;)
The Commentariat -- February 3, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
** Brooks Boliek, et al., of Politico: "On Thursday, [FCC Chair Tom] Wheeler[, a former cable company lobbyist,] is expected to present to the commission a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the commission finally approves them -- a vote is scheduled for late February -- it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come.... The origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people -- him and President Barack Obama." ...
... Thank you, John Oliver:
... And another big thanks to this Big Guy (Nov. 10, 2014):
David Sanger of the New York Times: "A year after President Obama ordered modest changes in how the nation's intelligence agencies collect and hold data on Americans and foreigners, the administration will announce new rules requiring intelligence analysts to delete private information they may incidentally collect about Americans that has no intelligence purpose, and to delete similar information about foreigners within five years."
Bill Curry in Salon: "Democrats are supposed to be the party of change but life in the bubble taught them to resist change.... As it is now organized and led, the Democratic Party is a corrupt and empty husk of an institution. But for all its patent defects I believe it offers the most direct path to progressive governance." Curry thinks progressives are too divided & must have a "conversation" that brings us all together in the way the Tea party movement brought the confederates together.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "The fight over immigration policy shifts to the Senate on Tuesday, with Democrats confident that they can block a homeland security financing bill that would reverse President Obama's directives to ease the threat of deportation against millions of undocumented immigrants. By using a filibuster to prevent a debate on the legislation, which has been passed by the House, Democrats are hoping they can force the new Republican majority to drop the immigration provisions and send the $40 billion spending bill to the president."
Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House is looking to counter-program a vote by House Republicans to repeal ObamaCare by inviting a group of Americans who have benefitted from the law to meet President Obama. 'Today's meeting comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives vote to repeal the law and take these benefits away from millions of Americans,' a White House official said." ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "House Republicans will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act again on Tuesday. It'll be the 56th shot they've taken at the law, and just like every other time they've tried to erase President Obama's signature achievement, this attempt is doomed to fail. Republicans have nowhere near the veto-proof majority they'd need to kill Obamacare.... They're doing it for the freshmen -- that is, the 47 House Republicans who just took office a month ago and have never had the high honor and privilege of voting to repeal Obamacare. By holding the vote, these lawmakers can head back to their districts and tell their constituents that yes, they did everything they could to get rid of the reviled law." ...
... Jennifer Haberkorn & Manu Raju of Politico: "The Supreme Court could be months away from blowing a huge hole in Obamacare -- and Republicans on Capitol Hill are at odds over how they'll respond if their side wins.... Some conservatives say the party should do everything in its power to kill the law if the Supreme Court rules their way. If Republicans in Congress try to preserve a crucial element of the law, conservatives say, it will be an all-out war within the GOP." ...
... Brian Beutler: "In a brief to the Supreme Court, dozens of public health scholars, along with the American Public Health Association, detail the harm the Court would create by ruling for the challengers in King vs. Burwell.... "'Using the national estimate that 8.2 million people can be expected to lose health insurance in the absence of subsidies on the federal marketplace, this ratio equates to over 9,800 additional Americans dying each year.'" CW: Let's see how many Supreme Court justices are willing to kill some 10,000 people a year in service of their political theology. Will it be four? Or five? I'm going to hope the Supremes are all lovely people, & not a one of them -- on the slender thread of one semantic slip-up -- is so craven as to knowingly & purposely jeopardize the lives & health of millions of Americans, in the process killing off thousands of them. I just might be wrong. ...
You're Not the Boss of Me. Josh Marshall of TPM: "... for older Americans, support for mandatory immunizations is overwhelming. And it just got lower and lower and lower the younger you go - with what looks like a steep turning points somewhere in the mid-30s. This is not good news." ...
... Presidential Race
Today in Crazy. Featuring GOP Presidential Contenders.
Calling Dr. Christie. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walked back comments he made [outside a vaccine lab in Cambridge, England,] Monday morning calling for 'balance' on the measles vaccine debate to allow for parental choice, asserting that 'there is no question kids should be vaccinated.'... Christie also took the unusual step of criticizing the president on foreign soil, saying Obama had been a poor negotiator, specifically regarding the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership." ...
... Charles Pierce: "This is like running a campaign on Teach The Controversy regarding Creationism, or a campaign based on the fact that 9/11 was an inside job." ...
... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "In an October 2009 interview with Fox Business Network's Don Imus, Christie defended the concerns of parents who believe in the theory that vaccines caused their children to develop autism. That belief stems from a now-debunked study linking vaccines to the disorder. "We need to look at all the different things affecting autism in New Jersey because we have the highest rate in the country, not just the environmental concerns but vaccinations,' Christie said. 'Parents of children with autism need to be heard, they need a seat at the table to be talking about these issues.'" ...
... Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "Louise Kuo Habakus, an anti-vaccination activist who runs the site FearlessParent.org, provided a letter to MSNBC Monday in which Christie purportedly wrote that he understood their concerns about ties between vaccine mandates and autism -- long discredited by public officials -- and supported their push for parental choice. She shared a photo showing Christie meeting with her and what she said were other anti-vaccination activists with her organization, the NJ Vaccination Choice Coalition, as well as other autism groups at a meeting they organized with the then-candidate in August 2009.... The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog called out then-presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton in 2008 for suggesting the science around the issue was unsettled despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." ...
... Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "Conservatives making vaccinating your kids a conspiracy liberal elitists inflict on your kids, like global warming or evolution, is just going to be awesome if you like lots of unnecessary death and suffering."
... Turns out the lab facility Christie visited in England is American-owned. AND, Steve M.: "as The Telegraph reports, Christie is in Cambridge, in part, 'to highlight New Jersey's pharmaceutical industry." (Also linked below.) So he's not just reinforcing superstition, he's insulting the industry he's there to promote. What an embarrassment."
