Brooks and Capehart from July 23, 2021

 

The Unvaccinated Have to Think About Others Like Small Children and the Chronically Ill

Photo from Twitter

Arizona Cardinals Wide Receiver DeAndre Hopkins crystallized the "baby" attitude of the people who are choosing not to get the COVID 19 vaccine.

The number one Cardinal wide receiver tweeted and then wisely deleted remarks that he might retire from the team because the National Football League has adopted a policy stating that teams may have to forfeit games if it is found that canceled events were caused by players who chose not to get the COVID 19 vaccine. The team with the unvaccinated players would have to also cover the other team's financial costs for that game.

Hopkins tweeted:

"Never thought I would say this, But being put in a position to hurt my team because I don't want to partake in the vaccine is making me question my future in the @Nfl"

Good for the N.F.L.

Seeing baseball players who were vaccinated still get the Coronavirus should serve as a warning of what could happen. Players, most of whom are multi-millionaires, should set an example for the community and get vaccinated.

If Hopkins wants to stay home, let him take his football helmet and do so. Same with any other player that does not want to think about others and not get a vaccination.

Although to be fair to Hopkins, his tweet deletion probably showed he thinks he tweeted too soon.

Good also for people like Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, whose state is 50th in vaccinations,  who blamed the recent Coronavirus surge on the unvaccinated, saying:

"Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."

One wonders when Doug Ducey will come out of his political cowardice hole and echo the truthfulness of Governor Ivey.

I am personally sick of this selfish freedom-loving know nothing science-denying "I'll show you"  babies who, as AZ Central EJ Montini also noted, jeopardize the health and safety of others, like small children who do not have a vaccine to take and the chronically ill with this short-sighted and self-centered position.

Over 95 percent of the current COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths are people that have not been vaccinated.

These individuals need to know that it is not just their health and lives they are risking. These people spread the disease to family, friends, and others. Even those that have been vaccinated are still at risk of becoming mildly ill if exposed to unvaccinated ill individuals or the Delta Variant. School has already started in parts of Arizona and the country. Small children, who have no vaccine to receive, need to be protected. Do these people, who think personal freedom is more important than community responsibility, really want to put their selfishness above children's safety. 

It is time for the people who are anti-vaccination to get informed and act responsibly.

Get vaccinated.

Wear a mask where necessary.

Get informed.

Think of others rather than yourself. Do not let small children or the chronically ill become sick because of you. Do not let your family or friends either.

 

 

 

What did Quisling-Spineless McCarthy and Enemy of the People McConnell Know Before January 6, 2021

 Just finished watching McCarthy and his dreary all-white man band decrying Speaker Nancy Pelosi for exercising her right to reject two of the Minority Leaders nominees (Jim Banks and Jim Jordan) to the January 6, 2021 subcommittee.

For those with strong stomachs and a bowl beside them, please click to watch this shameful spectacle below.

While one can argue that Pelosi's actions can create an opportunity for a spineless unscrupulous quisling future speaker (like a McCarthy if the country is unlucky) to repeat her move on future select committees, no one can argue that Banks and Jordan would have done nothing but hamper the select committee's proceedings and make the hearings a circus.

That said, one talking point Qusiling McCarthy and his dreary all-white man band repeated that made my head scratch is the McCarthyite (Joesph in this case) assertion that Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not act on December intelligence warnings to the Nations Capitol.

What also perplexed me is why reporters listening to this Trump Zone-Fox Island Diatribe did not ask McCarthy "What did you know in December?"

McCarthy was the Minority Leader in December 2020.

He is one of the select group of Congressional Leaders that gets regular intelligence briefings.

It stands to reason that he received the same security briefings as Pelosi.

If they thought something should be done to improve security and preparedness, why did he not say something or act on it then?

For that matter, why did not Enemy of the People, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who if you follow Dummkoff McCarthy's logic, would have been in charge of the safety of the Senate chamber?

At least the rioters did not get to the House floor. That can not be said for the Senate.

What punishment would Quisling-Spineless-Dummkoff McCarthy recommend for McConnell?

It is a shame the Washington reporters did not ask that question.

To be fair, they did call out McCarthy for rejecting the bipartisan January 6, 2021 Commission that his own people negotiated.

But they still should have asked?

What did you know Mr. McCarthy if you thought something bad would happen on January 6, 2021 and why did you or Senator McConnell not act on it?

 

 

 

On this 52nd Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing, Hooray for Wally Funk

 Jeff Bezos, like Richard Branson before him a little over a week ago, may be showing off his ego and vast (and largely untaxed) fortune by launching himself and three others on Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket to the edge of space on the 52nd Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing.

But he can also be credited with rectifying a close to 60-year historical injustice by inviting 82-year-old Wally Funk to be one of the four passengers on the ride.

Photo from CNN[/caption]

Who is Wally Funk?

