YDSS

Vaccines-

The Pfizer vaccine is official FDA approved. So, now all your friends, family and Facebook acquaintances who have been reluctant to get vaccinated can be assured that it safe. I expect this new information will change their minds, and millions will rush out to get the vaccine this week.

Just kidding. Most never had any intention of getting the vaccine because of their political/anti-government/anti-science beliefs. Most will find some new excuse to grab onto until they get infected or watch someone die.

Remember those anti-vaxx nurses I discussed in a previous post? They are still upset. Saturday, they posted pictures of themselves on FB, unmasked at a large protest, fighting for the rights of healthcare workers to go unvaccinated. They were carrying signs saying:

“You trusted us to take care of you during the pandemic, why don’t trust us to make decisions about our own healthcare now?”

Then reported to work Monday morning.
I am just flabbergasted.

You know what its like? It’s like going to a 3-star Michelin restaurant, and raving about the food…. then learning the chefs have been protesting the wash your hands after using the bathroom health code. They don’t believe in the science of soap. Some studies have shown that anti-bacterial soap can actually harm the immune system.

“You came to Hell’s Kitchen for an exceptional plate of sashimi. You ate every bite, told us you loved it. You called us master chefs for it. Well, we weren’t washing our hands back then, so why don’t you trust us now?”

Gordon Ramsey would slap two slices of bread on their ears and call them an idiot sandwich. Where is Dr. House when you need him? I think he covered this about a decade ago… https://youtu.be/urZLTobAfJc?t=7

Still, it is big news. The reason being, the military was waiting for full FDA approval before mandating it to our troops. Now that it is, expect all members of the armed forces to be required to get poked. Done.

It is also a big deal for businesses. Many wanted some cover before requiring employees to be vaccinated. Now that we have a fully approved vaccine, more businesses will require it. Vaccination rates have also continued to increase week over week. Of course, that has nothing to do with FDA approval, but the fear of dying a slow death, alone.

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Afghanistan – There is plenty of chaos. The disagreement about how the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan doesn’t seem to fall right down party lines.

Camp 1: Republicans who really wanted out, and don’t give a shit about the Afghans. Democrats who really wanted out and are willing to give Biden/Military the benefit of the doubt.

Camp 2: Republican opportunists happy to attack Biden. A few honorable pro-military Republicans who worry about keeping commitments to our Afghan friends. Democrats who don’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Camp 3: Dan Crenshaw -who is suffering from the delusion that if we had just left a couple thousand troops in Afghanistan, that it would have stabilized the entire country.

I think we all can agree (minus Crenshaw) that part of this was inevitable, and the Biden Administration shares some of the blame, along with previous administrations. How much blame depends on your political party, and the amount of faith you have in the man.

The good news is that the evacuation pace has picked up. We’ve pulled out 16,000 people in the last 24 hours. The count includes “Thousands of Americans”. It still seems like there is confusion about who is who. It probably is very difficult to get an accurate count with so many people moving around. The pentagon has also enlisted the help of the major airlines to assist with the evacuation.

Also at this time there seems to be decent cooperation going on between the U.S. and the Taliban. We want out, and they want us out. By sharing a common goal, there is relative peace. It really makes you wonder if this could not have been done 19 years ago?

However, that may change as we negotiate to get our Afghan friends out, and the Aug 31st deadline approaches.

The bad news? There are reports that ISIL has entered the region. While the Taliban has an interest in getting out, ISIL sees an opportunity to kill Americans and their Afghan friends trying to get into the airport. They are basically sitting ducks, and American armed forces are stuck between a rock and a hard place at the airport. So far, there’s been some people crushed to death in stampedes, people killed in shootings, and of course falling off airplanes. All things considered, that’s tame compared to some of the other violence we’ve seen over the last two decades. There has been constant attacks, about once a month in Kabul alone. Christmas Eve 2018, there was an attack in Kabul that killed 43 people. We aren’t there- yet. But the question remains- how do we get all of our Afghan friends out?
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Heather Cox Richardson has about 20x as many followers than myself. I am flea on the back of a grizzly bear compared to her… -so I expect the blowback to be strong. But I need to do it anyway.

Let me say first that I have nothing but respect for her. She is an incredible writer and historian. I didn’t know who she was until I started this blog and had so many people compare YDSS to her. Those compliments are truly flattering. However, Richardson writes far more than even myself- and does it without cussing. God bless her, I don’t know how she does it. The woman is a saint.

Have you ever seen The Greatest Showman? She is like Jenny Lind, and I am Barnum. She is the serious professional, and I am the circus. Point is, we are very distinct animals… different styles, different political views, and different opinions. What we have in common is that we both try to be objective and provide factual information. When we give opinions, we are clear to separate them from the facts.

On my last two posts on Biden and Afghanistan I received a lot of push back from folks who are mutual fans of both pages. Throughout the comments I found links to her posts on the topic- along with upset comments accusing me of providing misleading or false information. Apparently me -the guy who took a Joe Biden cardboard cutout to the supermarket – had it out for Biden, while Heather Cox Richardson was telling the truth.

And yes, there was a whole photoshoot for those who started following me later on -> https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=114094877043584&set=pb.100053113344264.-2207520000..

Our last post on the subject was written at almost midnight on the 16th, and officially posted the next day. I wanted to understand where critics were coming from, and read through her posts from the 15th & 16th. The facts presented by YDSS and Richardson agreed, and complimented one another. However, there were some key differences on how we covered the unfolding situation.

Richardson’s perspective was far more sympathetic to the situation the Biden Administration was dealt. She focused on the history of the 20-year war, while YDSS focused on the withdrawal. And frankly, I was also kind of surprised. For someone who is usually so detail-oriented and objective, her post had some serious weaknesses.

