CNN’s Brianna Keilar Goes on 5-Minute Tear Against Democrats Ignoring Their Own Covid Guidelines

[TitanTiger 20,482]

 

Where's the lie?

[wdefromtx 3,159]

It’s about time.......

[DKW 86 7,423]

I am sorry, I live in Alabama. WTF is amuz busht?

Amuse-bouche

An amuse-bouche or amuse-gueule is a single, bite-sized hors d'œuvre. Amuse-bouches are different from appetizers in that they are not ordered from a menu by patrons but are served free and according to the chef's selection alone. These are served both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse of the chef's pallet.

I would say I am shocked, but i am not.
I am only shocked that CNN, of all places, would call anyone out on this.
I am no longer shocked that there will be at least a half dozen braindead toadstools around here looking for some way to defend this. AND THEY WILL.

The Brain Dead Democrats Ten Commandments:
Thou shall not speak ill of the Democrat Party, no matter what....
Rinse and repeat 9 more times....

 

[ShocksMyBrain 9,364]

Must be nice having access to top notch treatments(should they get sick), while the rest of us plebeians have to constantly wash our hands and wear masks and avoid gatherings. 

[SLAG-91 1,483]

There is a long and undistinguished list of politicians that are very much in the "Rules for thee, but not for me" category. Because, as we all know, they're a big deal...just ask them. 

Austin mayor Steve Adler, welcome to the hypocritical asshat club.

Y'all stay home, y'hear? I gotta get to Cabo...

[alexava 6,973]

Following science or symbolism 

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

9 hours ago, SLAG-91 said:

There is a long and undistinguished list of politicians that are very much in the "Rules for thee, but not for me" category. Because, as we all know, they're a big deal...just ask them. 

Austin mayor Steve Adler, welcome to the hypocritical asshat club.

Y'all stay home, y'hear? I gotta get to Cabo...

Dude, people here are furious at Adler for doing that.

 

[DKW 86 7,423]

10 hours ago, SLAG-91 said:

There is a long and undistinguished list of politicians that are very much in the "Rules for thee, but not for me" category. Because, as we all know, they're a big deal...just ask them. 

Austin mayor Steve Adler, welcome to the hypocritical asshat club.

Y'all stay home, y'hear? I gotta get to Cabo...

 

1 hour ago, Brad_ATX said:

Dude, people here are furious at Adler for doing that.

 

Just when you cant see bigger hypocrites, there are new standards set. telling people to stay home WHILE ON ******* VACATION has to be a new standard in low. 

Holding a wedding for 20 people from all over the US and openly admitting that they were not forced to wear masks. WTH was he thinking?

Cant wait to hear from the Democrat Party is always perfect crowd on this one. We all know it is coming.

[SuperAUsome09 738]

12 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

WTH was he thinking?

I'll tell ya what he was thinking...."Ehhh....I'm the mayor". Governing authorities have grown too complacent in using their titles as a security blanket. 

[SLAG-91 1,483]

4 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Dude, people here are furious at Adler for doing that.

 

As well they should be. It's incredibly poor form, tone-deaf and just riddled with "don't-give-a-s***"-itis.

Leaders lead by example, and if a leader and policy setter can't be bothered to follow their own edicts, don't be surprised when the peasants decide not to follow them, either.

This goes for R and D alike, don't get me wrong.

[homersapien 11,373]

18 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

It’s about time.......

About time for what?

I hope you aren't seriously suggesting there's no difference between the numbers of Democrats who are careless about covid 19 and MAGAs who are careless.

Our pandemic response has been thoroughly politicized.  Everyone understands how that division falls out, even if you have instances of carelessness on both sides. 

 

 

[I_M4_AU 7,827]

22 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Everyone understands how that division falls out, even if you have instances of carelessness on both sides

My understanding of the division is political in that the Democratic run states issues edicts that are purely for window dressing and are unenforceable and Republican run states trusts it’s citizens to do the right thing.

The Democratic Governors and Mayors either don’t believe the edicts have merit or the rules they purpose do not apply to them.

[homersapien 11,373]

21 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

My understanding of the division is political in that the Democratic run states issues edicts that are purely for window dressing and are unenforceable and Republican run states trusts it’s citizens to do the right thing.

That evades my point.  

Generally speaking, between Democrats and Republicans,  which side is more concerned about maintaining scientifically-based measures to reduce the rate of covid infections?

Which side (starting at the top) has more frequently encouraged - or failed to discourage - irresponsible  behavior? 

 

Quote

The Democratic Governors and Mayors either don’t believe the edicts have merit or the rules they purpose do not apply to them.

BS. 

Democratic governors and mayors - as a whole - have generally been much more aggressive in promoting preventative habits than Republicans.  Just look at the criticism - and sometimes threats - they have come under by MAGAs. 

The exceptions are exactly that, exceptions.

If citing isolated instances to prove our case is sufficient, here's one that proves mine:

The Sacramento sheriff refused to enforce covid health measures. He has now tested positive for the virus.

