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.
4/ We will not read minutes from last month's meeting, as our committee secretary, Henry Sanford is presently hospitalized with COVID-19. We wish him and his loved ones well, send our thoughts and prayers and commend his courageous work on the "MASKS ARE TYRANNY!" float...
5/ ...that appeared in the Labor Day parade in Vero Beach. Hopefully we can honor Henry and his team at our next meeting, assuming they are all off their ventilators or out of quarantine.
6/ Getting to business, we need to sign off on the anti-vaccine-mandate statement that was put together by Belinda Thompson prior to her death from COVID-19. Thoughts and prayers to Belinda's family, all of whom were infected by Belinda at the vaccine protest she organized...
7/ ...in a sealed tent outside the Granada Plaza Publix in Dunedin. The statement, which Belinda composed using her iPhone's voice dictation feature, reads: "The Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy hereby denounces Sleepy Joe Biden's TYRANNICAL attempt to COUGH mandate...
8/ ...vaccines for anyone COUGH anywhere or at any COUGH time. We encourage all righteous COUGH Americans to stand up against this COUGH COUGH COUGH unlawful government overreach." I would propose we vote to approve that statement, but unfortunately, due to COVID-19 illnesses...
9/ ...we do not have a quorum and, in fact, I am the only person in attendance today, and even I barely made it as I'm feeling a little under the weather. Jan Dodson, who is the only committee officer allowed to change the rules on voting, is unfortunately visiting her husband...
10/ ...Zeke who is in Tampa General Hospital's COVID ward. They won't let her in because she patriotically refuses to wear a mask, so kudos to Jan for standing in the parking lot holding a sign that reads "STAY STRONG, ZEKE AND DON'T LET THEM MICROCHIP YOU!!"
11/ COUGH! Excuse me. I'm sure it's just a cold. I will now conclude this meeting of the Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy. COUGH! I feel a bit feverish, so I'm going to go into the Hooter's without a mask and get a beer and some wings. God bless America. END
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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/ 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.
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.