... Also see digby on press secretary Josh Earnest's "milquetoast" response to a question about measles vaccines, way last week. "I'd guess they are afraid of people saying the state is intruding into the affairs of the family. But they do this all the time. The state forces people to use those car seats, after all. What's so different about this? And in this case, it's really not a matter of individual choice, is it? By failing to vaccinate, parents aren't just endangering their own kids they're endangering other people's kids. Even libertarians should have to take a big breath before they claim that's ok ... This is a very strange debate. These aren't obscure new protocols. They've been around forever and we literally have hundreds of millions of people walking around who lived to tell the tale." ...
... Steve M. pushes back against the rap on Obama & Hillary Clinton: "By September 2008...,Obama was angering the anti-vaxx community by telling an vaccine-skeptic blogger that he supported vaccination.... An anti-vaxx blog recently called Clinton 'the mother of the autism epidemic' because, in the first year of her husband's administration, she pushed for a law intended to increase childhood vaccination rates.... Oh, and a major focus of the Clinton Foundation is speeding up the rollout of new vaccines." ...
... UPDATE: See Michael Hiltzig's thorough vetting of Obama's statements on vaccinations. He shreds the "Obama-was-against-it-before-he-was-for-it" false storyline that has crept into mainstream media stories, like the one I cited above.
The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. -- Hillary Clinton, in a tweet Monday evening
Calling Dr. Paul (Who Is a Real, Self-Certified Doctor, BTW). Freeeedom! Jonathan Chait: "... the scent of crazy in the air inevitably attracted Rand Paul, who gave a disturbing interview to CNBC. ...
... Carrie Dann of NBC News: "Republican Sen. Rand Paul is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be 'voluntary,' telling CNBC that a parent's choice not to vaccinate a child is 'an issue of freedom.' In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are 'a good thing' but that parents 'should have some input' into whether or not their children must get them. And he gave credence to the idea - disputed by the majority of the scientific community - that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities. 'I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,' he said." (Emphasis added.) CW: That kind of makes Li'l Randy the Michele Bachmann of 2016. ...
... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "For more than two decades, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was a member of a group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, that advocated a link between vaccinations and autism, among other conspiracy theories. The AAPS, as Kentucky's Courier-Journal noted in a 2010 article on Paul's association with it, opposes mandatory vaccinations and promoted discredited studies, which linked the vaccine-component thimerosal to autism in children.... An adviser for the senator told BuzzFeed News that he does not know if Paul is still a member, but that the senator does not support all the group's views." ...
... Apparently Rand Paul has decided to go the Christie Bully route. Besides interrupting interviewer Kelly Evans several times, twice at the end of the interview he lectured her for being "slanted," "argumentative" & asking questions based on "distortions." In fact, Evans was only repeating information that was common knowledge &/or had been previously reported. ...
... ** Charles Pierce: "... I will decline to refer to what Paul did there as 'mansplaining,' and instead, fall back on the old standby, 'Jesus, what an dickhead.'"
Philip Rucker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory -- injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States.... Seth Mnookin, a professor at MIT who has written a book on the vaccination debate called 'The Panic Virus,' called the comments from Christie and Paul 'incredibly, incredibly irresponsible.' Such remarks, he said, 'basically fail at the first duty of a politician, which is to calm his constituents in moments of irrational crisis.'"
McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: Christie "isn't the only prospective Republican presidential candidate making that argument. Carly Fiorina made similar remarks in an interview with BuzzFeed News a week ago. Asked whether a recent measles outbreak that has spread across 14 states signals further proof that children need to be vaccinated, Fiorina said, 'I think parents have to make choices for their family and their children.'... She went on, 'I think vaccinating for measles makes a lot of sense. But that's me. I do think parents have to make those choices. I mean, I got measles as a kid. We used to all get measles .. I got chicken pox, I got measles, I got mumps.'"
When Ben Carson Is the Sane Guy in the Room. Steven Yaccino of Bloomberg Business: "'Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society,' [Ben] Carson, a well-known neurosurgeon and conservative speaker, wrote in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg Politics. 'Certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country and we should not allow those diseases to return by foregoing safe immunization programs, for philosophical, religious or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them.'" ...
... UPDATE, via the New York Times: "Asked about the measles vaccine controversy on Monday, a spokesman for [former Texas Gov. Rick] Perry affirmed his commitment to 'protecting life' and pointed to efforts by his administration to increase immunization rates.... Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, also a possible 2016 candidate, was asked on Sunday about vaccinations on the ABC News program 'This Week,' and insisted that the science was clear and convincing. 'Study after study has shown that there are no negative long-term consequences,' he said. 'And the more kids who are not vaccinated, the more they're at risk and the more they put their neighbors' kids at risk as well.'" The Times story also cites Mike Huckabee as favoring vaccinations, but that was based on a 2010 post by Huckabee; the increasingly loony Huckabee might have changed his mind since.
David Graham of the Atlantic: "A world in which support or opposition to vaccination could become a partisan litmus test would be a dangerous one. It's not that hard to imagine -- just look at climate change, once a relatively uncontroversial issue that has shifted to the point that Republican officeholders widely reject it."
Many states (including California) make it relatively easy to refuse vaccination for 'philosophic' reasons. This does not, I suspect, mean that people are reading Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill; it means they are consuming dodgy sources on the Internet. -- Conservative WashPo columnist Michael Gerson
His Highness, King Christopher I. Kate Zernicke & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: Chris Christie "shot to national prominence as a cheese-steak-on-the-boardwalk Everyman who bluntly preached transparency and austerity.... But throughout his career in public service, Mr. Christie has indulged a taste that runs more toward Champagne at the Four Seasons. He has also quietly let others pay the bills. That tendency ... has put him in ethically questionable situations, taking benefits from those who stand to benefit from him.... He made it clear when he campaigned for Mr. Romney in 2012 that he would do out-of-state events only if he was given a private plane, even during the primary, when the candidate's wife was still flying commercial to save money.... A Justice Department report after he left office found that he was the [federal] prosecutor who most often exceeded the charges allowed for hotel stays in different cities...." ...