When California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced a statewide mask-wearing mandate in June, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said he would not enforce the order. In November, as the state neared a breaking point days ahead of Thanksgiving, Jones once again pushed back, refusing to enforce compliance with the state’s social distancing and gathering rules.

“We will not dispatch officers for these purposes,” Jones said in a statement.

Now, he has tested positive for the coronavirus after being recently exposed to a colleague, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office on Wednesday.

Jones, a Republican who was first elected as county sheriff in 2010, started to notice mild symptoms last Friday, including fever, headache, congestion and lightheadedness, before testing positive on Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s office.

“He started feeling better Sunday morning, and today has almost no remaining symptoms,” the statement said.

Jones is isolated, as is his family, who have been tested and are awaiting their results, according to the sheriff’s office.

“The Sheriff is only one of dozens of Sacramento Sheriff’s Office employees who, despite rigorous institutional safety practices and following all recommended personal safety protocols, have contracted the virus while performing their essential duties protecting and serving their community or, as in the Sheriff’s case, supporting and interacting with those dedicated women and men,” the statement said.

Jones is not the first elected official to oppose enforcing coronavirus restrictions only to later get the virus. In June, an Arizona sheriff who vowed one month earlier to not enforce stay-at-home orders tested positive for the coronavirus. Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth (R), who spoke out about Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s mask mandate, calling it “an overstep,” tested positive in October.

Alabama’s GOP lieutenant governor called mask rules an ‘overstep.’ Now he has tested positive for the coronavirus.

As infection rates in California continue to surge and hospital capacity hastily dwindles, Newsom said on Monday that he was considering mandating a stay-at-home order to slow the spread.

Within the past week, the number of hospitalizations in California has risen nearly 33 percent, according to The Washington Post’s coronavirus tracker. So far, there have been more than 1.2 million cases of the coronavirus in California and more than 19,300 deaths.

Sacramento County, with a population of about 1.5 million, has had almost 40,000 cases and just under 600 deaths, according to The Post’s tracker. On Dec. 1, when Jones tested positive for the virus, the city reached 1,115 cases in one day, a record, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Despite overseeing the county that houses the California Capitol and is home to the governor, Jones consistently refused to enforce the state’s health guidelines. On June 19, in response to the state’s mask mandate, the sheriff’s office said in a news release that violating the order is a “minor” offense and doesn’t merit enforcement.

“The potential for negative outcomes during enforcement encounters, and anticipating the various ways in which the order may be violated, it would be inappropriate for deputies to criminally enforce the Governor’s mandate,” the release said. “Accordingly, the Sheriff’s Office will not be doing so.”

On Nov. 19, Jones’s office said it would not enforce a newly institute statewide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Jones’s refusal to cooperate with covid-related issues has gone beyond enforcing public health mandates. In August, the sheriff refused to provide information about coronavirus testing and cases in the county jails to an online dashboard for the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) that tracked the number of cases in California detention centers. The Bee reported Sacramento County was one of two that would not participate.

“After a review of the BSCC tracking system, the Sheriff’s Office does not believe that the data being collected is comprehensive enough to show a complete picture related to COVID and our jail system,” Tess Deterding, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said in a statement to the Bee.

Because the sheriff’s office doesn’t participate, it is unclear how many of the “dozens” of employees in his office — as referenced in his statement on Wednesday — contracted the virus from the two county jails.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/03/jones-sacramento-sheriff-covid-positive/

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

And here's a more generalized piece that more effectively highlights my case:

How did face masks become a political issue in America?

They’re just pieces of cloth, but a passionate portion of the US population sees an attack on individual freedom

It is usually a cloth with two stretchy bands at two ends. You put it on your face so you can cover your mouth and nose, and it acts as a barrier to the rest of the world.

Masks, therefore, are very simple objects.

But in the US they are a huge source of controversy. While many Americans follow public health recommendations and wear masks in public to limit the spread of Covid-19, others passionately fight against them, saying they impair individual freedom.

Here’s what we know about the movement against masks in the US:

What is the controversy over masks in the US?

While polls show a majority of Americans wear masks when out in public, whether businesses and local governments should mandate mask usage has become a divisive political issue. A recent Pew Research Center poll found Democrats were more likely to say they wear masks than Republicans.

This is in line with messaging from leaders within the two parties.

Democratic leaders have been more vocal about the importance of face masks. Many Democratic governors have made it mandatory to wear masks in public. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said if he were in the White House, he would “do everything possible to make it required that people have to wear masks in public”.

In contrast, while many Republican leaders have also spoken out about the importance of masks, other top Republicans have been more hesitant to mandate masks, even as their states have started to see surges of new cases amid reopening phases. The most obvious of these is Donald Trump himself.

And though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus, the US president has suggested wearing a mask could be seen as a political statement against him and mocked Biden for wearing a mask in public.

