Writes John Podhoretz in "Joe Biden’s Omicron speech was a pack of total bull" (NY Post).
Podhoretz is raving. Why can't people face what Omicron is? It's very contagious (but apparently relatively mild). Deal with it people. It's always the President's miserable fault when the President is in the party that's not your party. For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot. Democrats support their President, so, needing to blame people, they blame Republicans — all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules.
But it's a virus, which has no party affiliation and no capacity for good and evil. Just deal with it. Adapt to changing circumstances. One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans. But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling. He's reduced to "blather" — and "total bull" — because he can't steal Christmas from the adult kiddies of America.
The tests seem like the magic answer. Free tests! The office of the President came up with the idea of a present: 500 million tests! Coming soon, in the mail! No sacrifice for you. Beneficence from above. Up on the rooftop, Santa's coming. No he's not. But you still want to believe he will, so our frail President told you he will. And now, you're so mad at him, you have a tantrum in the New York Post. Ridiculous!
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Your assessment of Podhoretz misses the mark (said from someone who listens to the Commentary podcast on a daily basis.) He identifies as a conservative. His disdain for the Republican party is visceral. Also, his position on Covid is the same as yours - it is a highly contagious and mildly symptomatic cold bug, and acting like it is The Plague is madness.
But blather and bull have been Dopey Joe's stock in trade since before he had hair plugs! It would be cruel to expect him to change now, while he's dealing with dementia.
As I'm sure many will point out, Podhoretz is about as much a Republican as Jen Rubin. Pretty sure he supported Biden, or at the very least opted out of the last two presidential elections and spent 5 years attacking Trump. Now he's discovering the fruits of his labors. Sorry if I don't care what he says. His father is more worthy.
@Althouse wrote: "Democrats support their President, so, needing to blame people, they blame Republicans — all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules."
The unspoken issue here is that the LOWEST VACCINATION RATES ARE AMONG BLACKS AND HISPANICS. This has been true from the start. See Figure 3 half way down the page:
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/
See Bloomberg's (left of center) analysis too:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/us-vaccine-demographics.html
Biden huffing and puffing about Republicans is likely driving a wedge between Democrats and moderate non-White voters. This could account for the now parity in Hispanic left/right preferences and follows Trump's relatively strong showing with Black voters in 2020.
Biden and the left's habit of treating Trump as the embodiment of pure evil has fully MIRRORED Trump. Stop the cycle or accept equal blame.
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
I find the "deal with it" by staying home message from our hostess puzzling. How about "deal with it" by just living your life? All of us have only so many Christmases left with our families, and only so many months of life left in any cass. So how about simply getting vaccinated (or not, up to you) and just going on living?
I have a friend who despite his whole family being vaccinated got Covid along with his whole family. (mild cases all). He then said "Well, at least one good thing about this is that now we can go to restaurants." My response was "except for the first few weeks, my family and I have been going to restaurants the entire time."
Even if you don't get Covid, life is short.
Or.... Just have Christmas. And don't worry about a test. Here's your test: if you feel sick, stay home.
Its not just Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow rules. Healthy portions of AA and Hispanic minorities, teachers, medical care workers, public servants, etc. are in this same bucket. The issue is the intrusion on bodily autonomy and lack of clear and concise information/data about the status and severity of the variants, and the risk of hospitalization and death involved for same. This admin, along with a variety of mayors and governors, is extremely poor at communicating the data to support its actions. When they do that, we get tantrums, and rightfully so. We can't be mandated by unsubstantiated whims. We have to demand a very high standard for the rules imposed on us, especially when the rules themselves threaten quality of life and livelihood.
Symptoms last Friday. Took a test Monday. Positive. Better by Wednesday. Don’t know if it’s omicron. But I’m done worrying about covid.
Well, it was the undeservedly smug Psaki that mocked the idea of getting tests to everyone just a couple weeks ago, so I think the administration deserves whatever opprobrium comes their way over the current shortage and their reversal of emphasis.
Yes, it’s always the other teams fault. But payback is hell, and the Dems, particularly this one, deserve all the mocking they’re getting. Brandon was going to “shut down the disease not the country.” And according to him it was all Trump’s fault for 200k deaths. If our current President hadn’t campaigned that he had all the answers I’d be more sympathetic.
Testing is not a “magic answer” they are the only option to an onerous vaccine mandate in many locations. Joe ran on saying “Trump has no plan to address COVID. I have a detailed plan,” which was clearly a lie because he’s done the opposite of what he was promising. Like imposing vaccine mandates after saying repeatedly he could not and would not. He did it. And with that decree he had an obligation to push the CDC for better testing and cheap ubiquitous antigen tests were the simplest route if you are acting like public health is the priority. It’s not. Politics is Biden’s guiding principle.
Even better than rapid antigen would have been the highly necessary antibody tests needed to confirm immunity level. Antibody testing should have been widely available and cheap a year ago but are not. Those people lining up for tests in NYC have chosen standing in freezing weather over getting vaccinated. Another angry speech from Sleepy Coughing Joe ain’t changing any other minds. Those New Yorkers would love to confirm their immunity status if that was an option.
I have a taken couple of those antigen rapid tests, recently, one of them before visiting my sister, who, when I saw how frail she had become, I rapidly regretted my decision to give in to her demand that I come into her house and share a meal, instead of talking on the porch, like I planned. They work in the aggregate, but for an individual, they have little value. If a hundred thousands people use them, some spread will be avoided temporarily, I suppose, but the guarantee that applies in the aggregate, does not apply to the individual. Somebody is guaranteed to win the lottery, but there is no guarantee that it is going to be you.
So as a public health measure, sure the tests make a lot of sense. Too bad the FDA held them up for so long, so that we can't have the same cheap access to them that the Germans have, and that is on the foot dragging FDA which is a branch of the Democrat Party, and which held back the vaccine approval at the cost of an estimated 100K lives, to help Biden get elected, and from which, senior leaders resigned over the political decision to approve the vaccine for children, when the data does not 100% support it.
There is legitimate blame to throw at Biden, as a figurehead for the cabal running the government, if admittedly, blaming the doddering old fool himself personally for it is pointless.
Testing is nice for keeping score of the progress of the pandemic. It does next to nothing for the individual. You take a test today -- negative! Very nice! You can hang out with your relatives. Unfortunately during your trip to CVS to get the test you picked up Omicron from some random person. If you take the test tomorrow or the next day you might have it. And you might have already passed it on to your relatives. That's how contagious diseases work. Unless everybody in the world -- EVERYBODY -- stays in quarantine for a few weeks it will not be possible to stop the transmission. Which is not going to happen.
We're going to live with COVID for a long time. Let's just hope it doesn't mutate into something more lethal.
Oh, and by the way, the Chinese government really should be made to pay a price for letting this horror loose on the world (accidentally, probably, but still negligent) as should the U.S. health bureaucrats who funded 'gain of function.' Let's not lose sight of who is at fault for this catastrophe. Not Trump. Not Biden. Wuhan Lab (i.e. ruling Chinese Communist Party) and the Fauci gang.
