New Rules from Bill Maher: Building a Water Pipeline

 

Brooks and Capehart from 9/10/21

 

President Biden has Lost Patience with the Unvaccinated

 There are eighty million people in the United States that could get the Coronavirus Vaccine and have chosen not to.

President Joe Biden has had it with them.

In remarks to the country, the President, who continued to call this current stage of the Coronavirus "the pandemic of the vaccinated," expressed impatience with the 80 million unvaccinated people in the country and outlined steps the Biden/Harris Administration would take to increase the vaccination rate in the country.

The President began his comments to the American People, noting that the majority of the country (about 200 million people) is either fully vaccinated or has at least received one shot of one of the COVID 19 vaccines.

Mr. Biden also touted that the American Economy has made strides, "averaging 700,000 new jobs a month in the past three months."

The President then pivoted and discussed the 25 percent of the country (80 million people,) who for several reasons (including being encouraged by ultra-right science-denying Know Nothing Republican Governors who are tripping over each other to gain the advantage for the 2024 Presidential and Vice Presidential races,) have chosen not to receive any of the available Coronavirus vaccines.

Reminding the people that "this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated," Mr. Biden noted that only one person in 160,000 fully vaccinated from COVID have been hospitalized per day during this recent Delta Variant surge. He later noted that there has been one COVID 19 case for every 5,000 vaccinated Americans.

To the people who said that they were waiting for FDA approval of the vaccines, the President noted that it arrived last week so there is no excuse to wait anymore.

To those who say they should have the freedom to decide whether or not to take the vaccine, Mr. Biden said: "This is not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you, the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love."

The President then outlined a series of steps to increase the ranks of the vaccinated. Those include:

• "The Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employee over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week."
• Extending vaccination requirements to "those who work in hospitals, home healthcare facilities, and our other medical facilities, a total of 17 million healthcare workers. If you’re seeking care at a health facility."
• Requiring federal contractors and their employees to be vaccinated.
• Giving people in businesses with more than 100 employees paid time off to get vaccinated.
• Calling for business owners that run large gathering venues like movie theaters and sporting stadiums to require their workers and guests to be vaccinated.
• Calling for physicians to reach out to their unvaccinated patients in the next two weeks and try to convince them to get the COVID 19 shots.
• Saying "vaccination requirements are nothing new" in schools and families, Biden called for parents to vaccinate their 12 to 17-year-old children. He also said he supported a vaccine for those under 12 when it is available and called for all families to get vaccinated to help protect those children.
• Called for 100 percent of teachers to get vaccinated. Currently, it is at 90 percent. Mr. Biden also announced an Executive Order requiring all Head Start instructors to be vaccinated. The President also said that he would have the federal government pay educators whose pay was cut by Republican Governors who pursue anti-masking policies.
• Providing booster shots for eligible Americans when the FDA and CDC approve the administering of them.
• Increasing the supply of affordable rabid Coronavirus testing at outlets like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger.
• The Transporation Safety Administration will double the fines of airline passengers who refuse to wear masks.
• Expanding COVID 19 disaster loan programs.
• The Department of Defense will double the number of military health teams in American hospitals.

Mr. Biden said that close to 100 million American workers would be affected by his executive actions.

The President then reached out again to the unvaccinated, saying:

"My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see? We’ve made vaccinations free, safe, and convenient. The vaccine has FDA approval. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot. You’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us. So please do the right thing, but just don’t take it from me. Listen to the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds, taking their final breath, saying, “If only I’d gotten vaccinated. If only.” It’s a tragedy. Please don’t let it become yours."

Mr. Biden closed by stating:

"We’ve made so much progress during the past seven months of this pandemic. The recent increases in vaccinations in August already are having an impact in some states, where case counts are dropping in recent days. Even so, we remain at a critical moment, a critical time. We have the tools, now we just have to finish the job with truth, with science, with confidence, and together as one nation. Look, we’re the United States of America. There’s nothing, not a single thing we’re unable to do if we do it together. So let’s stay together. God bless you all, and all those who continue to serve on the front lines of this pandemic, and may God protect our troops. Get vaccinated."

It is time for the unvaccinated to get with the program and get vaccinated.

Even Know Nothing-Science Deniers Need to Follow the Law and Respect the Safety Needs of Others in Schools

 The people who are members of right-wing fringe cliques like the Trump Zone, Fox Island, and Disnfowars seem to think that the law does not apply to them.

