17 Comments

First of all Trump should be locked up for this alone.

If you don’t believe systemic racism and ageism exists, maybe its time to look again.

The hate filled banner that the Republicans fly has become quite visible.

This is frighteningly true.

They think of Senior Citizens as ‘eaters’ quite expendable unless you have lots of money . As with Black and Brown people who are also left to die, somewhat gleefully by Trump, Steven Miller and other of these despicable White Supremacists who routinely practice and visit evil on people they consider unworthy.

Do you think its an accident that they want to get rid of Medicare and Social Security?

They know most of people benefitting from these programs would not survive on the streets and without Medical care .

They don’t care. Witness them yelling at Joe Biden during the State of the Union address.

The things the scream loudest about are the truth .

They have no problem lying about just anything.

Please feel their hatred now .

It may be the only way we can stand up to them .

Know for sure: they do not wish us

well.

They are terrified that ‘minority ‘populations are on their way to being the majority , and they know what they “the Right”, deserve.

Serious protectors of their citizens would be working yesterday to develop a vaccine for this disease .

But here in America, the only people they wish to save are wealthy white people , who to some degree are insulated already.

This cannot be the end legacy of the “ Land of the Free and the home of the Brave. “

They have made a pact with the Devil, the Devil has bestowed endless Evil for them to use where they will .

And they will.

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You are so, so right on this one Mr. Hartmann! This flu has devastated birds and is poised to make the jump to mammals—humans, in other words. Previous occasional human cases were chiefly in poultry workers who acquired it from birds in a setting with close sustained contact. Now it has jumped to mink, and appears to be capable of mammal to mammal transmission, as seen in a large-scale mink outbreak. These are the competencies that the virus requires to be capable of a large scale human outbreak due to community transmission. For a pathogen with a 50% mortality rate, this is of the gravest concern.

We do understand how to effectively immunize against these flu strains, and know the technology to produce such vaccines on a large scale. Contingency plans to be able to proceed if/when necessary should be in the works. If the Biden administration understands the need, they will have to proceed against the dead set opposition of the GOP KlownKar House. And if such vaccine is produced and available you can be sure that the MAGA conspiracy contingent will promote disinformation and vaccine refusal.

A 50% mortality rate in the GOP caucus does have an upside however……

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The deadly evil of politics could not be more evident than with the COVID pandemic and how the Trump Administration deceived all Americans. In contrast, other democratic and western countries did the very opposite, such as New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea. Now, will we as a Nation have learned our lesson? I have always believed that the responsible callous parties for the death of over one million COVID Americans should be tried in a court of law, convicted, and sentenced. But massive casualties by sycophant politicians get a free get-out-prison-pass while most police killers either keep their jobs or eventually get promotions. What is up is down, what is right is wrong, and what is bad is good in right-wing America. "Alternative Facts" are the new norm simply because of the racial number game in this country: white women are having fewer babies, so let's ban abortion; they (these issues) are all tied together. Sadly, an excellent holistic analysis of truth and reality in the (DSA) "Divided States of America"!

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I have no sympathy for Republicans, or for Donald Trump, or the entire political class in the US for that matter. But I do have a respect for facts. African-Americans have and continue to experience unconscionable health disparities in all areas.

But "Black people were most of the casualties, outside of the extremely elderly" is true only if you consider forty year old people extremely elderly. Per the US CDC, Black Americans are 2.1 times as likely to be hospitalized as white, and 1.6 times as likely to die from covid. People 40-49 are 1.9 times as likely to be hospitalized and 10 times as likely to die than those 18-29. For those 50-64, the numbers are 3.1 and 25 times.

This disease is exponentially (literally, not figuratively) worse with age, other than the very youngest infants.

We old people count, too, and casting us, along with the immunocompromised and others at high risk, into the memory hole is also unconscionable.

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If there is ever a prize for the worst public service information provided in a crisis, it will go to Trump and his virus team. They never once explained what a virus IS. I had to go to a Stanford website. They did not explain that a virus attacks cells or how it does it. These things require that you know what DNA and RNA do, just the basics. Replication is the mission and faster replication means it can spread further into you and then it wants the next guy. If you warn your immune system with a vaccine, then you slow and eventually stop that process. If you don't warn your system, it can go crazy fighting, and you can lose the battle.