... CW: It's true that Americans want their president to behave like royalty (unless he's black), but I doubt most Americans want a president who is as self-indulgent as a two-year-old: Christie eats too much, spends too much, vents too much, boasts too much. He's just too much.
Rachel Cohen of the American Prospect: "... compared to 'Bridgegate'..., Christie's [October 2010] veto of the new rail tunnel [under the Hudson River] is a far more serious scandal. For the sake of short-term political gain, Christie sacrificed the long-term interests of his state and the nation. The story of the blocked tunnel is also evidence of a wider problem: Republican leaders' refusal to deal with failing infrastructure for fear of raising taxes and antagonizing anti-tax groups on the right."
Dude! Don't worry about Rand Paul's wackadoodle views about freeeedom from vaccines, people. The real problem Paul has is the outfit he wore to the Koch brothers shebang. Also, he slouches. Ken Vogel & Tarini Parti of Politico: "Some attendees commented that Paul's appearance was 'cavalier'.... 'Jeans might work for a younger audience,' said another attendee, 'but these are old bulls who put on a tie every day to go to the office.'" CW: I like Paul's sartorial choice, though the jacket is a bit too dressy & the jeans look like they've seen the hot side of an iron.
Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast on GOP presidential candidates: "... despite all this spin from conservatives* about what a strong field this is, as usual the opposite is the truth. It's an astonishingly weak field, unified not only in their opposition to Barack Obama and the federal government but also in their hostility to actual ideas that might stand a chance of addressing the country's actual problems.... I finally sat myself down and watched that Scott Walker speech from last week that everyone is raving about.... It was little more than a series of red-meat appetizers and entrees: Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood, said no to Obamacare, passed some kind of law against 'frivolous' lawsuits, and moved to crack down on voter 'fraud' -- all of that besides, of course, his big move, busting the public-employee unions. There wasn't a single concrete idea about addressing any of the major problems the country faces.... Walker is even more vacuous on foreign policy, as Martha Raddatz revealed yesterday, twisting him around like a pretzel with a couple of mildly tough questions on Syria." ...
... * CW: And from the press! ...
... John Amato of Crooks & Liars: in the Raddatz Q&A, Walker "reminded me of a certain Alaskan governor who saw Putin's house from her home and didn't know what magazines she reads." ...
... BUT Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks Scottie is a quick study: "Walker still has a ways to go before he's ready for prime time. But I'll bet he gets there. He'll learn from his mistakes, and he's just about the only Republican candidate who has potential appeal to both tea partiers and mainstream voters. Six months from now minor early stumbles like this will be ancient history, and he'll have his campaign schtick much more finely honed. He remains a serious contender." ...
... PLUS, this just in from Steve M.: It looks as if Walker is Drudge's favorite, something that will matter in the primaries. Steve adds that it doesn't hurt that Scottie plays hardball & cites a few examples of what a dirty rotten scoundrel he is. ...
... AND Paul Waldman: "If you asked the same questions of Republicans who are supposedly more knowledgeable and experienced on foreign affairs, they'd give you the same empty, vague answers. Syria is a situation with no good options for the United States, but conservative dogma says that any international challenge can be solved if we show sufficient strength, toughness, and resolve.... So yes, chances are that Scott Walker's ideas about foreign policy are ill-informed and overly simplistic.... But that isn't because he's a governor, it's because he's a Republican politician." ...
... CW: In fact, that's exactly what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did Sunday, calling for 10,000 American troops to fight ISIS (also linked here yesterday). Graham fancies himself not just presidential timbre but a foreign policy expert. He has made numerous trips to the Middle East, including one where he & fellow Amigos John McCain & Joe Lieberman embraced Gaddafi.
Joshua Spivak, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, explains why the GOP has so many presidential contenders this year.
CW: I was intending to save this for the weekend, but Amy Davidson's New Yorker post on Republicans' papal problems is getting a good deal of attention, so here it is.
One Super Bowl Story. Ian Crouch of the New Yorker asks, "Did we just watch Julian Edelman play through a concussion?" Crouch lays out the symptoms of a concussion that Patriots wide receiver Edelman exhibited after being knocked down in "what appeared to be an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit" during the fourth quarter of Sunday's totally inconsequential game (and I mean that). Despite showing symptoms when he was hit, as well as during subsequent plays, Edelman finished the game. "After the game, when he was asked about the hit, Edelman said, 'We’re not allowed to talk about injuries.'" CW: That's right: cover-up is the rule. ...
... ESPN: "New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman was tested for a concussion and cleared to finish Super Bowl XLIX after taking a big hit in the fourth quarter, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The person said Monday that Edelman, who caught the winning 3-yard touchdown pass, was checked on the New England sideline by medical staff and an independent neurologist.... On Monday, coach Bill Belichick was asked whether Edelman was checked for a concussion but largely sidestepped the question.