She repeated most of Biden’s words, accepting them as true. Not a hint of criticism. For example, she said Biden took full responsibility for what was happening in Afghanistan. Yet did not mention the finger pointing he did at the Afghan leaders and military. Biden didn’t say it was our intelligence that dropped the ball and failed to prepare properly for this scenario. The closest thing she wrote to criticism was:

“This seems to me to beg the question of how the Biden administration continued to have faith that the Afghan army would at the very least delay the Taliban victory, if not prevent it. Did military and intelligence leaders have no inkling of such a development?”

Which has got to be the understatement of the year. YDSS’s post discussed exactly that, while Richardson’s post focused on mostly everything but that. In her posts, there was:
No mention of the video of Kabul being overrun.
No mention of the chaos at the airport.
No mention of the Afghans falling off U.S. planes to their death.
No mention of the 11,000 Americans now sitting in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Many of them sheltering in place.
No mention of our 30,000 Afghan friends now in hiding, fearing for the lives of their families.

That’s -a lot- for an objective, detailed-oriented historian to miss. But more shocking was her conclusion to the posts-

“It strikes me that some of the same people currently expressing concern over the fate of Afghanistan’s women and girls work quite happily with Saudi Arabia, which has its own repressive government, and have voted against reauthorizing our own Violence Against Women Act. Some of the same people worrying about the slowness of our evacuation of our Afghan allies voted just last month against providing more visas for them, and others seemed to worry very little about our utter abandonment of our Kurdish allies when we withdrew from northern Syria in 2019. And those worrying about democracy in Afghanistan seem to be largely unconcerned about protecting voting rights here at home. Most notably to me, some of the same people who are now focusing on keeping troops in Afghanistan to protect Americans seem uninterested in stopping the spread of a disease that has already killed more than 620,000 of us and that is, once again, raging.”

While completely ignoring the shit show on the ground in Afghanistan, she found time to dismiss those criticizing how the withdrawal was conducted as anti-women, anti-democracy, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, Saudi Arabian loving hypocrites. As someone who voted for Biden, is disgusted by our relationship with Saudi Arabia, supports the Violence Against Women Act, supports voting rights, supports the science behind masks and vaccines… I was just like, “Wow.”

Her post was written nearly the same time as mine, but it read more like a pro-Biden defense, than an objective post written by a historian. I didn’t comment on it right away. As someone who also writes a lot, I know how frustrating it can be. News is constantly updating. I’ve tossed entire posts because the news has been updated before I can get mine out. Or have people criticize my posts because they have new information that was not available when I wrote it. I wanted to see how she would comment on the events, having had some time to hear more.

She took off on the 17th, saying the she needed a break from the never ending changes in the news cycle. (I hear ya)

She wrote again on the 18th. In that post she finally acknowledges the thousands and thousands of Americans stuck in Afghanistan… then listed all the things America, Canada and Britain are doing to help pull out Afghans. She quoted the 5000 – 9000 a day number given by our military for the number of people we have -the capacity- to pull out per day.

No mention that we are not pulling out anywhere near that number yet.
No mention that Biden is still going on tv, doubling down, refusing to admit a mistake was made.
No mention that the American military stated it cannot guarantee safe passage for Americans to the airport for evacuation.
No mention that we don’t know how many Americans are in Afghanistan.

The estimate is 10,000 – 15,000. That is a huge window of uncertainty. If you were to ask me, how much would I pay for a used car, I might say $10,000 – $15,000. The military’s estimated number of Americans they have to pull out is not a list of names and locations- it’s a used car estimate.

And while she talks about what everyone is trying to do to pull out our Afghan friends, she pays no mind to what a nightmare scenario this actually is. We cannot promise safe passage to the airport for our own people, let alone Afghans. The Taliban do not want Afghans leaving with us, because most of them are skilled workers who they need to keep the cities operational. Others they would like to execute, along with their families. Absolutely nothing stops the Taliban from intercepting our Afghan friends, swiping their documents, then sending them home or putting a bullet in the back of their head.

The situation is a nightmare, wrapped in a train wreck, especially if you are an Afghan.

I was watching Don Lemon the other night. In -just one- story, an Afghan going by the name of Srosh here in America, worked as a translator in Afghanistan for our military. He was proudly wearing a USMC hat. He got out of Afghanistan few years ago, and has been trying to get his family out ever since. He told his story on the verge of tears. After risking his life working for our military, Taliban fighters learned of him and tried to come after him. In a case of mistaken identity, the Taliban found Srosh’s brother instead, and shot him in the face, dead. Srosh talked about his faith that the American military will come through to get his family out. Yet it was he himself working on a secret plan to get his family to the airport… not our military.

That’s just 1 of 30,000.

And while Richardson did not really comment on any of this- instead focusing on the ramifications on world politics… she did find time to criticize the media:

“And yet, the media portrayal of our withdrawal as a catastrophe also seems to me surprising. To date, at least as far as I have seen, there have been no reports of such atrocities as the top American diplomat in Syria reported in the chaos when the U.S. pulled out of northern Syria in 2019.”

YDSS is not conflicting with Richardson’s blog- It is the entire media from Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Politico, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera… and YDSS at odds with how she portrayed our leaving of Afghanistan. Let’s keep it real here. We can respect people, support people, and still criticize them.

I respect and still support Biden, but I will continue to criticize him.

I respect the work of Heather Cox Richardson, but I think she has a serious blind spot when it comes to this administration.

