All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

Anyone else wish Biden was still masking up on all those international travels?

I very much wish everyone was still masking up everywhere.

[worstblogever]

I very much wish everyone was still masking up everywhere.

BA.5 is f***ing ridiculously contagious, and if you have vaccine antibodies, you'll still get sick (but are still more likely to survive). There are people contracting it right now in July who had other strains of Covid in March, and those antibodies don't track it down.

This f***ing disease.

[Tendrin]

BA.5 is f***ing ridiculously contagious, and if you have vaccine antibodies, you'll still get sick (but are still more likely to survive). There are people contracting it right now in July who had other strains of Covid in March, and those antibodies don't track it down.

This f***ing disease.

I really need to get my next booster and to remind everyone everywhere to mask up. Especially mask your kids. Especially in the petri dishes that are schools.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

BA.5 is f***ing ridiculously contagious, and if you have vaccine antibodies, you'll still get sick (but are still more likely to survive). There are people contracting it right now in July who had other strains of Covid in March, and those antibodies don't track it down.

This f***ing disease.

I got a second booster in early June, hopefully I'll be protected from this latest strain. I do my part by continuing to mask up on mass transit and in buildings like malls, stores and eateries. While the world thinks itself finished with COVID, the problem is, COVID isn't finished with us. I could see this as a situation where annual COVID boosters becomes as commonplace as flu shots.

I really need to get my next booster and to remind everyone everywhere to mask up. Especially mask your kids. Especially in the petri dishes that are schools.

Fortunately, school is out for the summer. Hopefully, more kids will get vaccinated before they return to the classroom in August or September.

[Tendrin]

Fortunately, school is out for the summer. Hopefully, more kids will get vaccinated before they return to the classroom in August or September.

Just before someone pipes in with 'the evidence on masking in schools isn't clear!', leaving aside the question of why you wouldn't want to do everything in your power to keep your children from getting or spreading a disease with potentially lifelong debilitating effects, the best evidence still shows that mass-masking does in fact work, and helps, and that is why science continually reccomends it and most studies indicate this too.

Please wear your masks. *Especially* indoors!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published a profile on Sharron Angle, who truly hates immigrants, running some of the most blatantly racist ad spots about them back in the 2010 election when she ran against the late Sen. Harry Reid. When confronted about her racism by Hispanic constituents, she used the defense that “they don’t look Hispanic to me, they look Asian”, which kind of made things worse. Angle also once tried arguing against rape exceptions in anti-abortion legislation because rape victims “need to make lemons from lemonade”, argued against water fluoridation because she believes the government deliberately poisons the water supply with lead, mercury, and arsenic (Flint, Michigan aside, “deliberately” a government deliberately doing it is insane), wanted to privatize Social Security, and falsely claimed unemployment benefits pay more than entry level jobs. She is also a climate change denier, shared her belief that the 9/11 hijackers came into the country through Canada (again, wrong), wants to eliminate the Department of Energy, Department of Education, and the Environmental Protection Agency, said there should be no separation of church and state in the Constitution, while claiming there are towns in America that have been taken over by Sharia Law. Angle was in the GOP Primary for Harry Reid’s seat again, six years later, but lost to U.S. House Rep Joe Heck.

