Persimmon Alley Press
Persimmon Alley Press
  • About Persimmon Alley Press
  • Books
    • Close Encounters with the Cold War
    • Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times
    • Encounters: Ten Appointments with History
    • Killer Protocols
    • Clean Coal Killers
    • The Killer Trees
    • A Feast of Famine
    • Molly Malice in Alterland
    • Alligator In My Basement
    • Sudden Addiction
    • The Flesh of the Cedarwood
  • Smoke the Dottle
  • Richard's Rants
  • Contact

Rant 651: Killers Masquerading as Responsible Governors

9/3/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
​What do Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Doug Ducey and Kristi Noem have in common? If you say they are all (1) Republican governors (of Florida, Texas, Arizona and South Dakota, respectively), or (2) Trump wannabes, you are correct. However, the tie that really binds them to one another is that (3) they are all complicit in deaths of constituents.
 
Knowingly and with intent, these four governors are forcing the residents of their states to engage in high-risk behaviors that have already resulted in thousands of deaths. While they have a considerable way to go before they come close to the number of Covid deaths perpetrated by their Dear Leader, Donald Trump (medical experts say that 80 percent of Covid deaths during Trump’s watch could have been avoided if he had not totally mismanaged the national response), even one avoidable death is too many.
 
This “Gang of Four” is leading the charge of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. They proclaim some perverted notion of “personal freedom” as the rationale for not getting vaccinated and not taking the modest safety precaution of wearing a mask. Worse, some of them aggressively issue edicts prohibiting mask mandates, even in schools. That makes them the most reprehensible of murderers—child killers, since children under 12 cannot get vaccinated. If you ask DeSantis, for example, to explain why every Florida student must present a Certificate of Vaccination against seven other diseases in order to enroll in school, he has no answer. I guess for him, freedom is a selective concept. It also does not matter to him that his anti-vax, anti-mask insanity is jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of Florida children who are immuno-compromised or have other underlying conditions that make both their susceptibility to Covid-19 and their survival should they contract it problematic.
 
All four of these low characters have national political ambitions. For those to bear fruit, they need to suck up to the Trump base, a demongraphic that demands that its candidates be hostile to science, logic and humanity and believe in wild, laughable conspiracies. In pursuit of them, the Four Horses A***s of the Apocalypse are perfectly willing to sacrifice the health and lives of the people they represent.
 
DeSantis, arguably the worst of this contemptible bunch—and that is saying something!—is even fundraising off his disdain for community health, selling cheap goods on the Internet that mock responsible behavior, e.g., T-shirts bearing the phrase, “Don’t Fauci My Florida.”
 
Fortunately, there are sensible school districts in these states that are mandating anti-Covid steps designed to keep their students and employees safe. An increasing number of companies are also defying their governor’s politicization of public health measures and mandating that their employees be vaccinated. Providentially for the health of Floridians, at least one court has for the moment shot down the governor’s murderous executive order. That has not prevented DeSantis from defying the court order and withholding salaries from school boards that are doing the responsible thing and mandating masks.
 
As if this imprudent behavior by these governors were not enough, DeSantis gets Covid medical advice from the California physician who is pushing the veterinary horse paste drug, Ivermectin, as a treatment for Covid. This same doctor calls people who wear masks “retarded.” He joins Dr. Scott Atlas on De Santis’s advisory team. You may remember Atlas as the Trump advisor who opposed taking any action against the virus, instead advocating that it be allowed to run its course.
 
Note: Ivermectin, an equine deworming treatment, is ineffective against Covid and can cause severe adverse reactions in humans. Calls to state and local poison control hotlines have skyrocketed in the last month. Honk if this reminds you of Trump recommending ingesting bleach and UV light suppositories. Unbelievably, some doctors are actually writing prescriptions for Ivermection for their patients. Hopefully, state medical boards will revoke these physicians’ licenses. If Fox, social media or your physician tries to push this snake oil on you, just say “neigh.”
 
How did America get to this point? Regrettably, there is no vaccine against depravity and stupidity.
 
Dick Hermann
September 3, 2021

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Richard Hermann is the author of thirteen books, including Encounters: Ten Appointments with History and, most recently, Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times. Soon to be released is his upcoming Close Encounters with the Cold War, a personal reflection on growing up in the nuclear age. He is a former law professor and entrepreneur, and the founder and president of Federal Reports, Inc., a legal information and consulting firm that was sold in 2007. He has degrees from Yale University, the New School University, Cornell Law School and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He lives with his wife, Anne, and extraordinary dog, Barkley, in Arlington, Virginia and Canandaigua, New York.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed