her, but my complaints are real, at least to me and I know people who share them.
I wish she would not have renewed her contract and gone independent herself so she could return to the AAR Rachel, maybe even here on Substack. She probably wouldn't make her MSNBC salary here but she wouldn't be scavenging for cans along side the road either. The world would be a better place if she did.
Been in MSM all my adult life, Fern. Christopher is sharing what’s been a trend for a coupla decades now. I appreciate your insistence on sources and offering only the truth here. Sadly, Christopher is dead right. The news media cannot continue to do its best work in the midst of deep pockets and profiteering.
It’s among the delights of writers like HRC — she includes her sources.
I live in the capital of Oregon, Salem, and for years we have had nothing but a Gannett rag. I read what I want online, mostly the obits which they outsource and that outfit is going by date posted I guess. Recently it was alphabetical and started with today's obits. I guess that it is too costly to do that.
This is the problem. Gannett and other corporations trivializing local print journalism and using it as a propaganda machine, and Sinclair and similar bad actors doing the same with broadcast journalism.
I know all these things but have never been able to tie them up in such a nice neat bundle before, thank you! Admittedly, it usually takes a woman to say in 50 words for what I would need 500. Take the rest of the day off with pay.
Let's be clear about this evacuation: This comes, not after suddenly losing a war, but after the decades-long d r i p d r i p d r i p of losing the peace. We went in there in 2001 to hunt down bin Laden. Couldn't find him. But US + allies dispersed Taliban and were helping Afghanistan slowly build back (better?!). What happens??? Mission creep. Manufactured WMD CRISIS! In 2003, abandon Afghanistan, pull all resources into Iraq, make a mess there. Enrich a bunch of corporations. "Save" the oil industry. Try to save FACE.
We have not lost the war in Afghanistan; we have lost the peace (as Justin King says). I'm just relieved Biden and his administration are finally getting a handle on evacuating people in a less brutal, more thoughtfully executed manner.
No competent leader thought it was a good idea to prosecute a war to find a small band of terrorists surrounding a charismatic leader. All that was needed was a covert intelligence effort and special ops mission like the one that found Bin Laden. “Mission creep” is not the right term for the war started by W and his henchmen. As he himself said, he just wanted to be a war president. The neocons were delighted, war in the Middle East having been their fever dream since forever, especially after their disappointment when the elderbush shut down the Iraq incursion.
Josh Spot on! After a ‘precipitous collapse’ for which neither America nor it’s NATO allies had anticipated, we have cobbled together an extraordinary rescue mission that is airlifting about 10,000 persons daily. Much of the media, many Republicans, and some Democrats are ignoring that chaos was inevitable after President Biden proper decision to end a fruitless 20 year war. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post provides an appropriate perspective. History will treat Biden well for this frenetic (and successful) airlift.
The most recent total I've heard for evacuations since July 30 is 53, 000. At the now 10,000+ a day (as of 8/23), that will continue to add up. That could total an additional 60,000+!!! by the deadline of August 31. The trick now is to get those people into the Kabul airport.
What an astute narrative. Thanks for sharing. And, the guest he had is now running for Senator in Missouri. We all need to follow him and help him with his campaign. Lucas Kunce.
So, wait, let me try and get my head around something...
DeSantis, he vowed to defund school districts that impose mask mandates, right?
But, didn't he vow to punish (with defunding) any municipality that threatened to "defund" police? (The calls for defunding the police were in response to alleged police brutality aimed at protesters.)
Yeah he did. Either he is an unashamed hypocrite (probably), or maybe he is just REALLY cheap.
I know this is nothing to joke about, but it does seem like he is completely out of touch with the reality that people in his state are getting sick and dying at alarming rates, he has the ability to do something about it, and yet he is looking ahead to the next election by toting the GOP banner past the graveyard.
I really feel bad for our fellow Americans that are under his "care."
And even more so the teachers that are masked and, in the classroom, defy anyone their responsibility to keeping children safe. And refuse to gather in meetings where social distancing and masks are not present.
And, in some cases like Sarasota, school board members that have governance over superintendents and that order a mask mandate over a reluctant superintendent’s desire to do so.
And mayors such as NYC deBlasio ordering all Dept of Educ staff to be vaccinated by September 27th.
I was just thinking about that mandate. Cuomo would have said it was not the mayor’s wheelhouse, and would have pushed back the date by a few weeks. What a relief that pettiness is over.
Well, Cuomo was a proponent of smacking down deBlasio at every opportunity, just to show he was boss, even if he agreed with the proposal. His delaying the shut down in NYC likely cost thousands of lives.
Grace, do you live in NYC (and understand our situation...we are 5 generation NYCers)? Cuomo asserted himself to reign in our Mayor who insisted on closing all bridges and tunnels into NYC and the ensuing disaster. He certainly did not agree with the Mayor's proposal (and saying he did and spitefully disagreed to show off his power is false). Please stick to factual comments about something we here know to be different.
My little sister is a special ed teacher in NW Florida. At 57 she has serious chronic health problems but has too many years in to walk away and forfit her retirement. Sanitizing is left up to individual teachers. She must move from classroom to classroom daily to serve her students, no way she can keep her work spaces 'clean.' She's surrounded by a faculty of Trumpsters, all maskless, not following safe distance guidelines. She is hanging on by a thread, taking it one day at a time. I fear for her health, both mental and physical.
Thank you Penelope. I have worked on letter writing campaigns before but none so focused. Maybe letters to the Santa Rosa School System superintendent or school board members would help.
This is abuse and torture of teachers. This is criminal. Do their unions have any power? Or, more basically, does Florida allow teachers to unionize? Your sister may benefit from checking to see if she is eligible for disability. It is almost always a long process, but my friends who have needed it and been approved, have found ways to manage on it, plus whatever retirement benefits they qualify for at that point. This is just heartbreaking. All the Best.
Mary Pat, thanks for your thoughtful suggestions. I will encourage her to go ahead and apply for disability. The treatment of teachers for learning disabled students in this school has been shameful for years. With Covid it has become so much worse. And of course not being one of the Red Pack singles her out for special 'treatment.'
Sorry, this is one article about the anti defund police statements. It contains a post of his official statement. To be honest, the scariest part of this old news is section III, subsection C. It gives a glimpse into his regime-mind. All of it is nuts, but it goes to character.
The excessive number of Covid19 infections and deaths in some States is directly proportional to the number of their unvaccinated residents. I hope some will now get vaccinated but because of the gullibility of these people, I wouldn't overestimate that number. Even with FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, many of them will find another reason to remain unvaccinated. The ignorance of these people is unbelievable, especially here in Floriduh where It is perfectly respectable for them to advocate insane right wing positions. That's why the Trump family has moved here, why Newsmax is based here, and why DeSantis will probably get re-elected next year.
Here in Missouri the only law to defund the police came from the "Republican" legislature, which passed a law to defund any police department that dared to enforce Federal gun laws. Which, of course, was good news for gun nuts, street gangs, militias, and similar groups of lawless thugs.
"While pundits have compared the evacuation from Afghanistan to that from Saigon in 1975 after North Vietnamese forces took the city, in that case the U.S. rescued about 7000 people in only two days, from April 29 to April 30." Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were so much worse than Afghanistan... for those confused, listen to Lawrence O'Donnell at MSNBC; replays of last night and others will explain the mendacity of MSM covering this mess... and much more. Lawrence's judgement matches his knowledge... and character... on historical fact and the racist aspect, there is no one better.
One big difference was the Saigon evacuation was in the midst of enemy fire. I believe President Biden decided to go for the withdrawal now because of the agreement with the Taliban not to shoot at Americans as they withdrew.
Here's O'Donnell's interviews. Slide over to 15:00 to see the coverage on Afghanistan. One Interviewee was former Marine Lucas Kunce from Missouri is running for Senate. Somebody to watch?
Lynell, a friend of mine who lives in CA and very tech knowledgeable is helping the Kunce campaign on the tech end. She met him several years ago and is very high on him.
My fully vaccinated 14 y/o granddaughter developed a persistent hacking cough Sunday. My daughter was very concerned b/c my 12 y/o granddaughter had just received her first Pfizer vaccination on her birthday this past Friday.
Luckily it turns out it's most likely RSV virus that has recently popped up in schools all over Ohio. Sadly this is very early for this virus to arise, it's usually during the full as the weather starts to cool down.
Clearly this is yet another side effect of climate change. Ironically the best preventative measures for RSV are the same for Covid, wear a mask, wash your hands and maintain a safe distance.
Christopher, I am really appreciating your comments here lately. I'm sorry to hear your granddaughter is ill and hope she is back to feeling better very soon. I heard a report on NPR a couple weeks ago about RSV popping up, as you say, way too early in the season, and in people we wouldn't normally expect to see it in. I don't know there's any evidence to indicate this is related to climate change, but you are spot on about the precautions, which of course also apply to flu which may rear its ugly head any moment now.
Thanks for the kind words. Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit about climate change, I should've said possibly instead of clearly because I ASSuMEd everyone would consider the fact that the flu is weather-borne and our weather patterns today are unrecognizable with each passing year.
Wanted: Proofreader, lousy hours, no benefits and don't even think about getting paid.
Well, posted a bit below you'll learn it's not so much climate driven as I thought. The hyper protection mode most of us employed over the winter kept RSV at bay. It's been here all along and has started making its rounds because folks have been letting their masks down. Here's the link I ref'd above:
Wearing masks will help. Last year saw the lowest incidence of seasonal flu in many areas ever. Kids masked at school and not bringing it home was significant.
I believe RSV is circulating now because children were generally isolated from each other last winter, with remote schooling and parents working from home, no play dates, etc. RSV normally makes the rounds each winter, especially among young children. Now children have been socializing over the summer and then going back to school.
"The spike is somewhat logical, even if the timing is unusual. When the pandemic hit, sending people inside and behind masks, respiratory illnesses like RSV circulated at “historically low levels,” the CDC said in a report published today. Now that people are easing up on COVID-19 precautions, they are also coming back into contact with pathogens that have existed, but weren’t spreading much, throughout the pandemic. RSV infections began to tick upward in April 2021, the CDC says."
"In the U.S., RSV case counts are “incredibly high for the summer,” Antoon says, “but it’s about on par with what we see in the winter.” That suggests COVID-19 prevention delayed the normal RSV season. A similar RSV spike happened during Australia and South Africa’s summer seasons."
"But what’s harder to explain, Antoon says, is why RSV is circulating widely while some other respiratory viruses, like influenza, aren’t. (Though infection rates for parainfluenza, which causes croup in children, are also rising right now, he notes.)"
A good friend's newborn twin grandkids came down with RSV at 2 weeks of age, went back into NICU, okay now. Mom is breastfeeding, wasn't going anywhere. Wonder if RSV is endemic in hospitals now.
Couple different tracks to take tonite that are not connected, and I've said a fair-piece about Afganistan that don't bear repeating since I haven't heard much inconsistent with my take, but on the issue of the FDA approval:
I am grateful that this day has come, a day of reckoning for the, "I'm waiting for approval" folks... Biden was quick to say, "well, now do it." As he should.
Sadly I live in a mostly-blue if not purple state you recognize on the map as Minnesota. There are STILL, as of today, people here (because I've spoken with them) who do not take this green-light on Pfizer as a good reason to get vaccinated! Welllllll, what about Moderna? Welllll, you got the J&J shot so what about that? People, smart people, who seem to me to be actively trying to find excuses to JUST NOT GET THE JAB. The logic is now completely lost on me and I expect that if my small (read ONE) sampling-size is extrapolated, many will just ignore the FDA and continue with their inane logic and excuse(s). It is so frustrating that the RWM has gotten SUCH a strange-hold on these people that even the FDA doesn't sway them.
Like HCR; no answers offered here, just observations. I'm thinking that GOD (theirs apparently) needs to have an intervention ON AIR with TUCKER CARLSON to convince these people. The same ones that may believe that they saw jesus on a mud-splatter on the side of a semi-trailer and want to create a shrine, that this is the right thing to do... we have to get science out of the political fray. A thousand-curses on the extreme wing of the Republican party and the Orangutan for making it such. My words, again, "they are killing people."
I found this in a discussion of the 1905 Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in which Mr. Jacobson sued the state for mandating that he get vaccinated during a small pox epidemic.
“The Court mentioned 2 justifications for the Massachusetts law. First, it found that the state may be justified in restricting individual liberty “under the pressure of great dangers” to “the safety of the general public.” The statute, by its terms, encroached on liberty only when “necessary for the public health or safety.”2(p29) The smallpox epidemic proved the danger to the public. Second, by using the language of earlier decisions, the Court said that laws should not be arbitrary or oppressive. It also suggested that the state should use means that have a “real or substantial relation” to their goal.2(p31) In this case, vaccination was a reasonable means to achieve the goal of controlling the epidemic. It was not an arbitrary choice; it had a real and substantial relation to preventing the spread of smallpox.”