In both 2015, and in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, whose past we delved deep into, all the way back to 1973 when he worked for a Baptist newspaper called “The Rapture Express” where he would write about the dread menaces of things like women not wearing bras, or wearing short skirts, or gays, or teenagers dancing! OH MY! Back in 1992, while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat, Huckabee suggested the novel idea of quarantining AIDS patients. In both 2007 and in 2011, he used his newfound media profile on Fox News and conservative talk radio to lament the pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears, and Natalie Portman, for happening out of wedlock, which is a slightly different reaction than the defense he put up for the media paying any attention to Bristol Palin being pregnant in 2008. Huckabee has also defended the Confederate flag, and compared abortion to slavery (he supports fetal “Personhood”). Huckabee also praises “historian” and exposed fraud David Barton, and his lies that the United States is a Christian nation that was never intended to have a separation of church and state, saying “every American should be forced at gunpoint to learn from him”. (Because that in no way would be a military indoctrination into a theocracy.) Huckabee not only defended the “legitimate rape” comments by Congressman Todd Akin, but claimed people were only attacking him “because he was a Christian”. He can simultaneously complain about Beyonce being exploited by “Jay-Z acting like her pimp”, or Miley Cyrus being too scandalous, while he instead goes about performing on bass guitar for Ted Nugent in a rendition of “Cat Scratch Fever”, a song about getting an STD (Nugent, incidentally, also admits to having sex with underage girls numerous times in his heyday). After tensions rose in the wake of the shocking police killings of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castle, Mike Huckabee took it upon himself to respond to the outcry from the Black Lives Matter movement by calling for... the "Male Lives Matter" movement, because he just feels so attacked by all the lady folk. Huckabee, inspired by his Christian faith, advised people to not take in Syrian refugees "just because they're not living a very fancy life", but lied his ass off about a German family who were being deported they were Christians who home-schooled their children… when they weren’t even being deported, at all. Huckabee defended the idea of monitoring mosques, and chastising liberals for suggesting such an act would be a violation of the freedom of religion Muslims, trying to prove liberals were hypocrites about the premise because "they are waging war on Christmas". Huckabee responded to the shooter at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs by condemning him… and then adding a BUT to the condemnation, and pointing out that in his eyes, the people he killed working at the clinic were murderers, too. Huckabee has also called for the impeachment of President Obama for “acting like God”, freaked out over Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend on ESPN during the NFL draft, and threatened to leave the Republican Party should they ever stop fighting to overturn the ruling on same sex marriage. After the SCOTUS ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, saying the United States was now “worse than Sodam and Gomorrah”, and that HIS first amendment freedom of religion is being violated because gay people can get married. He’s enough of a hypocrite that he once called a proposed boycott of Chik-Fil-A by people who were upset that they support anti-LGBTQ causes “economic terrorism”, and then only a few years later, called for a boycott of Doritos for producing a rainbow-dyed product to promote LGBTQ awareness. Huckabee also creeped everyone right out when he gave his opinion on transgender bathroom use and said he would have done it as a teen to “get into the ladies’ locker room”. Huckabee is enough of a “victimized Christian” that he complains that “the left won’t rest until there are no more churches” and after news broke that his longtime favorite family, the Duggars were revealed to have turned a blind eye to the fact that their son, Josh Duggar was molesting some of his sisters and their friends, Huckabee defended them. Mike Huckabee continues to occasionally drag his chicken-fried dumb ass onto Fox News to vomit out all sorts of folksy metaphors for why Republicans aren’t that racist or sexist, while pulling strings for his cruel, creepy daughter to move from lying her ass off as the Deputy Press Secretary in the Trump Administration to instead become the next Governor of Arkansas.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Just before someone pipes in with 'the evidence on masking in schools isn't clear!', leaving aside the question of why you wouldn't want to do everything in your power to keep your children from getting or spreading a disease with potentially lifelong debilitating effects, the best evidence still shows that mass-masking does in fact work, and helps, and that is why science continually reccomends it and most studies indicate this too.

Please wear your masks. *Especially* indoors!

I heard a report on the local news that Los Angeles is considering a return to mandatory masking. How that goes over with the public is anybody's guess.

[worstblogever]

I got a second booster in early June, hopefully I'll be protected from this latest strain. I do my part by continuing to mask up on mass transit and in buildings like malls, stores and eateries. While the world thinks itself finished with COVID, the problem is, COVID isn't finished with us. I could see this as a situation where annual COVID boosters becomes as commonplace as flu shots.



Fortunately, school is out for the summer. Hopefully, more kids will get vaccinated before they return to the classroom in August or September.

Just before someone pipes in with 'the evidence on masking in schools isn't clear!', leaving aside the question of why you wouldn't want to do everything in your power to keep your children from getting or spreading a disease with potentially lifelong debilitating effects, the best evidence still shows that mass-masking does in fact work, and helps, and that is why science continually reccomends it and most studies indicate this too.

Please wear your masks. *Especially* indoors!