I'm a coach and I had a deal with our trainers and doctors. They're the medical experts and they don't call plays, and I'm the coach and I don't get involved in the medical part. When they clear players to play, then if we want to play them, we play them. The plays we call, I don't have to get approval from them. It's a good setup. -- Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, responding to a question about whether or not Julian Edelman suffered a concussion during the Super Bowl
Apparently coaches are "not allowed to talk about injuries," either. Cover-up is the rule. And you wonder why I'm not a sports fan. -- Constant Weader
Beyond the Beltway
Joe Fletcher of Addicting Information: "The Detroit Free Press recently ran an article [linked yesterday on the Commentariat] that told the story of James Robertson, a man who walks 21 miles a day to work, five days a week. The story went viral and the internet responded brilliantly. A GoFundMe fundraiser was created to try to raise enough money to buy a car for Robertson. In only seven hours, the crowdfund has not only reached the initial goal of raising $25,000, but has blown past it bringing in over $29,000 at the time this article was written. The crowdfund was started by Evan Leedy. Leedy is trying to get in contact with car dealerships, Ford, Chrysler, or GM to try to get a car." CW: If you contributed to the fund for Mr. Robertson, thank you very much. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...
... Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post has more. Contributions to the fund were up to $67,000 at the time of publication. ...
... Also from Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press, who wrote the original story about Robertson's arduous commute to work.
News Ledes
New York Daily News: "At least seven people were killed and at least 12 others were seriously injured when a Metro-North train hit a Jeep on the tracks in Westchester Tuesday and burst into a wild inferno, authorities said. The dead included the driver of the car and at least five train passengers, a police source said."
New York Times: "Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped Argentina, had drafted a request for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, the lead investigator into his death said Tuesday. The 26-page document, which was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman's apartment, also sought the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina's foreign minister. Both Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman have repeatedly denied Mr. Nisman's accusation that they tried to reach a secret deal with Iran to lift international arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the bombing."
New York Times: "In a new show of brutality for a group already known for displays of violence, the Islamic State released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the execution of a captive Jordanian pilot by burning him alive. The lengthy footage shows clips of Jordan's involvement in the United States-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. At the end, the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, stands inside of a cage and is set on fire by an unidentified militant who uses a torch to ignite flammable liquid that has drenched the pilot's clothing." ...
... Washington Post: "The Islamic State's release on Tuesday of a video showing its fighters burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot sparked street protests calling for vengeance and threatened to draw this country's usually low-key monarch toward ever more direct confrontation with radical Islam. The Jordanian military, a close ally in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, vowed 'punishment and revenge' for the killing, which it said had probably been carried out in early January. The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that a Jordanian government spokesman confirmed that two prisoners had been executed." ...
... New York: "Just hours after ISIS released a video showing the execution-by-fire of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh, his government has pledged to avenge his death by expediting the execution of Sajida al-Rishawi, the woman militants tried to trade for Japanese journalist Kenji Goto." ...
... Reuters Update: "Jordan executed by hanging on Wednesday a jailed Iraqi woman militant hours after Islamic State fighters released a video appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive in a cage, a security source and state television said. The militants had demanded the release of the woman, Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for a Japanese hostage who was later killed.... Ziyad Karboli, an Iraqi al Qaeda operative, who was convicted in 2008 for killing a Jordanian, was also executed at dawn, said the security source...."
Let This Be the Last We Hear of This Guy. AP: "Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong hit two parked cars with an SUV after a night of partying in Aspen, Colorado, but agreed to let his longtime girlfriend take the blame to avoid national attention, police reports show."
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Reader Comments (34)
'I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,' he said." And I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after baby formula. It's official, Rand Paul's comment is the dumbest statement from any Republican ever. Quite an honor.
Of course you have the right to kill your child, that is why America is so 'exceptional'. And my suggestion is that if your unvaccinated child causes another persons death, you go to jail for murder.
This is a perfect example of what is wrong with us. We can create a delusional state designed to make us feel so special, so knowledgeable, so important. All we need to do is find some bullshit that all those fools called scientists, atheists, secularists etc.
know nothing about. "I don't vaccinate my child because I am so special".
The reason us old folks are so pro vaccination is because we all had those fun diseases, measles, chicken pox and more. And we lived a world where polio was a real threat. Can any of these fools who were scared shit of the no problem Ebola ever understand the world where even that poor guy called FDR was infected with a disease that if it doesn't kill you, just tortures you for the rest of your life. Shame on those idiot scientists you created vaccines.
OMG Marvin. Memories. As a kid, had measles (darkened room for some reason; never figured that one out), whooping cough (mom rigged up a vaporizer and brewed eucalyptus leaves; see “Electric Horseman” for similar treatment of equines), bro had polio (quarantined; red tag stapled to the front door, but pop was exempt cause he had, you know, to go to work).
@James Singer: When I was young, people believed that measles could cause vision deterioration, & the darkened room was a precaution against that.
Doctors are still advising that measles patients be kept in a darkened room, but the reason given is that measles sufferers are often ultra-sensitive to light (photophobia). A piece in the Guardian does say that measles victims can get eye infections.
Marie
Jeez. Did you read those articles about the guy who has to do a hell of a lot of walking to get to work? One article said auto insurance in Detroit can run $5,000 per year. That's insane.
The internet has raised a considerable amount of money for him but I'm sure not liking the sound of the UBS friend that wants to set up a 'board' for the management of the money.
I'm with Marvin on this--we oldies have all had the diseases easily prevented by vaccination today. Measles (two weeks in a dark room), check; mumps, check; chicken pox; check; worst case of trench mouth our family doctor had every seen, check; boils lanced, check; but never had a small pox scratch take and always believed it was because I grew up on a farm and milked cows during my formative years.
My mother was terrified of polio and when Dr. Salk began testing his vaccine on school children, my mother didn't hesitate to sign me up. I still have my "I was a Polio Pioneer," badge. How many of us don't have friends and/or relatives that were and remain negatively impacted by this horrible disease?
My mother's sister contracted German measles when she was just beginning a pregnancy. Her daughter Debra was born so severely handicapped that at age two she had to be institutionalized. She remained there for the next 38 years, the last few of which were spent naked, in a padded room because she would eat her clothing and had to endure endless surgeries over the years for bowel obstructions. Think my aunt wished there had been a measles vaccine in 1950?