My morning paper had an oped article that also quoted this case: “Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one’s own will.”
THAT (last quote) is a super-fabulous one... Thanks to the hyperbolic (and dare I say partisan) America we live in now, those words seem more likely to be an OP-ED not from the SCOTUS, but there it is. Our nervous-navens (sp?) just don't feel compelled to compel the shots, but perhaps that is function of our own doing: the FDA didn't exist then. Reality did. When people started DYING the government stepped-up and stepped-in. We did it with SP, Polio, hell, it was never an OFFER to my folks to CHOOSE the MMR vax!?! We just all did it.
I appreciate our collective focus on safety as it relates to "new" drugs; nobody wants side-effects, but I analogize this to the SP or IV of 1918 more than a, "new," drug to combat acid-reflux...our own caution has created a regulatory environment that perhaps has us over-cautious (and I won't opine about that here) but it has certainly seeded the anti-vaxxers and those that would capitalize on that sentiment with ammo to create doubt. While that MAY be healthy in a way, it is not when they do it for political partisanship and us-vs-them purposes.
Based on the stare-decisis of the Jacobson case, it would seem that the government could mandate shots...but that requires the political will to test the case. Sigh. Biden is nibbling at the edges and so are some states, but the reality is that we have tested this case.
And some of my macho teen boy clients have admitted they are petrified of needles...that is also part of my talks with them. And I explain that the nurses who gave me my jabs were talking and asking me questions and I did not even notice the difference from the alcohol wipe and the quick injection because I: 1. Turned my head away and did not look at the needle and 2. Was busy chatting and it passed incredibly quickly.
Also, at least where I received my injections (Kaiser Permanente), the needles are so fine that insertion of the needle was barely perceptible and, as you write, over before you realize the needle has pierced the skin. Far less uncomfortable than the annual flu shot that I opt for.
When in conversation with these people, it's time to stop pestering them about the vaccine and start asking them what their plan is for treatment when they get infected and seriously ill. Will they then accept any treatment offered them, or will they be suspicious of that too? If accepting, what is the difference to them? Why is treatment, still relatively new as well, acceptable but not the vaccine? How do they know microchips aren't being seeded in their veins through their IV treatments or lungs via CPAP and BiPAP in hospital? I find that their gurus aren't spouting off about the evils of treatment, only the vaccine to prevent illness.
A note on vaccine hesitancy: I oversee a small staff of RNs at a youth detention center in NH. Most got their vaccine as soon as they could (myself included), one has even connived a way to get a booster.
Two of them, however, steadfastly refuse to get vaccinated. They are not Trumpers, they are not anti-science (one of them has research skills that surpass my own), they are not "millennial brats". In fact, they are the mainstays of their respective shifts, and excellent nurses. At my insistence, they wear masks at all time when at work. They are afraid. This fear is not reasonable, who would trade a case of COVID for a couple of jabs and a day or so of aches and pains?
The fear is real, almost primal, and requires understanding. None of my reasoned or emotion-based arguments budged either of them. Will FDA approval make a difference in their attitude towards getting vaccinated? I really hope so, but I doubt it. Would a vaccine mandate help? Honestly, one would likely get vaccinated, one would likely quit.
All I can really do is try to help them understand what they fear and how it is driving them to make the decisions they do. Their attitude towards vaccinations is the problem. This attitude is shaped more by what they fear, and less by what and whom they love. My job with them (and by extension all vaccine hesitant people) is to help them see this, and move toward love.
Interesting situation. I am glad you are taking the time with folks to look at and address the fear that motivates them. Sadly, I lack that patience with people.
Youre a good soul, Steve Abbott. I am so grateful for people like you with the patience and understanding and grace to persevere. I guess those are qualities that drew you to nursing and medicine to begin with. Admirable.
I'm a fully vaccinated RN in NH and looking forward to getting my booster shot at the end of October. My experience is mainly in school nursing; also obgyn. If one of your nurses quits, please look me up. I would LOVE to work with you!
Oh, Florida, Florida! Your people don't deserve these tragic numbers! Your people are being led by an ill-educated monster who doesn't care who lives or dies. What can we do to help you? To rid you of a virus more lethal than Covid 19 and its Delta variant -- the DeSantis/GOP plague? My heart aches for all your innocents, elderly, and BIPOC citizens who have been and continue to go through such suffering and ultimate death. It's unacceptable!
"Last week the state had more than 150,000 new coronavirus infections, and this morning about 75 doctors in Palm Beach Gardens staged a symbolic walkout from their hospitals in a direct appeal to the public to get vaccinated. They warned that they are burning out from caring for the sick. 'It's the worst it's ever been right now,' Dr. Robin Kass told Katherine Kokal of the Palm Beach Post. 'And I just think that nobody realizes that.'"
Start with the low hanging fruit. Get everyone you know who knows anyone in California to get off their butts and use their ballot to vote NO recall of Gov. Newsom and leave the rest blank.
“Why Should You Care if You Don’t Live in CA?" by Dan Pfeiffer:
For readers not in California, this recall election may feel distant or disconnected from your political concerns. But if California elects a MAGA-adjacent governor, the political ramifications will echo far beyond the Golden State’s borders. All across the country, Republicans will be emboldened. Money will pour into Republican campaign coffers. The message will be that if a Republican can win in California, they can win anywhere. Republican politicians will use Elder’s election to further embrace Trumpist positions.
The media will treat the election as a massive rebuke of Joe Biden and the Democratic agenda...A Newsom loss will also embolden the Republicans, like Ron DeSantis, that are playing politics with the pandemic; and possibly cause Democrats to pull back on the vaccine mandates necessary to slow the spread of COVID.
We are very much aware of our ridiculous ballot to save the governorship. One side is where one votes NO and then folds the ballot, puts it in the envelope, signs and dates the back of the envelope, and delivers it either to the nearest ballot box or the mailbox. I happen to live in the county seat so a ballot box is very convenient. Both hubs and I did that and pray everybody else has the good sense to do it also. CA cannot afford to have another Repub as our governor. Hell, I want us to secede from the Union and form our own country with Oregon, Washington, NY, and any other decent state.
Marlene, I hope your "we" is the entirety of eligible Democratic voters. A few days ago, Dem voters were looking too complacent, with polls showing only 51% No recall.
51% is WAY too close given that there are still several weeks until the formal election on Sept. 14. California voters, please vote NO on the recall but also vote for Kevin Faulconer who appears to the be only other candidate close to Elder in the polls. Faulconer, who I have known for almost 2 decades, would normally not be my choice but at least he's a more "traditional" Republican whose politics tend to support business interests over those of the people of California. He would be *miles* less destructive than Larry Elder.
Except from link posted above: "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
Postcards to Voters is an easy way to help get out the vote. “Over 3,200 volunteers like you have mailed 136,000+ fun, friendly, and fully-handwritten postcards to Democratic voters in California reminding them to vote No on the rigged Republican Recall. There's still plenty of time for you to write 5 or 10. We have over 120,000 volunteers enrolled. That means nearly 117,000 of you could still make a huge difference in the outcome of this Recall election by writing as few as five postcards this week.” https://postcardstovoters.org/about/
That site has postcard picture templates that can be easily downloaded. I took a few favs and will send a bulk email to all my CA friends and family with a note. Easy peasy.
Honestly Ellie. Not sure what I’d do if there was not this agency and urgency created amongst people to look outside their state borders and support efforts and elections around our country. There’s always at least one thing that can be accomplished daily to support our democracy and defeat despair. The organizations available through technology alone are creating a communication and movement that is almost “unseen” in terms of visible protest but gaining a lot of steam. Onward!
Working hard locally but talking with California groups also. No victory allowed to slip through a crack.
Thank you for this link. However, I disagree with not *also* voting for an alternative even when voting NO on the recall. There are 2 Republicans leading the pack and one would be an unmitigated disaster (Larry Elder). The other, Kevin Faulconer, my erstwhile mayor in San Diego, is a typical business-oriented Republican. So, I recommend a vote for Kevin F. as well as a NO vote, just in case the recall succeeds.
Excerpted from the link above: "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
Yes, this is an issue with the Democratic Party. The party line is to abstain from the Part 2, but as you articulate, if the majority vote on recall is yes, then the Part 2 winner is by only a plurality, and the choices are very scary.
I’m very worried about this possibility and will be posting on my social media platform hoping to reach my California friends, or anyone who lives in CA to vote exactly as you recommend. ❤️🤍💙
Please let your California friends know just who Larry Elder is. "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
Good morning Rowshan. Now that the former is no longer president, I can indulge my total angst at how he trashed the esteem and regard of the Office of President. And I’m not sure when a common respect for that highest office will be renewed again. To see what politicians will do in a current moment of governance to secure, not the health safety and welfare of their constituents but future votes in an election, is way beyond the pale. The state of Florida sits back and just watches DeSantis campaign for the Oval Office in 2024 without much of a thought of even the governor’s race next year. And his supporters and wingmen in the legislature? More and more bills and orders just to highlight the continuing Trump agenda. Well, really, the agenda of those thinking to decide what we are to be as a nation.
I look to the people but do not find outrage or direct defiance. It’s more a smoldering apathy at the state of things.
I’m thinking about this pretty deeply as summer wanes and I’m looking at things harvested this year besides gardens and crops. Fall is almost upon us. I see the pumpkin frappes and lattes already at the coffee kiosk. People here in Florida are good at pretending all is really ok somehow in spite of the deafening sound of bullsh*t in the air. Americans are so good at finding that hollow optimism.
I am so sorry, Christine! It's the apathy that is so distressing in the first instance, and then, the "hollow optimism." How can we open their eyes and infuse them with proper rage at the indignity of their plight?
As discussed above and following suggestions about the organizations available, we are “taking to the streets” in a different way. Just the increase of effort generated on this forum through sharing…calling, writing postcards and letters, staying informed, participating locally with League of Women Voters for example, attending local board and commission meeting listening in or participating in a podcast….action will counter despair. It’s the only way.
We know that through our years of teaching students. Best form of representation.
IMO the former guy unleashed not only the white supremacist/domestic terrorism groups, but the anti-government factions that had not been participating in the political process. He installed people diametrically opposed to the mission of cabinet level departments, and attacked foe and friend alike in his usual bullying manner (creating derogatory nicknames for everyone). When the GOP embraced QAnon, admitted they had no platform except fealty to the one who was saying out loud he wanted to stay in power and pass the position on to his children in an autocratic or monarchy-style departure from democracy, and then entrench in obstruction rather than offer solutions, policies, or aid even to their own constituents, then it was clear that rather than yield power to the majority rule they were going to burn the whole system down instead.
I recently moved from CA and having a house built in Bradenton (why is a different conversation and has nothing to do with the state but my own personal situation). I'm desperately seeking involvement and sanity. I joined local Dem club but disappointed so far in the lack of action. I could use some suggestions, if you are so willing. Thanks!
Even if Floridians do realize it, what can they do, other than not re-elect deSantis? Politicians who don’t do right by their constituents don’t seem to have shortened careers.
Too many do not realize how ignorant and gullible too many Floriduh residents are. Why do you think the Trump family has moved there and why Newsmax is based there? It's a Republican petri dish for right wing conspiracy theory.
I support mandates but they alone will not work and will cause strong blowback. Many of the vaccine hesitant will become vaccine resistant when it's mandated, because they choose "freedom," sometimes over life itself. A NY Times video interviewed people hospitalized for Covid-19 after refusing vaccination. One of them soon died. Here's the link to that video: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/opinion/arkansas-vaccine-hesitant.html
The Washington Post had an article today that mentioned a FaceBook private group that hosts civil, evidence-based discussions among anti-vaxxers, those on the fence, and vaccine supporters. It's called Vaccine Talk.
In this line I'm trying to have conversations with one of my neighbors who is vaccine resistant for some understandable difficulties with the medical profession in the past. I am being very careful to listen. In our conversation my friend decried mandating teachers to be vaccinated and considers our governor a dictator because of this mandate. It's as if we live in different worlds, but we have a trusting friendship, and the conversation continues. We keep a safe distance outdoors, and he knows I am fully vaccinated. He respects my preference for that.
eventually, when the deniers are themselves denied access to the grocery store, the nail salon, pubs, bars, gyms, clothing stores, etc, for personal and proprietary reasons, the resistance will begin to break down. One thing we seem to value above the advice of experts is the right of private entities to set their own standards for access at the threshold of their front doors.