Other than making history today (July 20, 2021) by becoming the oldest woman in space, she is one of 13 women who participated in most of the same physical and psychological tests under the supervision of Dr. William Randolph Lovelace, as the original seven Mercury  Astronauts.

Lovelace was the physician responsible for overseeing the medical and psychological tests on the seven Mercury Astronauts.

These 13 women would, in the 1990s, earn the nickname The Mercury 13.

Funk was the youngest of 13 veteran female pilots (including Myrtle Cagle, Jerrie Cobb, Janet Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Sarah Gorelick, Jane "Janey" Briggs Hart, Jean Hixson, Rhea Woltman, Gene Nora Stumbough, Irene Leverton, Jerri Sloan, and
Bernice Steadman,) whose performance on these tests equaled and in some cases surpassed the Mercury Seven Astronauts.

Jerrie Cobb, one of the Mercury 13, taking tests identical to the Mercury 7. Photo from Space.[/caption]

Unfortunately, despite the desire of the 13 accomplished female pilots to join N.A.S.A.'s astronaut ranks and the fact that the Soviet Union had no problem launching their own rocket with the first woman astronaut (Valentina Tereshkova in 1963,) none of these ladies were accepted into the space program.

Why?

Male Chauvinism and Double Standards.

N.A.S.A. mandated that all their early astronauts had to be test pilots on military jets. While all the women of the Mercury 13 were pilots that had logged in several thousand hours of flight time, none were as test pilots.

One of the Mercury Seven, Gordon Cooper, told a room of laughing reporters, that they could have used a woman astronaut instead of a chimpanzee pilot on one of the earlier rocket test flights.

When Jerrie Cobb and Jane Hart led the way in testifying before Congress on the desire to join the Astronaut program, they were pushed back by noted figures such as Mercury Astronauts John Glenn (who said women astronauts were against the "social order" and Scott Carpenter, an elder statesman among female pilots Jackie Cochran (who did not like Cobb and may have been jealous not to be part of the 13,) and Vice President Lyndon Johnson (who in commenting on a memo advocating women astronauts, wrote "Let's stop this now.")

Fortunately, future female shuttle pilots/astronauts like the first woman shuttle commander, Eileen Collins, have acknowledged the part the Mercury 13 played in shaping the space program and their careers.

Over the last several years, many books have been written about the Mercury 13.

A documentary on their testing and fight to become part of the space program has been released by Netflix.

May the days of ignoring the efforts of the Mercury 13 and their pursuit of the American Dream in American History classes end.

All children should learn about these 13 extraordinary women and how they helped make it possible for their successors to explore the stars.

 

 

 

"Where Do you Stand," the Lincoln Project Asks in its Latest Ad

 The Lincoln Project, in its customary technical brilliance, released an ad last week titled "Which Side."

In the ad, the narrator eerily demonstrated how the Al Queda terrorists who attacked the country on 9/11/01 were similar to the Domestic insurrectionists on January 6, 2021.

The similarities are:

• "There was an attack on the American Capitol. 
• There was an assault on the temple of Democracy. 
• The attackers followed a sick and corrupt ideology promoted by a charismatic leader obsessed with grievances and wild conspiracies. 
• These people were driven by fear and willing to take innocent lives for their leader."
   

After saluting the bravery of the passengers of Flight 93 who prevented that plane from crashing into the United States Congress, the narrator pointed out:

"There've only been two large-scale terrorist attacks planned against the U.S. Capitol. January 6 was ordered by an American President."

The narrator then closed with:

"Where do you stand? With the terrorists or America?"

With today's first felony conviction of the January 6 Insurrectionist to eight months in prison (he should have received at least the year and a half the Justice Department recommended: maybe more,) the question of "where do you stand"  in the Lincoln Project ad is on point on several issues the fringe right is tearing the country apart on.

Where do you stand? With the Domestic Insurrectionsists acting like Blackshirts/Brownshirts who tried to overturn a free and fair election or with the American ideal and Democracy?

Where do you stand? With the right-wing reactionaries who are enacting measures to suppress voter turnout because they have no message to win over the people or those that want to maintain and expand access to the ballot?

Where do you stand? With the Know-Nothing Science Denying Anti Maskers and Anti Vaxers or the voices calling for individual and public health safety?

Where do you stand? With the white nationalists that want to pretend nothing bad happened in United States History or with those that want children to learn everything about our nation's past?

Where do you stand? By not doing anything to rebuild the nation and move the country forward or be a part of ushering in a new American Century?

Fortunately, most Americans have chosen Democracy, public safety, historical knowledge, and moving the country forward.

Those who have not need to stop listening to the Know Nothing-Science Denying-Neo-Fascist false prophets of the alternative reality and deadly Trump Zone-Fox Island-Disinfowars cult and come join the rest of us before it is too late... for them.

 

 

Editorial Cartoons for the Week

 

Brooks and Capehart from July 16, 2021