My 27-year-old grandson, current on all vaccinations, has spent the last two months recovering from a debilitating case of whooping cough, cultured and diagnosed by his physician. He was quarantined in his home and had to call everyone he had been in close contact with. How much worse his illness had he not been vaccinated and in excellent physical condition?
These foolish parents think their precious darling MIGHT become autistic, but thyphoid, whooping cough, and tetanus KILL you--see statistics on early Native American deaths from European invaders for confirmation. A little stroll through a local cemetery reading old headstones with birth/death dates of under one year/decade might also prove enlightening.
Again, I'm with Marvin in believing if your unvaccinated child runs around like Typhoid Mary infecting everyone they sneeze or slobber on, you should go to jail. And the gutless politicians eager to gain favor by their pandering should be booed from the world stage. This isn't about a poor child "catching" autism, but rather the selfishness of a self-proclaimed loving parent who would rather see a child dead than face a lifetime of caring for an autistic child. Disgusting that their selfishness can result in the death and/or compromised health of innocents being endangered as a result of their "right to choose."
Lil' Randy's self diagnosis, perhaps?
"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines."
Poppa Paul (a real doctor) must have vaccinated the hell out of him.
On Evolution? Global warming? And now vaccination? People do have the right to be wrong, but they should not be allowed the unquestioned freedom to make wrong policy for the rest of us.
As Marvin says, when parents' right (too ofter morally questionable) to do what they will with their children put me and mine at risk, they should be held accountable for the consequences of their "freedom."
The Right likes to create and teach the controversy, even when there is none. Some of this is reflected in a recent poll. Notice the Left--I include myself--is not, speaking of vaccinations, immune.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/study-reveals-wide-opinion-differences-scientists-general-public/
Submitted by one who also spent a week in a darkened room and when he had elementary classmates contract polio, was memorably administered the mostly placeboic (I made it up) gamma globulin in the tush. As far as I know, I was not given a choice.
Re; "Say doctor, Mr. MD,can you tell me what's ailin' me?" Anybody with me on this one? On one paw you got the idiots saying they can't make up their minds about global climate change despite all the evidence that proves it. Some of those same people won't vaccinate their kids despite the all the evidence that denies a correlation between autism.
So what I'm seeing here is that we are all self certified almost doctors.
The beautiful part of science is a right answer. No opinion. With more research the answer can change but it will be based on fact and evidence not opinion.
As a self certified almost doctor I am prescribing a day of bed rest and a morphine drip for myself. Maybe two days, if it will help me recover from the realization that maybe half my fellow citizens in this fine experiment called democracy are fuckin nut jobs.
Unlike Ken Winkes, who it is obviously a gentleman and a scholar, when it comes to global climate change I don't think you have the right to be wrong.
@marie, thanks for the explanation for the dark room. My brothers told me it was because nobody wanted to see my pus encrusted face, worse than coodies according to those almost doctors.
Pardon me for making you nervous. An article in the local paper had some vaccination numbers. US average 70.4%, lowest average Arkansas 57.1%, RI is highest 82.1% and wonderful NJ is 72.9%.
So the problem is a lot worse than the few rich idiots in CA that got the NYT's attention.
Note that for a small proportion there are legitimate medical reasons to say no but that accounts for a few percent.
There are two "forms" of measles: rubeola (the "ordinary" kind), which causes more serious symptoms and can do permanent damage, and rubella ("German" measles), which is very benign if you have it as a child or an adult but can induce severe birth defects in women infected early in pregnancy. Aside from some similarity in symptoms, there isn't much in common between the two viruses.
This controversy about vaccination is about the dumbest thing ever and that some of our politicians are spouting nonsense about freedom of choice when there is an anti-choice mandate on abortion in the Republican Party is just mind blowing. Below is a letter from Roald Dahl whose daughter died from measles and comments from a parent with an autistic child. And yes, we of a certain generation have had first hand experience with friends with polio and remember the fear that permeated throughout the country because of this virus. We also remember being laid up in dark rooms having caught all those bugs that did us in for a time. How wonderful that our children didn't have to go through all that and now in the 21st century we have parents and politicians who want to take us back into those dark rooms––crazy, just crazy!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/30/1361224/-Roald-Dahl-s-Heartbreaking-Take-on-Vaccines?detail=email
@Marvin Schwalb: Since you didn't link to the report you read & I couldn't find it quickly on NJ.com, I can't comment directly on it. However, this September 2013 HealthDay report sez, "According to the new data, which was published Sept. 13[, 2013] in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the vaccination rate among children born between 2009 and May 2011 for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) was nearly 91 percent; for polio, about 93 percent; and for hepatitis B and varicella/chickenpox, about 90 percent."
It seems unlikely -- if not mathematically impossible -- that the rate would have dropped nearly 20 percentage points in a couple of years.
Marie
Something tells me that ol' Randy Paul's major problem is that he lusts for simplicity. Maybe as a result of his coddled childhood and social status, maybe because he simply lacks the drive necesary to fulfill life's challenges at 100%. Look at his professional career. He's a SELF-certified doctor, because he couldn't get his shit together to go through the necessary pre-determind hoops. He's been caught plagiarizing multiple times, which is an extreme example of his intellectual, moral and personal laziness...
He just can't be bothered enough to go that extra mile, with life being so swell wallowing in mediocrity.
That's why Paul photo-op in the article by Jonathain Chait linked above tells his story so well. The picture is worth a thousand words, indeed.