While everyone remembers what these individuals did at the Nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021, and earlier in 2020 when they tried to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, these far-right fanatics have risen the temperature across the country at local school board meetings on the topics of mask and vaccine mandates.

In places like Tennessee, Missouri, Arizona, Hawaii, and California, local medical specialists, educators, and elected officials have been berated, harassed, and in one instance, beaten for recommending or supporting COVID 19 mask or vaccine mandates.

Click on the video below to see some of the nation's vilest go after school board members in Tennessee last month after they passed a mask mandate for children.

These people were telling the departing board members that "they looked smug and they (the protestors) know who they (the board members are) and we will find you."

One would think, judging by these "individuals" reactions that the board had voted to make conditions in the school district unsafe rather than the exact opposite.

Last week, Diane Vargo, the principal at Mesquite Elementary in the Vail Unified District in Tucson was forced to call the police when a parent of a student and the people that accompanied them would not leave her office.

Why were they there?

They were upset that the parent's child was not allowed to go on a field trip because that student had been exposed to an individual that had tested positive for COVID 19.

In the world of reality that the non-Trump Zone citizens live in, this parent and his friends should be on their hands and knees thanking the principal for working to ensure the child's health and safety.

Instead, apparently, these people considered making a citizens arrest of the principal. One of the parent's friends had brought zip lock wrap ties to handcuff the principal. They even announced their intentions on social media.

When these people refused to leave Ms. Vargo's office, she left to call the police. They departed before they arrived. Since that incident, three of these individuals, including the parent of the student. 

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman, incensed at what occurred at Mesquite Elementary, posted on social media:

https://twitter.com/kathyhoffman_az/status/1433578432076546048

Superintendent Hoffman is right.

These school principals are doing everything in their power to keep children safe in the middle of a pandemic that has been exacerbated by some of the very same Know Nothing science-denying individuals that this parent and his friends apparently find common ground with.

It is good that these three individuals are facing legal consequences for their actions.

Hopefully, it will serve as a lesson to others to not threaten, harass, and attack innocent people for no justifiable reason at local schools or board meetings.

Hopefully.

Even Know Nothing-Science Denier's residents of the Trump Zone need to follow the law and respect the safety needs of others in schools

 

 

Editorial Cartoons of the Week

 

Capehart and Gerson from September 3, 2021

 

House Quisling Leader and Trump Zone Enabler Kevin McCarthy Threatens Communications Companies that Help January 6 Committee

Kevin McCarthy just presented another reason voters should elect Democrats in 2022, 2024, and beyond.

The House Quisling-Trump Zone Leader who has enabled the fringe rantings of loathsome figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, and Donald Trump, has potentially committed obstruction of justice and Congress by threatening communication companies (including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Verizon, Sprint, AT & T, and T Mobile) who comply with the requests of the January 6, 2021 committee to save the phone records of 11 Republican Representatives (including the ones mentioned above) and the Trump Family.

According to reporting by the Washington Post, Mr. McCarthy told these firms that:

“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States. If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”

Never mind that McCarthy is conveniently forgetting there are Republicans on the January 6 Committee.

Apparently, as the Post reports, there would be no federal law violation if the communication companies turn over the requested phone records to the January 6 committee.

One CNN legal commentator, Elie Honig, a former United States Assistant Attorney in New York, said McCarthy "is making this up" and "talking smack."

McCarthy's office has turned down repeated requests to explain the Quisling Leaders-Trump Zone enabler's assertion.

If the House Quisling Leader really thought no harm would come from the submittal of the phone records belonging to the 11 members of his caucus who have been accused of conspiring to organize the events that led to the Domestic Terrorist Trumpist Attack on the Nations Capitol, then he would not resort to such obstructionist, bullying, coercive, and potentially traitorous tactics.

Members of the former Party of Lincoln have accelerated their war against Democracy, law and order, science and reality, public safety, helping people, and personal choice over the last nine months.

This latest action by Quisling Leader-Trump Zone enabler McCarthy further demonstrates how perilous the situation will be for the American People and Nation if his party is successful in the 2022 Midterms.

Do not let the traitorous fringe in the former Party of Lincoln gain power again when the next elections occur.

Vote them out in the statehouse and the People's House.