Finally, the American people are being duly punished for electing a stupid, nasty, incompetent, demented fool as president during a global crisis. Nice work, my peeps.
The government buys up 500 million tests.
There is a shortage of tests.
Perhaps these two things are related?
Bobby Woodward. Yeah, sure he will. I read the BJ Pritzker conglomerate will be a big beneficiary of these tests. Winning.
Podhoretz's mistake is focusing only on Omicron. Our testing problem is that the FDA and CDC have actively blocked several tests that are widely in use in other countries. If Biden were as competent as his supporters claim, he would have fixed this problem that Trump allowed to drag on. He did not, because Biden is even less likely to wrangle with bureaucratic inertia than Trump was.
My local CVS has an abundance of Covid tests available. Maybe our columnist needs to get out of New Yawk City once in a while.
I received the 3rd shot on Saturday, the 11th. I had no reaction at all to the first two. This last one (all three were Moderna) has kicked my butt. Mild flu symptoms, starting with fever and ache for a few days, and then diarrhea and lethargy the last several days. It just has to work itself out of my system.
I bought a Covid test this week, took it and was negative. Which is a positive.
Here's to everyone having a happy and healthy Christmas.
It's quite funny. I love the vision of New Yorkers standing in line in the rain for something. Because as they keep voting for Democrats, they should be getting used to standing in line for things. It's the history of socialism and it just keeps on giving.
Anyway...I thought this was a rather bizarre take: "But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling. He's reduced to "blather" — and "total bull" — because he can't steal Christmas from the adult kiddies of America." Substitute the words 'family/friends' for Christmas. Or maybe it's that people- families- like the tradition of celebrating their religion together. Or, like me, maybe they're not Christian but grew up absolutely loving the season, the music of the season, the lights of the season, and the way it makes some of us feel and look towards each other- in a more loving, peaceful manner.
And then there's those- mostly on the left- who just can't stand it. I don't know why it's so hard for some to love Christmas, but...that's not my worry. With regard to Podhoretz "raving" about Joe Biden, I say, Let him rave, let him rave, let him rave.
As the federal government seems to have delusions of grandeur on a Deity level basis they are probably thinking about that quote from The Book of Matthew about the rain "falling on the just and the unjust". So, just as stimulus checks went out to those who needed them and those who did not (as an aside, buying a firearm with mine likely got me on some list!) so also will truckloads of home test kits belatedly rolled out to great fanfare and publicity. And to no practical effect whatsoever.
Those who take the stance that this has become mostly hype are not going to do a test when they get the sniffles. Those who live in existential fear will run through however many tests come from On High in short order and be none the healthier or happier for it.
Don't get me going on false positive and false negative test results. Suffice it to say that untrained people using kits that were probably ordered in haste from unknown suppliers (both of final product and of component materials and reagents) are not going to contribute useful data to the Opaque Mess that is our lot two years into the pandemic.
At least is seems as if the mask mantra is starting to abate. Surgical masks...great to protect from infection during a two hour surgery or even a two week ICU stay. Two years? C'mon Man!
Tacitus
* to forestall some criticism my decision was to get "the jabs". Yours may vary and I'm OK with that.
Oh well, the safety dance
Ah yes, the safety dance
Oh well, the safety dance
Oh well, the safety dance
Oh yes, the safety dance
Oh, the safety dance, yeah
Well, it's the safety dance
It's the safety dance
Well, it's the safety dance
Well, it's the safety dance
Oh, it's the safety dance
Oh, it's the safety dance
This has to be in the running for the most words to say "Republicans pounce".
The Biden administration has been a disaster on so many levels. They have totally screwed the pooch on testing and continuing with Warp Speeding testing, new vaccines and treatments. There only hope now is Omicron being a bigger disaster in the red states.
However, one must remember that no matter how badly our Federal Government performs no matter what party is "in charge", we are every man Jack of us getting exactly what we deserve.
Careful, ranting is also very contagious (but apparently mild?).
Normally I might agree with you. We will only get through this together.
But Joe Biden played the COVID blame game like a selfish 3 year old and so did most of his lunatic supporters. So now that he has more deaths than Trump and is showing his usual incompetence in every aspect of this challenge, he can sit at home alone at Christmas and suck on his 38% popularity. He has more than earned it.
He doesn't get to stir (and slur) division when it suits him and then demand we fall in line when it's him on the hot seat.
The president said he was going to shut down the virus, and I don't really see why you object to holding him to account. You may not have been personally inconvenienced, but a lot of other people have been, and mocking them for complaining about the confused, flailing response from the people who were elected to fix this situation seems unjustified.
Prof A: I guess your post is intended as an example of your High Parody style, where you adopt the blathering and jumpy incoherence of the ones you are mocking; and your object is to stir up your readership to produce incandescent rants. But that’s just my guess.
Are you serious in asking everybody to get a grip and wait quietly for Biden to deliver those tests? Do you really think he did not destroy huge social value —and Xmas— for tens of millions of people who now feel compelled to go get tested before they gather or travel; but there are no tests (because he induced a surge of spurious demand); so they can’t gather or travel?
This is entirely on him. On one drooling idiot. We don’t need to work hard here to apply Alinsky’s rule, of personalizing the target. Biden stands almost alone as the author of this gigantic dumpster fire.
The consolation is, between the hugely contagious but mild virus, and the approval of antiviral treatments, this panic will collapse in the next 6-8 weeks. We’ll all get Omicron, almost all of us will shrug it off, the others will get treated, very very few will suffer serious illness or death, and then to hell with lockdowns and mandates.
Or how about, “turnabout is fair play”? The left media unfairly treated the right president when he was in office. The right media has to give at least as good as it got to the left president. Don’t tell me you expect one side or the other to be the bigger person and rise above. That’s civility bullshit.
I read it differently. By the end of the column Podhoretz points out precisely that Omicron seems to be mild. I don’t see him raging at the frail President for not making it all perfect.
I iust see him holding the President to account for a lot of bullshit that came before now. If you campaign on “I’m not going to shut down the country, I’m going to shut down the virus!” - well, three cheers for not shutting down the country, but can we point out he hasn’t shut down the virus, even as we know of course he was never going to do that? If you emphasize making testing available, can we make fun now that tests are so hard to find? If you say “I have a plan” and your defense becomes, Hey, who could see this coming? you deserve mockery.
Any President responsible for 200,000 COVID deaths should resign, he said. I guess the escape clause is, he’s not responsible for these.
I’m not clamoring for the President to save us all. I just wish he were less brazenly full of it. Laughter is a coping mechanism.
"It's very contagious (but apparently relatively mild)."
Like the flu.
"One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans. But Christmas!!!"
Another thing would to just forgo testing.
"For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot."
For anyone who isn't an outrageous idiot, he's an outrageous idiot. Add dementia, and well, here we are.