There he is, playing eye doctor so hard, coming all the way to a shadowy classroom that his state-based education proposals would probably have closed down by now, to devote his time to help poor immigrants who he'd like to kick out of the country anyway. To strengthen his bona fide Republican credentials for the photo-op, he (or someone from his clan, I assume) welcomed the immigrants for the day with a "Bien Vinedos" *slaps forehead*
I'm not saying he should learn Spanish, although it's certianly an advantage in the US today. But a MINIMUM of effort, just a quick google search before you go in, could reverse this completely childish effort at cross-cultural communication. That's the first word I learned in 7th grade. It's not fucking hard. It's one word, Paul, and it's "Bienvenidos".
This is the attention to detail that Paul completely lacks. Rather, he prefers to just waltz through life using half his brain because it's so much easier and no acccountability in the press exists for the Establishment today.
JJG:
It all does quickly get to the question of rights, doesn't it?
Everyone has the right to his or her opinion: Something every good, red-blooded American has heard since we were in knee breeches (always wanted to say that, tho' I never wore them), isn't it?
But the proposition never seemed quite right to me, since early on I believed my opinions superior to many I heard from others. I remember an early attachment to the happy definition of "vagrant opinions" as ones without visible means of support, a phrase clever enough to make my tweenish--teenish incarnation feel doubly superior. Unlike those others which I now had a clever name for, my opinions were based on fact.
Superiority, though, doesn't solve many social and political problems. What does a society that values individual freedom do with all those people who are so obviously wrong? Over the years, humans have come up with answers ranging from extermination to execution, to exile, to re-education, to re-education's gentler face, an overdose of PC, none of which is consistent with our purported values and none of which I support.
And now that we have an entire political party (Confederates? Greed Old Patricians?), aligned geographically with wide swaths of the country, opening its arms to, even encouraging, intellectual dishonesty that ranges from timidity in the face of outright lunacy--I'm no scientist--to outright lying (yesterday Paul Ryan blamed the President for creating the wealth inequality that Ryan's, not Obama's, economic recommendations would greatly exacerbate), a practical solution seems even harder to come by.
I suspect over time, as crises caused by those who refuse to look truth in the face mount, society will exert increasing social, maybe even legal, pressure on the fact deniers. It won't be pretty but it will be a necessary and predictable consequence of living in the Great Collective. In the Great Collective there will be fewer opportunities to forge a career as a contrarian or an eccentric. In some ways I will miss those days, but when we're stepping all over one another and breathing in our neighbor's microbe-laden air, the science deniers will have to get in line.
In 1846 those animated by a God invisible to others could move to Utah.
No longer. Utah's pretty full.
@P.D. Pepe: Thanks. Dahl's letter is indeed powerful. Since even readers of the Daily Kos piece were confused, it should be pointed out that Dahl died in 1990. The Guardian piece I cited in my earliest comment today also mentions the possibility -- rare -- of measles causing the encephalitis that killed Olivia Dahl.
The MMR vaccination protects against both types of measles. It is about 95 percent effective.
Marie
Marie, I couldn't find the Star Ledger article on line either. But here is a piece from the Washington Post which covers the same issue (and does a better job than the S-L). http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/29/which-states-are-the-best-and-worst-at-vaccinating-their-kids/
I suspect that the difference in data might be related to the question which in this case is did the child get the whole deal.
@Marvin Schwalb: Thanks. You're right. The numbers you cited, like those in the WashPo article you linked, must refer to "the full series of CDC-recommended vaccines." The report I mentioned referred to only a few specific vaccinations.
Marie
@safari; Overall, I think you're quite right. Rand Paul has trouble getting past simple-minded, "one-size-fits-all" "philosophy." So his first consideration is, "Will this limit freeeeedom"? Ergo, civil rights legislation & vaccinations go into the same box: each limits a person's freeeedom to Just Say No, the public good be damned.
Howevah, I'm pretty sure the photo in Chait's article -- which he doesn't bother to identify -- is of Paul's charity/publicity trip to Guatemala. In this WashPo report, Ed O'Keefe -- a straight reporter -- called it a "stage-managed political voyage." O'Keefe noted that Paul went to Guatemala with "a film crew equipped with lights, cameras and an unmanned aerial drone for overhead shots.... Paul’s entourage included family members and friends; his top political aide, Doug Stafford; and political ad makers Rex Elsass and Rick Tyler" O'Keefe did report that Paul had done pro-bono work in Kentucky for years.
Marie
Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "Conservatives making vaccinating your kids a conspiracy liberal elitists inflict on your kids, like global warming or evolution, is just going to be awesome if you like lots of unnecessary death and suffering."
Here's a case where both sides really do it: unlike climate and evolution deniers, vaccine scolds, and GMO and EM radiation scolds, are mostly self described liberals, at least in California. Out here in NorCal some call them "Mendolibs." Fits with yesterday's link to the Reihan Salam piece on the upper middle class.
I have a true libertarian answer to many problems. Feel free to anything you want BUT you have to pay the bill. No seat belt. Die. But if you are injured, we don't share the medical bills. In other words your (our) insurance does not apply. Same with vaccinations. You see Rand, you can't have it both ways. I'm sure if someone asked that he would agree or maybe not quite answer.
@Whyte Owen: An overview article by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post sheds some light on vaccine skeptics: "The study found that the really big contributor to distrusting or disliking vaccines was not political ideology ideology at all, but rather, having a conspiratorial mindset, which can occur on both the left and the right."
Marie
The idiotic bullshit surrounding the no-brainer issue of vaccination being discussed here today calls to mind a book by Jared Diamond on the collapse of civilizations that were successful for hundreds and even thousands of years.
His book "Collapse: Guns, Germs, and Steel" outlines the cultural, religious, societal, economic , and most importantly, environmental decisions that cause great civilizations to die out, often in a very short period of time, after dire problems had been ignored for too long. Contemporary comparisons with our situation should make any thinking person blanch.