It's why we don't have a seatbelt or helmet law but for some reason it's okay to impose on a women's freedom to make choices about her reproductive health.
Yeah, the NH R's should change their slogan..."Live Free THEN Die (i.e. from botched self-induced late term abortions (All 24 week abortions now forbidden in almost every circumstance and MD's will be prosecuted, incarcerated. and heavily fined), being shot anywhere (open carry now allowed EVERYWHERE, including schools) refusal to mandate masks...
Yep, Lynell; death does not come easily or good in this disease.
I saw a demonstrator with a sign that equated vaccination with tyranny. People in my small town are yelling at folks to 'take off those useless masks'. We have had our first case of community-acquired covid. Masses of tourists have descended, most of whom are mask-compliant. This is a long way from over.
Flying almost 5000 people a day, for 10 straight days and counting. It boggles the mind. That picture showing 823 on one aircraft! I live about 50 miles south of Fort McCoy WI and yesterday saw a couple airliners flying north overhead. We are nowhere near a normal flight pattern. I assume it was Afghanis being rescued. Thanks to all who are dedicated to this overwhelming humanitarian assignment.
I oversee a Free Store where we have LOTS of clothes & shoes. I'm going to find out how we can send some of it there for people. I'll drive an hour - it's the least I can do!
The damage done to this country by the anti-vaxxers is incalculable. And, as soon as the FDA came down with its decision, I immediately started hearing new excuses as to why they still won’t get vaccinated: The approval process was “rushed”, and/or was “political”. Anti-vaxxers will always find an excuse to do the wrong thing. That they are destroying our medical system in the process is irrelevant to them because, you know, “FREEDOM”. 🙄🙄🙄
I read in our local paper yesterday about ppl who need blood transfusions asking for blood from UNvaccinated. Otherwise the “chip” might come through, I guess. Is there no end to stupidity?
“The chip come through” that takes the cake, I know we live in strange times, but that has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard, it’s so beyond stupid that I know you couldn’t make it up.
I think that it has become a general anti-vaccination position. And, I have little doubt that if someone does any digging, they will find that Russian troll farms are behind the movement............
I heard yesterday from a nurse friend with nurses in her office who have been refusing the vaccine that now they're refusing it "because it's mandated", their newest excuse.
Not to mention the Taliban militants (5) who were arrested when they got off the French evacuation plane in Paris. At least Biden and other governments have the sense to pass through checking stations in the Middle East to make sure they know what they are getting in terms of refugees.
I imagine it may be complicated. It would certainly depend on German law. Plus, if it was on a United States military base what are the implications of that. I know babies born to US military serving overseas and US citizens. I imagine the baby is a refugee with all that implies.
Right. In Germany, where the Afghan woman’s baby was born, citizenship is not established through birth on German territory but by descent from a German legal mother and/or a German legal father. But since the baby was delivered in the cargo bay of a US aircraft, it is not clear which laws will apply in this particular case: German laws, US laws or if the baby will be considered a citizen of Afghanistan, the country to which her mother belongs.
I know I’m not telling you anything new, but the operation in Saigon on April29-30 was preceded by roughly 1.5 months of evacuation (US citiens and Vietnamese both) leading up to the two last days - the fall of Saigon. I think your phrasing may leave too firma an impression that only the two days of “operation Frequent Wind” constituted the full evacuation effort. All the best.
And still my 89 year old mother in Ocala Florida keeps her ivermectin prescription close by and takes a huge overdose of vitamin C daily thanks to a Qanon relative. They’re all waiting for Trump to descend from a cloud and make the world safe for them. Of course, Biden is to blame for everything…
Thank you. She had me and my brother too young and failed to protect us from violence. My brother died young. And still hope dies last. My three daughters are each a tribute to hope: a chemical engineer working on sustainable energy projects; an athlete who trains girls and has a traveling lacrosse team; a ballerina who’s studying for the MCats.
Sounds like yours is a story of resilience in a context of intergenerational trauma. You made very different choices, to the benefit of your children! You are clearly and rightfully proud of your children, and I hope you are as clearly and rightfully proud of yourself and your parenting! You are also another example of what I learned from reading memoirs of Holocaust survivors, that hope is a survival skill.
I always think one of the most miraculous things is when people who have experienced dysfunction, neglect and/or abuse at the hands of their parents grow up to overcome all that and choose to live a different sort of life rather than what they knew in childhood, and if they become parents themselves, to be very different parents. Ellie rightly calls this resilience but I don't think that's a strong enough word. It's a miracle, really, when people resist the unconsicous pull of the known and familiar patterns, recognize the deep pain this caused them, accept help and do all the necessary work on themselves to choose a different, healthier way.
I think it a miracle that the love that so readily pours out of children is the balm that can heal the wounds that adults carry from their own childhoods.
D. W. Winnicott's concept of the Good Enough Mother is that children flourish with a good enough level of love and consistency in attuning to their needs and meeting their needs, less than perfectly.
My friend here in Germany has horses. She told me that if a horse seems likely to have worms, the horse’s feces has to be sent for analysis before ivermectin can be given. The reason is that it is so poisonous - for horses!
I'm here in VA. I can buy the wormers without a mandatory "analysis." However, I always get a fecal count before administering an ivermectin or other paste wormer. If the count is below a certain amount, the horse will be fine without it.
Like Lynell, I do a fecal count before administering dewormer to my horses. One reason is that the parasites are becoming resistant to the dewormers, and there is very little research into developing new products to overcome the drug resistance because dewormer is so cheap. So I try to use it as little as possible, but not because it’s toxic for horses. When I do use it, I see zero side effects.
I had a puppy with mange and almost (accidentally) killed the poor dear with just a speck too much vet prescribed Ivermectin. She was in a coma for a few hours, made it through after a $2800 emergency vet bill... but was never "quite right". :*(
How awful for you! My dog picked up mange mites somewhere a few years back and, once diagnosed (not so easy other than assumption due to the itch, hair thinning and thickening of the edges of the ears), they were gone with a single dose of Revolution. Because he was a small dog and slept in my bed, I ended up with a horribly inflamed and itch back because mites then transferred from my sheets to me. Thankfully, animal mange mites can't survive on a human, so they died off quickly and a thorough hot laundry cleared the bed sheets & covers. But I can tell you that the itch was worse than poison oak.
The article is actually from 'The Jerusalem Post' and was posted on the covid19criticalcare website as an "In the Media" inclusion. The particular experiment referenced virus shedding in non-or low-symptomatic non-hospitalized covid positive people.
unfortunately, this does not reflect the benefits that have been happening world wide, in the places that had no other choice. but we do love to polarise and take a side. i really wish we could have open curious minds... may you and yours remain well.
Ever since POTUS 45 legitimized the mainstreaming of blatant lies as an acceptable alternative for the truth, we have observed mass lunacy in the form of the denial of normally authoritative sources of information regarding COVID and vaccines. When physicians have to demonstrate in the streets to draw attention to the exhaustion of the hospital workforce over a disease easily controlled by several available vaccines (the J&J version only takes one shot and does not use the mRNA/viral capsule mechanism), we've sunk to a new low. If we can't trust our doctors to speak the truth, who's left whom we can trust? Shall we ask priests and nuns to opine on medical facts? Shall we go back to questioning the negative health impacts of cigarette smoking? What about driving under the influence of mind altering substances? What about seat belts? How many anti-vax'ers have the same insane distrust of the influenza vaccine? Year by year, flu vaccines are sometimes far less effective than our 3 most widely utilized COVID vaccines and they still limit influenza dramatically from the pre-vaccine era. I'm not angry or outraged, simply saddened and deeply disappointed. When we have ALL been offered the voluntary and FREE opportunity to do the right thing for ourselves and others, on good authority from national experts and nearly universal support of the health care community, our country is still barely over 50% vaccinated when all age groups, all regions and political persuasions included in the count. I didn't realize just how collectively dense and deluded we are as a nation. Freedom to choose does not equate with reasonable, responsible, mature, trusting or any number of other positive attributes that support the selfless and philanthropic act of getting vaccinated.
Well said, sir. As an RN knee deep in the Covid response since March 2020, I can assure you my colleagues and I are exhausted and disheartened. There have been so many needless deaths, it's the equivalent of mass suicide.
Stepping into the language of my former career, I think that while this could be described as mass "suicide", I suspect that there might be a strong case for "mass homicide" in places like Floriduh and Texass (along with some others, but those were the only two I could think of clever misspellings for.)
I have said this before here: Florida Gov and the man he is emulating should be charged with Crimes Against Humanity.
Yes! Mass murder.
Oh, and blessings to you and your "tribe": thank you for all you are doing for all of us.
Southern Oregon, according to the O, is one the nation's hot spots. I was on a thread yesterday with some locals and some of them were opposing mandates, while speaking about the need in some places for field hospitals. One person tried to turn it into a argument about abortion. I had to work hard to remain polite.
It's stunning how disconnected some people see their CHOICE from the consequences.
That is amazing to me too. A lot of these people are the same people who have complained from the beginning about lockdowns, masks, vaccines, other protocols.
I grew up in Southern Oregon, I have family there still. Those folks are nigh onto crazy. My sister works at a large discount grocer, and is constantly berated about requirements fo shopping there (masks/distancing) that are government mandated. My ex sister-in-law is 10 days out of hospital following a hospitalization for Covid (anti vaccination). They are lunatics.
I have always seen it as place that is beyond the pale and often beyond the law. I just read an article this week about illegal marijuana grows there. I thinking now of the Illinois Valley area. My sojourns to southern Oregon have been to Ashland and Jacksonville and the beautiful awesome Crater Lake. Think we also visited the Oregon Caves. I can't imagine living there. I grew up in northern Indiana and many of my ex-classmates are Trumpers.
On my goodness. You are amazing
There IS sort of a comparison that could be made there but not worth the effort is it?
Choice, right? Masking can be a choice, but not abortion...
Jawjah? We have a Moron In Charge, who's leaving masks and vaccines up to the populace, who "have good sense." Maybe not, since our cases are spiking.
Exactly!
Ally, when I first read "...I could think of clever misspellings for," I immediately thought you meant "cleaver." That would be a way of committing suicide. It surely would be a way done by the Taliban.
With gratitude, admiration, and the wish that people wake up and get the shot.
thank you, me too!
May I suggest you read Dan Rather's letter:
https://steady.substack.com/p/dear-american-healthcare-workers/comments
This made me cry. My nursing colleagues are experiencing moral distress at a magnitude never felt before. Wearing full PPE (not a simple face mask but a tight N95 filter mask, with a respirator hood, covered head to toe in an impermeable gown, gloves, and booties) for 12+ hours, being the surrogate for families at the bedside who can only say their goodbyes to a loved one via an iPad or telephone... this is not work for the feint of heart. We are warriors, indeed, but we are tired. Nurses have been the most trusted profession in America for over 20 years, yet we are now mocked, called 'sheep', and vilified. Our frustration and anger arises from the willful behavior of those who should know better (politicians, and yes, even some renegade health professionals) who have stymied the conquest of this pandemic. I used to believe we were a better people than this, but the truth is now out there.
Wearing full PPE for 12 hours is akin to torture, IMHO. And doing it to care for folks who declined to protect themselves rubs salt into the sacrifice.
My mom was an RN why back when 1930s etc. worked in poorer section of NYC as a public health nurse. # Cannot imagine the sheer frustration alone in being denigrated for DOING YOUR JOB & saving peoples lives. There should be an actual true public outroar towards these people who truly ARE sheep - allowing it to go on & treating all of this as if it were "one side" of the issue - rather than the absolute CAUSE of this pandemic right now is just asinine! Of course you & your colleagues wear full PPE! Thank God for that. The thought (or lack of) process in these individuals - whether "politicians" or folks who follow behind? Beyond belief. Thank you and all others for doing your humane jobs. (sorry not putting as well as I should)
This work is extremely physically demanding in ordinary times. To be doing it in full PPE is beyond description. I only occasionally have to put all that on for a half hour or so at a time to test an ill student and I can barely stand it. I DO NOT know how you and your colleagues are doing it 12+ hours a day over and over and over again. It's incredibly concerning to me that so many nurses are not getting vaccinated themselves, which contributes to others not trusting the vaccine either. So not only are some of us exhausted in every way by the work, but there is also the tension of knowing some of your colleagues, maybe many, depending on where you work, are contributing to the problem. But we bite our tongues for the sake of not making morale any worse.
Well, as of yesterday, with FDA approval of Phizer vaccine, hospitals & nursing homes, schools as well as many other businesses can now make it a condition of employment to get vaccinated. Especially in the health care field is this necessary.