Biden was a harsh critic of Trump’s handling of COVID and so it is only fair he is held to the same standard. The concept that the nation might need additional testing before a holiday is not a foreign one.
The office of the President came up with the idea of a present:
No, the President's spokesperson mocked the NPR reporter who suggested such a scheme earlier this month.
The last thing the President came up with was a date certain withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"During his COVID blather, Biden went on to claim that if he had said in November it would spread as rapidly as it has, people would have replied, 'Biden, have you been drinking?'"
This is Biden idiocy.
"While that would be one explanation for why he slurred every third word in the speech"
This is Biden idiocy.
"For now, it’s enough to say Biden didn’t act — and right now, nationally, you cannot get your hands on a home antigen test to save your life."
Considering the way lefties have pounded the Trump failures and the testing mantra, this is Biden idiocy.
"Podhoretz is raving."
He is, and rightly so. Advantage: Podhoretz.
"Why can't people face what Omicron is? It's very contagious (but apparently relatively mild)."
Correct. And as we anti-alarmists have been saying since 2020, Covid is "relatively mild" for most healthy people under 65. Once upon a time, some people would clean their shoes on entry, cuz Covid--imagine!
"It's always the President's miserable fault when the President is in the party that's not your party."
Depends on what meaning of "fault" is. No one is blaming Joe for Omicron. Turnabout is perfectly fair on things he could do of the sort that Dems used to blame Trump for. Not that they make much difference--advantage there: Althouse.
"For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot."
For you, he isn't?
For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot.
Recent poll numbers suggest Democrats and Independents feel the same.
It's time to come to reality that attacks on Biden can't be blamed on partisanship.
I agree with your "just deal with it" advice, but politicians have for years professed to be able to solve all of our problems. No suffering, inconvenience, discomfort can be left unaddressed by the government. By creating this environment, abetted of course by the voters, they've set unreasonably high expectations. "Just don't stand there - do something!" Both parties are guilty of this - that's how they get elected.
As for Biden, it's not so much that people "want" him to do something, it's that he's great at accepting credit and shifting blame. Again, it's what politicians do. But, having helped create the political environment we're in, I'm not inclined to give him much of a pass.
As an aside, we also live in an environment where criticism of one party or politician means wholehearted acceptance of his opponent(s). Out of a country of 325 million, the best we could have done last year is Biden v Trump? Ugh.
I agree with your "just deal with it" advice, but politicians have for years professed to be able to solve all of our problems. No suffering, inconvenience, discomfort can be left unaddressed by the government. By creating this environment, abetted of course by the voters, they've set unreasonably high expectations. "Just don't stand there - do something!" Both parties are guilty of this - that's how they get elected.
As for Biden, it's not so much that people "want" him to do something, it's that he's great at accepting credit and shifting blame. Again, it's what politicians do. But, having helped create the political environment we're in, I'm not inclined to give him much of a pass.
As an aside, we also live in an environment where criticism of one party or politician means wholehearted acceptance of his opponent(s). Out of a country of 325 million, the best we could have done last year is Biden v Trump? Ugh.
For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot.
@Althouse, point of information. Joe Biden has always been an outrageous idiot, regardless of the political affiliation of the person commenting on his (lack of) brainpower.
Second point of information, regarding “all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules.” Statistically the group least likely to be vaccinated are urban blacks, and they vote Democrat at rates exceeding 9:1.
And, of course, vaccination status is immaterial with Omicron because apparently one can get Omicron despite being fully vaccinated with one of the approved mRNA vaccines, as you point out.
Third point of information. An unknown, but probably quite significant number of those “Republicans who won’t get vaccinated” used to be Democrats, and probably are still registered as Democrats, but will not vote for another Democrat again for a very long time.
Serious Question
What was the last democrat 'solution' that did not come down to Throwing Money at the Problem?
I guess Dred Scot? or should we count the Confederate States of America?
Oh Wait! the 21st Amendment! That didn't come down to Throwing Money at the Problem
(i'm on a roll, now!)
And the Twilight Amendment!
Roe v Wade was a plan for MAKING money (for Planned Parenthood), not Throwing Money at it!
Of course, that wasn't the democrats; that was the impartial SCOTUS
I guess we're back to the 21st amendment? Right Folks?
Anyone?
Ann straw-mans Podoretz’s argument by pretending it’s about what President Biden can do about the virus rather than what his administration could have done about tests, given months to do it in. Since, as Ann notes, the latest COVID19 flavor seems even less virulent than the others, the less terrified New Yorkers should suck it up, skip the test, and go on with their lives as most of the country does. That will leave more tests for the more terrified New Yorkers.
The rapid rise in omnicron in marginally sick people, the extremely high number of "breakthrough" cases ought to reveal what we should have been suspicious of all the time. The PCR tests are a bogus indicator of being sick. We are literally in a sea of viral particles and if you test enough asymptomatic people you'll find those particles. It doesn't mean they are capable of retransmitting or that the person being tested is sick. Technology has been abused to limit freedom and our response ought to be to ensure those who perpetrated this spend life in prison.
This doesn't mean people haven't gotten sick or died, but the vast majority of "sick" people weren't that sick or demonstrably contagious.
Our leaders have no problem injecting all kinds of substances to see if they work (that do cause very dedectible damage in some percentages, and likely minor damage in all), but they conveniently claim its unethical to put various degrees of "positive" pcr tested individuals in a room. And see if those around them get sick.
We should have very accurate information on how this spreadsheet without reporting to widespread aggregate data to deduce it, that is inevitably filled with bias. The reason we don't, is that knowledge would not serve the tyrants who want to lock others down and control them.
Lock them up.
Here is a picture of a barrel full of $3 rapid tests openly available in a pharmacy in Germany.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ericuman/status/1473496649775390731
Tell me again why the infragovernment that also runs the FDA is not responsible for this.
“Where the hell are you supposed to get tested? I got tested Sunday. In Times Square.”
He answered his own question.
I finally found a test site, no CVS for me. Long drive thru. Test came back positive this morn. No Christmas for me. I'll live.
Funny thing, I was convinced it was the flue. A lot of the symptoms were/are missing, it didn't feel like the first time, a year and 9 months ago.
Not ridiculous. We've been dealing with the Wuhan virus for a couple of years now. If something we need runs out, it's on the administration, regardless of party.
Biden ran on having a plan. Remember?
But it's a virus, which has no party affiliation and no capacity for good and evil. Just deal with it. Adapt to changing circumstances. One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans. But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling. He's reduced to "blather" — and "total bull" — because he can't steal Christmas from the adult kiddies of America.
This is classic.
I love it when Ann projects with no self awareness whatsoever.
Don’t be such a grinch.
The tests seem like the magic answer. Free tests! The office of the President came up with the idea of a present: 500 million tests! Coming soon, in the mail! No sacrifice for you. Beneficence from above. Up on the rooftop, Santa's coming. No he's not. But you still want to believe he will, so our frail President told you he will. And now, you're so mad at him, you have a tantrum in the New York Post. Ridiculous!