The Polynesians on Easter Island, after using up raw materials unconcerned by the need for conservation, made terrible decisions that led to starvation, cannibalism, and eventually complete collapse, with no way to restore and save a severely straitened population. No trees meant no firewood, no way to transport their giant statues, no way to build sea-going vessels to fish, indigenous land animals and birds having been wiped out by deforestation, which guaranteed existence at barely subsistence levels for the few who remained. Game over.
The Norse who inhabited Greenland in the middle ages, developed a thriving civilization that lasted a few hundred years but which finally collapsed due to poor environmental decisions, climate change, their inability to adapt from a conservative mindset, and an overweening religiosity that prompted them to spend money and trade with their cousins back in Europe on things like stained glass windows and altar pieces for their churchmen rather than iron tools for farming and defense. After they were wiped out, their Inuit neighbors remained, a clear indication that progressive thinking and adaptation is vital to survival. For example, the Greenland Norse, even when starving, refused to eat fish, for some cultural reason that is still unclear, but a taboo they were unwilling to break, even at the cost of their lives and the lives of their children. Likely, the same kind of impulse to cultural hara-kiri that supports the anti-vaccination crowd.
According to Diamond, the biggest problem for these societies was terrible decision making based on superstition, illogical and irrational beliefs or refusal to take seriously the problems they were facing, and a governing few who were typically insulated from most of the worst consequences of their bad decisions, until, of course, it was too late. A constant for most collapsed civilizations is the presence of a ruling elite who made decisions based on what was good for them and their followers rather than on facts and on what was good for the society as a whole.
Sound familiar?
So when I hear "leaders"--guys who are running for fucking PRESIDENT!!!!--declaring that everyone should get to make up their own mind about whether or not to vaccinate their kids against deadly diseases that, in the past, have ravaged population groups, I have to say that their references to "choice" or FREEEEDOM, as excuses for potential social chaos, strikes me as the sort of thing the leaders of long vanished cultures might have insisted upon.
But not only are these people insulated thoroughly against the madness of their decisions by an equally incestuous, inbred Confederate media, they seek further protection against reality by donning their American Exceptionalism Magic Underwear. Nothing can harm us. We're 'mericans, dammit. And besides, Jesus wouldn't do that to us, now, would he?
The problem, as always, would not be nearly so bad if these people all inhabited some remote island where they would be free to allow their terrible ideas, poor decision making ability, lack of familiarity with facts, and belief in their own freedom from consequences, to doom them all to extinction or cannibalism or terminal stupidity.
But they don't.
They live here and their bad decisions and superstitious nonsense condemn the rest of us to fighting them tooth and nail when our time and resources could be much better spent on solving our problems, and while the Imminent Collapse Clock ticks mercilessly away.
So thank you, Confederates. Vaccinate, don't vaccinate, it's all about Freedom. And choice. Because Republicans are always so big on that one, right? Oh, yeah, except when they're not.
Never mind. As The Decider says, "Who cares what happens in a hundred years? We'll all be dead anyway."
Now is that leadership, or what, I ask you?
Marvin,
You wrote: "You see Rand, you can't have it both ways. I'm sure if someone asked that he would agree or maybe not quite answer."
"Not quite answer" is putting it mildly. I think he would suddenly realize that he had inadvertently put his wig on sideways have to beat it, stage right, with all speed.
The Little One's typical response to thorny questions is to run away.
There's a leader for you!
"Rand, what do you think about this huge problem?" "Er....ahh...sorry. Have to run. A thing happened."
Marie (nice post) is correct about political independence of susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, it drives an otherwise thoughtful POTUS to pander to their fears with a milquetoast response on vaccination, and a rush (or Rush?) by the right to exploit it. In some states (fortunately not California) inducing just a few offended libs to stay home next election could swing the vote.
Kevin Drum's assumption that Scott Walker will inevitably appeal to mainstream voters just as he appeals to the propeller-hatted crowd is contingent on one thing alone: the press.
If the MSM (by the way, we've decided that "conservative" is no longer an appropriate term; I think it's time to reassess the accuracy of "mainstream media" as well, but that's for another post) decides to serve as stenographers and regurgitate, without clarification or substantiation, Walker's every drooling syllable, and if they buy into whatever everyman mantle he and the right-wing echo chamber decide will help him play in Peoria, then it is possible that his numbers, apart from the usual crazy wingnuts, could rise.
I'd love to be able to toss out an optimistic rejoinder along the lines of "but that's asking a lot" or "but that's a long shot". Unfortunately I can't, and it's not.
Walker absolutely should not appeal to mainstream voters, but if his lies and persona renovation are given a pass, it's more than possible.
And the only slightly optimistic rejoinder I have left, at this point, is that it's a long way until the election. Plenty of time for foot in mouth disease to take hold or for Early Leader Syndrome to catch up with a guy who has never run an honest campaign in his life.
@AK: Really liked your connecting the vaccine vacancy of mindsets with the Easter Island destruction and the Norse's inability to adapt successfully to their environment. Centuries from now we may be following their demise.
As an aside: A good friend of mine went on a dig in Mongolia with Jared Diamond and I'm sorry to report she thought him somewhat of a dick––she's British born so when she gives that assessment it sounds not nearly as nasty as it really is.
The LA Times piece by Joshua Spivak (linked above), points out the obvious change between the current raft (and I do mean raft, the thing is about to capsize) of GOP presidential triflers, and presidential hopefuls of the past: money. Boatloads of it. There was a lot the last go round, but this year, now that the billionaires have seen that each of them can have their very own Presidential Pet, it will be lunacy.
The problem is that support flowing to extreme and fringe candidates who can bet big (as Gingrich and Santorum did last time around) on weak hands, but with someone else's money, makes the price of poker rise for everyone.