She may not be willing to criticize Biden, but YDSS will when we believe he deserves it. I’m going to keep covering Biden and Afghanistan. And I’m not going to keep having her followers spam my blog, and accuse YDSS of providing misinformation, because they hear information from me that conflicts with the rosey picture she is painting for them over there.

But more to the point- we all live in bubbles, we all have blind spots -including YDSS. We need to get our news from multiple sources. We need to hear from different perspectives, as long as their arguments are based on factual information. Doing so helps pull us out of our bubbles, and gives us a mirror to watch our blind spots.

And for what it is worth, I learned a few things from Richardson’s blog-

It was a good read and a good perspective to hear.

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Update: Richardson’s post for today 8/19/21: 1287 words.
“Afghan” and “Afghanistan” appear zero times.
Bias is bias, even when we really love the person.
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“Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan? All day we’ve heard phrases like, ‘we’ve promised them.’ Well, who did? Did you?”

-Laura Ingraham

“If history is any guide—and it’s always a guide—we will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country in coming months, probably in your neighborhood, And over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions. So, first we invade, and then we’re invaded. It is always the same.”

-Tucker Carlson

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Just a reminder,

The tens of thousands of Afghans about to enter the country have already done far more to serve it-
than the cowardly, xenophobic shitheads who want to keep them out.

That is all.

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Today’s CDC press conference was clear, informative, and immediately supported by data.
So, everything their last information dump was not.  -But let’s not dwell on the past. I very much enjoyed watching today’s presentation.

The press conference can be summarized like this:

-We are recommending a 3^rd booster shot 8 months after the 2nd shot for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

-Don’t rush out to get a 3^rd shot.  You are very well protected.  8 months was chosen because it is before we see a significant waning of protection, and will allow the most vulnerable folks to get their booster shots first.

-We believe a booster will be needed for the J&J vaccine as well, but we don’t have the data to prove it yet, so we are not recommending it yet.  Expect it to come.

-The vaccines have been highly effective at protecting against the coronavirus, and its variants.  For those who get ill, it reduces the severity of symptoms, and drastically reduces the risk of hospitalization and death.  Everyone who is eligible for the vaccine, should definitely get the vaccine.

Why?

-The data is a little fuzzy, because we have to consider both the reduced protection over time by the human body, as well as changes in the virus.  The dominant cases transitioned from original covid, to Alpha, to Delta.  As such, the studies look at “early effectiveness” and “late effectiveness”.

-The data shows vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant.

-The data shows that our antibodies wear off over time.

-A study looking at effectiveness in nursing homes showed a drop from 75% to 53%

-For Moderna, a Mayo Clinic study showed over time a drop in effectiveness from 86% to 76%.

-For Pfizer, a Mayo Clinic study showed over time a drop in effectiveness from 76% to 42%. 

-Other studies weren’t as bad, but all studies showed that the effectiveness dropped over time.

-They expect that without a 3^rd shot, eventually protection will wane to the point that we see more hospitalizations and deaths in the vaccinated.  We don’t see that yet, because vaccinated people are still very well protected…. So please do not rush out and get a 3^rd booster before it is time.  There is plenty of supply.  We are asking you not to get it yet, because you do not need it yet.

-The top priority, once again, is to get a 3^rd shot to the most vulnerable because: They were the first to receive vaccinations, they are the most likely to have a decrease in antibodies based on their weaker immune systems, and the most likely to experience severe illness due to their initial vulnerability.

What else?

-Yes, we are giving hundreds of millions of vaccines away to 80 different countries.  Don’t piss & moan about it.  We are producing a massive amount of vaccines, to the point we are throwing out expired doses.  Getting a dose of Moderna in Ravi’s arm in India will have zero impact on Billy-Chuckroast, watching his dose expire on the shelf in Mississippi.

-If you are having trouble with your 5G chip, the CDC hopes the patch in the 3^rd shot will allow you connect to the nexus, and the plans for the new world order can finally be transmitted.

-If you are eligible for a vaccine, and still choosing to go unvaccinated, pull your head out of your ass.  The vaccines are proven to be safe and highly effective.  We have children getting sick and dying because they are not yet approved for the vaccine.  We have other countries begging us for vaccines because they are watching their own people drop like flies. 

Everyone knows you have the freedom to not get vaccinated.  Sweet American freedom.  You have the freedom to tell big government to piss off, and you have the freedom to run and hide from a needle.  You are a big boy now, and no one can make you take your medicine. 

Congrats, you proved your point. 

Now grow up and voluntarily do the right thing.  Its just a tiny needle, there’s nothing to be scared of-  I promise it won’t hurt. 

The virus is still raging in this country.  It is going to result in hundreds of children dying.  We know this.  Who are most likely to infect these children?  The people who have the most contact with them -their own unvaccinated parents.  Are you really going to put your child at risk, because you’re scared of a little poke?

If you -say- you are willing to take a bullet to protect your children, its long past time you man the hell up and take a needle.

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Biden finally came out and made a speech today addressing Afghanistan. His speech repeated many of the same talking points made by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken yesterday.

Biden made a really strong case for leaving Afghanistan.

It was great, I agreed with all of it. It’s time our troops come home, -but his speech completely missed the point. Most people are not upset about leaving, we are upset about the botched withdrawal.

Some people didn’t like me criticizing Biden in my last post. Sorry, but this is YDSS, and we call balls balls, and strikes strikes here. I voted for Biden, but I am not a hack. We tell it like it is, even if we don’t like it.

Some thought my criticism was too harsh. Sure there are lot of people to blame. But only Biden is President. I’m not one of those people that is going to spend 4 years blaming Trump for what goes wrong under Biden’s watch.