That message has reached the public, who have turned masks into a “culture war”. Some businesses have put up signs telling patrons they are required not to wear masks, while retail employees elsewhere have had to confront angry customers who refuse to wear them.

When did the backlash against masks in the US start?

What started as largely mask-less protests against shutdown orders has spiraled into wider anti-mask sentiment. As states have slowly begun to reopen their economies, many national chains and local businesses are requiring customers to wear face masks when in stores.

Thus businesses, and particularly their employees, are increasingly finding themselves on the frontlines of the mask debate. Stores that have been strict about masks have reported an uptick in angry customers who lash out when employees try to turn them away for not wearing masks. The most extreme case has been in Flint, Michigan, where an employee of a Family Dollar store was shot on 4 May after telling a customer her daughter had to wear a face mask to enter the store.

Why do people say they are against masks?

Many who refuse to wear masks say it imposes on their individual freedom.

Reopen NC, a group that opposes shutdown orders in North Carolina, said masks were “muzzles” that, along with things like mandatory temperature checks, were “ways our freedom is being eroded”. The group started a “Burn Your Mask Challenge” where people post videos on social media of themselves burning their masks and use the hashtag “#IgniteFreedom”.

At a meeting of local leaders in Palm Beach, Florida, several people spoke in public about why they were against masks. Reasons varied from anger that masks “throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door” to invoking a “plan-demic” conspiracy theory.

You’re removing our freedoms and stomping on our constitutional rights by these communist dictatorship orders or laws you want to mandate,” one woman said at the hearing.

Some experts say part of the resistance to masks could stem from confusing public messaging that came from public health officials in the beginning of the pandemic. When the virus first appeared on US shores, public health officials said masks were not necessary for anyone who was not showing symptoms and discouraged people from buying them.

The CDC changed course in early April, saying that new research showed asymptomatic carriers were common spreaders of the virus, though some experts say the evidence for mask usage had already been clear. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist who leads the US response against Covid-19, admitted that a part of the reason why public health officials discouraged masks is because the US was experiencing a shortages of masks for essential healthcare workers.

What do public health officials now say about masks?

Public health experts unanimously agree that masks help slow the spread of Covid-19. The CDC and World Health Organization both released recommendations to the public to wear masks when social distancing is not possible.

Though masks alone will not completely halt the spread of the virus, recent research has shown that wearing them is the most efficient way to stop its transmission. Fauci, at a recent talk, said everyone should wear a mask in public and it “should not be a political issue. It is purely a public health issue.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/29/face-masks-us-politics-coronavirus

 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

And here's a piece that explicitly makes my case:

Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans.

Welcome to Washington's latest partisan standoff.

In the ‘60s, protesters burned bras. In 2020, they might soon be burning masks.

Views on how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic have become increasingly polarized, yet another political issue that for many culture war combatants is filtered through an ideological lens. The left has been almost uniformly — and loudly — in favor of sacrificing many personal liberties in exchange for containing the virus’ spread. The right has been divided, but the vocal activist wing of conservatism that has enormous influence on social media and Fox News, has been far more willing to attack the various infringements on where people can go and what they have to wear.

The mask has become the ultimate symbol of this new cultural and political divide.

For progressives, masks have become a sign that you take the pandemic seriously and are willing to make a personal sacrifice to save lives. Prominent people who don’t wear them are shamed and dragged on Twitter by lefty accounts. On the right, where the mask is often seen as the symbol of a purported overreaction to the coronavirus, mask promotion is a target of ridicule, a sign that in a deeply polarized America almost anything can be politicized and turned into a token of tribal affiliation.

The cleavage was made clear this week when Mike Pence toured the Mayo Clinic without wearing a mask. Pictures from the event showed the maskless vice president surrounded by doctors and patients with face coverings. The story dominated cable news. Liberal hosts shamed Pence for setting a bad example or behaving recklessly. Conservatives attacked the left’s mask obsession as another example of the creeping nanny state.

Laura Ingraham warned that “social control over large populations is achieved through fear and intimidation and suppression of free thought” and “conditioning the public through propaganda is also key, new dogmas replace good old common sense.”

But the pro-mask voices won, at least for now. On Thursday, Pence toured a ventilator factory in Indiana while wearing a surgical mask.

In Washington, mask-wearing has become deeply political and inconsistent. The White House is divided along some familiar lines. In early April, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first issued its recommendation that Americans wear “cloth face coverings” — because surgical masks are still in short supply — Trump immediately blurted out that he wasn’t interested.

“With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing,” Trump said at a White House briefing on April 3. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It is only a recommendation, voluntary.”

The disagreement apparently extends to the first family. Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump occasionally like to send subtle hints when they differ with the president. Sure enough, soon after Trump said he wouldn’t be wearing a mask, both Melania and Ivanka posted pictures of themselves on social media promoting the virtues of covering your face. (Although Ivanka was chastised by some liberals for violating federal guidelines for nonessential travel when she went to New Jersey for Passover.)