Those kids can still get sick if vaccinated, and while they are incredibly likely to survive if that's the case, they can spread it to their dumbest unvaccinated relatives back at home.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Renee Unterman, who has served in the Georgia state legislature in its House of Representatives back in 1998, and moved up into the Georgia State Senate in 2002. Back in 2016 that she started to draw attention to herself for a bizarre determination to use her position as the head of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services to unilaterally prevent hearings on solving the problem of getting funding going towards the state testing thousands of untested rape kits sitting in a back log, the victims who allowed them to be collected wondering if they would ever get tested, and their attackers ever face justice. Unterman’s bizarre defense for this was to claim there just WASN’T a backlog of rape kits under her watch, because if there us, the problem would have already been solved, “Johnny on the spot”. There was, obviously, bipartisan support to do it from both Democrats, and several Georgia Republicans in the State Senate. The bizarre choice of Unterman to do this earned her a name-drop on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee in March of 2016. Thankfully, there is a happy ending to the story, as the sponsor of the bill, Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb, was aided by the Republican Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston, The whole legislative miracle of two parties working together to side-step an obstructionist misanthrope made it into a follow-up segment on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee in March 2017... and Renee Unterman decided it would be a great idea to try and paint herself as the victim in this story, calling Sam Bee “vile”, and getting really salty about the fact that Holcomb and Ralston were asking each other, “What the f*** is wrong with Renee?” because POTTYMOUTHS. Which, foul language is a real problem that something should be done about, unlike untested rape kits, RIGHT, YOU GUYS? As we discovered upon further research, this isn’t the sonly time that Unterman has used her position to unilaterally block common sense legislation, as she also did so to block a medical marijuana bill back in 2014, as well. The rest of Unterman’s voting record looks like you’d probably expect from someone who justifies all the s***ty things she does on being from “Red meat” country, including her co-sponsorship SB 396, one of the most bonkers gun laws in the past 20 years in our country (and that’s saying something), which would have allowed Georgia residents to even use deadly force to defend their property, in public, as long as the weapon used was legal. She also has voted to create stricter Voter ID measures aimed at disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia, voted for some of her nuttier colleagues’ tinfoil hat conspiracy theory ban on human microchip implantations (which of course weren’t actually even happening), voted for unconstitutional attempts at making drivers’ tests to be given in English only, voted for Georgia Republicans’ attempt at banning picketing outside of corporations (because that’s not a clear violation of the 1st Amendment right to assemble, whatsoever), voted for a 4th Amendment violating bill to institute drug testing on welfare recipients, voted for a “religious freedom” bill to try to allow religious officials the right to refuse services to same sex couples, and several anti-abortion measures throughout the years. Unterman, again made some headlines in Georgia in 2018 after she weighed in on the candidates on the GOP Primary for Governor of Georgia. After a fellow legislator, David Clark, endorsed Brian Kemp, and not the candidate she preferred, Casey Cagle, she got on Twitter to accuse Clark of casting “votes for sexual predators preying on young children being bought & sold for sex”. Several Georgia state legislators from both sides of the aisle not only corrected the record on “the human trafficking bill” that Unterman sponsored not actually doing much of anything to stave off the problem, but blasted her for holding such a petty grudge and pulling some hyperbolic rhetoric to attack a colleague. Unterman never apologized or deleted the post. In spite of how quickly she’s becoming infamous, Renee Unterman made the unnerving decision to think she was Congressional material, and opted to not run for re-election to the Georgia State Senate, instead choosing to make a run for the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District in 2020. She lost that primary, only getting 17.5% of the vote.