Maybe the beautiful people can hide in their houses while all those little Amazon people deliver tests to them.
The beautiful people can still have their parties and live life though. COVID doesn't go after the beautiful people after all.
And we can mock everyone and vent our spleen at hysterical BS.
Only 2 weeks to stop the spread! I remember being lectured on sacrifices that we should all make for the common good.
And I love how Podhoretz is a "Republican." He is freaking out in Times Square over getting some stupid test. Only leftists think he is anything other than a tool of the left.
I read an interesting thought yesterday -- that Omnicron will work in effect as a vaccine -- a real vaccine and not the temporary reduced symptoms substances they have now -- that will do what the man-made pharmaceuticals could not and provide real immunity.
Think about it -- a traditional old-time vaccine was an inoculation, giving you an attenuated version of the disease itself, which produced mild symptoms but also robust long-term/permanent immunity. That's what Omnicron is doing.
If they can isolate it, they should water it down a bit and then inject everyone with it, not run away from it like its the end of the world.
"Tests coming soon"
I heard they won't be available for at least six months. Once again Biden shooting his mouth off before they actually have everything set up.
“Just deal with it” indeed. Don’t give up your travel plans, don’t get tested, stay home if you’re sick. Or how about YOU do whatever the F you want—wait in the cold to get tested, triple mask, barricade yourself in your house—and let ME do what I want.
He isn't 'raving.' He's attempting to hold the fuckers accountable.
Biden was raving pre-election that he was going to 'crush the virus' and that testing was a part of that.
He's had at least a year to produce those tests and...crickets.
How many hundreds of billions have been spent on protocols like social distancing, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, public service announcements, etc., and almost nothing on testing.
Where did all the money go???
His VP said she had no idea that there would be another variant, and certainly not this quickly and not this transmissible.
EVERYONE in the country saw it coming.
They need to get their stories straight because they are clueless right now.
Is amazing to me. Over and over and over, President or Governor or Mayor Lucy promises "this time for sure". Every time, Citizen Charlie Brown falls for it.
Citizen Brown could buy a plastic tee & tell Lucy to pound sand, but his mind is caught in a trap. His faith obscures the fact that Lucy is a big fat phony.
I have Covid. My HR department is demanding a positive test result before releasing me from work, which I cannot send because I took an at home test and the “1 hour” rapid test I took on Monday to get an mailable result still has not come back. Until they get it, I am officially AWOL. I am not looking forward to trying to get the negative test they want before I return to the office. I 100% agree Omicron is no big deal for a healthy person. It’s been like a bad cold so far. But in NYC, at least, getting Covid is a red tape pain in the ass and tests are not optional for those of us who work. I do not blame the President for any of this except, and this is a big exception, for fanning the hysteria all last year to win the election. We are all still paying for that bullshit.
'Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling.'
You can keep yourself locked down.
People wishing to travel over Christmas are doing a responsible thing by getting tested before they go anywhere or attend parties, etc.
How is this a bad thing?
People (sane people, at least) are just tired of it all.
And yet another reminder that the 'experts' in government are nowhere near the best or the brightest on this or any other subject.
"Won't follow the rules"?
It would be nearly impossible to list the number of times our rulers have been caught not following the rules they are attempting to impose on others. If they're going to ignore their own rules, it's kind of silly to expect anybody to take them seriously, don't you think?
' Why can't people face what Omicron is? It's very contagious (but apparently relatively mild). Deal with it people." That is the key. And since it is relatively mild, why not just ignore the so-called risk and go about your business as if it was a regular flu season?
"One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans. " Why should getting tested or not for a relatively mild infection impact your travel plans at all. Just get up and go. Unless, the government has decided to introduce a recent test requirement into travel regulations and I missed it.
Biden ran on a promise to "shut down the virus" and he can't keep that promise. He deserves to be attacked because he set himself up to be attacked.
"But it's a virus, which has no party affiliation and no capacity for good and evil."
Yet somehow this virus has acquired a party affiliation, at least as far as the news media is concerned.
Of course, your argument is completely correct. But people ought to take a good, hard look at that lab in Wuhan, though. No one wants to do that. Strange.
“But when it comes to Omicron, it’s slightly beside the point because the reason Omicron is spreading the way it is right now is that — unlike Delta — it’s infecting the already vaccinated. It appears it’s doing very little harm to them. But it’s infecting them nonetheless.
“This guy can give three speeches in one speech and still miss the point. My Lord, he’s bad at being president.”
That’s the thing is that Biden is epically bad at the job. And that is because he no longer has the cognitive abilities to do probably any job, and esp this one, one of the most stressful and complex on the planet. His handlers are the ones making the decisions. They then wind him up, put him in front of the public, and hope he does something that doesn’t sound, or look, completely demented, by the time he is done. I feel somewhat sorry for the guy, which is why I can’t watch his speeches. He worked his entire life for this job, with little chance at success, and only gets it when his mental facilities have declined so much that he is a mere figurehead, puppet to those who installed him, for just that reason. It’s elder abuse, pure and simple.
And, no, Ann, the Democrats don’t support the President, unless it is one of theirs. They impeached Biden’s predecessor for the crime of being a Republican, and because they could. And then did it again, after he had left office, because they could. The cabal running the first impeachment did the law breaking, not Trump. No matter. Their motivation was just - Trump was a Republican, so had to be destroyed.
Biden IS an outrageous idiot. Not only in his handling of Covid and its variants, but so many other failures and blunders. I could list all of the problems he has created or made worse, but I think we know the list by now.. He is so out of his depth as President…an intellectual lightweight who envisions himself as a charming Irishman. Biden always was a bungler who never really accomplished anything in the Senate. He was known by other Senators as a guy who was in love with the sound of his own voice. Just ask Joe a question, and you wouldn’t have to say another word for an hour. A total bullshitter and a mental midget. Obama said it it best, Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up. That’s a former Democratic President speaking not a raving Republican columnist. Obama had first hand experience with Joe and did not want him to run for President. Now we all know why. The man does not belong anywhere near the oval office.
free tests they didn't think of till last week.His secret plan to win the war and bring the troops home by Christmas...
btw: how useful in tracking anything is 1 free test for each person, used at a random time, once?
Witches and Jews. Society has never really outgrown its need to find scapegoats for the plague. Unfortunately our society is so divisive that we have not yet achieved consensus on who we should properly burn at the stake for this calamity. Jews are perennial favorites and, early in the plague, the Hassidics had some outdoor events that spread the disease around, but quite frankly it's difficult to pin this one on the Jews. It would have been nice if there was some little town in Israel where there was a lab for testing viruses and within that same town the virus coincidentally developed at a kosher butcher shop. Sadly, that did not happen, and it would be racist to knock the Chinese for such an occurrence.....The libs, I guess, are blaming unvaccinated white people for the spread of this disease. They also believe the disease is more apt to spread at conservative events such as church services and football games rather than at mostly peaceful riots....Conservatives would like to believe that the disease is now propagated by the ineptitude of Biden officials and that its ill effects are amplified by school closures and shut downs.....I think the virus is going to rattle on for another few years. Some prudent people will die and some fat drunks will live. That's the way it goes. If you try to draw a useful moral from any this you will be stymied.....There's no divinity that shapes our ends. It's all a tale told by any idiot.