Visiting the White House, it's striking how many people don’t wear masks. Very few Secret Service agents have them on. Some days, even the staff member performing temperature checks on reporters doesn’t wear one. In contrast, most, though certainly not all, members of the media wear some kind of face covering while in the press workspace or waiting to cover a presidential event. But very few keep them on during the televised briefings.

Inside the building it is a relatively mask-free zone. At one meeting this week that included chief of staff Mark Meadows and some 20 other White House officials, including Secret Service agents, nobody from the White House was wearing a mask or other face covering.

“It’s a personal choice. That's the whole point of the guidelines in the first place. If you want to wear one, you can wear one," said one White House official. "It's not a conscious effort to try and raise the alarm or not raise the alarm."

Another White House official emphasized that the CDC guidance is “voluntary” and that most staffers don’t cover their faces while at work. “I don't wear one when I'm here, but I take an Uber back and forth to work every day because the Metro and buses are so terrible right now. ... But when I’m here on complex, just sitting at my desk, in a meeting where there's plenty of distance, I don't wear one.”

There are a few exceptions in the West Wing. As POLITICO previously reported, Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, has sometimes worn a mask. Maybe he knows something: his wife is a former CDC microbiologist.

The cleaning crews at the White House are another exception. “A ton of cleaners are always wearing a mask and there seems to be a lot more of them around,” said a third White House official, "especially in the West Wing.”

Face coverings are not usually for personal protection. Unless the mask has a filter, like an N95 mask, the CDC says it won’t offer protection from possibly inhaling the coronavirus. But in situations where social distancing is harder to do, like a workplace or grocery store, a mask reduces the ability of an asymptomatic infected person to spread the virus.

Pence argued that because he’s regularly tested, he wasn’t putting anyone at risk by not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic. The counterargument is that the clinic requires all visitors to wear a mask and that Pence’s nonchalance about the policy undercuts the public health campaign to encourage covering up.

But others took Pence’s maskless photo-op as a political statement. Perhaps it was a show of power and authority: I don’t have to wear a mask because I have access to regular testing. In that sense, being in close proximity to people without covering your face is a kind of new status symbol for the pandemic era. Or perhaps it was a kind of dog whistle to the pro-Trump base that has been skeptical about the pandemic response.

The virtue signaling seems to have spilled over to Capitol Hill. During a vote on the latest coronavirus relief package last week, POLITICO reported that about a dozen Republicans declined to wear masks on the House floor. One of the maskless lawmakers, Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, said he wasn’t making an ideological statement and that members were “spaced out” on the floor, precluding the need for covering his face.

When asked whether it was a cultural or ideological statement, another maskless Republican, Ralph Abraham, a veterinarian turned family doctor from Louisiana, gave an emphatic “Nooo, nooo!”

Not all of the maskless behavior on the right seems ideological. Some members just seem to be struggling to adapt to new rules like everyone else. A POLITICO reporter spotted one masked Democratic member who actually removed his mask when he encountered a colleague, and they posed for a picture together.

But there is clearly a growing partisan split. Democratic leaders in the House have made more of a point about wearing masks on camera than Republican leaders. Democrat Jim Clyburn donned one at a news conference on Thursday with Nancy Pelosi, who generally uses her scarf as a mask. None of the top three House GOP leaders wore masks at an outdoor news conference at the Capitol last week.

The mask divide is spilling into policymaking. Congressional Democrats, backed by flight attendant unions, have been leading a campaign to force the use of masks on airplanes, which the Trump administration has resisted. (In the absence of a mandate, Delta, American, United, JetBlue and Frontier have all recently adopted a mask policy for passengers.)

Some people seem as worked up about face coverings as others are about tax policy or abortion. In response to a recent POLITICO report about the Pence imbroglio, one person on Twitter wrote, “Get over it, I don’t wear a mask either and I NEVER WILL!”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/01/masks-politics-coronavirus-227765

 

[I_M4_AU 7,827]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

Generally speaking, between Democrats and Republicans,  which side is more concerned about maintaining scientifically-based measures to reduce the rate of covid infections?

Why are these scientifically-based measures not taking into account the age and health of people they are trying to protect?  In other words, protect the vulnerable.  Why is a 6 year old treated like 60 year old, or a 30 year old treated like a 75 year old? Does Government not trust it’s citizens to do what is best for them?  I can see the need for continuous PSAs, as long as it doesn’t border on fear mongering, but putting in restrictions that are literally unenforceable is too much.

At this point it isn’t about red or blue states, it’s about getting by until the vaccine is widely available.

[DKW 86 7,423]

8 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Cant wait to hear from the Democrat Party is always perfect crowd on this one. We all know it is coming.

 

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

About time for what?

I hope you aren't seriously suggesting there's no difference between the numbers of Democrats who are careless about covid 19 and MAGAs who are careless.