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Shane Hazel, who traditionally, has run as a Republican in races in Georgia like when he lost in the GOP Primary to Rob Woodall for U.S. House Rep. for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District in 2018, but we’ll also note that when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2020, he ran as a Libertarian candidate (which whenever someone’s too crazy for even the modern GOP, they seem to try that route and things get even wackier). His ideas were as level-headed as repealing Obamacare (without any replacement), to completely abolish income tax, and defunding Planned Parenthood. But our real head-turning moment with this guy is from his Facebook page, where he showed a photo of a ship full of Muslim refugees and after a friend wrote,"[I]Maybe recon can accidentally sink it!!![/I}" Hazel was not content with just “accidentally” murdering a boat full of people fleeing for their lives, responding, "The navy should overtly sink it and send a message." That was only one of his Islamophobic, anti-Immigrant opinions, because Hazel shared memes claiming that the Muslim faith ”offers" rape, pedophilia, beheadings, burning people alive and slavery. He wrote: "Disgusting doesn't even begin to paint the picture of Islam.” When someone on his post called him out for hate speech, Hazel upped the ante, replying "more like fact spreading. Jesus didn't teach pedophilia. Conversely the prophet Muhammad does. There are sick people of every religion. The difference is that Islam glorifies the sickness. In yet another bigoted post he offered his opinion that a new US military dress code allowing beards and turbans was "BS," and advocated for airplanes to be filled with pigs, so that "all suicide bombers body parts left over from the blast will be feed [sic] to pigs… And we won't do this because we're afraid to offend radical Muslims?" Which… is definitely meant to be intolerant but isn’t a really well thought out plan on… multiple levels. In spite of all those quotes, Shane Hazel refused to acknowledge being Islamophobic or anti-immigrant when confronted with his own words. He’s currently podcasting, and referring to any politician who isn’t a Libertarian as part of a “Murder Cult”, which is very chill of him. Hazel made an attempted 2022 run to become the next Governor of Georgia as a Libertarian, but seems doomed to tilt at windmills… hopefully he ends up banned on social media platforms long before he reaches that point. As he seems unlikley to ever reach office, we will set aside his profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1120-55, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Andrew Clyde
Welcome to what is the 1120th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling the sitting U.S. House Representative from Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, Andrew Clyde , a gun store owner who was first elected to office in 2020, sliding into the void left behind by the former honorable gentleman from Hee-Haw, Doug Collins, who made a run that year for U.S. Senate. During his campaign, Clyde was already showing he was thumbing his nose at any measures that might save lives, suing Athens-Clark County in Georgia over a shelter/stay-in-place order during the Covid-19 outbreak.

In his short time in office, Andrew Clyde has already shown a track record for being on the wrong side of history, voting against having a Juneteenth holiday, voting against the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, and straight up leading the GOP campaign against naming a federal building after Joseph Hatchett, the first black member of the Florida Supreme Court, claiming his reason was because Hatchett opposed allowing prayer in schools. Y'know, because we are supposed to have a separation of church and state.

What truly is unsettling about Andrew Clyde, though, is that only days into his tenure, Donald Trump and his supporters staged a coup attempt upon the Capitol. During that attack, several terrifying photos were released by the media showing Andrew Clyde near the entrance to the chamber, and of Rep. Clyde screaming his head off while cowering behind Capitol Police in fear, and in interviews in the days that followed, he acknowledged he helped Capitol Police barricade the doors of the chamber shut.

Fast forward a few months, and Clyde was trying to gaslight the nation into believing we all never saw that and there aren’t photos, claiming that the coup attempt carried out by Trump supporters was just a “normal tourist visit”. Y’know, the ones where people smash through windows, try to lynch the Vice President and Speaker of the House, murder a few cops, and smear their own s*** on the walls.

In the weeks that followed, Andrew Clyde twice voted against awarding medals to members of the Capitol Police who saved lives that day against overwhelming odds, and refused to shake ands with members of the Capitol Police who asked him about his selective memory regarding the events of January 6th.

Make no mistake, this douche-canoe is on Team Sedition.

• January 6th, 2021: Andrew Clyde votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Clyde votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Andrew Clyde votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Clyde votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• February 28th, 2021: Andrew Clyde is one in only three people in Congress who vote against the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Clyde votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Andrew Clyde votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Clyde votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Clyde votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• March 17th, 2021: Clyde is one of twelve Republicans who pick a side to have rooted for in the failed coup attempt on 1/6/21 and votes against awarding Congressional gold medals to members of the Capitol Police who bravely defended members of Congress during the attack.
• May 19th, 2021: Andrew Clyde votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Clyde is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• June 15th, 2021: Rep. Clyde is one of twenty-one Republicans who pick a side to have rooted for in the failed coup attempt on 1/6/21 and votes against awarding Congressional gold medals to members of the Capitol Police who bravely defended members of Congress during the attack.
• June 16th, 2021: Andrew Clyde is one of 14 Republicans who vote against celebrating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
• November 5th, 2021: Andrew Clyde votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Clyde votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Andrew Clyde would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Andrew Clyde is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Clyde votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Clyde votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on fuel prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Andrew Clyde votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcment by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.