"Podhoretz is raving."
Actually, I'd call it a rant, which is a genre of incisive comedy.
Biden himself was the one who set himself up to tout testing as a solution.
He's wrong as usual, however, because most of the mass testing for the non-symptomatic should be for immunity, not infection. But that would interfere with the narrative that the vaccine is the only route to immunity.
Re Chinese and the coronavirus. I'm not blaming the Chinese, but I do blame the Communists. This looks like the kind of dick move that Communists are notorious for making. There's nothing within the Russian national character that leads them to fuck up nuclear reactors and then try to hide the results of their foul ups, but that's something the Communists have been doing since day one.....It's quite possible that that this entire calamity was not the result of some malign evolutionary twist but rather of some hideous lab experiment gone wrong.....I don't know if this is the case, but I do know with absolute certainty that if it were, the Chinese Communists would not acknowledge it and would do everything in their power to hide the fact.
Althouse wrote
"One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans. But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies?"
I think this is very dismissive of people's natural and healthy yearnings to reconnect with family they may not see often. Aside from the wish to share the holidays with family, having time off from work or school makes travel at the holidays possible, or at least more manageable, than it would be at other times.
You are blessed to have the freedom and means to travel to visit your family pretty much whenever you want. For others, this Christmas may be the first opportunity they have had to see family in a long time- perhaps they want Grandma to get to meet her first great grandchild, or to introduce their fiancé to their extended family. These aren't the demands of spoiled children, but the plans and hopes of people who are trying to reclaim some sense of normalcy. Fortunately Omicron is not serious enough to disrupt their plans, but even if it was enough of the threat to warrant shutting down travel, you shouldn't dismiss the feelings of those who long to see family so readily.
Ann: it’s what Biden promised. And he’s not delivering or even acknowledging his own failures. Nor are his people dealing with it. It’s non stop undelivered promises while the NIH and CDC and Fauci continue to promote lockdown and restrictions and evolving stances.
I have three school age kids. When one recently had to quarantine and could return early with a negative test we spent three hours trying to find a test that could give us a result within 48 hours. We live in a packed well off suburban area. 45 minute drive to a pharmacy that could give us a test two days later.
I cannot express how much Covid procedures and testing protocols made more sense and were more able to be followed a year ago vs now.
The Democrats, from Biden and his puppeteers, on down, are being autocratic idiots, when it comes to COVID-19. Since when don’t viruses mutate around vaccines? These vaccines were esp easy to mutate around, because they are based a few very short genetic sequences. Making things worse, this is a respiratory track virus with a fairly simple, and, thus, robust infection path. The answer to when viruses don’t mutate around vaccines is when their infection path is complex, and, thus fragile. Mutations that change the infection route too much quickly die out. Respiratory viruses like the ones causing COVID-19, as well as the common flu, have simple, robust, infection mechanisms, and thus many mutations preserve enough of this to continue working. Moreover, that flexibility means that jumping species is typically very easy. That means that the virus is going to shelter in other species, which act as a reservoir for such, and esp in species that we interact with frequently. This virus, early on, was found to have jumped to domestic dogs and cats.
The only really legitimate reason to require vaccination is to achieve herd immunity. But that is unlikely to happen, until most of the species has had, then survived, the virus. First, Delta is too contagious. Omicron apparently is even more contagious. And the required Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) is dependent on contagiousness (R0). Moreover, we have never achieved herd immunity for for a respiratory virus, and the robustness of the infection mechanism, combined with significant animal reservoirs, are a good part of why.
First, I think Biden doesn't drink at all. SO they should not use this "what have you been drinking?" Excuse. They should simply point out that his mental ability, never all that great despite his claims of a Musk-like IQ, has never been that high to start with.
Second, of course you can't get a home antigen kit. You never could. An antigen test says whether you have had batflu. The home test kits tell you whether you have it. Two completely different tests.
Third, where are these 500 million test kits going to come from? I don't think they exist now. I work with a company that makes test kits using nasal swabs, though not for kungflu. Unlike vaccines where they can crank out 600 vials/minute on common, standard vial filling equipment, this requires special machinery. Especially the machines that make the swabs (They are not like Q-tips)
Once built, it is not real fast. Perhaps 100-200 kits/minute. Let's say 10 lines, total capacity is 2,000 kits per minute, allow time for cleaning and so on and lets call it 2,000,000 kits per day. 500 million kits will take most of a year to produce.
Assuming that the capacity for 2,000,000/day exists, which I don't think it does.
And none of these test will determine whether one has Omicron. Only that one has some form or kungflu, or some form of regular flu, or a common cold.
And if they are supposed to be PCR tests, well, the Emergency Use Authorization goes away in 7 days.
So yeah, what the hell is up with Biden and the 200 test kits?
John LGBTQBNY Henry
We now have soaring instead of surging and spiking Covid cases. A move to normal.
"Podhoretz is raving..." After years of the msm raving against Trump, I'll give it to him. And I agree - the virus isn't good or evil....but all the b@stards using it to tear down The Republic are.
"...they blame Republicans — all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules.
But it's a virus, which has no party affiliation and no capacity for good and evil."
I keep getting emails from Yahoo and the NYT telling me that the virus is ramping up big time in red states. Of course I don't take such claims at face value - where isn't it ramping up? - but that's how the narrative goes.
Omicron seems to be just like chickenpox used to be.
4,000,000 kids, virtually all kids, in the US got it in a typical year.
@100 would be hospitalized
@10 would die
The chickenpox itself was the vaccine. Parents would have parties when someone got chickenpox. They would send their kids to play with other, infected, kids. That sounds bizarre but the reasoning was 1) Have the illness at a convenient time and 2) Have it before puberty when it is harmless. It can cause sterility post-puberty.
https://www.healthline.com/health/chickenpox-party
I suspect we are going to be finding this with Omicron. I suspect that people are going to go out of their way to be in close contact with people who have Omicron. It will be better than the vaccination and endless boosters.
It may be a bit early for that but, if the info we have so far holds for another week or two, I'm going to go out looking to get it. I would like to just get it over with and be immune.
done by feb one - Scott Adams.
No, sorry, not playing by the old and rational rules. This is President Joe "Shit For Brains" Biden's fault, full stop.
Now, if Joe Biden wants to come out and admit, "Come on man, the virus is going to virus, so go about your lives as you see fit, just don't look to the government for a solution because we don't have one," I will cut Biden some slack, but not until he does that.