Our pandemic response has been thoroughly politicized.  Everyone understands how that division falls out, even if you have instances of carelessness on both sides. 

 

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

That evades my point.  

Generally speaking, between Democrats and Republicans,  which side is more concerned about maintaining scientifically-based measures to reduce the rate of covid infections?

Which side (starting at the top) has more frequently encouraged - or failed to discourage - responsible  behavior contributing to the politicization of our response?

BS. 

Democratic governors and mayors - as a whole - have generally been much more aggressive in promoting preventative habits than Republicans.  Just look at the criticism - and sometimes threats - they have come under by MAGAs. 

The exceptions are exactly that, exceptions.

If citing isolated instances to prove our case is sufficient, here's one that proves mine:

The Sacramento sheriff refused to enforce covid health measures. He has now tested positive for the virus.

When California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced a statewide mask-wearing mandate in June, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said he would not enforce the order. In November, as the state neared a breaking point days ahead of Thanksgiving, Jones once again pushed back, refusing to enforce compliance with the state’s social distancing and gathering rules.

“We will not dispatch officers for these purposes,” Jones said in a statement.

Now, he has tested positive for the coronavirus after being recently exposed to a colleague, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office on Wednesday.

Jones, a Republican who was first elected as county sheriff in 2010, started to notice mild symptoms last Friday, including fever, headache, congestion and lightheadedness, before testing positive on Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s office.

“He started feeling better Sunday morning, and today has almost no remaining symptoms,” the statement said.

Jones is isolated, as is his family, who have been tested and are awaiting their results, according to the sheriff’s office.

“The Sheriff is only one of dozens of Sacramento Sheriff’s Office employees who, despite rigorous institutional safety practices and following all recommended personal safety protocols, have contracted the virus while performing their essential duties protecting and serving their community or, as in the Sheriff’s case, supporting and interacting with those dedicated women and men,” the statement said.

Jones is not the first elected official to oppose enforcing coronavirus restrictions only to later get the virus. In June, an Arizona sheriff who vowed one month earlier to not enforce stay-at-home orders tested positive for the coronavirus. Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth (R), who spoke out about Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s mask mandate, calling it “an overstep,” tested positive in October.

Alabama’s GOP lieutenant governor called mask rules an ‘overstep.’ Now he has tested positive for the coronavirus.

As infection rates in California continue to surge and hospital capacity hastily dwindles, Newsom said on Monday that he was considering mandating a stay-at-home order to slow the spread.

Within the past week, the number of hospitalizations in California has risen nearly 33 percent, according to The Washington Post’s coronavirus tracker. So far, there have been more than 1.2 million cases of the coronavirus in California and more than 19,300 deaths.

Sacramento County, with a population of about 1.5 million, has had almost 40,000 cases and just under 600 deaths, according to The Post’s tracker. On Dec. 1, when Jones tested positive for the virus, the city reached 1,115 cases in one day, a record, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Despite overseeing the county that houses the California Capitol and is home to the governor, Jones consistently refused to enforce the state’s health guidelines. On June 19, in response to the state’s mask mandate, the sheriff’s office said in a news release that violating the order is a “minor” offense and doesn’t merit enforcement.

“The potential for negative outcomes during enforcement encounters, and anticipating the various ways in which the order may be violated, it would be inappropriate for deputies to criminally enforce the Governor’s mandate,” the release said. “Accordingly, the Sheriff’s Office will not be doing so.”

On Nov. 19, Jones’s office said it would not enforce a newly institute statewide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Jones’s refusal to cooperate with covid-related issues has gone beyond enforcing public health mandates. In August, the sheriff refused to provide information about coronavirus testing and cases in the county jails to an online dashboard for the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) that tracked the number of cases in California detention centers. The Bee reported Sacramento County was one of two that would not participate.

“After a review of the BSCC tracking system, the Sheriff’s Office does not believe that the data being collected is comprehensive enough to show a complete picture related to COVID and our jail system,” Tess Deterding, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said in a statement to the Bee.

Because the sheriff’s office doesn’t participate, it is unclear how many of the “dozens” of employees in his office — as referenced in his statement on Wednesday — contracted the virus from the two county jails.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/03/jones-sacramento-sheriff-covid-positive/

 

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

And here's a more generalized piece that more effectively highlights my case:

How did face masks become a political issue in America?

They’re just pieces of cloth, but a passionate portion of the US population sees an attack on individual freedom

It is usually a cloth with two stretchy bands at two ends. You put it on your face so you can cover your mouth and nose, and it acts as a barrier to the rest of the world.

Masks, therefore, are very simple objects.

But in the US they are a huge source of controversy. While many Americans follow public health recommendations and wear masks in public to limit the spread of Covid-19, others passionately fight against them, saying they impair individual freedom.

Here’s what we know about the movement against masks in the US:

What is the controversy over masks in the US?