It remains to be seen exactly how crazy this will get, but two guys have already promised to drop a billion dollars into the pot, with barely a peek at their cards. In a no limit game, if you have enough money, you can often bluff your way to the pot, as long as someone else doesn't have an unbeatable hand.
This may be part of the plan by the Kochs and their Confederate Billionaire buds. So David Brooks is completely wrong when he says money makes no difference.
As usual.
Price of poker goin' up.
PD,
And his writing sounds so avuncular, even when he's dropping statistics on your head. Too bad.
Well, I suppose if we thought about it, we could compile a pretty impressive list of smart people with good ideas who were also dicks.
The other list--stupid people with terrible ideas who were also dicks--is a whole lot longer. Plenty of them are running for president!
Well, isn't this special?
Freedom is on the rise! Marchons, marchons, qu'un sang impur, abreuve nos sillons!
Oh wait, Confederates hate France, don't they?
Well, they'd agree with the idea that freedom marches on, the Confederate way, and we'll kill anyone who says that complete freedom is not always the way to go, one way or the other.
And one way we've seen of Republican "health experts" like Rand Paul and Chris Christie helping to kill those who don't agree with them, is deciding that children don't need vaccinations, because freedom.
Now, it seems that Thom Tillis, rookie wingnut from NC, has found a new way to kill believers and non-believers alike, or at the very least completely gross them out and make them very sick. Make public health safety regulations voluntary. Yeah! That's the ticket. In fact, let's let the All Knowing Corporate Gods make those decisions for us, because, again, freedom. And Business.
Tillis, in a speech that seems like it could have been a spoof of this brand of idiocy on a site like Funny or Die, relates an anecdote about how a constituent who was having coffee with him at a Starbucks, mentioned something about employees needing to wash their hands after leaving the restroom, especially since they'll be preparing and serving food with those same hands anon.
Au contraire! says Big Thom. That is the heavy and unwelcome hand of government regulation at work. We should let Starbucks decide whether or not employees need to wash their hands after wiping their asses and coming out to grab you a croissant. "Hey, sorry about those little brown specks. Don't worry, it's all natural."
I kid you not. Watch the video. It's very short. He gets ridiculous pretty quickly. Kinda like a microwave of stupidity.
These people are fucking loons.
So just to make sure we are clear on how stupid you can be and get elected Senator, Thom says that we don't need the goberment to regulate health as long as we get the goberment to make you disclose your business regulations. Maybe the goberment can require a sign on the menu "enjoy your meal and my bacteria". Does anyone know where he eats? I might look for a job as a waiter.
@Akhilleus: Best delete the Easter Island chapter from your copy of Collapse. Man arrived on Easter Island about 1200 years ago with their chickens and rats. Man chopped down trees while the rats ate the birds and the tree seeds. Deforestation ensued. The population was never more than about 3000 people until the Europeans arrived with disease and slavery. With the introduction of rats ecological disaster was guaranteed regardless of what the people did.
@PD Pepe: Don't know if Diamond is a dick or not but he certainly seems adept at picking the data that fits his theory. The Greenland story as reported in Der Spiegel from Danish/Canadian researchers.
Greenland settled in early 11th century. 20-30% of diet came from the sea. Mid 13th century climate cooled and cattle replaced by sheep and pigs. Pigs were fed fish and seal but disappeared around 1300. Mid 14th century Viking diet was up to 80% seals. Trade in Walrus ivory amd seal skins died out and the colony ended in a whimper not a massacre as young left for a better future in Europe. Unfortunately not as exciting as Diamond's Greenlanders starving to death on the shore of sea alive with aquatic life or massacred by marauding Inuit.
Cowichan,
Not being an anthropologist myself, I found Diamond's apparently well researched and well supported thesis to be entirely believable and consistent in many ways with what I know of cultures that have disintegrated. That being said, it would be helpful to have links to reputable sources that, as you say, contradict him so dramatically .
And even if Greenland Norse gorged themselves on seafood, as you claim, I don't think that necessarily discounts the idea that civilizations that ignore serious problems, such as many Americans seem ready to do, at the urging of insulated right-wing elites and their media dogs, bodes well for the longterm success of those cultures.
There are plenty of other examples of cultures dissolving from many of the same problems that are currently being inflicted on us by Confederates.
I am sad to read the articles about deregulation of goods and services. These points link in to the recently highlighted articles on the upper middle class and the high costs incurred by being poor. As all readers here know, regulations have been introduced over the past 200 years or so because so many people were sickened, poisoned and injured by substandard products. This disproportionately affects the poor, who have less access to competition and quality due often to locale, time, transport, health, ignorance (due to substandard education, see all of the above). So deregulation fits perfectly with the Confederate agenda. If you are not rich enough to seek out clean, safe food, housing, etc, tough.
I am astonished to see the responses to the gentleman who walks 21 miles a day in Detroit. This case we are told proves that we don't need government because people will rally to help those truly in need. So, if you can walk 21 miles a day, day in and day out, for ten years, through all weather, then someone might help you.
The only people who seem to be really, really good at skewering the Confederates are the Confederates. It beggars belief what a tall glass of water the Democratic party is. The Dems should sack all their own spin doctors and just use those from the GOP candidates.
I do have a small offering, though, for a bumper sticker type slogan that was mentioned some (considerable) time ago. I am the only person I know who rotflmao at it, so maybe not!
I Mind the GOP
It's more of an abyss.
@Akhilleus:
Google 'Diamond Easter Island collapse' see American Scientist 2006
www,americanscientist.org/issues/pub/rethinking-the-fall-of-Easter-Island
Google 'Norse in Greenland' see Der Spiegle
www.spiegle.de/international/zeitgiest/archeologists-uncover-clues-to-why-vikings-abandoned-greenland-a-876626.html