If the country was really completely divided, testing wouldn't be the issue it is at Christmas. Fauci followers would visit or not on the basis of tests. Approval by The Fauch would be the basis for their ridiculous life and as irrelevant to mine as if they were Californians. But as we found in the first Civil War we are joined by far more than what divides us. Get tested before you have Christmas with others? there are those who hear and obey. And so I have to do the same to see them. I'm hoping the end effect of Omicron will be to dispel this fog of fear which some are walking in but it won't happen in time for Christmas 2021.
I don't see much value in the tests per se, not just because the results are just a snapshot, and the tests are far from infallible, but because it has already been demonstrated that there is no effective system of contact tracing. Also, given that the medical authorities insist on treating most covid patients exactly the same way they treat people with the regular cold or flu (rest, ibuprofen, etc.), it makes no therapeutic difference whether someone is determined to have covid or not. Of course, none of that excuses Biden's failure to produce the 500 million tests in a timely way if that's what he promised.
The Feds and most states are shutting down COVID reporting for the next 12 days since staff will be out. When they return, Omicron might have peaked but will definitely be obviously over. They will return to private sector employees being fired for not taking the vaccines, or at least being laid off until there are tests available. Then on the 7th the SCOTUS is going to hear jabbering about the mandate. All the while, the Omicron will run it's post Christmas course of 5 days of nasal congestion, fatigue, headache, and scratchy throat.
All evidence is that Omicron will not live up to the hype. And that hype will have ruined Christmas. It will make an impression. And the vaccinated are not protected from the 5 days of sniffles so all their paranoia will be for naught.
https://www.propublica.org/article/this-scientist-created-a-rapid-test-just-weeks-into-the-pandemic-heres-why-you-still-cant-get-it
All because they don't want Trump to look good
They sabotage when where they can.
"I got a lotta problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!"
Happy Festivus, everyone. It's good of Althouse to honor the holiday with this post.
AA, I have to strongly disagree with you on this. Despite the fact that Omicrom is not lethal to all but the vulnerable, there are millions of vulnerable people in America who need to know if their sons and daughters can join them for Christmas. My mother is 97 and in good health but at 97 everyone is in the vulnerable category. Biden knew his freaking vaccine strategy requires testing yet did nothing for six months (!!!!) to order more tests. That is flat out incompetence. For an administration that spews fear porn daily about COVID-19, we should at least be able to judge him in his ability to effectively implement his own strategy. My wife and I will be in a hotel for Christmas, which is not Biden’s fault. But we cannot obtain monoclonal antibody treatment from any public source so will pay $750 out of pocket for the treatment from a for-profit company. That is the result of another failing of Biden. The American people should tell Biden to stay off television on COVID if he’s only going to spew more fear porn and alibi’s for why he can’t get the job done. I don’t recall him even mentioning monoclonal treatments.
Face it, the guy who ran claiming to end the pandemic has presided over more deaths than Trump despite having the benefit of Trump’s vaccine. Has Biden had a single new thought on COVID since Trump handed him the vaccines?
Biden was never very smart, and at this point he’s a drooling, coughing, whispering moron.
John Poedertz is neither a Republican nor a conservative at this point. But he is a giant NYC pussy.
The federal government in general, and the FDA in particular, has completely fucked up testing for the last two years. They made it almost impossible for smart entrepreneurs to market effective, reasonably priced tests. Instead they wanted to run everything through their own greasy little fingers. Now that people have realized that home testing may actually be useful, there is not nearly enough supply. So naturally the federal government is going to Bigfoot in and snatch up whatever supply there is, which it will then re-allocate using whatever dubious socialistic algorithms it chooses.
"Get you boostah" so sayeth the Donald.
I cannot follow the point of this post. If tests are not available, the President and anyone who listens to him should decrease the requirements for testing. Because, you know, they're not available. Deal with it, and make plans accordingly.
"Don't travel" is one possible response. Another is, We'll let people travel without tests, or fewer tests, and accept the possiblity of more cases as a result. Or something in between, like requiring tests in targeted areas.
The reason tests are not available is because idiots everywhere have taken advantage of easily available testing, to require very frequent testing whether it is needed or not.
Supply and demand. The demand for testing neeeds to decrease.
Forget the tests.
There are many who messed with the vaccine release date for what look like political reasons.
https://twitter.com/GarettJones/status/1473080595525914631
So tell me again why I should ever listen to an 'expert.'
Yes, free tests, 500 million of them, Christmas presents. Who will pay for this? Where was this expenditure budgeted? It was just announced
yesterday that 10 billion dollars was stolen from the already spent covid relief funds, but only 2.3 billion of this has been recovered. The thefts
were attributed to “fraudsters” operating as individuals and groups. Who will be held accountable for this disaster? A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money. What can go wrong?
"For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot."
For me, too.
“It's always the President's miserable fault when the President is in the party that's not your party. For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot.” Well, Biden is an outrageous idiot.
Having got that out of the way.... Podhoretz is not blaming Biden for COVID. He is addressing lying and incompetence. All politicians, it seems, lie, but Biden and his minions are in a class by themselves. QuidProJoe has the history to prove it. Moreover, the constant lying to cover up incompetence coupled with misrepresentations about the state of the nation is endangering people and their livelihoods.
Podhoretz is right to call attention to it — stridently.
People who are planning their lives around the results of a covid test are making a mistake. The tests are prone to error with too many false positives and false negatives. If you have symptoms, stay home. If you feel fine, then continue with your plans and enjoy your Christmas holiday with family and friends. Use common sense. Life is too short to rely on a test that is unreliable. Merry Christmas to all!!!
Biden's Edith Wilsons ran on him being the smartest smartypants who ever knew anything about pandemics. He deserves no leeway.
I’m thinking of the song from Auntie Mame, “We Need A Little Christmas”. A gem of a song which sums up our situation perfectly.
Haul out the holly
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again
Fill up the stocking
I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now
For we need a little Christmas, right this very minute
Candles in the window, carols at the spinet
Yes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute
Hasn’t snowed a single flurry, but Santa dear we’re in a hurry
Climb down the chimney
Turn on the brightest string of lights I’ve ever seen
Slice up the fruit cake
It’s time we’ve hung some tinsel on the evergreen bough
For I’ve grown a little leaner, grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder, grown a little older
And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder
Need a little Christmas now
For we need a little music, need a little laughter
Need a little singing ringing through the rafter
And we need a little snappy, happy ever after
We need a little Christmas now
We now have soaring instead of surging and spiking Covid cases. A move to normal.
---------
if fleas can jump why don't viruses pounce >>> that is gain of function I would pay for
Biden, who was quick enough to tell the nation he would control the virus, now owns it. He deserves whatever ANY citizen cares to say about his performance.
The voters, quick enough to hand their personal medical decisions to self-serving politicians and un-accountable bureaucrats, have small cause for complaint.
In any industry, suppliers bring products and services in response to what the major buyers want. For medical services, supplies, and pharmaceuticals the end major end buyer is now the Feral Gummit.