While polls show a majority of Americans wear masks when out in public, whether businesses and local governments should mandate mask usage has become a divisive political issue. A recent Pew Research Center poll found Democrats were more likely to say they wear masks than Republicans.

This is in line with messaging from leaders within the two parties.

Democratic leaders have been more vocal about the importance of face masks. Many Democratic governors have made it mandatory to wear masks in public. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said if he were in the White House, he would “do everything possible to make it required that people have to wear masks in public”.

In contrast, while many Republican leaders have also spoken out about the importance of masks, other top Republicans have been more hesitant to mandate masks, even as their states have started to see surges of new cases amid reopening phases. The most obvious of these is Donald Trump himself.

And though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus, the US president has suggested wearing a mask could be seen as a political statement against him and mocked Biden for wearing a mask in public.

That message has reached the public, who have turned masks into a “culture war”. Some businesses have put up signs telling patrons they are required not to wear masks, while retail employees elsewhere have had to confront angry customers who refuse to wear them.

When did the backlash against masks in the US start?

What started as largely mask-less protests against shutdown orders has spiraled into wider anti-mask sentiment. As states have slowly begun to reopen their economies, many national chains and local businesses are requiring customers to wear face masks when in stores.

Thus businesses, and particularly their employees, are increasingly finding themselves on the frontlines of the mask debate. Stores that have been strict about masks have reported an uptick in angry customers who lash out when employees try to turn them away for not wearing masks. The most extreme case has been in Flint, Michigan, where an employee of a Family Dollar store was shot on 4 May after telling a customer her daughter had to wear a face mask to enter the store.

Why do people say they are against masks?

Many who refuse to wear masks say it imposes on their individual freedom.

Reopen NC, a group that opposes shutdown orders in North Carolina, said masks were “muzzles” that, along with things like mandatory temperature checks, were “ways our freedom is being eroded”. The group started a “Burn Your Mask Challenge” where people post videos on social media of themselves burning their masks and use the hashtag “#IgniteFreedom”.

At a meeting of local leaders in Palm Beach, Florida, several people spoke in public about why they were against masks. Reasons varied from anger that masks “throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door” to invoking a “plan-demic” conspiracy theory.

You’re removing our freedoms and stomping on our constitutional rights by these communist dictatorship orders or laws you want to mandate,” one woman said at the hearing.

Some experts say part of the resistance to masks could stem from confusing public messaging that came from public health officials in the beginning of the pandemic. When the virus first appeared on US shores, public health officials said masks were not necessary for anyone who was not showing symptoms and discouraged people from buying them.

The CDC changed course in early April, saying that new research showed asymptomatic carriers were common spreaders of the virus, though some experts say the evidence for mask usage had already been clear. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist who leads the US response against Covid-19, admitted that a part of the reason why public health officials discouraged masks is because the US was experiencing a shortages of masks for essential healthcare workers.

What do public health officials now say about masks?

Public health experts unanimously agree that masks help slow the spread of Covid-19. The CDC and World Health Organization both released recommendations to the public to wear masks when social distancing is not possible.

Though masks alone will not completely halt the spread of the virus, recent research has shown that wearing them is the most efficient way to stop its transmission. Fauci, at a recent talk, said everyone should wear a mask in public and it “should not be a political issue. It is purely a public health issue.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/29/face-masks-us-politics-coronavirus

 

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

And here's a piece that explicitly makes my case:

Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans.

Welcome to Washington's latest partisan standoff.

In the ‘60s, protesters burned bras. In 2020, they might soon be burning masks.

Views on how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic have become increasingly polarized, yet another political issue that for many culture war combatants is filtered through an ideological lens. The left has been almost uniformly — and loudly — in favor of sacrificing many personal liberties in exchange for containing the virus’ spread. The right has been divided, but the vocal activist wing of conservatism that has enormous influence on social media and Fox News, has been far more willing to attack the various infringements on where people can go and what they have to wear.

The mask has become the ultimate symbol of this new cultural and political divide.

For progressives, masks have become a sign that you take the pandemic seriously and are willing to make a personal sacrifice to save lives. Prominent people who don’t wear them are shamed and dragged on Twitter by lefty accounts. On the right, where the mask is often seen as the symbol of a purported overreaction to the coronavirus, mask promotion is a target of ridicule, a sign that in a deeply polarized America almost anything can be politicized and turned into a token of tribal affiliation.

The cleavage was made clear this week when Mike Pence toured the Mayo Clinic without wearing a mask. Pictures from the event showed the maskless vice president surrounded by doctors and patients with face coverings. The story dominated cable news. Liberal hosts shamed Pence for setting a bad example or behaving recklessly. Conservatives attacked the left’s mask obsession as another example of the creeping nanny state.

Laura Ingraham warned that “social control over large populations is achieved through fear and intimidation and suppression of free thought” and “conditioning the public through propaganda is also key, new dogmas replace good old common sense.”

But the pro-mask voices won, at least for now. On Thursday, Pence toured a ventilator factory in Indiana while wearing a surgical mask.

