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Republicans’ New Safe Space Is Letting People Die To Fight ‘Democrat Overreach

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  tessylo  •  3 years ago  •  12 comments

By:   Molly Jong-Fast, The Daily Beast

Republicans’ New Safe Space Is Letting People Die To Fight ‘Democrat Overreach

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



Republicans’ New Safe Space Is Letting People Die To Fight ‘Democrat Overreach’






Molly Jong-Fast






Wed, August 11, 2021, 4:55 AM










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Photo Illustration by Kristen Hazzard/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty

The party of Trump   has a big problem, they have found themselves on a sticky wicket: They have radicalized their base to believe that public health measures are “Democrat overreach.”

In order to get the base excited, they have to rail against certain things, many of them public health-related (vaccine passports, masks, lockdowns, social distancing). But   railing against public health means endangering the health of their base .

For a little while, this delicate balance seemed like it might hold, as Republican governors spent months   sowing doubts about vaccines   and complaining about masking and other supposedly freedom-harming public health basics. The right-wing press took a premature victory lap, with the   National Review ’s Rich Lowry   asking , “Where Does Ron DeSantis Go To Get His Apology?”

Florida’s Death Toll Now Exceeds DeSantis’ Margin of Victory


But the Delta variant made it clear that DeSantis should be giving an apology, not asking for one, as red states have predictably been hit hardest. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from July showed that “Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say they have not been vaccinated and definitely or probably won’t be , 43% to 10%.”


And, dontcha know, COVID cases in Texas are up   125 percent over the last two weeks . In Florida,   they’re up 162 percent . On Monday, as Gov. Greg Abbott   asked hospitals in his state to cancel elective surgeries , Sen. Ted Cruz went on Sean Hannity and pronounced “ No mask mandates. No vaccine mandates. No vaccine passports. No COVID mandates! ” Indeed, Texas and Florida have similar laws prohibiting localities from making their own public health rules, although both   Dallis and Austin are suing   to allow masking.

It took at a lot of stupid to get Florida and Texas to this dark place, which is why the MAGA propagandists are trying to suggest, without much evidence, that this is about an unvaccinated wave at the border—when it appears to be about unvaccinated Americans, in a country with enough vaccine doses to go around, harming their own health and spreading the virus and helping it continue to mutate in the process.

Texas Governor Admits Dangers of Reopening State on Private Call With Lawmakers

In Florida, DeSantis has taken what can only be called a pro-COVID stance, suing cruise lines to   try and stop them from using vaccine passports . That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face given the industry’s importance to the state, but the trolling was always the point. That’s why a defiant, some might say sadistic, DeSantis   announced that   “the Florida Board of Education could withhold the salaries of superintendents and school board members who defy the   governor’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates ” in a state that reported   134,506 new cases   last week.

No wonder   Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN this weekend,   “The viral load in Florida is so high right now… that I think that if Florida were another country, we would have to consider banning travel from Florida to the United States.”   Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis tweeted   that, “Per NYT, ~1 out of every 945 people in Duval County, Florida (Jacksonville) is in a hospital bed tonight w/COVID. #1 highest in the USA.”

With COVID numbers way up,   DeSantis’ numbers are down   as he looks toward re-election and then, he hopes, a 2024 presidential run. It’s a game of chicken: Can he troll the libs without killing so many of his constituents that they turn on him?

Republicans often fume about how Democrats supposedly don’t treat them with respect. But how should we treat voters who refuse to connect their anti-public health rhetoric with all the deaths from a preventable disease?

The reality is that the GOP decided to target anti-vaxxers because they’re easy marks who don’t trust the lamestream press but rely on Facebook memes and Joe Rogan—the guy who used to tell people to eat bugs on   Fear Factor .

What DeSantis and the other governors are doing is deadly wrong, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a bad political bet given the sick state of the base, in pretty much every sense.









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Tessylo
Professor Principal
1  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

The party of Trump       has a big problem, they have found themselves on a sticky wicket: They have radicalized their base to believe that public health measures are “Democrat overreach.”

In order to get the base excited, they have to rail against certain things, many of them public health-related (vaccine passports, masks, lockdowns, social distancing). But      railing against public health means endangering the health of their base   .

For a little while, this delicate balance seemed like it might hold, as Republican governors spent months      sowing doubts about vaccines       and complaining about masking and other supposedly freedom-harming public health basics. The right-wing press took a premature victory lap, with the      National Review   ’s Rich Lowry      asking   , “Where Does Ron DeSantis Go To Get His Apology?”

Florida’s Death Toll Now Exceeds DeSantis’ Margin of Victory


But the Delta variant made it clear that DeSantis should be giving an apology, not asking for one, as red states have predictably been hit hardest. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from July showed that “Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say they have not been vaccinated and definitely or probably won’t be   , 43% to 10%.”