I will say though, if you are one of these people who voted for Trump and think this is your time to gloat- Stop. Just stop already. Trump negotiated this deal with the Taliban through Pompeo and was planning to do the same exact thing Biden just did. The only difference is he planned to do it back in May, and wasn’t too keen on bringing any Afghans back with us.

I’ll give Biden credit for seeing this through and ending the war. The war had to end.
And at this time, that is about the only positive thing I can say.

In today’s speech, Biden said he didn’t pull our Afghan friends out sooner because some didn’t want to leave yet. They wanted to stick around to see how it all worked out. He said the Afghan government also didn’t want anyone pulled, because it would cause a collapse of confidence. Well, the entire country collapsed anyway. So, when you think about it, it’s kind of their own fault right?

But hey, at least he showed up and answered the tough questions.

Uhh, well not exactly. Biden was at Camp David. He came back to give his speech, and answered absolutely no questions from the press. Zero. Zilch. -Then hopped on Air Force One back to Camp David.

Get mad at me if you want, but I’m sorry, that is not a good look. It’s not.

This is our situation:
We have 11,000 Americans still in Afghanistan, many sheltering in place. They are stuck and can’t get out.
We have 30,000 Afghans who risked their lives to help us over the last 20 years. They and their families are trapped, hiding. They are being hunted by the Taliban. We have no idea how to get them out. They are scared to death, worried they or their family will be executed.

Don’t tell me this wasn’t botched, or make excuses.

We are in a position where we either negotiate with the Taliban, leave at their mercy, or fight them again.
Biden actually said today that we are going to get our people and friends out safely. How? He said if they attack us, we are going to hit them hard and make them pay. That’s our leverage.

How nuts is that? We are trying to get out of the country, and our leverage to get our people out is by threatening the Taliban to come back in if they don’t let us leave. No worries, I’m sure they are reasonable people. They’ll see that we made a silly mistake, and be happy to work it out with us peacefully.

My opinion? This was avoidable, We should have had our Afghan friends out of the country before pulling out. Those who wanted to remain should have been ready to leave in case things went downhill. We should have had a secure exit strategy.
Instead we had desperate Afghans clinging to the side of a plane, and falling to their deaths on video -as we fled.

Also not a good look for us. The people we were there to help are falling off our planes on our way out. Splat, splat. Is Syria still hoping we’ll intervene over there?

I understand war is ugly and it is chaos. Getting upset isn’t going to fix the problem. Fact is the Biden Administration and military leaders greatly underestimated the speed at which the Taliban would takeover. It is what it is.

The only thing that matters now is getting our people and Afghan friends out safely.
Biden wants to restore the people’s confidence in him? Find a way to get all of those people out In one piece.
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“Biden plans to talk about everything going on in Afghanistan in the next few days.”

That’s what the media has been reporting all day.  I’m staring at the screen in disbelief.

Are you kidding me?

The Taliban just took Kabul and we are Saigon-ing our people out of there like Vietnam.  A few days?  What are you waiting for, the Taliban to finish up their victory parades and executions before you break the news to the American people that things didn’t go according to plan?

This is a national embarrassment, and Biden is no where to be found.

Sorry, sorry.  Some of you left work on Friday for the lake.  Turned off your phone, and are now wondering what the hell is going on.  Why is YDSS upset at lovable Joe?  Calm down, it can’t be that bad.  Tell us what happened…

 Okay.  Let’s rewind.  Quick recap. 

Do you remember how Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists operating out of Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11 2001?  We faulted the Taliban government for allowing it to happen and protecting those responsible.

We attacked Afghanistan, drove the Taliban out of power, and gave them a bald eagle.  Freedom baby.  Sweet American freedom.

We helped them setup a new government that we supported.

We liked the place so much, we decided to stay for the next 2 decades.  20 years in the desert.  That’s a Moses-level commitment.

We spent $2 trillion dollars maintaining our presence there.

We trained over 300,000 Afghans soldiers to protect the new government.  

Over 2000 of our own soldiers have been killed as we helped rebuild the new nation.

We thought we were making progress.  They held elections.  Women were doing things.  That was huge.  What things?  You know, leave the house.  Under Taliban rule, women were basically under house arrest.  Some would even have their windows painted black so no one could see in, or see out.  Seriously.  So being able to do -anything- was a pretty big deal.  Hell, we even had some little girls in school.  Learning from books, the whole nine.

Problem is the Taliban never actually left.  They’ve just been hiding out, plotting, and attacking.  The plan has always been to wait out the Americans, then take back the country.

So what happened?

Well Americans got sick of an endless war.  Trump, Mr. Art of the Deal himself negotiated with the Taliban, and said we were leaving.  Don’t attack us on the way out, and the country is yours to do what you want.  The Taliban was ecstatic.  The brutal regime couldn’t wait to get back to banning songs, dolls, and stuffed animals for children.

Biden got elected.  He knows it would be very unpopular undo Trump’s agreement, so he went along with it, adjusting the time to pull out.

Now let’s see, last month Biden said he thought it would be unlikely for the Taliban to take back the country.  He was also committed to getting our troops out in an orderly manner.  He was committed to protecting our allies-  Afghans who helped the American military, such as translators and guides would obviously be in danger without their protection.  We were working on getting these people out of the country, allowing them to come with us.  EVEN IF the Taliban took back a significant portion of the country, it would take them many months to do so… especially with all those Afghan troops we trained to protect it.

Of course that was all BS.  Instead, we saw a shit show of biblical proportions.

We began pulling our troops out, and the entire country began to collapse like a house of cards. 

Okay, how much did the Taliban take back?