I find the "deal with it" by staying home message from our hostess puzzling. How about "deal with it" by just living your life? All of us have only so many Christmases left with our families, and only so many months of life left in any cass. So how about simply getting vaccinated (or not, up to you) and just going on living?
----------
for intelligentsia {does not mean intelligent} the word 'science' is = magick - more years in acade-media more powerful the magick - so they hex the remaining people
I love it when Ann projects with no self awareness whatsoever.
----------
my img/jpg for this would be Ann stomping feet wearing mini-skirts with Joe Biden as in Principal office
Althouse keeps throwing tantrums about how we should just follow the rules and blah blah blah. Look at who makes the rules and join me in a belly laugh at the idea of following them, and the idea of throwing tantrums about people not following them.
Tests! Pills! What difference, at this point, does it make?
The fact is that Biden himself was rather enthusiastic about laying the blame for the virus and the deaths it caused at Trump. He led people to believe a President has the power to control such things. Now people are holding him responsible for that which he claimed a President is responsible for. He's being held to his own standard. That seems quite fair to me.
1. We are all getting Omicron Covid no matter what anyone does.
2. Get vaccinated so it isn’t bad when you inevitably get it.
3. Don’t worry about the unvaccinated. See No. 1.
4. Don’t worry about masks. See No. 1, again.
5. Go on about your normal, 2019 life. See No. 1 one more time.
Podhoretz is raving. Why can't people face what Omicron is? It's very contagious (but apparently relatively mild). Deal with it people. It's always the President's miserable fault when the President is in the party that's not your party.
Ah, you mean like the press and Candidate Biden did all through 2020?
I'm sorry, counselor, but the precedent is firmly established that Covid infections and deaths are the President's fault. Joe Biden, who was given the gift of a mostly working Covid "vaccine" from President Trump, has nevertheless racked up more Covid infections and Covid deaths on his watch than Trump did.
So every single bad thing WRT to Covid that anyone said about Trump last year, now equally or more so applies to Biden.
For Podhoretz, a Republican, Biden is an outrageous idiot.
I'm pretty sure that Biden is an idiot to every person who's paying any attention.
Democrats support their President, so, needing to blame people, they blame Republicans — all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules.
Except that all those Democrats who do get "vaccinated", and "boostered", and "follow the rules" are getting Covid.
NYC is not a Republican city, and it's not in a Republican State.
You can not legitimately blame any Covid woes in NYC on Republicans
But it's a virus, which has no party affiliation and no capacity for good and evil. Just deal with it. Adapt to changing circumstances. One thing that would solve the problem of all these line-waiters in New York City would be to just give up your travel plans.
The correct way to "just deal with it" and "Adapt to changing circumstances" would be to go about life and stop worrying about Covid. Amazing that doesn't appear as your first option.
But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling. He's reduced to "blather" — and "total bull" — because he can't steal Christmas from the adult kiddies of America.
No, we're functional adults. Which is why we're not going to nuke our Christmas plans just because you're freaking out.
The tests seem like the magic answer. Free tests! The office of the President came up with the idea of a present: 500 million tests! Coming soon, in the mail! No sacrifice for you. Beneficence from above. Up on the rooftop, Santa's coming. No he's not. But you still want to believe he will, so our frail President told you he will. And now, you're so mad at him, you have a tantrum in the New York Post. Ridiculous!
Biden makes a stupid promise he can't keep, and it's Republicans fault for pointing out his incompetence?
You're better than that
This testing mania is just insane. The Powers that Be have least half of this nation doesn't know whether to shit or go blind. Everyone needs to calm down and try to enjoy this Christmas season the best they can.
What kind of an idiot stands in line to get tested for COVID?
But Christmas!!! Are you all a bunch of babies? Unfortunately, the President doesn't have the nerve to tell people to stop traveling. He's reduced to "blather" — and "total bull" — because he can't steal Christmas from the adult kiddies of America.
am i the Only One, visualizing our professor in a nice green shade?
You're a mean one, Ms. Althouse,
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Ms. Althouse,
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
Ann, this is flatly unworthy of you. You are writing off the earnest desires of tens (hundreds?) of millions of fellow-citizens for a Christmas Day with family and friends as the action of crybabies and ninnies. And anyone saying otherwise is throwing a tantrum.
I understand if you and Meade want to have Christmas all to yourselves at home -- or even not celebrate it at all. But you two are not all of America. As it happens, my husband and I are also celebrating Christmas at home, just the two of us (and the cats), as we have now for many years. But we aren't deriding the people who want a family get-together for their crybaby-ness. You are honestly not all that far off from the people who want to piss all over someone else's holiday because it doesn't suit their own taste.
Quit it, please. Or, to use your own words, grow up.
As for Podhoretz, standing in the rain for six hours (his estimate for the people at the end of the line when he got out) is no joke. If that were a line to vote, say, I rather think you'd have another view of it. (Though actually the Brits, in the election that confirmed Brexit, actually did stand in the rain for hours, and IIRC hardly anyone complained about it. Perhaps they now take voting rights more seriously than we do?)
If you would like to buy a home Covid test you are out of luck. Some jackass in government has ordered 300 million to give away. Hold off until January or so. Stores are sold out. He didn’t think of that did he.
The problem is not that Biden didn't do something about Omicron in November. It's that the fact that new variants will appear has been known all year, and he - meaning, his administration - did nothing to prepare.
Where is Biden's Warp Speed?
Nowhere.
I just drove 500 miles to spend Christmas with my kids and grandkids. If you want to stay home, do so. Leave the rest of us alone.
If Biden had been kicked out of law school for plagiarizing, we would all be much better off.
"Biden knew his freaking vaccine strategy requires testing yet did nothing for six months (!!!!) to order more tests. That is flat out incompetence."
Are you willing to trust the results of the test an incompetent president orders will be accurate? If so, why?
Biden assures us that we're not back to March 2020. Sure. Actually, it seems worse...the numbers here in upstate NY are higher than they've ever been, higher than the beginning, higher than last winter. Two years of this, and we're back at Square One. More variants, more masks, more shots, more lockdowns, wash, rinse, repeat.
It's as if we've fought the Nazis and were at the verge of defeating them, but now we have to fight the Japanese, and next year it'll be the Russians, and then the Martians, and then the Klingons. It'll never end, will it?
Flyover land has tests in Walgreens. Two brands. Plenty of them.
Walgreens I was in played a promo to ask doc about Comirnaty. Spot sponsored by Pfizer.
Those people standing out in the cold rain to get a covid test are gonna catch their death of pneumonia.
"The BinaxNOW™ COVID-19 Antigen Self Test is a lateral flow immunoassay intended for the qualitative detection of nucleocapsid protein antigen from SARS-CoV-2 from individuals with or without symptoms or other epidemiological reasons to suspect COVID-19 infection when tested twice over three days with at least 36 hours between tests."
Enigma:
"The unspoken issue here is that the LOWEST VACCINATION RATES ARE AMONG BLACKS AND HISPANICS. This has been true from the start. See Figure 3 half way down the page:
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity"
One of the rare occasions where a Know Nothing Althouse blogger supports his statement with a link, and, as usual, the link proves just the opposite.
