1/ All righty, folks, let's sit down a moment, collect our breath and address the volcanic right-wing pants-crapping currently brought on by Biden's announcement of various vaccine mandates. For starters, good job, guys! You're doing that thing where you absolutely freak out...
2/ ...and throw around words like "tyranny" and "Marxism" and whatever else you found in the "Modern Conservative's Inaccurate Scare-Word-of-the-Day Calendar" you bought in the gift shop at Mar-a-Lago when you were there hoping to get a whiff of one of Donald Trump's farts.
3/ Rather than actually taking a moment to reflect on, you know, all the people dying and whatnot, you all are Pavlov's-dogging it right to "BIDEN DID A SOCIALISM ON ME!!!" bullsh*t, which only serves to raise the blood pressure of your already COVID-infected base.
4/ You'll now say this is the end of the Biden administration, and tell people to take to the streets, and blabber about civil war coming or whatever other pseudo-end-times cosplay makes you feel like big boys, knowing full-well you're: a) fully vaccinated; and b) a chicken...
5/ ...who can barely stand the heat of a mean tweet much less march two city blocks without getting winded. So you wail, impotently, and then along comes your true enemy: facts.
6/ And here's a fact that hoists you're gurgling "MANDATES ARE COMMUNIMUNIMUNIMISMS!!" nonsense into the crapper and hits "flush": The latest Kaiser Family Foundation data shows 75% of adult Americans have gotten at least one COVID vaccine shot.
7/ You know what that means, MAGA-warrior? That means this ain't the losing issue you so desperately want to believe it is. That means most Americans trust their doctors over a sweaty pillow salesman who couldn't find a corner in a 3-foot-square room.
8/ That means most people out there have brains enough to rattle and will breathe little sighs of relief when they know they can go most places without having to worry about willfully ignorant doofuses overcompensating for *something* by bragging about their immune systems...
9/ ...and saying crap like "I HAVE MY FREEDOMS!" while completely disregarding how much their harebrained performative bunk might hurt other human beings. You were never going to win on the vaccine issue. Or on the mask issue. It's all so patently stupid, so regressive, so...
10/ ...goddam exhausting to those of us who have just been trying like hell to keep our families healthy, that it's done nothing but brand you as anti-science loons, which you are. It was always a matter of time before it came down to: you can get the vaccine and work, or you...
11/ ...can not get the vaccine and open up that Etsy store you've always dreamed of and live down by the river in your Ford Focus. When Americans watch 600,000+ friends and neighbors and family members die, the folks on the side of dying ain't gonna win, pals. It's game over.
12/ So you can continue soiling your trousers and roaring your terrible roars and gnashing your terrible teeth and spreading your terrible Ivermectin on toast with jam or whatever it is you do to make yourself feel superior to all the sheep and libs and antifas and such.
13/ But the rest of us are tired. Real f*cking tired. And we're glad to see a president acting like a grownup and telling people to get their acts together so we can move past this nightmare and just go to work or go to the store or worry a little less about our kids.
14/ Stupid never cured anything, and that's all you've got to offer. No thanks. We're done. Get the vaccine if you want to come along. Otherwise, stay behind and start busking right-wing protest songs. We'll give you a tin can. Bite me. END
p.s. I apologize for the "you're" that should be a "your" and any other typos. I will spend the remainder of the evening in my Shame Circle.
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1/ Hello everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy. We're meeting today in this parking lot behind a Hooter's because Dale, our treasurer, died of COVID-19 last night and he had sole access to the accounts, so we couldn't rent out...
2/ ...our usual conference room space in the Best Western. Apologies for any inconvenience and thoughts and prayers to Dale's family members who have not also died of COVID-19.
My name is Tad Horkington, and I'm honored to have been named president of the committee following...
3/ ...the tragic death of Thomas Bilgenut, the interim president who last week died of COVID-19. Tom had, of course, replaced Hugh Frank, our previous president who died two weeks ago of COVID-19, along with his entire family and the youth football team he coached.
1/ So Gavin Newsom prevailed and Larry Elder has conceded. But before the California recall election he was on about voter fraud and “shenanigans” and he set up a website to report it and everything. So what changed? The margin of victory was just too great to try and con people?
2/ Is this transparent GOP bullsh*t what we have to deal with in every election now? They scream RIGGED! before the vote, then if the vote is close they keep screaming it, otherwise they just drop and it and move on to the next grift? And we’re just supposed to sit back and…
3/ …accept that a certain amount of anti-democracy hogwash will come with each vote? Nuts to that garbage. This is childish, shameful and damn awful dangerous. I know folks are sick of it, but they need to raise holy hell about it. Don’t treat this party like it’s legitimate.
1/ I will not coddle Trump supporters who refuse to get vaccinated and I won’t bear the burden of “listening to Trump supporters” to better understand them. Why, you ask?
2/ Regarding the unvaccinated, they’re prolonging the pandemic, costing us a fortune when they end up hospitalized, increasing the odds a vaccine-evading variant will develop AND they made life hell for many by refusing to wear masks and mocking those who do.
3/ I'm not going to be polite in the hope they'll do the right thing. They’re not children. They’re grown-ass adults who are willfully putting me, my family and the rest of the country at risk.
1/ Tribune Publishing shareholders just let the hedge fund Alden Global Capital buy the company. This is terrible news for the Chicago Tribune and all our sister newspapers. It's also terrible news for the communities these papers cover and, I'd argue, for the country.
2/ So I'm going to take a moment to feel angry, disappointed and a bit scared. Then I'm going to do exactly what my colleagues here in Chicago, and my colleagues in Baltimore and New York and Hartford and Orlando and in newsrooms across the country, will do: get back to work.
3/ I can't be bothered with people who view newspapers as businesses to be squeezed for profit, or as disposable investments. None of us got into this to make money. We got into it because we have the unshakable ailment of giving a damn about the word around us and wanting to...
1/ Some quick thoughts on masks, being vaccinated and not being a terrible person.
As of today, I'm two weeks clear of my second vaccine shot. FULLY VAXXED. Thank you, science. And thank you, beyond words, to all the front-line workers who have confronted this damn pandemic...
2/ ...bravely in the face of immeasurable selfishness and stupidity from people unwilling to take the simple steps needed to keep everyone safe.
Today the CDC said fully vaccinated people can go maskless outdoors unless they're in large crowds. That's great news.
3/ I still plan on keeping a mask with me at all times when I'm outside. I'll put it on anytime I'm around other people, whether they're masked or not. They may be vaccinated, they may not. They may be immunocompromised, or simply uncomfortable around maskless people.
1/ People who care about newspapers might come together and buy the Chicago Tribune and our sister papers. Not definite. It could still fall through, I know. But for the first time in ages, it's a glimmer of hope.
2/ I work with amazing people. I work with people who change lives, people who, particularly over the past year, put themselves at risk to tell stories people need to hear. I work with people who give a damn about their community and their country and the world.
3/ For as long as I can remember, the people I work with have been kicking ass and doing things right and, for my money, doing things as well as any newsroom in the country, without an ounce of job security. We've seen buyouts and layoffs, people leaving because of low pay.