Yes, and I caught a bit of an excellent Q&A session on Maine public radio this afternoon in which the doctor being fielded questions was asked about the mandate in Maine for HCWs to be vaccinated. He very calmly and reasonably explained that for many years being vaccinated and/or tested for several diseases we could unknowingly give to colleagues or patients has been a condition of employment and Covid-19 and the associated vaccines are no different. He maintained that it is still a personal choice; one can choose to accept the conditions of employment or go elsewhere. Loved the low key no nonsense approach.
Just try to remember there are many of us out here who admire, respect and think of you often. Please pass on to your colleagues that you are appreciated and are amazing!
Thank you
Thanks, really good intelligent read.
I read your comment, Nancy, too quickly and thought the last sentence said "needle-less" deaths. Same thing, actually.
true that, so to speak!
with admiration and peace.
Thank you
I know you've done your best. This pandemic has certainly shown us who are reasonably sane and heroic. Thank you for being you.
I cannot even imagine. Thank you.
thank you
Exactly 💯
Nathan, 💯💯❤️ I love your comment. Thank you for saying it so well. 🙏
Simply put, if everyone would just "do the right thing" there would be no need for mandates.
Simply put, if everyone would just "do the right thing" we wouldn't need any laws and enforcement. Not reality though.
Opponents to vaccination and masks have emphasized their personal rights. But rights alone do not empower doing whatever one wants to do. All rights come with responsibilities. Among the primary responsibilities that we all have is active consideration of the well being of those around us.
One responsibility for not being vaccinated ought to be their covid-related healthcare costs are on them, not the public dole or commercial insurances.
I too am "saddened and deeply disappointed", but conclude that in protection of my loved ones and fellow reasonable citizens, I need to repel these people. They are, in fact, mentally and physically dangerous.
There are multiple reasons why people are hesitant to take the vaccine, so it is not a homogeneous group. But those who are also against masks and other public health measures are the group that needs to be called out. We need to say it like it is: their vaccine hesitancy is because they are afraid, unwilling to take even a small personal risk to help everyone else; and they are against masks because they fear asphyxiating themselves with their own halitosis.
I live in Portland, Oregon. This morning, I visited a hospital for tests needed before major neck surgery next month. I spoke at length with a nurse practitioner, who made no secret of her utter frustration with people who refuse to get vaccinated. "I can't believe we're going through this again," she said, shaking head.
The hospital is packed with Covid patients, most unvaccinated from rural counties and who don't understand that they could be depriving local residents of emergency medical care. She said most of the deaths are people in their 20s and 30s. And, as we've all heard before, some critically ill Covid patients plead for vaccination, only to be told it's too late.
There's a chance my surgery could be delayed because of the Covid surge, she said. If it isn't, my wife must drop me off at the hospital and wait not there but at home to hear from the surgeon. In the end, that's not a big deal unless something goes awry.
Like many critically ill Covid patients, I will be intubated. Of course, some of them never wake up. I will but won't remember the invasive procedure, though a sore throat will be a stark reminder.
Michael, hope you will post here a day or two before you go to the hospital. I would like us to be in touch. Salud!
Thank you. Will do.
Let's face it; hospitals are "concentrators" of sick folk. Hospitals go to great lengths to protect one patient from another, and there is no published evidence I know of claiming that you are more likely to contract COVID by entering a hospital than you are by entering a grocery store. Masks, distancing, hand washing are effective deterrents. Vaccination protects you very well when you enter that environment for elective health care. But, 90% of the disproportionate occupancy of hospital beds and ICU beds by COVID patients would be avoided by preemptive vaccination. Prolonged ventilation of severely injured lungs leads to tracheostomies, durable IV access, feeding tubes and other procedures, which means that critically ill COVID patients are entering operating rooms and other procedural suites as well. A stressed health care delivery system is not the place I'd prefer to receive care if I had a choice in the matter.
Today, Oregon governor Kate Brown reinstated a recommendation for use of masks in outdoor public places due to the Delta varient surge here. Oregon is in the mid-to-upper ranks of states with vaccinated populations, but absolutely not immune to the impacts of a viral surge on the health care industry, particularly hospitals, where the sick are concentrated. An increasing number of reports document breakthrough infections in vaccinated persons, but, thankfully, generally not serious enough to result in hospitalization. My former associates testify to the realities of hospital based practice in our major metropolitan hospitals. I actually do have some insight into the situation; and no hospital is spared. It is not unsafe to enter a hospital, particularly if you are vaccinated, but you'll be in proximity to more ill persons with known COVID than elsewhere in public.
I did, in fact, get your point. If you read carefully, you'll distinguish what I said from fear-mongering. My goal was not to scare anyone, rather to further illuminate consequences of decisions made by persons who haven't availed themselves of vaccination at this point where they are broadly available. The first half of my initial comment today established what I think about the overall safety of entering a hospital. The second half spoke to the level of stress and fatigue that is a current reality in hospitals. You are free to do what you wish, think what you wish, feel what you wish to feel about the facts.
Well said, Nathan.
beautifully written
If I wake up with superpowers, I will compel Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott to spend one week working in Covid ICU units and then publicly describe their experiences and observations. What they do next will show us if they have empathy for other people. Or are just brazenly ambitious, power-hungry politicians for whom human suffering is an acceptable means to an end.
Without PPE. And having to do the cleanup: emptying bedpans, cleaning rooms of patients who died, etc.
👍👍👍👍
...and have to tell a family member about the death.
These words...." just brazenly ambitious, power-hungry politicians for whom human suffering is an acceptable means to an end"..... Yes.
Michael, You have prescribed a forced empathy treatment. What do I think of already sick and suffering patients being exposed to DeSantis and Abbott -- not so much.
Good point Fern ... yikes!
Yes, I imagined lying in a hospital bed and awakening to DeSantis' face. Oh, Cynthia, I saw that now as I wrote it. Excusing me, while I go to throw up.
Okay, I'll be the meany in the room - if they are people who CHOSE not to be vaccinated and/or wear masks, I think there is some justice in their awakening to the faces of those two.
Hi meany. There is no guarantee that all the patients D and A might encounter are anti-vaxxers with covid. Hospitals cannot fill beds according to D's and A's work schedule. You re also ignoring the nurses, aids and other hospital staff. You don't want to mean to them, do you?
OK, here's my ultimate meany moment...when the beds and supplies run out, how about they go to the back off the line...? ( I know there is no line, but...)
Good point. I just figured while we were fantasizing extreme improbabilities, we could also make sure that everyone was matched up appropriately...
🤣
🤣
Me too!
I vote super powers for you, Michael.
So mote it be. I don't think they could make it for a week. I would settle for a 24-hour shift where each idjt would be responsible for physical care of actual patients.
And they don’t get to sleep more than 3 hours a night.
And when their bases are no longer alive...?!
Not gifted at long-term effects thinking.
Good one, you funny meanie.
Certainly an example of the need for better teaching of critical thinking skills.
Michael, I think your second choice sums it up for them.
Michael, Your last sentence says it all.
I suspect one day would bring them to their knees begging for mercy or their Mamas.
Thank you, Beth. I would settle for them on their knees through eternity.
I hope out of this we stop seeing wars as solutions to anything. A retired Air Force colonel one said to me that the military's job was to keep the peace, not to make war. That has always stuck with me. Unfortunately, just like drug lords are economically dependent on selling drugs no matter what the cost is to the populace; the Defense Contractors are economically dependent on selling weapons again at a very high cost to the populace. The politicians are addicted to these campaign donors.
Today I saw a Facebook comment pointing out that criticism of the USPS for losing money is unwarranted: "It's a service. It doesn't lose money. It costs money. No one says the military loses $750b a year." (Thank you, Joan.)
With Republican moves toward privatization of public services USPS, education, and the military, can we imagine reading, "The privatized military is successfully operating at a profit." Or how profit motive, rather than national defense, would be governing life and death decision-making on a worldwide scale???
This profit motive rules "healthcare"
You are so sadly, tragically right. "Medical necessity" correlates to medical practitioners' profit, not to mention insurance companies.
Medicare Advantage plans are a great example of privatization of healthcare. They are paid by the number of people enrolled in their plan. The insurance companies use the Medicare dollars to advertise their plan to sell it. The more enrollees the more money they are paid. If you are a high user they will offer you a free work up then you can be part of the high risk pool and the for profit insurance company will be paid more money by Medicare for those patients. They make their money my limiting tests and interventions. They sell their plans by the perks like meals after a hospital stay. I would rather have my healthcare dollars go to providing healthcare than advertising plans so they can make profits.
I’m very happy with my MC plan. “Perks” like vision and dental coverage, which are not covered by standard Medicare, add to my overall health status. I’ve got holistic coverage rather than piecemeal coverage.
They're great plans until you get sick. That's when you find out that copays are much higher than standard Medicare.
Same experience for me, and copays or my share has always seemed fair, in the years where health events happened
My Medicare Advantage plan has been more than reasonable in covering my care. Aside from the year-long delays in getting from a vertebrae displacement, requiring numerous hoops to go through before authorizing the necessary surgery, my copays were $30/doctor visits, $0/MRIs, $10/PT visits , $100/spinal injection, and $250/surgery & 2 day hospital stay. I added up all the charges on the various statements I received for the surgery and they totaled $105,000. They are losing money on me.
As a provider the authorization process and having to justify why the patient needs the procedure to the insurance company is all about the insurance making money by denying services. If you decide you are not happy with your advantage plan after 3 years then supplemental plans have the right to deny you coverage based on pre existing conditions . Many specialists are not willing to be on their panels because of this. They also reimburse the providers at a lower rate and if the paper trail is not complete the provider is denied payment for their services. Where I live it was impossible to find mental health providers who would accept the advantage plans.
I was recently gobsmacked to learn that a routine blood test for cancer was not routinely covered by a patient's Medicare coverage (no idea which plan she has) even though she has a history of cancer!
From the wide variance in responses, it seems that the disparities among communities, providers, and companies point to the real problems with MA plans - there is no equity. I believe the impetus for Medicare-for-all is that there would be equity of benefit and that doesn't seem possible with private insurance staying in the mix and with differences between states. We older white folx with decent coverage in areas with plenty of providers in our plans' networks feel no need to change because we may be getting better coverage than we've ever had before in our long lives. However, it's clear even from this small sampling that there is a big equity issue when the entirety of those "covered" is considered.
For me, it was a no-brainer to sign up for the County provided PPO medicare supplement. My monthly payment is $385 but I've had no co-pays other than for my meds, no charges for labs etc. The only significant bills since 2014 have been $200 for my knee replacement surgery and $90 for meds (I brought all my own meds with me) during my 2 week nursing home stay (which WAS covered!) after the replacement and $650 for a ceramic crown on my dental coverage (that was my co-pay; the total was $1300) (My 35 years as a nurse @ the County Nursing Home has served me well.)
It often does. The US war in Iraq, Geo W edition, was sold to the country based on lies. It’s real purpose was twofold: family feud between the Bushes and Saddam Hussein, and opportunities for war profiteering.
And W advanced into Iraq to protect US access to oil.
Gee, Ellie, a private military? It's eye-popping when you put it that way.
It’s actually a bit of a reality. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/troop-levels-are-down-but-us-says-over-18-000-contractors-remain-in-afghanistan-1.659040
THIS, is the eye popping immorality of our current "military". When we don't have enough volunteer soldiers to do our bidding, we hire out the job(s). We enlist and train our soldiers on the idealism and patriotism of defending our country. They work ALONGSIDE their buddies who are "private contractors". Their buddies make at least 5x the salary our soldiers make. Our soldiers do not "reup" when their enlistment is over, instead, they do the same job they had been doing, except now they're bringing home $200,000/yr instead of $40,000. Who can blame them?
I am glad we're out. Maybe we'll need a draft in our next war, then I predict we won't be fighting for 20 years.
The draft was the basis for much of the anti war sentiment among the young adults in the 60s. There was great resentment of the college deferments from those who didn’t attend college, and a growing understanding of the inequity among those who did. All supported by the music of the day.
Exactly.
Re-instituting a draft will be effective only if the sons and daughters of the Senators, Representatives, and military-industrial complex are not allowed exemptions because of bone spurs or other doubtful disqualifiers.
GOP is willing to pay private soldiers good wages to make sure their personal military remains loyal to them.
This has been a well-covered reality since the stories about Blackwater came out in 2003.
I know next to nothing about this, but I've heard that privatization of the prison system isn't going very well.
The prison owners are doing just fine, the inmates, not so much.
Very good points, Ellie
(As far as USPS, a goodly part of the money losses is a result of the "pre-paid" requirement for pensions.)
