Re: Sad red state COVID numbers

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:59 am We are rapidly approaching 43 million infected and 700,000 dead. Most of the new infections and deaths are in Red states. The Blue states that were hammered early on in the Pandemic have mostly instituted protocols for vaccines and masks, keeping ERs and ICUs from being overwhelmed.
The unvaccinated are the overwhelming majority of cases requiring hospitalization, at well over 95%.
Darwin was a democrat..

Re: Sad red state COVID numbers

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While Trump Diehards Celebrate the Capitol Rioters, Anti-Vaxxers Are Gathering Around the Globe

Simone Gold is one of the Capitol insurrection defendants being celebrated at a scheduled “Justice for J6” rally in DC on Saturday as a “political prisoner” by the pro-Trump rally organizers. But the controversial doctor and lawyer won’t be able to make the event, which has law enforcement girding for possible violence. Like many of the people arrested for allegedly storming the US Capitol on January 6, her pretrial release conditions bar the California resident from visiting DC for anything but a court hearing or a meeting with her lawyers. Instead, Gold will be headlining an anti-vaccine rally in San Francisco, one of hundreds planned around the world to protest vaccine and mask mandates and further lockdowns designed to slow the Covid-19 pandemic.

The international anti-vax rallies promise to dwarf the turnout for Saturday’s J6 event. The World Wide Rally for Freedom will be at least the fourth major international anti-vaccine protest since July organized by a conspiracy-mongering German group known as Freie Bürger Kassel (Free Citizens of Kassel), which spearheaded the hashtag #WewillALLbethere back in March. The July protests drew hundreds of thousands of people, notably in France and Australia, where violence broke out and several people were arrested. A Telegram channel for the organizers has nearly 75,000 subscribers, and Gold’s participation at one of the events on Saturday suggests that the US participation in the day’s protests could be significant. Rallies are scheduled in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, New York, Houston, Georgia, Chicago, Washington State and 180 other cities around the globe in 45 countries, according to organizers.

Gold’s appearance in San Francisco is the latest stop on her “Uncensored Truth” tour, which she kicked off in May with a press release explaining: “Doctors, nurses, business owners and patients across the country have been intimidated by politicians and public health bureaucrats for wanting alternatives to dangerous lockdowns, unproven Big Pharma vaccines, and restrictions on freedom that are not based on science. We will not be canceled. This tour will help advance that critical conversation and empower people with information.”

Her group, America’s Frontline Doctors, has been a major source of Covid-19 misinformation over the past year, starting with their “White Coat Summit” in July 2020, when she and a group of white-coated doctors stood on the steps of the Supreme Court to tell the world that masks don’t work, that Covid could be cured with President Trump’s favorite anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, and that Americans had little to fear from a virus that even then had already killed more than 140,000 Americans. (None of that is true, of course.) Trump and his son Don Jr. retweeted a video of the event that went viral and racked up nearly 20 million views before Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies took it down for spreading misinformation. Both the presidential tweet and the ensuing “Big Tech censorship” turned Gold into a far-right luminary, particularly with the anti-vax crowd, a phenomenal rise I catalogued in my Mother Jones profile of Gold, published in May.

She is touring the country spreading her message of “health freedom” while awaiting trial on charges related to her alleged role in the riot at the US Capitol on January 6. That day, she joined with the other Trump supporters in the mob that entered the Capitol hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, going so far as to grab a bullhorn to address the crowd. According to an FBI agent, Gold and John Strand, an international underwear model and her group’s spokesman, were photographed “in a large crowd attempting to push past multiple officers blocking the entrance to the Capitol, which had visibly broken windows at the time. One of the officers, who had been pinned near the doors to the Capitol, appears to be pulled down by someone in the crowd and lands near where Strand and Gold were standing.” Videos and still photos also show the pair pressed up against the door to the House chamber where law enforcement was trying to block them.

Gold has been indicted and charged with five criminal counts, including entering a restricted building and obstructing an official proceeding. Supporters will have to cheer her on at the J6 rally in DC without her.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -saturday/

Irony at its best, while they protest the vaccine that would save them when they get COVID from these super spreader events.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Sad red state COVID numbers

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What's really scary is it is clear that whoever is behind the anti-vax and anti-mask campaign is clearly spreading massive amounts of propaganda amongst the communities of POC. Infection and death rates are double, and vaccination rates are lagging for POC. I am 99.9% convinced it is totally intentional to create distrust of Democrats pushing infection control measures and KILL OFF them as Democratic voters. The use of the Mengele-like experiments in the mid-20th century on Black servicemen is a horrible blot on our nation. But since the vaccine is being more widely used by Whites, the analogy isn't appropriate.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Sad red state COVID numbers