And, dontcha know, COVID cases in Texas are up      125 percent over the last two weeks   . In Florida,      they’re up 162 percent   . On Monday, as Gov. Greg Abbott      asked hospitals in his state to cancel elective surgeries   , Sen. Ted Cruz went on Sean Hannity and pronounced “   No mask mandates. No vaccine mandates. No vaccine passports. No COVID mandates!   ” Indeed, Texas and Florida have similar laws prohibiting localities from making their own public health rules, although both      Dallis and Austin are suing       to allow masking.

It took at a lot of stupid to get Florida and Texas to this dark place, which is why the MAGA propagandists are trying to suggest, without much evidence, that this is about an unvaccinated wave at the border—when it appears to be about unvaccinated Americans, in a country with enough vaccine doses to go around, harming their own health and spreading the virus and helping it continue to mutate in the process.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

The party of Trump       has a big problem, they have found themselves on a sticky wicket: They have radicalized their base to believe that public health measures are “Democrat overreach.”

In order to get the base excited, they have to rail against certain things, many of them public health-related (vaccine passports, masks, lockdowns, social distancing). But      railing against public health means endangering the health of their base   .

For a little while, this delicate balance seemed like it might hold, as Republican governors spent months      sowing doubts about vaccines       and complaining about masking and other supposedly freedom-harming public health basics. The right-wing press took a premature victory lap, with the      National Review   ’s Rich Lowry      asking   , “Where Does Ron DeSantis Go To Get His Apology?”

Florida’s Death Toll Now Exceeds DeSantis’ Margin of Victory


But the Delta variant made it clear that DeSantis should be giving an apology, not asking for one, as red states have predictably been hit hardest. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from July showed that “Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say they have not been vaccinated and definitely or probably won’t be   , 43% to 10%.”

And, dontcha know, COVID cases in Texas are up      125 percent over the last two weeks   . In Florida,      they’re up 162 percent   . On Monday, as Gov. Greg Abbott      asked hospitals in his state to cancel elective surgeries   , Sen. Ted Cruz went on Sean Hannity and pronounced “   No mask mandates. No vaccine mandates. No vaccine passports. No COVID mandates!   ” Indeed, Texas and Florida have similar laws prohibiting localities from making their own public health rules, although both      Dallis and Austin are suing       to allow masking.

It took at a lot of stupid to get Florida and Texas to this dark place, which is why the MAGA propagandists are trying to suggest, without much evidence, that this is about an unvaccinated wave at the border—when it appears to be about unvaccinated Americans, in a country with enough vaccine doses to go around, harming their own health and spreading the virus and helping it continue to mutate in the process.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
2.1  Greg Jones  replied to  Tessylo @2    3 years ago

All kinds of visual evidence that unvaccinated and untested migrants continue to stream across the southern border. Biden's policies are killing people and spreading Covid all across the US.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.1  seeder  Tessylo  replied to  Greg Jones @2.1    3 years ago

That's a lie.  I realize that's all you have to offer.  

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
3  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

The gop's ignorance and mis-dis-information is killing people.  It's killing children.  

 
 
 
Ronin2
Professor Quiet
4  Ronin2    3 years ago

This is all Biden's fault, period. He did nothing to stop the Delta variant from entering this country. In fact he has openly encouraged it by allowing the massive amount of illegals into this country across our southern border that have a 14% positive test rate for covid- that is just among those they catch and the few they test.

Coronavirus cases are surging in crowded government detention centers, as the number of illegal immigrants being held in the facilities has nearly doubled in the past months, according to a report on Tuesday. 

More than 7,500 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the centers between April and last week, the New York Times reported , citing an analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.

In that same period, the number of people being held in detention rose to more than 26,000 from 14,000. 

The rise in COVID-19 cases accounts for more than 40 percent of all cases reported in ICE facilities since the pandemic began, the Times said. 

Public health officials told the newspaper that few migrants are vaccinated, making the jammed detention centers ripe for outbreaks of the deadly disease. 

Just 20 percent of detainees coming through the facilities have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine while in custody. 

The Biden administration rolled back the bulk of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, setting off the illegal immigration rush that has overwhelmed government facilities — causing some governors to send National Guard troops to the border to assist the feds.

Dr. Carlos Franco-Paredes, an associate professor at the Colorado University School of Medicine, said there are a number of reasons for the rise in cases, including lax safety precautions, a lack of testing and the transporting of migrants between facilities. 

During an inspection at a center in Aurora, Colo., Franco-Paredes said he saw staffers not wearing masks properly. 

“There is minimal to no accountability regarding their protocols​,” he said. ​

ICE spokeswoman Paige Hughes said detainees are tested for the coronavirus and placed in quarantine for 14 days when they arrive.

“On-site medical professionals are credited with reducing the risk of further spreading the disease by immediately testing, identifying and isolating the exposed detainees to mitigate the spread of infection,” she said.

B​ut public health officials note that detainees are transported to the facilities by​ bus before they are tested, raising the likelihood that they expose others during the trip. 

According to the report, ICE officials said the agency left the decision to vaccinate the migrants up to state and local officials. ​

Some of the largest infections have been recorded in states with low vaccination rates, including one in the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Miss. 