It sounds stupid and simplistic, but they never began at the beginning.

What they tried to explain with the stats on infection never hit home with the "rugged individuals". Taking one for the team just doesn't register with them. And now, all this stupid talk about how we should not close schools is the latest dangerous bandwagon people are jumping on. Kids spread EVERYTHING at school and then take it home to their family. I don't want to think about who else would have died or gotten permanently injured if we had not closed them. Folks WANT to believe masks don't matter at all---that's nuts! So is Trump, and you are so right. We will continue to pay the price for letting a psychopath and his sickos run this country.

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Now there's this validation of the militant anti-maskers that masks don't actually inhibit transmission. (I'm hearing it on the 24-hr KCBS 740 AM radio news station repeated through the day, supposedly from some organization I never heard of before, but touted as highly credible. Sorry, didn't take notes.) So masks are going to be equated with vaccines and stay-at-home as all pointless tyrannical economy-killers. Fallacy in the reporting: masks are supposedly useless, but still recommended for "the immunocompromised." So, if - never mind. Also much is being made of damage to educational development of children from lockdowns. So look out for anti-school closure hysteria if the bird flu comes for us. Meanwhile, back home, Shasta County is still seeking chief public health officer nine months after the yahoos fired the previous lady for, you know, being a sane responsible public health officer.

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founding

I wonder how much race,class and religion are behind this objection to prophylactics

For instance my brother in law, a Promise Keeping Christian fanatic refused to get vaccinated on religious grounds, says he, and he is school teacher, but he and others like him threatened to sue the school district and they backed off

Could it be that these people engage in some fantasy about the superiority of white, Christians, that they are healthier, and it is only minority communities and immigrants that get infected.

Just asking, because there is a common threat among the anti vaxx crowd.

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Feb 10, 2023·edited Feb 10, 2023

Well Done, Thom.

Thank you!

.

slide Over

Howard Zinn*

there's a New Kid on

the Block -- Professor Thom Hartmann.

.

*Historian, author: 'A People's History of the United States'

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The comments that precede me are spot on and pretty much covers this issue so I'll simply add my thanks and a note that while I agree with everything said here and they can't lock Trump and his sycophants soon enough, I do have some staunch Republican friends who wear masks and got vaccinated. We have to remember that not all Republicans are like DT and his base.

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Joke: Do you know the difference between bird flu and swine flu?

If you get bird flu, you have to get a tweetment.

If you get swine flu, you have to get an oinkment.

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Thanks for a heads up and being a leading voice on these serious public health concerns.

The weaponization committee wants to go after fauci, as so many of them did already.

Its excellent we have media that keeps a focus on matters of real concern, as we see the corporate media constantly distract with its limited range of spectacle and false equivalency.

I think it's interesting that Trump did try to take credit for the vaccines and openly "admitted" that he did get vaccines. Of course he got covid too. But the anti-science tilt (and its promotion in media) goes aways back, as the john birch society backed organizations like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons which under its seemingly legitimate name publishes or contributes all kinds of medical misinformation in a variety of media, having covered topics like homosexuality and aids in the past. Recent goings-on described here, noting it has popped up in nearly every major health-care debate for decades, including the Affordable Care Act and opioids, and it wields a surprising amount of influence, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was outed as a member in 2010.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/aaps-make-health-care-great-again/607015/

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I appreciate you so much, Thom Hartman! Yes, I believe the minute Trump saw that African Americans are way more likely to die from Covid that he did nothing to help. Why can't I get more people to sign up for your emails? When you had a small back surgery 11 months ago (and "Jeff" was your replacement, I was worried you might die, so I started telling the bus driver (black) that some white people really do matter to all of us. Why do so many citizens in LA not even know about KPFK? Wow, are we polarized in LA. KPFK put on Fridays at 5 p.m. the anti-vaxers so I guess they think our side is almost defeated and we have to unite. Not that anyone believes Matrix Deciphered, but I am a target just like Renee Pittman. I am plowing through her 6 books. I am an atheist. She is not, yet I am astounded how rational she is. Robert Duncan is the NATO scientist (similar to HAARP book The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy (author is great but should not use this last word) Go Thom Go!!

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What a headline! Maybe give it to Robert Reich to make a cartoon for it!

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