All of it.  Afghan President Ghani fled.  As the Taliban approach, the odds of him keeping his head attached to his body became increasingly small.  He folded his hand and hightailed it out of there.  The entire country we spent 20 years building evaporated over a weekend at the lake.  Americans were racing to evacuate, while the Taliban consumed Kabul.

Here’s the truth:

Trump is to blame.

And Biden deserves even more blame than Trump, because he’s the one overseeing the pull out.

American arrogance is to blame, for believing we can force freedom onto a people.  Forced freedom, it’s a damn oxymoron. 

Was pulling out the right decision? 

I don’t know.  It was costing our country a fortune, and costing us American lives.  If the Afghans won’t fight for themselves, why should we?  The Afghans we trained are not fighting.  How do you train 300,000 soldiers, and not know they have absolutely no intention of fighting after you leave?  How little do you understand these people you spent 20 years with?

I don’t know.  I don’t get it.

What I do know is that throughout Afghanistan, women are preparing for their house arrests.  Little girls are hiding their books.  Government workers are burning records to hide they supported the old government.  Translators and guides have gone into hiding.  Those are the people we were fighting to protect.  They got left high and dry, without warning.

I also know this exit plan was a disaster.  How do you pull thousands of troops out, only to send 5000 troops back in to protect the people they were trying to pull out because they pulled too many?  The house of cards collapsed, and it’s like absolutely no one saw it coming.

I thought Biden would be on tv today to explain what was going on or answer questions.  I thought wrong.  Instead, we got Secretary of State Anthony Blinken shrugging his shoulders on the Sunday shows.  If you want the response of the Biden administration, it was basically: The American people wanted us out, and now we’re out.  We did it.  No thanks necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBE9OqILRrk


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The AG’s sexual harassment report on Andrew Cuomo came out yesterday, and here’s what I can tell you: Women are pissed. I read through about 35 pages, then skimmed a good portion of the rest. It’s long, 165 pages total. You can find the whole thing here:

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.08.03_nyag_-_investigative_report.pdf

I learned a lot from it. I considered writing up a summary and commentary… but with so many people calling for Cuomo’s head this morning, I think I will pass. Instead, I went to work on something better. I call it the Resign Score Calculator. It’s a tool to help those in power figure out how much trouble they are in, and if it’s time to move on from their job.

Now this calculator is fantastic because it can be used on anyone- Politicians, corporate executives, celebrities, even regional managers of a small-time paper distribution company. You’ll see in the attached image, a 5-step scoring system for measuring what kind of deep shit you’ve gotten yourself in. It’s also color coded. Green means good. Yellow is a warning. Orange is dangerous territory. Red means you better know how to swim because you have stepped into some deep shit.

Please review it above, and then follow along with our analysis.

We’ll give it a try with Andrew Cuomo and see if we can help him out with his decision.

First, we’ll begin with the Creeper Number. You’ll notice right off the bat that the color coding here is yellow. Fact is, if you are going around hugging and kissing people- you are inevitably going to make some people uncomfortable. Going beyond this, things get bad very quickly. On the ranked scale, Cuomo comes in at a 4. That’s a big problem for him. For whatever the reason, Cuomo -believes- he is at about a 1 to 2 on the Creeper scale with the likes of Joe Biden & Al Franken, but the AG’s report actually places him just after the masturbators and closing in on Clinton & Trump territory. But this alone is survivable. Lets Continue to step 2.

Lets see, Power Scale-

See some men had little power over the people they creeped on. Louie CK wasn’t directly in charge of the women he creeped on. They were fans of his, so he merely had influence over them. Therefore he came in at a 2 on the Power Scale. A direct supervisor, maybe a 3. An authority figure like a police or correectional officer comes in at 4. Cuomo on the other hand, is the Governor of New York. Not only is he the boss of most of those making complaints against him- he is also the boss of New York. He easily comes in at a 5 on the Power Scale. That’s pretty bad. Next we look at the number of accusers. Cuomo has 11 of them. One or two, that’s survivable. Eleven of them means this ain’t going away, and that shit you stepped in, just got waist deep.

Now, did any of these accusations come after MeToo? Yea, Cuomo was still trying to put the moves on 25-year-old female employees in 2018, November 2020. Big mistake. Your trouble just doubled… better start treading dung.

There is just one last question, and your answer may save you. What political party do you belong to? Republicans get to divide their score by 100 here. Why? I don’t know. I don’t make the rules, I’m just building an accurate model. -Oh, and sadly for Mr. Cuomo… it says here he is registered as a Democrat. Too bad, we got to double our Resign Score again.

Well let’s just tally it up and see what we got:

Remember our formula:
Resign Score = (Creeper Number)^2 x (Power Scale) x (Accusers) x (MeToo) x (Political Party)
Resign Score = (4)^2 x (5) x (11) x (2) x (2) = 3520.

And unfortunately for Mr. Cuomo, according to my notes here… A Resign Score > 50 means the guy has got to go.

3520 > 50.

But hey, The Resign Score has been wrong before… we had that Al Franken outlier a few years back -so nothing is a sure thing around here. Let us hear your thoughts in the comments.

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It’s not often I backtrack on what I say. I try hard to make sure what I am saying is correct before I speak, and to have supporting evidence ready when someone asks me how I came to my conclusion. Which is more than I can say for the CDC, who, without presenting any evidence or data, made the recommendation for vaccinated people to mask up indoors.

Usually thats how science works, we make a statement, then provide evidence… but 18 months into a pandemic, the CDC is still learning how to relay information to the public in a coherent way. Apparently their process is: Change a guideline, provide data 3 days later after the Washington Post intercepts some internal documents.