President Biden’s one statement days ago, and not highlighted at all in any media source that I saw was this. Wars cannot be waged anymore to counter terrorism. There is technology, there are intelligence and counter-measures now that are more effective and that will be pursued over war on the ground.
If one really engages with younger generation on war, this is usually their comment including words like “old school” or comments like “stupid people killing war machine”. At this point I usually ask them if they are referring to the military industrial complex. “Yeah, guns and money.” Mentioned hundreds of times in their music and domestically on our streets.
akin to what Dana Coester calls the white supremacist industrial complex.
https://webx.prod.stitcher.com/show/our-body-politic/episode/documenting-extremist-youth-recruitment-the-power-of-protest-and-examining-our-narratives-about-afghanistan-86243325
I remembered this statement of Biden's.
It is also important for legit news outlets to stop pandering to the lies of Crocker and Panetta, who are both--inexplicably in my book so they have to be on someone's payroll--gleefully trying to destroy Biden.
Everything you've "said" here today, Cathy, really resonates with me. Sorry for all my "Likes" you have to deal with!
Same here!
Notes from the Press Paroxysm as the Evacuation Flights Continue
paroxysm | ˈparəksɪz(ə)m |
noun
a sudden attack or outburst of a particular emotion or activity: a paroxysm of weeping.
• Medicine a sudden recurrence or attack of a disease: paroxysms of ataxia and shaking.
I had to look up paroxysm and it meant what I hoped it would. Here's the opening paragraph for this piece and the link to finish it. Particularly insightful for people like me who need to understand why it's going down like it is in Afghanistan and how the media is doing a piss-poor job reporting about it.
<start snippet>
By Josh Marshall
|
August 23, 2021 10:48 a.m.
On the Sunday shows yesterday and across newspaper editorials you can see repeated claims of a military debacle for the US in Afghanistan, perhaps the worst in decades, perhaps the worst ever. Seriously, look at the quotes. And yet as far as I know not a single member of the US military has died or even been injured in this operation. In fact, it doesn’t appear that a shot has even been fired in anger against them. We don’t judge military victories or defeats by body counts or casualty lists. But surely this figures into the equation. The US withdrew its forces according to plan. It then reoccupied the civilian airport in Kabul. Since last weekend the US military operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport has overseen the evacuation of more than 40,000 people, and it continues at a rapid clip. So about 36 hours of confusion and then a fairly orderly and rapid airlift over the last week.
<end snippet>
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/notes-from-the-press-paroxysm-as-the-evacuation-flights-continue
The only good thing about the Afghanistan reporting is that if Trumpers and other GOP loyalists think the press is blindly pro-Democrat, this proves them wrong.
“The press” only cares about profit. Since Biden has been President, their viewership has decreased simply because people are breathing a little easier. They need to seek chaos to bring their viewership back to pre-Biden levels. It’s infuriating. Fox is fox, but all the legitimate news outlets are no more concerned about the good of the country. It’s all capitalism run amuck.
Cheri, There are solid news and public affairs reports available to us in various forms. Fox stands for itself not other outlets. Corporate ownership of media, particularly of local television news, has negative effects, but that is not the entire picture. I was an associate producer of the daily news broadcast of a local public television station and worked in public affairs for many years in commercial and public television. It is disquieting for me to read generalizations, which state that 'The press' only cares about profit'. Many reporters, researchers, production staff, writers, etc., of public affairs programming work very long days, endure many sleepless nights, dig hard to get the facts and find good sources. That does not include the deadlines, synthesizing information to compose a meaningful story and a lot more. Where do we get the investigative pieces; up-to-date news of the day; deeper understanding of public figures and the functions of government; entertainment reviews; innovations; business outlooks; sports reports, etc.? Imagine Democracy without the Free Press.
What you describe was my experience working as reporter/anchor in two commercial stations (ABC & NBC) in Orlando back in the mid-80`s....hours and hours(happily) covering space industry, hurricanes, local politics, theme park fueled growth, water, Cuban connection, etc. Producers worked long and hard to get a good news orogram on the air. At that time one of the stations was locally owned and we had to attend to community needs to keep our license. It is such a different story now as outside companies own the stations. In one case, recently, the first thing they did was to cut ( significantly) the news staff, firing or retiring the highest paid veterans who actually had networks of sources and historical memory. The suspicion by those who work there is that the outside owners/investors will keep the station for a few years and then sell it to someone else. Having been a hard working reporter I am the first to stand up for hard working journalists. It is not their fault that journalism is often the victim of absentee ownership.and changing business models in the local commercial arena. The first 11 minutes of local news casts in our commercial stations are typically a "crime and accident" police report; no one is assigned to cover local government as a "beat" and I cannot remember the last time I saw an in -depth,investigative report done by a local reporter. News directors cannot afford to dedicate a crew to that kind of time consuming digging. I hear this repeatedly from friends still in the business and from those who have had to leave it to teach or do PR or other work.
Our local PBS station (under the umbrella of a University) is constantly struggling for money to do what it does best but getting the best national PBS programming costs local stations more money than people realize. Frontline and other similar investigative programs take time, personnel and money that local stations do not have. And every year someone in Washington objects to "paying" for PBS!!!
So, while I am a cheerleader for good journalism I am watching it gasping for breath locally, both because of changing business models and because the news competition arena has exploded with 24 hr news channels and ubiquitous social media sites. Our local NPR radio station (also always needing money) is an oasis of good programming. Not sure how long they will be able to hold on.
Thank you for your continual, substantive sharings here. You must have been a great producer.
Carol, your comment strongly registered with me. One of the big problems we have in our country is the drastic weakening of local news on the air and in print. It is a crisis and part of our loss of community. When I was an executive producer of a consumer documentary series on WCBS-TV, everyone was fired except for me and my boss. It was brutal and unforgivable as well as the beginning of the end of my work there. The Free Press is crucial for democracy. It is deeply wounded as is so much else.
Salud!, Carol.
I am continually amazed at the quality of NPR and PBS, and the failure of large portions of the public to recognize the true gems that are readily available to them!
An excellent capsule description, Carol, of the plight of the news industry today. Thank you.
Today most of the good investigative reporting comes from independent sources written by journalists let go from their old jobs thanks to the corporate media profit motive. Don't get me wrong there are still some good M$M corporate journalists but they are becoming fewer and farther in between.
Local media outside public TV and Radio is just about gone thanks to corporate buyouts and consolidations particularly by hard right wing concerns.
Christopher do you have data to support your claims? My practice is to hesitate in making generalizations without supporting evidence. The other day, I read a very negative comment you made concerning Rachel Maddow's journalistic achievements for the last number of years. I am a viewer of her show and find the quality of her original research rare and exceptional. She was the first to break the Flint lead and possibly Legionella bacteria crisis on a national basis, and she stuck with it. That is just one example of her modus operandi. Again, I did not read the basis for your fault finding.
Hi FERN,
Sure just count all the independent journalists on Substack (Sirota, Taibbi, Legum) or who have just gone out on their own. Others can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/us/local-news-lost-stories.html.
Here in Columbus, OH we no longer have a local paper. The Columbus Dispatch was once a staunch Republican paper with a lot of clout. Nowadays it's trucked in from Indianapolis and is hard to distinguish in size from a supermarket flyer.
Yes I was pretty hard on Rachel but all my examples were true and I also praised her for her pre MSNBC. I omitted the days, weeks and months of her Russiagate baiting which was obviously done to drive up the numbers for advertisers. Many shows teased BREAKING NEWS only to fizzle at the end.
It's very easy to verify the plight of journalists in the 21st century. "U.S. newsroom employment has fallen 26% since 2008"
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/13/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-fallen-26-since-2008/
is just one of the many exaples from my search for "https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Journalists+who+have+lost+their+jobs&t=h_&ia=web".
Rachel is more of a documenter than a journalist. She didn't get her doctorate for being afraid of intensive research. If you've ever seen video of her working you see the joy she gets in digging for facts. I'll never challenge her research or love of tying things together much like HCR.
It's a bit of a fool's errand to not speak glowingly about her, but my complaints are real, at least to me and I know people who share them.
I wish she would not have renewed her contract and gone independent herself so she could return to the AAR Rachel, maybe even here on Substack. She probably wouldn't make her MSNBC salary here but she wouldn't be scavenging for cans along side the road either. The world would be a better place if she did.
Have a good day!
Been in MSM all my adult life, Fern. Christopher is sharing what’s been a trend for a coupla decades now. I appreciate your insistence on sources and offering only the truth here. Sadly, Christopher is dead right. The news media cannot continue to do its best work in the midst of deep pockets and profiteering.
It’s among the delights of writers like HRC — she includes her sources.
I live in the capital of Oregon, Salem, and for years we have had nothing but a Gannett rag. I read what I want online, mostly the obits which they outsource and that outfit is going by date posted I guess. Recently it was alphabetical and started with today's obits. I guess that it is too costly to do that.
This is the problem. Gannett and other corporations trivializing local print journalism and using it as a propaganda machine, and Sinclair and similar bad actors doing the same with broadcast journalism.
Yes! My thoughts exactly. Follow the money, follow the ratings.
Exactamundo. No drama no dollars.
I know all these things but have never been able to tie them up in such a nice neat bundle before, thank you! Admittedly, it usually takes a woman to say in 50 words for what I would need 500. Take the rest of the day off with pay.
Thank you, Cheri.
Sadly, though, the right wing feels that they're being vindicated.
That’s for sure.
Spot on! Bam!!
Let's be clear about this evacuation: This comes, not after suddenly losing a war, but after the decades-long d r i p d r i p d r i p of losing the peace. We went in there in 2001 to hunt down bin Laden. Couldn't find him. But US + allies dispersed Taliban and were helping Afghanistan slowly build back (better?!). What happens??? Mission creep. Manufactured WMD CRISIS! In 2003, abandon Afghanistan, pull all resources into Iraq, make a mess there. Enrich a bunch of corporations. "Save" the oil industry. Try to save FACE.
We have not lost the war in Afghanistan; we have lost the peace (as Justin King says). I'm just relieved Biden and his administration are finally getting a handle on evacuating people in a less brutal, more thoughtfully executed manner.
As if we don't have enough to worry about.
No competent leader thought it was a good idea to prosecute a war to find a small band of terrorists surrounding a charismatic leader. All that was needed was a covert intelligence effort and special ops mission like the one that found Bin Laden. “Mission creep” is not the right term for the war started by W and his henchmen. As he himself said, he just wanted to be a war president. The neocons were delighted, war in the Middle East having been their fever dream since forever, especially after their disappointment when the elderbush shut down the Iraq incursion.
https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
Josh Spot on! After a ‘precipitous collapse’ for which neither America nor it’s NATO allies had anticipated, we have cobbled together an extraordinary rescue mission that is airlifting about 10,000 persons daily. Much of the media, many Republicans, and some Democrats are ignoring that chaos was inevitable after President Biden proper decision to end a fruitless 20 year war. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post provides an appropriate perspective. History will treat Biden well for this frenetic (and successful) airlift.
I think 21,000 were evacuated yesterday.
Hadn't heard 21,000 yesterday. Most recent daily total I recall is 10,400. But I'll take 21,000 yesterday.
The most recent total I've heard for evacuations since July 30 is 53, 000. At the now 10,000+ a day (as of 8/23), that will continue to add up. That could total an additional 60,000+!!! by the deadline of August 31. The trick now is to get those people into the Kabul airport.
Lawrence O'Donnell did a great piece on his show last night. Go to the 15 minute mark, and listen to what he says.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lawrence+o%27donnell+8%2f23%2f21+msnbc&docid=13860162013262&mid=F6BA3818AB0BE228711EF6BA3818AB0BE228711E&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
What an astute narrative. Thanks for sharing. And, the guest he had is now running for Senator in Missouri. We all need to follow him and help him with his campaign. Lucas Kunce.
Thank you for this Ally. Lawrence O’Donnell is one the adults in the room.
Lawrence has been consistently pragmatic and positive. Love him!
I tried the link and it came up as not available. Looking around the 'Net, I found a verbal only recording of Lawrence's 8/23/21 show on Stitcher. Start @ 16:50 thru 29:20 then skip the commercials and start again @ 31:00 thru 36:46. https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-last-word-with-lawrence-odonnell/episode/house-dem-leaders-racing-to-reach-deal-with-moderates-86297761
Yes, I will watch Lawrence; no longer interested in Rachel.
So, wait, let me try and get my head around something...
DeSantis, he vowed to defund school districts that impose mask mandates, right?
But, didn't he vow to punish (with defunding) any municipality that threatened to "defund" police? (The calls for defunding the police were in response to alleged police brutality aimed at protesters.)
