As you’ve probably heard by now, the COVID-19 omicron variant has been detected in more than 30 countries, including the United States, and it’s scaring the hell out of people. That probably has something to do with the fact that the variant that preceded it, delta, fucked shit up this year just as it seemed like a teeny, tiny semblance of normality might be returning to the hellish existence we’ve been living since March 2020, and the idea of the pandemic going on for God knows how much longer seems unimaginable.
While much remains unknown about omicron, scientists say it has mutations that may allow it to spread even quicker than delta. What is known is that public health experts are basically pleading with people who haven’t gotten vaccinated yet to do so, and for people who’ve yet to receive their booster shot to go get it ASAP. That advice is being doled out by individuals who don’t want to see Americans get very ill and possibly die, and with the knowledge that unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to lose their lives to COVID-19 than their fully vaccinated counterparts, according to recent state research. And, naturally, pro-death Republicans have decided that’s a position that cannot stand.
Doubling down on their effectively pro-COVID stance this week, GOP lawmakers have threatened to shut down the government unless Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates are nixed. While it appears as though they will be unsuccessful—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is not in favor of a shutdown—they’ll no doubt remain committed to the cause, i.e. adding to a body count that is more than 785,000 in the United States.
“The only thing I want to shut down is enforcement of an immoral, unconstitutional vaccine mandate,” Senator Mike Lee said on the Senate floor on Thursday. “Shutting down the government is worth saving the jobs in Kansas,” Senator Roger Marshall told colleagues, leaving out the part about Biden’s mandate allowing employees to opt-out of getting vaccinated by simply getting tested each week.
And then there was “gelatinous tubeworm” Ted Cruz. Speaking to reporters, the Texas senator declared, “No pissant politician, whether a local mayor or a governor or the president of the United States has the right or legal authority to force you to make that decision. We have seen in the course of this pandemic Democrats being very comfortable with being petty tyrants and decreeing that you must obey their medical mandates.” Obviously, his little diatribe failed to mention the statistic released from his state’s department of health last month that of the nearly 29,000 Texans who have died from COVID-related illnesses since mid-January 2021, just 8% of them were fully vaccinated against the virus. Or that “tyrants” generally don’t demand people take care of their health, which would make them, like, the most thoughtful tyrants ever.
And where are we on freebasing Clorox? Is that still a no-go or…?
Who is the woman behind the Mississippi abortion ban?
Herewith, a few things about Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch, whose case the Supreme Court may use to overturn Roe v. Wade:
- She suggested that ending most legalized abortion will “empower” women;
- She apparently believes that because she was able to raise three kids as a single mother with, cough, a nanny, everyone else can and should;
- Her father owns a plantation where she spent weekends growing up, which Daddy Fitch outfitted with, per The Lily, “the original home of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, which Bill [Fitch] transported 40 miles and, according to the Fitch Farms website, restored ‘to its former glory.’”
- She doesn’t support government-mandated paid family leave or subsidized child care, according to The Lily.