But it is what it is.

The CDC is panicking about the Delta Variant. A variant so scary that everyone from Mitch McConnell to Sean Hannity have publicly recommended getting vaccinated.

So, what’s the deal? Here’s what the data says:

“R naught” is a term used to describe how contagious a virus is. The original Coronavirus had an R naught of 2.5. That means each person who became infected, were expected to transmit the virus to 2.5 more people on average. That’s pretty damn contagious, and results in the exponential spread that we saw in 2020.

Delta variant has an estimated R naught of 5 to 8. So, 2 to 3 times more infectious than the original. It’s a monster. That means Delta is as contagious as chickenpox. My 10 followers under 30 are asking what does that mean? How bad was it, how many chickens did it kill?

It means our F2 Coronavirus just got upgraded to an F5. The Netflix generation knows all about Twister and Dorothy. Storm Chasers if nothing else. Problem solved.

So, is that it? No, we have breakthrough cases. Of course every vaccine has breakthrough cases, so without data, this alone meant little. Initially it was believed that Pfizer was about 88% effective against Delta. We have 3 different vaccines, and new data from a number of cohort studies shows each has their own level of protection. J&J, about 67% effective against Delta. Pfizer and Moderna, about 80% effective against Delta.

Now a couple months ago the CDC told everyone who was vaccinated that they could lose their masks indoors.

So what happened? Most people stopped wearing masks. Both the vaccinated AND those who didn’t pass high school biology. Because hey, if you didn’t believe in the virus, masks, or the lockdowns… why start believing science now? The grocery store is operating on a vaccine honor system anyway. Bunch of ‘freedom loving patriots” think they pulled a fast one on science and big gov by putting a band aid on their arm and lying to 16-year-old Tommy the bag boy about getting jabbed.

The only people still wearing masks were vaccinated people who didn’t trust the virus, the vaccines, or their fellow man… and turns out, they were closest to being correct. Good for them. Cynicism wins the day.

Okay, the vaccine information is a little more nuanced, so I will give a brief explanation. If you want details, you’ll have to go somewhere else. This is a crude summary.

The vaccines are about 80% effective against Delta. That 80% are not spreading it because it never replicated enough in their bodies to become transmissible.
For the other 20%, half will have minor symptoms, or maybe no symptoms at all. For those with symptoms, they will be much less severe. About 5% seek out medical attention.

0.001% die.
99.999% survive.

Those who have had the original Covid and developed antibodies for it, may not be protected against Delta. The vaccines provide better protection against original covid, and the variants than the antibodies produced from catching covid. This is why you still need to be vaccinated even if you had Covid.
There’s not much information about Delta and children (under 18). Exact numbers are unknown. By one count, 14 million children are believed to have caught the virus, resulting in about 350 children dying of the 613,000 total deaths. About half of the children who died had serious underlying conditions. We are talking children on feeding tubes, cancer, things like that. Obviously when we are talking about child deaths, it is incredibly tragic. However, the good news is that using the above numbers…

0.0025% die,
while 99.9975% survive.

And if we are talking healthy children attending school in the fall, their survivability is approximately the same as all of us adults with vaccines. Children who do get sick are most likely to catch it from an unvaccinated parent. In the case of children with serious underlying conditions- they are also likely to catch it from an unvaccinated healthcare worker. Depending on the hospital, nursing home, rehabilitation center, that could be anywhere between 25 to 60% of staff. -Which is why vaccinations for healthcare workers need to be mandatory.

Healthy children of vaccinated parents are probably safer than every other demographic, even if they were to attend school unmasked. That said, nobody wants their child to hit that lottery. Plus about 11% of infected children go on to have at least one Long Haul Covid Symptom. If I were making the rules- I would insist everyone working inside the school be vaccinated. Children ages 12+ should be vaccinated or continue learning from home. Children ages 5-11 should wear masks until the vaccine is approved for them. Then the vaccine should be mandatory for them to continue in-person learning. When will these vaccines be ready for kids? We’ve been updated.

Now they are estimating vaccines will be approved for children ages 5-11 as early as September. Children ages 2-5 a couple months after that, and all children by the end of the year.

I’m still standing behind my previous message. Talking about everyone masking up in all public places again is the wrong direction. It’s a mixed message. Its pretending there is another way out of our situation other than getting vaccinated. There is not. There is only vaccination. Every second we spend talking about masks is a second we should have spent talking about vaccines.

Us vaccinated people need to get angry. We need to get angry at the unvaccinated and make them very uncomfortable. Employers should require employees get vaccinated. Public spaces and events should require proof of vaccination or proof of a negative covid test. Statistically, we all probably have a couple family members who haven’t been vaccinated for a variety of reasons. We need to pressure them into getting it.

We are seeing 60,000 new covid cases per day, even with 50% of Americans vaccinated. That is incredible to think about.
If Delta keeps spreading at this rate, we won’t be talking about masks, we’ll be talking about shutdowns. The first thing to shutdown will be the schools, because it is not fair for any child to put themselves at risk while they are still unable to be vaccinated. Parents are going to panic, and the shit show will commence.

Sean Hannity wasn’t on the air professing his love for vaccines because he suddenly cares about his viewers, or finally found Science. He’s got about $100 million in his portfolio, and knows that the economy is going to tank due to the unvaccinated. And if the unvaccinated tank the economy, the Republican party is going straight down the shitter in 2022. Scared Hannity so bad that he started telling his audience the truth.