Yeah he did. Either he is an unashamed hypocrite (probably), or maybe he is just REALLY cheap.
I know this is nothing to joke about, but it does seem like he is completely out of touch with the reality that people in his state are getting sick and dying at alarming rates, he has the ability to do something about it, and yet he is looking ahead to the next election by toting the GOP banner past the graveyard.
I really feel bad for our fellow Americans that are under his "care."
The heroes in this are the school superintendents defying deSantis in order to save lives. Let's hope their sanity is contagious.
And even more so the teachers that are masked and, in the classroom, defy anyone their responsibility to keeping children safe. And refuse to gather in meetings where social distancing and masks are not present.
And, in some cases like Sarasota, school board members that have governance over superintendents and that order a mask mandate over a reluctant superintendent’s desire to do so.
And mayors such as NYC deBlasio ordering all Dept of Educ staff to be vaccinated by September 27th.
Whatever it takes.
I was just thinking about that mandate. Cuomo would have said it was not the mayor’s wheelhouse, and would have pushed back the date by a few weeks. What a relief that pettiness is over.
Not. Cuomo is one of the strongest proponents of mandated vaccinations.
Well, Cuomo was a proponent of smacking down deBlasio at every opportunity, just to show he was boss, even if he agreed with the proposal. His delaying the shut down in NYC likely cost thousands of lives.
Grace, do you live in NYC (and understand our situation...we are 5 generation NYCers)? Cuomo asserted himself to reign in our Mayor who insisted on closing all bridges and tunnels into NYC and the ensuing disaster. He certainly did not agree with the Mayor's proposal (and saying he did and spitefully disagreed to show off his power is false). Please stick to factual comments about something we here know to be different.
My little sister is a special ed teacher in NW Florida. At 57 she has serious chronic health problems but has too many years in to walk away and forfit her retirement. Sanitizing is left up to individual teachers. She must move from classroom to classroom daily to serve her students, no way she can keep her work spaces 'clean.' She's surrounded by a faculty of Trumpsters, all maskless, not following safe distance guidelines. She is hanging on by a thread, taking it one day at a time. I fear for her health, both mental and physical.
How fortunate her students are. How can we help?
Cathy, I will think on it. I appreciate your concern.
Maybe a letter campaign to red state school admins about teaching the Golden Rule right now?
Thank you Penelope. I have worked on letter writing campaigns before but none so focused. Maybe letters to the Santa Rosa School System superintendent or school board members would help.
This is abuse and torture of teachers. This is criminal. Do their unions have any power? Or, more basically, does Florida allow teachers to unionize? Your sister may benefit from checking to see if she is eligible for disability. It is almost always a long process, but my friends who have needed it and been approved, have found ways to manage on it, plus whatever retirement benefits they qualify for at that point. This is just heartbreaking. All the Best.
Mary Pat, thanks for your thoughtful suggestions. I will encourage her to go ahead and apply for disability. The treatment of teachers for learning disabled students in this school has been shameful for years. With Covid it has become so much worse. And of course not being one of the Red Pack singles her out for special 'treatment.'
😣
We should send THEM thank you postcards, or grocery gift cards so they can order food when they get home exhausted
Great idea, Cathy! And let's fly planes over their towns with banners thanking them for masking, etc.
Now you are talking!
Patrick, DeSantis is obviously an expert in opening his mouth and changing feet.
First he has to pull his head out of his ass.
Sorry, this is one article about the anti defund police statements. It contains a post of his official statement. To be honest, the scariest part of this old news is section III, subsection C. It gives a glimpse into his regime-mind. All of it is nuts, but it goes to character.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2020/09/21/ron-desantis-any-municipality-that-defunds-police-will-lose-state-funding/
The excessive number of Covid19 infections and deaths in some States is directly proportional to the number of their unvaccinated residents. I hope some will now get vaccinated but because of the gullibility of these people, I wouldn't overestimate that number. Even with FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, many of them will find another reason to remain unvaccinated. The ignorance of these people is unbelievable, especially here in Floriduh where It is perfectly respectable for them to advocate insane right wing positions. That's why the Trump family has moved here, why Newsmax is based here, and why DeSantis will probably get re-elected next year.
😡
Repel the entire Trump mafia, Newsmax, and DeSantis. Also all of Florida and everyone resisting vaccination. For your own health and welfare.
Daniel, I get your point but I am part of Florida and do not wish to be "repelled"!
OK, just not visited. For our own health and welfare. Good luck with your fellow Floridians.
Here in Missouri the only law to defund the police came from the "Republican" legislature, which passed a law to defund any police department that dared to enforce Federal gun laws. Which, of course, was good news for gun nuts, street gangs, militias, and similar groups of lawless thugs.
We've essentially done the same in NH-R Gov, and legislature. Even worse ,he and it passed a law for open carry Anywhere, INCLUDING SCHOOLS!
Agreed. He is a monster...
"While pundits have compared the evacuation from Afghanistan to that from Saigon in 1975 after North Vietnamese forces took the city, in that case the U.S. rescued about 7000 people in only two days, from April 29 to April 30." Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were so much worse than Afghanistan... for those confused, listen to Lawrence O'Donnell at MSNBC; replays of last night and others will explain the mendacity of MSM covering this mess... and much more. Lawrence's judgement matches his knowledge... and character... on historical fact and the racist aspect, there is no one better.
One big difference was the Saigon evacuation was in the midst of enemy fire. I believe President Biden decided to go for the withdrawal now because of the agreement with the Taliban not to shoot at Americans as they withdrew.
Here's O'Donnell's interviews. Slide over to 15:00 to see the coverage on Afghanistan. One Interviewee was former Marine Lucas Kunce from Missouri is running for Senate. Somebody to watch?
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lawrence+o%27donnell+8%2f23%2f21+msnbc&refig=764b446c478145848a0a126a48a46681&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dlawrence%2bo%2527donnell%2b8%252F23%252F21%2bmsnbc%26form%3dANNTH1%26refig%3d764b446c478145848a0a126a48a46681&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=AB5BC3B1490E10B5D0F1AB5BC3B1490E10B5D0F1&FORM=WRVORC
Yep, Lucas Kunce for Senate in Missouri, pro-infrastructure
https://twitter.com/LucasKunceMO/status/1429972328037851157?s=20
Lynell, a friend of mine who lives in CA and very tech knowledgeable is helping the Kunce campaign on the tech end. She met him several years ago and is very high on him.
I have already sent him $$
I’ve liked all I’ve seen of him. Including his locked and loaded ad!
Pretty cool ad!
It seems the feed I provided to O'Donnell's 8/23 "The Last Word" on MSNBC has been deleted. Sorry!
Yes, here’s a link to the transcript. Well worth a read. You can scroll down to 22:20:37.
https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-last-word-lawrence-o-donnell-8-23-21-n1277511
Thank you, Gina! I forgot about the transcript...and I spent 40 years as a court stenographer who had to compete with videos when they came out!
Video has been taken down.
Bummer. It "aired" on 8/23. I didn't know they'd delete it so soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0faolARWBo
Thank you, Nancy, for finding it on YouTube.
Thanks for the link, Lynell! And good morning!
Morning, Ally!!
Have been watching him..
No one better. I totally agree Sandy.
My fully vaccinated 14 y/o granddaughter developed a persistent hacking cough Sunday. My daughter was very concerned b/c my 12 y/o granddaughter had just received her first Pfizer vaccination on her birthday this past Friday.
Luckily it turns out it's most likely RSV virus that has recently popped up in schools all over Ohio. Sadly this is very early for this virus to arise, it's usually during the full as the weather starts to cool down.
Clearly this is yet another side effect of climate change. Ironically the best preventative measures for RSV are the same for Covid, wear a mask, wash your hands and maintain a safe distance.
Christopher, I am really appreciating your comments here lately. I'm sorry to hear your granddaughter is ill and hope she is back to feeling better very soon. I heard a report on NPR a couple weeks ago about RSV popping up, as you say, way too early in the season, and in people we wouldn't normally expect to see it in. I don't know there's any evidence to indicate this is related to climate change, but you are spot on about the precautions, which of course also apply to flu which may rear its ugly head any moment now.
Thanks for the kind words. Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit about climate change, I should've said possibly instead of clearly because I ASSuMEd everyone would consider the fact that the flu is weather-borne and our weather patterns today are unrecognizable with each passing year.
Wanted: Proofreader, lousy hours, no benefits and don't even think about getting paid.
Christopher, I do not think you can jump the gun on climate change at this point in time!
Well, posted a bit below you'll learn it's not so much climate driven as I thought. The hyper protection mode most of us employed over the winter kept RSV at bay. It's been here all along and has started making its rounds because folks have been letting their masks down. Here's the link I ref'd above:
: https://time.com/6082836/rsv-spike-summer-2021/
Believe half of what you see and none of what I say! 🥸
If you find one, send them my way. Especially if they're good at spotting dyslexic typos...
You got it!
Time will tell, won't it? I bet there are researchers working on that question as we write!
Wearing masks will help. Last year saw the lowest incidence of seasonal flu in many areas ever. Kids masked at school and not bringing it home was significant.
I believe RSV is circulating now because children were generally isolated from each other last winter, with remote schooling and parents working from home, no play dates, etc. RSV normally makes the rounds each winter, especially among young children. Now children have been socializing over the summer and then going back to school.
Well you think right!
"The spike is somewhat logical, even if the timing is unusual. When the pandemic hit, sending people inside and behind masks, respiratory illnesses like RSV circulated at “historically low levels,” the CDC said in a report published today. Now that people are easing up on COVID-19 precautions, they are also coming back into contact with pathogens that have existed, but weren’t spreading much, throughout the pandemic. RSV infections began to tick upward in April 2021, the CDC says."
"In the U.S., RSV case counts are “incredibly high for the summer,” Antoon says, “but it’s about on par with what we see in the winter.” That suggests COVID-19 prevention delayed the normal RSV season. A similar RSV spike happened during Australia and South Africa’s summer seasons."
"But what’s harder to explain, Antoon says, is why RSV is circulating widely while some other respiratory viruses, like influenza, aren’t. (Though infection rates for parainfluenza, which causes croup in children, are also rising right now, he notes.)"
More: https://time.com/6082836/rsv-spike-summer-2021/
A good friend's newborn twin grandkids came down with RSV at 2 weeks of age, went back into NICU, okay now. Mom is breastfeeding, wasn't going anywhere. Wonder if RSV is endemic in hospitals now.
Couple different tracks to take tonite that are not connected, and I've said a fair-piece about Afganistan that don't bear repeating since I haven't heard much inconsistent with my take, but on the issue of the FDA approval:
I am grateful that this day has come, a day of reckoning for the, "I'm waiting for approval" folks... Biden was quick to say, "well, now do it." As he should.
Sadly I live in a mostly-blue if not purple state you recognize on the map as Minnesota. There are STILL, as of today, people here (because I've spoken with them) who do not take this green-light on Pfizer as a good reason to get vaccinated! Welllllll, what about Moderna? Welllll, you got the J&J shot so what about that? People, smart people, who seem to me to be actively trying to find excuses to JUST NOT GET THE JAB. The logic is now completely lost on me and I expect that if my small (read ONE) sampling-size is extrapolated, many will just ignore the FDA and continue with their inane logic and excuse(s). It is so frustrating that the RWM has gotten SUCH a strange-hold on these people that even the FDA doesn't sway them.
Like HCR; no answers offered here, just observations. I'm thinking that GOD (theirs apparently) needs to have an intervention ON AIR with TUCKER CARLSON to convince these people. The same ones that may believe that they saw jesus on a mud-splatter on the side of a semi-trailer and want to create a shrine, that this is the right thing to do... we have to get science out of the political fray. A thousand-curses on the extreme wing of the Republican party and the Orangutan for making it such. My words, again, "they are killing people."
I found this in a discussion of the 1905 Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in which Mr. Jacobson sued the state for mandating that he get vaccinated during a small pox epidemic.
“The Court mentioned 2 justifications for the Massachusetts law. First, it found that the state may be justified in restricting individual liberty “under the pressure of great dangers” to “the safety of the general public.” The statute, by its terms, encroached on liberty only when “necessary for the public health or safety.”2(p29) The smallpox epidemic proved the danger to the public. Second, by using the language of earlier decisions, the Court said that laws should not be arbitrary or oppressive. It also suggested that the state should use means that have a “real or substantial relation” to their goal.2(p31) In this case, vaccination was a reasonable means to achieve the goal of controlling the epidemic. It was not an arbitrary choice; it had a real and substantial relation to preventing the spread of smallpox.”
My morning paper had an oped article that also quoted this case: “Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one’s own will.”
Another cycle in history.