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People believe in conspiracy theories for a variety of reasons—to explain random events, to feel special or unique, or for a sense of social belonging, to name a few.
Widespread belief in conspiracy theories is cause for concern, says Karen Douglas, PhD, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, because research links support in such theories to prejudice, violence, and terrorism. Several followers of QAnon have been charged with violent crimes, prompting the FBI to label the group a potential domestic terrorist threat in May.
In a series of experiments, Douglas and Jan-Willem van Prooijen, PhD, an associate professor of social and organizational psychology at Vrije Universiteit [Free University] Amsterdam, found that the tendency to perceive illusory patterns—to connect stimuli that aren’t related—is part of the cognitive machinery behind irrational beliefs such as conspiracy theories (European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2017). Along those lines, some QAnon followers think that because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, President Trump is sending them messages when he mentions the number 17.

Q, the anonymous internet poster behind the movement, who claims to be a high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, releases cryptic breadcrumbs known as “drops” online that followers then decipher. Drops are said to explain or predict developments in the supposed war between President Trump and the alleged deep-state pedophiles. Participating in what feels like an exclusive intelligence circle can satisfy the human need for uniqueness, psychologists’ research has shown, prompting a desire to continue participating (Lantian, A., et al., Social Psychology, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2017).

People also turn to conspiracy theories when important psychological needs aren’t being met, says Douglas. Her research shows that such narratives can fulfill our need for certainty and security, for instance, when events seem random, and for social belonging (Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2017).

Those findings help explain why many Americans, including QAnon supporters, have turned to extreme explanations for the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey data collected by psychologist Daniel Romer, PhD, research director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, suggest that nearly a third of U.S. adults think the coronavirus is a bioweapon created by the Chinese government (Romer, D. & Jamieson, K.H., Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 263, 2020).

“Conspiracy theories make people feel as though they have some sort of control over the world,” Romer says. “They can be psychologically reassuring, especially in uncertain times.”

Research also indicates that some people are more likely to embrace conspiratorial narratives than others. Schizotypy, for example, a personality trait defined by eccentricity and suspiciousness of others, is tied to belief in conspiracy theories. People who see the world as a dangerous place and those prone to think meaningless information is profound are also more likely to embrace such narratives (Hart, J., & Graether, M., Journal of Individual Differences, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2018).

Some evidence suggests a link between personality and conspiracy theories. Shauna Bowes, a clinical psychology doctoral student at Emory University, and her colleagues surveyed nearly 2,000 people and found that those lower on agreeableness, conscientiousness, and humility were more likely to embrace both general conspiracy theories (statements like “the government is hiding something from us”) and concrete ones (for instance, that the Apollo moon landings were fake). People with pathological personality scores—such as high grandiosity or very low self-esteem—were even more likely to support conspiratorial narratives (Bowes, S. M., et al., Journal of Personality, 2020).
https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/conspiracy-theories


People of all races and ethnicities believe in conspiracies because of their psychological needs, religion and magical thinking no doubt contributes to it.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Sad red state COVID numbers

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Conservative Baptist Pastor Sees “No Credible Religious Argument” Against Vaccines

The Biden administration recently announced a widespread vaccine mandate. While the guidelines will encourage more federal workers and health care staff to seek the shots, they’ve also pushed some of the last vaccine holdouts to seek religious exemptions, whether or not they actually needed them. But these objectors might run into some unexpected trouble—some big-name church leaders are not signing off on the exemptions.

Several prominent church leaders recently announced that they weren’t granting exemptions, nor did they think their faiths were incompatible with the vaccine. “There is no credible religious argument against the vaccines,” the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist pastor, told the Associated Press in an email this week. Jeffress is best known for his conservative views and was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump.

People are seeking the exemptions in large numbers. The Los Angeles Police Department said that 2,600 employees are seeking faith-based exemptions. Washington state is reporting that 3,800 of its 60,000 employees are doing the same.

But several large churches have announced that they will not be granting any exemptions, including the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Previously, Catholics, who are anti-abortion, expressed concern that coronavirus vaccine research used fetal cell lines. However, the vaccine itself does not contain any and the Vatican announced that Catholics may receive the vaccine in good conscience.

In response to the flood of requests to be exempt on the basis of religion, some employers are pushing back. One Arkansas hospital is asking anyone who objects because of the fetal cell line issue to also abstain from over-the-counter drugs that have been tested in a similar fashion. United Airlines announced that anyone who receives an exemption will either be reassigned or forced to go on temporary unpaid leave.

The state of New York simply did not include a religious exemption in its mandate for employees and is now facing a lawsuit. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has vowed to fight it, saying: “I’m not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion…Everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... xemptions/

We can see some cataclysmic event happening soon when Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, said that.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

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