If you are unvaccinated and reading this right now- unless you have a damn, and I mean a DAMN good medical reason for not getting vaccinated, you need to now. You need to as soon as possible. I don’t care why you have been hesitant to do so until now. Stop reading this, and go get vaccinated. Every eligible man, woman, and child who are not holding a doctor’s note exempting them, get up from your chair and head to a vaccination site now. I love you all, but I don’t want to hear any excuses in the comments this time.

Having wrote my last 3 posts about the Coronavirus, I promise to pick a new topic for the next one. I get sick of repeating the same common sense things over and over too.

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The vaccine mandates are starting to come.  Cuomo announced his for state employees, and specifically state run hospitals.

“New Yorkers have displayed tremendous dedication and resilience to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic across the state, but vaccination rates aren’t keeping pace with the Delta variant and we need to act now.  That’s why we’re requiring everyone who works in a state-run hospital and interacts with patients to get vaccinated. New York is taking its vaccination effort a step further and requiring all state employees to get the shot or be tested weekly.”

– Governor of New York Cuomo, 7/26/21

I don’t know about you, but people on my news feed are losing their shit.  I came across anti-vaxx nurses absolutely fuming about it:


“I followed the ‘rules’. Went to work as an RN EVERY day through the pandemic. Never contracted the virus. Now I lose the right to make my own health decisions or give up my state job/pension. I’m sure this mandate will help the already incredibly short staffing in healthcare.”

“The vaccinations are experimental!!! This is terrible!!!”

“Nurses were all hero’s before but now they’re being forced to vaccinate or lose their jobs. It’s a damn shame”

“All Como cares about is being in control he loves the power he has to make other people miserable.”

“I’m facing the same dilemma loose my federal retirement/insurance or get vaccinate even after I HAD COVID”

“I’ve had Covid too and still have high antibodies….complete bullshit….”

“I believe in science and believe in the vaccine what I DONT believe in is telling others what to do with their bodies. This is absolutely ridiculous. Thanks Cuomo”

“I will not get this vaccine. Already working on new career. This is wrong on so many levels. It’s down right criminal. I’m not against vaccination but I am against forcing one….”

“Exactly what I’m saying. We just got mandated too. We can’t make our own decision. We have to be forced. I’ve worked in ICU’s this whole time…. taking care of covid patients. No shot. Now I need a shot……  We went from heroes to zeros”


I thought about throwing in my two cents, but then I remembered, I have a blog.

Its mind blowing to me.  These people are nurses.  Some who caught covid themselves.  Others working with covid patients, and they do not understand why it is important for them to get the vaccine. 

Reasons Why Nurses Should be Mandated to be Immunized Against Covid:

1) They treat sick, vulnerable people, including covid patients.  Even if they do not care about themselves, or their families… they can still catch the virus, then pass it along to other vulnerable patients.  That exact scenario is what caused all of the nursing home deaths.  We don’t want to make that mistake again. 

And that’s it.  Full stop.  The list does not need to be any longer.  Your argument is garbage, and to be a nurse and not understand that is both scary and idiotic.  Especially since half of these people were calling Cuomo a murderer for sending covid patients back to nursing homes last year.  Okay, you want more?

2)  There are so many idiots not getting the vaccine, there is a spike in covid cases.  What happens when the hospitals are getting hammered by covid patients, you get sick and are out for 2 weeks?  Or maybe you need hospitalization yourself?  The vaccinated nurses get to take care of you. You’re a liability.

3)  What kind of example are you to the patients and community?  If I needed medical attention, and my nurse were unvaccinated, I’d ask for a new nurse.  This one is broken. Something is wrong with their head.

4)  MMR vaccines are already required to attend public school, most universities.  Employers, schools get to make the rules about who to employ, and who to attend.  You don’t want to get the vaccine?  Head to private practice, and hope they don’t require it of you there… but my guess is they’re not going to screw around with you either.  There are a ton of nurses coming out of school, -and to attend school, they were almost certainly required to get the vaccine. You will be replaced. Ruin your own career, go for it.     

5)  Get F-ing used to it.  Thursday Biden will announce his mandates for the vaccine and federal workers.  All the big tech companies:  Google, Apple, Facebook are requiring employees to get vaccinated or lose their jobs.  You can expect every other major company to follow suit.  They don’t want employees who need medical leave because they end up in the hospital.  Vaccinated people do not want to work with you and bring something home to their young, yet-to-be-vaccinated children. 

We are all very tired.  Covid has been exhausting.  We want our lives and economy to go back to normal.  You, the unvaccinated are hindering that.  Our greatest obstacle to normalcy is NOT the virus, it is YOU.  We are DONE listening to you profess your doubts about the science of vaccines, your conspiracy theories, and your little “What about my freedom?!” soap box speeches.

Your “freedom” is a public danger.  Your baseless doubts are a threat to the livelihoods of millions.  And if I have to say it again, I’m going to tell you where to stick your soap box.

– The Educated & Vaccinated

ps. I would just like to applaud the companies voluntarily taking the steps to mandate the vaccine for employment. Its funny, when covid started, it was the big businesses who helped save the country. They voluntarily started shutting down, before the mandates ever started. It was the push needed to get the ball moving. Here they are again. Count on everyone to follow. Those big tech companies have enormous influence on every business that works with them. And while some state governors think they have the power to stop it- expect businesses to start boycotting their states. They’ll change their tune -QUICK.

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That’s what the CDC is suggesting.  The Delta variant is so contagious that even vaccinated people can spread it.  Spread it… Not that the vaccinated people are getting physically sick from it.  At any rate, covid cases are spiking across the country at an alarming rate. 