It is a public health issue, and the next variant may well be much wilder than Delta. Such "unrestricted license" could kill us all.
THAT (last quote) is a super-fabulous one... Thanks to the hyperbolic (and dare I say partisan) America we live in now, those words seem more likely to be an OP-ED not from the SCOTUS, but there it is. Our nervous-navens (sp?) just don't feel compelled to compel the shots, but perhaps that is function of our own doing: the FDA didn't exist then. Reality did. When people started DYING the government stepped-up and stepped-in. We did it with SP, Polio, hell, it was never an OFFER to my folks to CHOOSE the MMR vax!?! We just all did it.
I appreciate our collective focus on safety as it relates to "new" drugs; nobody wants side-effects, but I analogize this to the SP or IV of 1918 more than a, "new," drug to combat acid-reflux...our own caution has created a regulatory environment that perhaps has us over-cautious (and I won't opine about that here) but it has certainly seeded the anti-vaxxers and those that would capitalize on that sentiment with ammo to create doubt. While that MAY be healthy in a way, it is not when they do it for political partisanship and us-vs-them purposes.
Based on the stare-decisis of the Jacobson case, it would seem that the government could mandate shots...but that requires the political will to test the case. Sigh. Biden is nibbling at the edges and so are some states, but the reality is that we have tested this case.
(How about the old fashioned term-nervous Nellies? LOL!)
I think it would encourage more vaccinations if the media would stop showing people getting jabs in the arm to the skittish anti-vaxxers.
And some of my macho teen boy clients have admitted they are petrified of needles...that is also part of my talks with them. And I explain that the nurses who gave me my jabs were talking and asking me questions and I did not even notice the difference from the alcohol wipe and the quick injection because I: 1. Turned my head away and did not look at the needle and 2. Was busy chatting and it passed incredibly quickly.
Also, at least where I received my injections (Kaiser Permanente), the needles are so fine that insertion of the needle was barely perceptible and, as you write, over before you realize the needle has pierced the skin. Far less uncomfortable than the annual flu shot that I opt for.
I agree - it's become a visual trope and it's infuriating.
When in conversation with these people, it's time to stop pestering them about the vaccine and start asking them what their plan is for treatment when they get infected and seriously ill. Will they then accept any treatment offered them, or will they be suspicious of that too? If accepting, what is the difference to them? Why is treatment, still relatively new as well, acceptable but not the vaccine? How do they know microchips aren't being seeded in their veins through their IV treatments or lungs via CPAP and BiPAP in hospital? I find that their gurus aren't spouting off about the evils of treatment, only the vaccine to prevent illness.
A note on vaccine hesitancy: I oversee a small staff of RNs at a youth detention center in NH. Most got their vaccine as soon as they could (myself included), one has even connived a way to get a booster.
Two of them, however, steadfastly refuse to get vaccinated. They are not Trumpers, they are not anti-science (one of them has research skills that surpass my own), they are not "millennial brats". In fact, they are the mainstays of their respective shifts, and excellent nurses. At my insistence, they wear masks at all time when at work. They are afraid. This fear is not reasonable, who would trade a case of COVID for a couple of jabs and a day or so of aches and pains?
The fear is real, almost primal, and requires understanding. None of my reasoned or emotion-based arguments budged either of them. Will FDA approval make a difference in their attitude towards getting vaccinated? I really hope so, but I doubt it. Would a vaccine mandate help? Honestly, one would likely get vaccinated, one would likely quit.
All I can really do is try to help them understand what they fear and how it is driving them to make the decisions they do. Their attitude towards vaccinations is the problem. This attitude is shaped more by what they fear, and less by what and whom they love. My job with them (and by extension all vaccine hesitant people) is to help them see this, and move toward love.
Interesting situation. I am glad you are taking the time with folks to look at and address the fear that motivates them. Sadly, I lack that patience with people.
Youre a good soul, Steve Abbott. I am so grateful for people like you with the patience and understanding and grace to persevere. I guess those are qualities that drew you to nursing and medicine to begin with. Admirable.
I'm a fully vaccinated RN in NH and looking forward to getting my booster shot at the end of October. My experience is mainly in school nursing; also obgyn. If one of your nurses quits, please look me up. I would LOVE to work with you!
Steve, your kind and patient approach reminded me of this therapist’s recounting of her interactions with a client. You might find it interesting. https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/the-making-and-healing-of-a-racist-a-trauma-perspective?fbclid=IwAR2-5ZonpvN3x61jG5K2YGvYMs__C6yMmp4ZHBo3GP0ipQ_wy6OzhyIr3cQ
Oh, Florida, Florida! Your people don't deserve these tragic numbers! Your people are being led by an ill-educated monster who doesn't care who lives or dies. What can we do to help you? To rid you of a virus more lethal than Covid 19 and its Delta variant -- the DeSantis/GOP plague? My heart aches for all your innocents, elderly, and BIPOC citizens who have been and continue to go through such suffering and ultimate death. It's unacceptable!
"Last week the state had more than 150,000 new coronavirus infections, and this morning about 75 doctors in Palm Beach Gardens staged a symbolic walkout from their hospitals in a direct appeal to the public to get vaccinated. They warned that they are burning out from caring for the sick. 'It's the worst it's ever been right now,' Dr. Robin Kass told Katherine Kokal of the Palm Beach Post. 'And I just think that nobody realizes that.'"
Start with the low hanging fruit. Get everyone you know who knows anyone in California to get off their butts and use their ballot to vote NO recall of Gov. Newsom and leave the rest blank.
“Why Should You Care if You Don’t Live in CA?" by Dan Pfeiffer:
For readers not in California, this recall election may feel distant or disconnected from your political concerns. But if California elects a MAGA-adjacent governor, the political ramifications will echo far beyond the Golden State’s borders. All across the country, Republicans will be emboldened. Money will pour into Republican campaign coffers. The message will be that if a Republican can win in California, they can win anywhere. Republican politicians will use Elder’s election to further embrace Trumpist positions.
The media will treat the election as a massive rebuke of Joe Biden and the Democratic agenda...A Newsom loss will also embolden the Republicans, like Ron DeSantis, that are playing politics with the pandemic; and possibly cause Democrats to pull back on the vaccine mandates necessary to slow the spread of COVID.
https://messagebox.substack.com/p/dont-let-larry-elder-become-governor?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxOTE1NzIzLCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0MDE4MDY0OSwiXyI6IlU3MHR0IiwiaWF0IjoxNjI5NzI0MjQ2LCJleHAiOjE2Mjk3Mjc4NDYsImlzcyI6InB1Yi02NTAyNiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.miVumIaHD8kMaJTAy8BGxC-h2FsosgHuFtBkTFJ1sf0
We are very much aware of our ridiculous ballot to save the governorship. One side is where one votes NO and then folds the ballot, puts it in the envelope, signs and dates the back of the envelope, and delivers it either to the nearest ballot box or the mailbox. I happen to live in the county seat so a ballot box is very convenient. Both hubs and I did that and pray everybody else has the good sense to do it also. CA cannot afford to have another Repub as our governor. Hell, I want us to secede from the Union and form our own country with Oregon, Washington, NY, and any other decent state.
Marlene, I hope your "we" is the entirety of eligible Democratic voters. A few days ago, Dem voters were looking too complacent, with polls showing only 51% No recall.
Yes, Ellie, I certainly meant that.
51% is WAY too close given that there are still several weeks until the formal election on Sept. 14. California voters, please vote NO on the recall but also vote for Kevin Faulconer who appears to the be only other candidate close to Elder in the polls. Faulconer, who I have known for almost 2 decades, would normally not be my choice but at least he's a more "traditional" Republican whose politics tend to support business interests over those of the people of California. He would be *miles* less destructive than Larry Elder.
Except from link posted above: "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
Postcards to Voters is an easy way to help get out the vote. “Over 3,200 volunteers like you have mailed 136,000+ fun, friendly, and fully-handwritten postcards to Democratic voters in California reminding them to vote No on the rigged Republican Recall. There's still plenty of time for you to write 5 or 10. We have over 120,000 volunteers enrolled. That means nearly 117,000 of you could still make a huge difference in the outcome of this Recall election by writing as few as five postcards this week.” https://postcardstovoters.org/about/
That site has postcard picture templates that can be easily downloaded. I took a few favs and will send a bulk email to all my CA friends and family with a note. Easy peasy.
email sent!!
Writing postcards is on my to do list for today!
Thanks for the info! Just signed up to help.
Christy, I sent for addresses yesterday to write for CA recall. It's so easy and takes so little time. Hopefully people here will get on board.
and check out mobilize.us
https://twitter.com/AlexPadilla4CA/status/1429976758867136517?s=20
Honestly Ellie. Not sure what I’d do if there was not this agency and urgency created amongst people to look outside their state borders and support efforts and elections around our country. There’s always at least one thing that can be accomplished daily to support our democracy and defeat despair. The organizations available through technology alone are creating a communication and movement that is almost “unseen” in terms of visible protest but gaining a lot of steam. Onward!
Working hard locally but talking with California groups also. No victory allowed to slip through a crack.
Christine, bless your tireless warrior heart! There is no rest for the weary...!
In addition, if elderly Senator Feinstein does not complete her term, the governor of CA will appoint a replacement from their party.
Thank you for this link. However, I disagree with not *also* voting for an alternative even when voting NO on the recall. There are 2 Republicans leading the pack and one would be an unmitigated disaster (Larry Elder). The other, Kevin Faulconer, my erstwhile mayor in San Diego, is a typical business-oriented Republican. So, I recommend a vote for Kevin F. as well as a NO vote, just in case the recall succeeds.
Excerpted from the link above: "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
Yes, this is an issue with the Democratic Party. The party line is to abstain from the Part 2, but as you articulate, if the majority vote on recall is yes, then the Part 2 winner is by only a plurality, and the choices are very scary.
I’m very worried about this possibility and will be posting on my social media platform hoping to reach my California friends, or anyone who lives in CA to vote exactly as you recommend. ❤️🤍💙
Please let your California friends know just who Larry Elder is. "Elder is a Trump-loving, COVID-truthing, Big-Lie believing, Right-Wing zealot. He has spent his long career in Right-Wing media pushing conspiracy theories and spreading abject idiocy. Here are just a handful of his positions:
Aims to repeal California’s mask and vaccine mandates to try to turn California into Florida and Texas;
Doesn’t support the minimum wage. Not the $15 minimum. The entire concept of the minimum wage;
Believes employers should be able to fire women who get pregnant;
Has advocated for privatizing Social Security and abolishing Medicare.
Additionally, Elder has spent years saying and writing horribly offensive things about women. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the women involved in the 2017 Women’s March were too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault."
https://messagebox.substack.com/p/dont-let-larry-elder-become-governor
Good morning Rowshan. Now that the former is no longer president, I can indulge my total angst at how he trashed the esteem and regard of the Office of President. And I’m not sure when a common respect for that highest office will be renewed again. To see what politicians will do in a current moment of governance to secure, not the health safety and welfare of their constituents but future votes in an election, is way beyond the pale. The state of Florida sits back and just watches DeSantis campaign for the Oval Office in 2024 without much of a thought of even the governor’s race next year. And his supporters and wingmen in the legislature? More and more bills and orders just to highlight the continuing Trump agenda. Well, really, the agenda of those thinking to decide what we are to be as a nation.
I look to the people but do not find outrage or direct defiance. It’s more a smoldering apathy at the state of things.
I’m thinking about this pretty deeply as summer wanes and I’m looking at things harvested this year besides gardens and crops. Fall is almost upon us. I see the pumpkin frappes and lattes already at the coffee kiosk. People here in Florida are good at pretending all is really ok somehow in spite of the deafening sound of bullsh*t in the air. Americans are so good at finding that hollow optimism.
I am so sorry, Christine! It's the apathy that is so distressing in the first instance, and then, the "hollow optimism." How can we open their eyes and infuse them with proper rage at the indignity of their plight?
Only way to do that Rowshan is action.
As discussed above and following suggestions about the organizations available, we are “taking to the streets” in a different way. Just the increase of effort generated on this forum through sharing…calling, writing postcards and letters, staying informed, participating locally with League of Women Voters for example, attending local board and commission meeting listening in or participating in a podcast….action will counter despair. It’s the only way.
We know that through our years of teaching students. Best form of representation.
and the most powerful form of teaching is by example.
IMO the former guy unleashed not only the white supremacist/domestic terrorism groups, but the anti-government factions that had not been participating in the political process. He installed people diametrically opposed to the mission of cabinet level departments, and attacked foe and friend alike in his usual bullying manner (creating derogatory nicknames for everyone). When the GOP embraced QAnon, admitted they had no platform except fealty to the one who was saying out loud he wanted to stay in power and pass the position on to his children in an autocratic or monarchy-style departure from democracy, and then entrench in obstruction rather than offer solutions, policies, or aid even to their own constituents, then it was clear that rather than yield power to the majority rule they were going to burn the whole system down instead.