With the spread of the variants like delta that are more transmissible, Sharon Dolovich, director of the Covid Behind Bars Data Project at UCLA, said vaccinations have to become a priority or the infections will increase.

“You have people coming in and out of the facility, into communities where incomplete vaccination allows these variants to flourish, and then you bring them inside the facilities, and that variant will spread,” Dolovich said.

“What you’re describing is the combination of insufficient vaccination plus the evolution of the virus, and that is really scary,” she said.

Two more whistleblowers have come forward to allege that children were mistreated by contractors and senior federal employee managers at a Department Health and Human Services migrant shelter in Fort Bliss, Texas, earlier this year , and also say HHS told them to downplay hundreds of Covid infections among children held at the facility.

"Covid was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees. Hundreds of children contracted Covid in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced," the whistleblowers, Arthur Pearlstein and Lauren Reinhold, said in a federal whistleblower complaint filed Wednesday

But at the end of their service, they said, federal detailees were regularly given written instructions from HHS public affairs that told them, "when asked, to make everything sound positive about the Fort Bliss experience and to play down anything negative."

At a town hall with employees, a senior manager from the U.S. Public Health Service refused to share the rate of infections, explaining that he did not want the number to end up reported by the media, they said.

Pearlstein and Reinhold are federal employees who volunteered to be detailed to the shelter when the Biden administration ramped up staffing to accommodate the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border by building emergency intake shelters like Fort Bliss and others.

NBC News previously reported that Servpro, a company that specializes in disaster cleanup and has no child welfare experience, oversaw the care of nearly 5,000 children in Ft. Bliss in early May and June.

In their complaint, which was filed by lawyers from the Government Accountability Project, Pearlstein and Reinhold said two other contractors in addition to Servpro — Chenega Corporation and Rapid Deployment Inc. — also handled the close to $1 billion in contracts the federal government paid to operate Fort Bliss. None of the three companies had child care experience and they did not properly vet applicants to be sure they had relevant experience, they said.

As a result, federal detailees with no background in child psychology were asked to interview more than 5,000 children to assess whether they needed special attention due to a history of abuse or exposure to sex or labor trafficking. It was not clear from the complaint which company or government manager made the decision to staff the interviews with inexperienced workers.

"They did their level best, flagging those who required special attention," Pearlstein and Reinhold said. Only after assessing over 5,000 children were the workers reassigned because management determined they were not "qualified to do clinical assessment."

More than 100 illegal immigrants released by the Border Patrol into Texas since late January have tested positive for the coronavirus following their arrival, officials in a city on the U.S.-Mexico border tell Fox News. 

Felipe Romero, a spokesperson for Brownsville, said Wednesday that the 108 positives represent 6.3% of the number of total migrants who have been rapid-tested at the city’s main bus station, where they are being released by the Border Patrol. Rapid testing of the individuals began there on Jan. 25. 

He added that Brownsville does not have the authority to prevent those who test positive from traveling elsewhere in the U.S. -- and are advising them to quarantine, follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and socially distance. 

The city of Brownsville also told Noticias Telemundo Investiga that it is advising migrants who test positive to go to NGOs and nonprofits in the area for help with finding shelter and places they can isolate themselves from others. The local county-wide positivity rate is estimated to be 13.8%. 

Migrant families who tested positive and spoke to that news organization at the bus station said they were waiting to travel to places such as Maryland and New Jersey.

From the same article:

Border Patrol agents apprehending illegal crossers have also noted none of them are wearing personal protective equipment, such as a masks, when they are taken into custody. "None of the individuals that were taken into custody were wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) when found. The individuals were provided PPE and were medically screened.  With a noted increase in COVID-19 infections, human smugglers continue to place individuals in close quarters without PPE.  This not only endangers the people being smuggled, but the safety of our Nation," CBP released in a statement about recent apprehensions.

Don't even try to deny Biden's super spreader event. He is directly responsible for the massive surge in Covid 19 cases and the rise of the Delta variant in the US.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
4.1  seeder  Tessylo  replied to  Ronin2 @4    3 years ago

It took at a lot of stupid to get Florida and Texas to this dark place, which is why the MAGA propagandists are trying to suggest, without much evidence, that this is about an unvaccinated wave at the border—when it appears to be about unvaccinated Americans, in a country with enough vaccine doses to go around, harming their own health and spreading the virus and helping it continue to mutate in the process.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
4.1.1  Greg Jones  replied to  Tessylo @4.1    3 years ago

No matter the font size, [deleted]

[( Both sides do it everyday, maybe our readers can demand a rule change to stop it, but your approach was wrong )]

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
4.1.2  Ender  replied to  Greg Jones @4.1.1    3 years ago

No, it's not.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
4.2  Ender  replied to  Ronin2 @4    3 years ago

The border, the border, OMG the border....

A broken fucking record.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
5  JohnRussell    3 years ago

Republican leaders have painted themselves into a corner and dragged their base into it with them. 

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
6  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

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