In Washington, mask-wearing has become deeply political and inconsistent. The White House is divided along some familiar lines. In early April, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first issued its recommendation that Americans wear “cloth face coverings” — because surgical masks are still in short supply — Trump immediately blurted out that he wasn’t interested.

“With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing,” Trump said at a White House briefing on April 3. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It is only a recommendation, voluntary.”

The disagreement apparently extends to the first family. Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump occasionally like to send subtle hints when they differ with the president. Sure enough, soon after Trump said he wouldn’t be wearing a mask, both Melania and Ivanka posted pictures of themselves on social media promoting the virtues of covering your face. (Although Ivanka was chastised by some liberals for violating federal guidelines for nonessential travel when she went to New Jersey for Passover.)

Visiting the White House, it's striking how many people don’t wear masks. Very few Secret Service agents have them on. Some days, even the staff member performing temperature checks on reporters doesn’t wear one. In contrast, most, though certainly not all, members of the media wear some kind of face covering while in the press workspace or waiting to cover a presidential event. But very few keep them on during the televised briefings.

Inside the building it is a relatively mask-free zone. At one meeting this week that included chief of staff Mark Meadows and some 20 other White House officials, including Secret Service agents, nobody from the White House was wearing a mask or other face covering.

“It’s a personal choice. That's the whole point of the guidelines in the first place. If you want to wear one, you can wear one," said one White House official. "It's not a conscious effort to try and raise the alarm or not raise the alarm."

Another White House official emphasized that the CDC guidance is “voluntary” and that most staffers don’t cover their faces while at work. “I don't wear one when I'm here, but I take an Uber back and forth to work every day because the Metro and buses are so terrible right now. ... But when I’m here on complex, just sitting at my desk, in a meeting where there's plenty of distance, I don't wear one.”

There are a few exceptions in the West Wing. As POLITICO previously reported, Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, has sometimes worn a mask. Maybe he knows something: his wife is a former CDC microbiologist.

The cleaning crews at the White House are another exception. “A ton of cleaners are always wearing a mask and there seems to be a lot more of them around,” said a third White House official, "especially in the West Wing.”

Face coverings are not usually for personal protection. Unless the mask has a filter, like an N95 mask, the CDC says it won’t offer protection from possibly inhaling the coronavirus. But in situations where social distancing is harder to do, like a workplace or grocery store, a mask reduces the ability of an asymptomatic infected person to spread the virus.

Pence argued that because he’s regularly tested, he wasn’t putting anyone at risk by not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic. The counterargument is that the clinic requires all visitors to wear a mask and that Pence’s nonchalance about the policy undercuts the public health campaign to encourage covering up.

But others took Pence’s maskless photo-op as a political statement. Perhaps it was a show of power and authority: I don’t have to wear a mask because I have access to regular testing. In that sense, being in close proximity to people without covering your face is a kind of new status symbol for the pandemic era. Or perhaps it was a kind of dog whistle to the pro-Trump base that has been skeptical about the pandemic response.

The virtue signaling seems to have spilled over to Capitol Hill. During a vote on the latest coronavirus relief package last week, POLITICO reported that about a dozen Republicans declined to wear masks on the House floor. One of the maskless lawmakers, Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, said he wasn’t making an ideological statement and that members were “spaced out” on the floor, precluding the need for covering his face.

When asked whether it was a cultural or ideological statement, another maskless Republican, Ralph Abraham, a veterinarian turned family doctor from Louisiana, gave an emphatic “Nooo, nooo!”

Not all of the maskless behavior on the right seems ideological. Some members just seem to be struggling to adapt to new rules like everyone else. A POLITICO reporter spotted one masked Democratic member who actually removed his mask when he encountered a colleague, and they posed for a picture together.

But there is clearly a growing partisan split. Democratic leaders in the House have made more of a point about wearing masks on camera than Republican leaders. Democrat Jim Clyburn donned one at a news conference on Thursday with Nancy Pelosi, who generally uses her scarf as a mask. None of the top three House GOP leaders wore masks at an outdoor news conference at the Capitol last week.

The mask divide is spilling into policymaking. Congressional Democrats, backed by flight attendant unions, have been leading a campaign to force the use of masks on airplanes, which the Trump administration has resisted. (In the absence of a mandate, Delta, American, United, JetBlue and Frontier have all recently adopted a mask policy for passengers.)

Some people seem as worked up about face coverings as others are about tax policy or abortion. In response to a recent POLITICO report about the Pence imbroglio, one person on Twitter wrote, “Get over it, I don’t wear a mask either and I NEVER WILL!”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/01/masks-politics-coronavirus-227765

 

Like I said...
Cant wait to hear from the Democrat Party is always perfect crowd on this one. We all know it is coming.

BTW, anyone catch anyone else posting article after article after article of Whataboutism, after just complaining that I supposedly posted a Whataboutism?