Only about 50% of Americans are vaccinated against covid, and we don’t know who is who, because we have states like Florida barring businesses from asking for proof of immunization- even on cruise ships that operate mostly in international waters.  They dock in Miami for a few hours, load up their sick and ignorant-  only to air lift them out a few days later off the shores of Grand Turk.  I’ve been to Margaritaville.  I had the overpriced fishbowl of tequila sunset.  I rode the FlowRider.  I nearly broke my ass on the FlowRider, then walked it off with another sunset singing Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Nothing is going to kill your buzz faster than choppers flying in and out with dead people.  Listen- I didn’t catch covid, so my memory still works, and I can still remember what happened to the Princess Diamond 16 months ago.  Everyone locked down in their rooms, had to call room service for turn down service and to remove grandma from your stateroom.  No thank you.  You think I am joking?  I am not, this stuff happened and so much worse.  Why is grandma in your stateroom?  You say, I love my Gam Gam but I’m not sharing a room with her.  Well in this scenario I’d assume you booked two adjoining rooms.  Usually, parents do this with their children, so they can have adult time while the kids sleep next door.  It also works for keeping an eye on the elderly folks in your family-  pitch it to them by saying:  When you open the door, it’s like getting all the space of a suite at half the price!  Old people love saving money.  Hook, line, and sinker.

No, you won’t catch me on a cruise ship until I’m assured I won’t end up on the petri dish version of Alcatraz.

Sorry, I have a habit of getting sidetracked.  What were we talking about again?  Oh yea, The CDC wants even vaccinated people to mask up indoors.  States and cities have considered reimposing mask mandates to fight the spike in cases.

To this I say:  No.

I 1000% supported the shutdowns and mask orders when there was no covid vaccine.  That’s no longer the case.  We have had 3 different vaccines available for free at every pharmacy, church, and park across the country for 6+ months now.  You love Trump?  We got a Warp Speed vaccine for you (Moderna, J&J).  You don’t trust Trump/Biden/Government?  We got a vaccine for you (Pfizer, they didn’t take government money to develop their vaccine). 

You want a quick one and done?  We got a vaccine for you.  J&J, one painless shot.  Tiny needle, I didn’t even feel it.

You want certainty it works?  We got a Pfizer, 95% effective, who also say that with a booster shot, the vaccine becomes 5x more effective than that!

You want a vaccine for your child?  We got a vaccine for them (Pfizer is approved for ages 12+, and both Pfizer & Moderna are currently studying the vaccine in children 5 -11.)

You want safety?  The vaccines have been taken by over a hundred million people, and only a handful of cases of severe reactions that -may- be linked to the vaccine.  Meanwhile about 5% of folks with covid were being hospitalized.  We are talking (roughly) a 1 in 20 chance of death/severe illness from covid… or a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of a severe side effect from a vaccine.  It’s no contest.  

News flash:  80% of the folks still-unvaccinated have absolutely no intention of getting the vaccine.

There’s no reaching them.  We tried to educate them, reassure them, to make it so easy to get vaccinated that there was no possible excuse for not getting immunized… and they refused. 

We tried to bribe them with beers, cars and lotto tickets.  They still refused.

 We begged them to get the vaccine.  They will not budge.

The same people who fought the shutdowns, who literally fought grocery store clerks for insisting they wear a mask, who stormed the Michigan Capitol Building to protest the Covid response… are now the same assholes refusing to get vaccinated.

There is no reasoning with these people-  the only thing they will understand is the wrath of God. 

I say let them have it.

The liberal lame-stream media, Sleepy Joe Biden, Dr. Fauci Ouchy, the CDC -who they believe got the science wrong-  No one is going to change their minds.  I’m not holding my breath, or wearing a mask until they come around.

Are you really waiting for Trump to address the nation, arm in arm with Biden asking his people to take the vaccine? 

Get real.  If you believe that, you may be even more delusional than they are.

These people are not unreachable, BUT the only thing that is going to change their minds is having people close to them become severely ill.  Fear & loss is the only way for the widely available information to sink into their thick, thick heads. 

The surge of covid cases in Florida resulted in an uptick in vaccinations.  Turns out taking your spouse to the hospital for covid and learning they have lung damage is one hell of a wakeup call.

No, I have no interest in returning to masks, as long as we have hospital beds and care for the rest of us.  They start taking up -our- beds, I may change my mind.    I have *almost* as much sympathy for them as I do for drunk drivers who endanger everyone else.  Afterall, alcohol is an addictive substance that impairs reasoning.  Making stupid decisions based on an irrational distrust of government, political beliefs, or cult-like worship of a man who said covid wasn’t real  -is not a recognized addiction by the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  Although I do wonder about the latter sometimes.

That just leaves those with compromised immune systems, and children… the real victims.

Well those with compromised immune systems should duck and cover.  If you must venture out, avoid busy hours in public and wear a good mask.  Wash hands.  This group of people have been doing these things all along, and likely don’t need me to tell them how to protect themselves.  Eventually, everyone will either be vaccinated, or infected.  Their job is to stay safe until then.

Children have had the best natural defense against the virus from the start. Severe illness/death among those under 12 is in the same ballpark as us adults with the vaccine. If your child is under 12, with asthma or has a compromised immune system, consider keeping them home until the vaccine is available for their age group. You want to protect the kids? Insist that all school employees are vaccinated, and children provide proof of vaccination to enter school, as soon as the vaccine is available for their age group. Over 12 in the fall, January for those under. Under 12, consider masks until then. Anti-vaxers can keep their children at home, just like they do for MMR vaccines. Pfizer is already approved for 12+. By December, we will have two vaccines approved for ages 5-12. And that’s that.

Reinstating mask orders for vaccinated people in public places is not the answer. It’ll be a shit show.

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