Groups burning the system down must be prosecuted. That is the first obligation of our government.
I recently moved from CA and having a house built in Bradenton (why is a different conversation and has nothing to do with the state but my own personal situation). I'm desperately seeking involvement and sanity. I joined local Dem club but disappointed so far in the lack of action. I could use some suggestions, if you are so willing. Thanks!
Good morning, Rose. Manatee Co League of Women Voters is a great start.
Done! Thank you Christine.
Even if Floridians do realize it, what can they do, other than not re-elect deSantis? Politicians who don’t do right by their constituents don’t seem to have shortened careers.
Welp, they can Cuomo him!
Do you mean mount a campaign of women accusers?
Too many do not realize how ignorant and gullible too many Floriduh residents are. Why do you think the Trump family has moved there and why Newsmax is based there? It's a Republican petri dish for right wing conspiracy theory.
I support mandates but they alone will not work and will cause strong blowback. Many of the vaccine hesitant will become vaccine resistant when it's mandated, because they choose "freedom," sometimes over life itself. A NY Times video interviewed people hospitalized for Covid-19 after refusing vaccination. One of them soon died. Here's the link to that video: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/opinion/arkansas-vaccine-hesitant.html
The Washington Post had an article today that mentioned a FaceBook private group that hosts civil, evidence-based discussions among anti-vaxxers, those on the fence, and vaccine supporters. It's called Vaccine Talk.
In this line I'm trying to have conversations with one of my neighbors who is vaccine resistant for some understandable difficulties with the medical profession in the past. I am being very careful to listen. In our conversation my friend decried mandating teachers to be vaccinated and considers our governor a dictator because of this mandate. It's as if we live in different worlds, but we have a trusting friendship, and the conversation continues. We keep a safe distance outdoors, and he knows I am fully vaccinated. He respects my preference for that.
eventually, when the deniers are themselves denied access to the grocery store, the nail salon, pubs, bars, gyms, clothing stores, etc, for personal and proprietary reasons, the resistance will begin to break down. One thing we seem to value above the advice of experts is the right of private entities to set their own standards for access at the threshold of their front doors.
These days I keep hearing "Give me liberty or give me death" in my head.
New Hampshire license plate: “Live free or die.”
OOPS! I forgot about that!
It's why we don't have a seatbelt or helmet law but for some reason it's okay to impose on a women's freedom to make choices about her reproductive health.
Yeah, the NH R's should change their slogan..."Live Free THEN Die (i.e. from botched self-induced late term abortions (All 24 week abortions now forbidden in almost every circumstance and MD's will be prosecuted, incarcerated. and heavily fined), being shot anywhere (open carry now allowed EVERYWHERE, including schools) refusal to mandate masks...
Yep, Lynell; death does not come easily or good in this disease.
I saw a demonstrator with a sign that equated vaccination with tyranny. People in my small town are yelling at folks to 'take off those useless masks'. We have had our first case of community-acquired covid. Masses of tourists have descended, most of whom are mask-compliant. This is a long way from over.
There are reasonable civic obligations to living anywhere, working anywhere. Otherwise go live on Mars.
Flying almost 5000 people a day, for 10 straight days and counting. It boggles the mind. That picture showing 823 on one aircraft! I live about 50 miles south of Fort McCoy WI and yesterday saw a couple airliners flying north overhead. We are nowhere near a normal flight pattern. I assume it was Afghanis being rescued. Thanks to all who are dedicated to this overwhelming humanitarian assignment.
As a fellow Badger, I was glad to hear arrivals started at McCoy. I say let's gather around and welcome these new immigrants to Wisconsin.
I oversee a Free Store where we have LOTS of clothes & shoes. I'm going to find out how we can send some of it there for people. I'll drive an hour - it's the least I can do!
The damage done to this country by the anti-vaxxers is incalculable. And, as soon as the FDA came down with its decision, I immediately started hearing new excuses as to why they still won’t get vaccinated: The approval process was “rushed”, and/or was “political”. Anti-vaxxers will always find an excuse to do the wrong thing. That they are destroying our medical system in the process is irrelevant to them because, you know, “FREEDOM”. 🙄🙄🙄
I read in our local paper yesterday about ppl who need blood transfusions asking for blood from UNvaccinated. Otherwise the “chip” might come through, I guess. Is there no end to stupidity?
Wow. I am speechless. Yes, apparently, we ARE that stupid.
Not "we" but "they". A sharp line must be drawn to defend ourselves. Our health, welfare, and lives depend on repelling the threat of "them".
“The chip come through” that takes the cake, I know we live in strange times, but that has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard, it’s so beyond stupid that I know you couldn’t make it up.
Yes, we are drowning in a sea of stupid.
Have these folks not gotten their children vaccinated against the basic measles, mumps, polio etc.? Or is this just an anti-covid thing?
It’s an anti-Covid thing judging from the Republicans I know. The vaccine has been politicized.
Which is amazing. Nothing like getting (and possibly spreading) a life-threatening illness just to show that you're "owning the Libs".
: (
The unvaxxed, Free Will-stanced students I have been talking to have all their childhood vaccines.
of course they have...ugh
I think that it has become a general anti-vaccination position. And, I have little doubt that if someone does any digging, they will find that Russian troll farms are behind the movement............
Who needs Russian propaganda now when we have republicans?
Six of one, half dozen of the other..........
Right? They appear to be equivalents.
Cynthia, this question itches my brain regularly!
I heard yesterday from a nurse friend with nurses in her office who have been refusing the vaccine that now they're refusing it "because it's mandated", their newest excuse.
It's as infuriating as it is stupid and ill-informed.
It was great to hear about the 3 babies being born while being evacuated from Afghanistan -- one minutes after the plane arrived in Germany.
Not to mention the Taliban militants (5) who were arrested when they got off the French evacuation plane in Paris. At least Biden and other governments have the sense to pass through checking stations in the Middle East to make sure they know what they are getting in terms of refugees.
Yes, I loved that!
Curious, Cathy. Will those children be considered German citizens because of being born in the country?
I imagine it may be complicated. It would certainly depend on German law. Plus, if it was on a United States military base what are the implications of that. I know babies born to US military serving overseas and US citizens. I imagine the baby is a refugee with all that implies.
Right. In Germany, where the Afghan woman’s baby was born, citizenship is not established through birth on German territory but by descent from a German legal mother and/or a German legal father. But since the baby was delivered in the cargo bay of a US aircraft, it is not clear which laws will apply in this particular case: German laws, US laws or if the baby will be considered a citizen of Afghanistan, the country to which her mother belongs.
I know I’m not telling you anything new, but the operation in Saigon on April29-30 was preceded by roughly 1.5 months of evacuation (US citiens and Vietnamese both) leading up to the two last days - the fall of Saigon. I think your phrasing may leave too firma an impression that only the two days of “operation Frequent Wind” constituted the full evacuation effort. All the best.
Exactly, Sam. Thank you. Saigon & Kabul - apples & oranges.
And still my 89 year old mother in Ocala Florida keeps her ivermectin prescription close by and takes a huge overdose of vitamin C daily thanks to a Qanon relative. They’re all waiting for Trump to descend from a cloud and make the world safe for them. Of course, Biden is to blame for everything…
What gives me hope is that people like your mother still managed to make people like you.
Thank you. She had me and my brother too young and failed to protect us from violence. My brother died young. And still hope dies last. My three daughters are each a tribute to hope: a chemical engineer working on sustainable energy projects; an athlete who trains girls and has a traveling lacrosse team; a ballerina who’s studying for the MCats.
Sounds like yours is a story of resilience in a context of intergenerational trauma. You made very different choices, to the benefit of your children! You are clearly and rightfully proud of your children, and I hope you are as clearly and rightfully proud of yourself and your parenting! You are also another example of what I learned from reading memoirs of Holocaust survivors, that hope is a survival skill.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” Emily Dickinson
Ellie, I'm currently reading Alex Vindman's book, "Here, Right Matters." It's a testament to the power of hope.
And of knowing the right thing(s) to do and then doing it/them.
I’d say that resistance is a survival skill as well. While I can’t stop my ptsd, I did what I could to keep my kids safe.
I always think one of the most miraculous things is when people who have experienced dysfunction, neglect and/or abuse at the hands of their parents grow up to overcome all that and choose to live a different sort of life rather than what they knew in childhood, and if they become parents themselves, to be very different parents. Ellie rightly calls this resilience but I don't think that's a strong enough word. It's a miracle, really, when people resist the unconsicous pull of the known and familiar patterns, recognize the deep pain this caused them, accept help and do all the necessary work on themselves to choose a different, healthier way.
Thanks for this, Beth. I agree that it’s a miracle. I made many mistakes with my kids. That they are who they are is a miracle.
I think it a miracle that the love that so readily pours out of children is the balm that can heal the wounds that adults carry from their own childhoods.
The wounds are still there but the miracle is that a wounded tree can still produce beautiful fruit.
D. W. Winnicott's concept of the Good Enough Mother is that children flourish with a good enough level of love and consistency in attuning to their needs and meeting their needs, less than perfectly.
My aunt, who owns a hardware/feed store in Mississippi, can't keep ivermectin in stock. She keeps informing folks that they are not horses...
My friend here in Germany has horses. She told me that if a horse seems likely to have worms, the horse’s feces has to be sent for analysis before ivermectin can be given. The reason is that it is so poisonous - for horses!
I'm here in VA. I can buy the wormers without a mandatory "analysis." However, I always get a fecal count before administering an ivermectin or other paste wormer. If the count is below a certain amount, the horse will be fine without it.
Like Lynell, I do a fecal count before administering dewormer to my horses. One reason is that the parasites are becoming resistant to the dewormers, and there is very little research into developing new products to overcome the drug resistance because dewormer is so cheap. So I try to use it as little as possible, but not because it’s toxic for horses. When I do use it, I see zero side effects.
I think my friend wanted to say the medication should be respected for what it is intended.
Well, I sure agree with that! But when dosed and used properly, ivermectin is toxic for parasites, not poisonous for horses.
But a virus is not a parasite.
I had a puppy with mange and almost (accidentally) killed the poor dear with just a speck too much vet prescribed Ivermectin. She was in a coma for a few hours, made it through after a $2800 emergency vet bill... but was never "quite right". :*(
How awful for you! My dog picked up mange mites somewhere a few years back and, once diagnosed (not so easy other than assumption due to the itch, hair thinning and thickening of the edges of the ears), they were gone with a single dose of Revolution. Because he was a small dog and slept in my bed, I ended up with a horribly inflamed and itch back because mites then transferred from my sheets to me. Thankfully, animal mange mites can't survive on a human, so they died off quickly and a thorough hot laundry cleared the bed sheets & covers. But I can tell you that the itch was worse than poison oak.
That's terrible, Nancy, especially since it was through a vet's prescription.
Oh my gosh, how scary! I have a collie, and they (and all white-footed herding dogs) do not get ivermectin. They have a genetic sensitivity to it.
I keep waiting to hear about the medical outcome for those humans who have chosen to dose themselves with ivermectin.
not true... but good try
If this is all you have to say, it’s not helpful
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FLCCC-Protocols-–-A-Guide-to-the-Management-of-COVID-19.pdf
Ha! Good morning kim. Love your auntie. 🌈
So very sad...
Yes, it’s sad.
https://covid19criticalcare.com might be time to educate yourself about its effectiveness, just a thought..
The article is actually from 'The Jerusalem Post' and was posted on the covid19criticalcare website as an "In the Media" inclusion. The particular experiment referenced virus shedding in non-or low-symptomatic non-hospitalized covid positive people.
https://waow.com/2021/08/23/fda-warns-against-using-ivermectin-to-treat-covid-19/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/you-are-not-a-horse-you-are-not-a-cow-fda-issues-blunt-warning-on-taking-ivermectin-drug-promoted-by-ron-johnson-to-treat-covid-19/ar-AANEp7V
unfortunately, this does not reflect the benefits that have been happening world wide, in the places that had no other choice. but we do love to polarise and take a side. i really wish we could have open curious minds... may you and yours remain well.
Oh yes it does
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FLCCC-Protocols-–-A-Guide-to-the-Management-of-COVID-19.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y3T9O58cxQ
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FLCCC-Protocols-–-A-Guide-to-the-Management-of-COVID-19.pdf
I have educated myself.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FLCCC-Protocols-–-A-Guide-to-the-Management-of-COVID-19.pdf