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

12 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

 

 

 

 

Like I said...
Cant wait to hear from the Democrat Party is always perfect crowd on this one. We all know it is coming.

BTW, anyone catch anyone else posting article after article after article of Whataboutism, after just complaining that I supposedly posted a Whataboutism?

 

You are right in the money!! I thought the same thing in my pot meet kettle response. The king of confirmation bias accusing others of confirmation bias!! 

[DKW 86 7,423]

51 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

You are right in the money!! I thought the same thing in my pot meet kettle response. The king of confirmation bias accusing others of confirmation bias!! 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

17 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Why are these scientifically-based measures not taking into account the age and health of people they are trying to protect?  In other words, protect the vulnerable.  Why is a 6 year old treated like 60 year old, or a 30 year old treated like a 75 year old? Does Government not trust it’s citizens to do what is best for them?  I can see the need for continuous PSAs, as long as it doesn’t border on fear mongering, but putting in restrictions that are literally unenforceable is too much.

At this point it isn’t about red or blue states, it’s about getting by until the vaccine is widely available.

Wearing a mask does protect the vulnerable.

And this is about people, not states.  There are 1) people who think of wearing masks as a political statement- they either think of it as a "liberal thing" and/or they claim their personal rights are being infringed,  and 2) people who see it as an appropriate an responsible public health response.

[alexava 6,973]

People are not trained and conditioned to understand and use the damn things correctly  , certainly not disciplined enough. I don’t know a single person who is not in the medical field who takes it seriously. We are transferring virus and god knows what else from our hands to right under our ******* nose and storing it there for hours and or days. Not considering other unintended consequences like rebreathing expelled carbon dioxide and other toxins and making a garden of strep and sinus infections. This is exactly what the science told us until March. Then reversed course in the attempt to make it appear that we are not “doing nothing “.  All that said I wear the damn thing everywhere I’m expected to. 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

25 minutes ago, alexava said:

People are not trained and conditioned to understand and use the damn things correctly  , certainly not disciplined enough. I don’t know a single person who is not in the medical field who takes it seriously. We are transferring virus and god knows what else from our hands to right under our ******* nose and storing it there for hours and or days. Not considering other unintended consequences like rebreathing expelled carbon dioxide and other toxins and making a garden of strep and sinus infections. This is exactly what the science told us until March. Then reversed course in the attempt to make it appear that we are not “doing nothing “.  All that said I wear the damn thing everywhere I’m expected to. 

 

Yeah, and science proclaimed phlogiston as the theory of combustion until Lavoisier demonstrated otherwise. Science is funny like that.

Thanks for wearing your mask!

[I_M4_AU 7,827]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Wearing a mask does protect the vulnerable.

And this is about people, not states.  People that think of wearing masks as a political statement- they either think of it as a "liberal thing" and/or they claim their personal rights are being infringed -  and people who see it as an appropriate an responsible public health response.

Biden just said he is going to *ask* people to wear a mask for 100 days when he takes office, so why would people think wearing a mask is a political statement?

It all sets up well for the doddering old fool, the vaccine will be available and millions of people will have received the vaccine in his first 100 days, sooooo Biden can claim the masks did what they are suppose to do with minimal help from the vaccine.  “Why didn’t people just wear the masks from the start”?  I am sure you will carry that water for the Dems.

[homersapien 11,373]

16 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Biden just said he is going to *ask* people to wear a mask for 100 days when he takes office, so why would people think wearing a mask is a political statement?

Sorry, But I don't understand the your logic.

Mask wearing is political because people of the MAGA political persuasion resist or refuse wearing them on the basis of their political beliefs.  I don't see how Biden asking people to wear masks  has anything to do with it.  Perhaps you can explain.

Quote

It all sets up well for the doddering old fool, the vaccine will be available and millions of people will have received the vaccine in his first 100 days, sooooo Biden can claim the masks did what they are suppose to do with minimal help from the vaccine.  “Why didn’t people just wear the masks from the start”?  I am sure you will carry that water for the Dems.

Seriously? 

There is no reason Biden would suggest his request to wear masks is what really curbed the pandemic after the vaccine is available.  In fact that's crazy hypothesis.

Regarding vaccination,  just wait.  I expect the willingness to get vaccinated will also generally split along political lines. (Science bad!)

Finally, better a "doddering old fool" - with a competent staff - than a narcissistic, psychopathic, con-man running a corrupt clown show of incompetency. 

[alexava 6,973]

I have not been in the politics here lately so I don’t remember if I already told this or not. But the most anal mask pushing Nazi in my work area spits Skoal juice in to the coolant in our grinding cnc machines. Been doing it for 15 years. when he is on  different dry jobs he keeps a disposable coffee cup. Pulling his mask up several dozen times a day and spitting in it and placing it under the work table. Then handling equipment at least a dozen other people use as well. Then the bastard blows up at me because I said I don’t think the damn things are working. Telling me I just don’t understand science and viruses.