"White people make up a smaller share of people who have received at least one dose (58%) and people who have recently received a vaccination (50%) compared to their share of the total population (61%)."
The stupidity is just overwhelming.
Richard Dillman said...
Yes, free tests, 500 million of them, Christmas presents.
----------
I keep thinking how many will be returned 'undeliverable' and logged into database as 'harvestable votes'
I'm still pissed off that millions of illegal aliens are invading our country, and THEY don't get vaccinated, yet this fraud of a president is scaring the people in the country screaming that we need testing before we travel. F*ck him.
Democrats support their President, so, needing to blame people, they blame Republicans — all those Republicans who won't get vaccines and won't follow the rules.
Except, who’d a thunk it, the Omicron variant infects the vaccinated MORE readily than the unvaxxed. The Omicron spread is on those who did “follow the rules.”
Too bad, Ann, but the guy who insisted on making the pandemic a political issue is now being judged by his own standard of competence. And he’s failing. You’ll just have to live with that.
More died under FJB's watch.
Mutaman,
The idiot here is you. I will leave it to you figure out what you did wrong here since you wouldn't believe me if I outlined it in detail.
However, I will point this out from the link- 58% of the whites are "vaccinated", 56% of Hispanics, 51% of blacks, and 77% of Asians. Those are the numbers the original commenter was highlighting, and they are the only ones that actually matter for the topic at hand- it is a direct apples to apples comparison. In short, if you randomly select 100 white people, 100 black people, 100 Hispanic people, and 100 Asian people, you would find 58 vaccinated white people, 56 vaccinated Hispanic people, 51 vaccinated black people, and 77 vaccinated Asian people if the table is correct and you select properly.
Yancey Ward said...
However, I will point this out from the link- 58% of the whites are "vaccinated", 56% of Hispanics, 51% of blacks, and 77% of Asians. Those are the numbers the original commenter was highlighting, and they are the only ones that actually matter for the topic at hand- it is a direct apples to apples comparison. In short, if you randomly select 100 white people, 100 black people, 100 Hispanic people, and 100 Asian people, you would find 58 vaccinated white people, 56 vaccinated Hispanic people, 51 vaccinated black people, and 77 vaccinated Asian people if the table is correct and you select properly.
Can't decide. Should it be:
A. Well, Asians are smarter than the rest of us!
or
B: Asians are smarter than the rest of us?
I'm unvaxxed and haven't managed to catch any version of the dreaded covid today, though with the omicron variant it appears the dreaded modifier could be dropped.
Do you ever stop lying, Mutaman?
What you're claiming to disagree with:
"The unspoken issue here is that the LOWEST VACCINATION RATES ARE AMONG BLACKS AND HISPANICS. This has been true from the start. See Figure 3 half way down the page:
From the link:
Percent of Total Population that has Received a COVID-19 Vaccine Dose by Race/Ethnicity, Selected States, December 13, 2021
Asian: 71%
White: 58%
Hispanic: 56%
Black: 51%
Fact check: you're full of shit, Enigma is entirely correct
Least vaccinated are Black and Hispanic
Richard Dillman,
It was just announced yesterday that 10 billion dollars was stolen from the already spent covid relief funds, but only 2.3 billion of this has been recovered.
You're missing a zero there. (Easy enough to do, among all these ginormous numbers!) The report was that $100 billion had gone missing. Though followed up with the reassurance that, hey, that's a mere three percent of the total . . .
If John Podhoretz is too partisan a vehicle to communicate Joe Biden’s incompetence, how about Vanity Fair?
The Biden Administration Rejected an October Proposal for “Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays”
The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment -- endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again. Yesterday, President Biden told David Muir of ABC News, “I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million at-home tests “two months ago.” But the proposal shared at the meeting in October, disclosed here for the first time, included a “Bold Plan for Impact” and a provision for “Every American Household to Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year.”
I am curious, actually, how much of the much-vaunted "Trump county" vs. "Biden county" (2020 votes) divide in vaccination rates, "cases," hospitalization rates, and deaths can be attributed to two factors:
(1) Trump voters skew older than Biden voters; and
(2) Obesity is a major co-morbidity for COVID, and in many "Trump counties" the D voters are obese just like the R voters. The "divide" doesn't track individual votes (as it damn well oughtn't to be able to, the vote being secret in all but union "elections"), just aggregates. Is it possible that in some of these "Trump counties" (yes, I'm thinking mostly of the South; sometimes stereotypes are built partially on truths), the vote went for Trump, but the majority of the hospitalized and dead voted for Biden? I wouldn't rule it out.
"Do you ever stop lying, Mutaman?"
How can I be lying when I posted a quote from the article you all cited. The crackers are so desperate to blame the covid on Black and Asian people.
However, I will point this out from the link- 58% of the whites are "vaccinated", 56% of Hispanics, 51% of blacks, and 77% of Asians. Those are the numbers the original commenter was highlighting, and they are the only ones that actually matter for the topic at hand- it is a direct apples to apples comparison. In short, if you randomly select 100 white people, 100 black people, 100 Hispanic people, and 100 Asian people, you would find 58 vaccinated white people, 56 vaccinated Hispanic people, 51 vaccinated black people, and 77 vaccinated Asian people if the table is correct and you select properly.
Can't decide. Should it be:
A. Well, Asians are smarter than the rest of us!
or
B: Asians are smarter than the rest of us?
The politically incorrect, but likely accurate, answer is that this has nothing to do with intelligence, but instead mostly involves East Asian herd mentality. Many of the more obvious differences between and among the races can probably be traced to the environments in which the racial differences evolved. Sexual dimorphism, along with neoteny, are at their greatest with NE
Asians (I.e. Orientals). Their harsh, cold, environment forced optimization for collectivism. Central Africans, on the other hand became optimized for an easy climate to find food in, but dangerous in terms of wildlife (hence the much larger percentage of fast twitch muscles). Much less sexual dimorphism, caused, in part, by single parenting, which was traditionally almost unheard of in NE Asians. Their harsh, cold, environment forced a higher need for collectivism, which means sacrificing independence for group survival.
For more information on this subject, I would suggest “Facing Reality TWO TRUTHS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA” by the infamous Charles Murray.
Blogger Mutaman said...
"Do you ever stop lying, Mutaman?"
How can I be lying when I posted a quote from the article you all cited. The crackers are so desperate to blame the covid on Black and Asian people.
Stupid AND dishonest, quite the combination.
1: It's "blacks and hispanics", not "blacks and asians"
2: We're not "blaming Covid" on them, that's what you asshole scumbag lefties are doing.
We're just, correctly, pointing out that blacks and hispanics have the lowest "vaccination" rates, so that when you bitch, moan, and whine about "the unvaccinated", they're the one's you're bitching about.
So, I guess the answer to my question is "No, Mutaman never stops lying"
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