So, to review, Andrew Clyde has voted against any and all legislation that runs counter to white supremacy, and has repeatedly gone out of his way to show with his words and actions, that he supports Donald Trump’s coup attempt and attack on American democracy on January 6th. Georgia’s 9th District has a +30 lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, so now that he’s advanced out of the primary, it seems like Democratic challenger Michael Ford is going to have a hell of a hill to climb to beat him. It’s looking like the 14th Amendment being invoked will be the only way Clyde isn’t in office in 2023.

[CSTowle]

Remember how Epstein died in Jail? Yeah, well, now Ivana Trump's death is in the same category. There is likely to be plenty of talk about it online.

A few reasons. One, Epstein had the perfect set-up for a conspiracy theory. He had potentially world-altering and at the very least career-ending information on a good number of elite world players and famous people, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bill Gates. And he died in custody as a high profile prisoner who was under suicide watch, when conveniently the guards looked the other way and the cameras watching him were broken. It's the sort of thing that if you wrote it into a movie script the director would slap you for making it too unbelievably convenient.

On the other hand we have Ivana, who probably had juicy stories about Donald that she hadn't shared (though she'd shared plenty, including rape allegations) but also had a position of privilege from her time with Trump (likely the only reason she and other Eastern European import models are with him in the first place) and he's responsible for the livelihoods of her children. Also, conspiracy theorists largely are right-wing and this doesn't fit their preferred narrative. Epstein was a big enough and obvious enough potential conspiracy that it will likely live on with the JFK shooting as a suspicious incident.

Why is it a "weird" mix? Why does everyone have to have only left-leaning beliefs or only right-leaning beliefs? I've never liked this whole either/or game. Granted, the current Republican Party is playing an all or nothing, you're either with us or against us game, but the rest of us don't have to play into it.

In his case he's pro first amendment but also anti-religion and wants to eliminate it from public discourse. I don't like a lot of the reasoning of the right, but I recognize that it exists and whether or not I agree with it that they're going to be part of the discussion and shaping of policy now and going forward, regardless of what I or others who tend to vote Team Blue wish. Religion, for those who hold those beliefs (and it's a good chunk of the country) can't really be separated from their morality and thus their decision making. For good or ill.

There's nothing wrong with having beliefs outside of your team's narrative, if you haven't seen my posts you might not know that I tend to speak up when I see things wrong with the way members of Team Blue (my chosen team) tends to do business (or not, in the case of conservative centrists) only to have a handful of regulars dogpile on me for stepping across the party line.

And in the end it's pretty common to have different beliefs that are contradictory (where the "weird" part comes in for me, but if you'd prefer bafflingly contradictory feel free to mentally substitute that) for all human beings. But it's worth pointing out, like the mistakes of Team Blue. As far as Huffpost, they often complain about the dirty tricks Republicans play only to be a mouthpiece for the same dirty tricks from centrist/conservative members of the Democratic Party.

[Catlady in training]

Sadly the victim was caught in the middle of a very political issue and My heart breaks for her.

Ohio AG a couple days ago called her a tool of the left and questioned if the story was even true. Today he posted thanking the police for their efforts. Hate that guy.

And the group Ohio Right for Life said the girl deserved better. But her abortion will not change the pain of what happened and will only add to it. And they are sad she went that route.

So we have one man who questions the story of a ten year old and calls her a tool of the left.

And a group that is sad a ten year old rape victim did not have her baby.

Sickening all around,

That is just despicable. The party that protects children, but only before they are born.

It is bad enough that poor girl had to suffer the pain of being violated. But even worse is that she has to suffer the pain of experiencing pregnancy.


In a chat channel where I visit frequently on the Discord, Someone commented that the news is fake, because the ten year old is too young, she can't get pregnant and Girls don't start menstruating until at the age of 12 years.

The ignorance of some humans never cease to amaze me. Some girls, unfortunately, do start having menstruation periods as early as 5 years of age. Why did God ever make these poor girls capable of giving birth at a very young age?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._birth_mothers

As I understand, early menstruation can be treated by puberty blockers. Yes, those that republicans want to ban because they are also used by transgender and nonbinary children. So they are actually obstructing the prevention of pregnancies like this.

[Tendrin]

As I understand, early menstruation can be treated by puberty blockers. Yes, those that republicans want to ban because they are also used by transgender and nonbinary children. So they are actually obstructing the prevention of pregnancies like this.

Yep, one of the primary uses for puberty blockers is treating 'precocious puberty', but the GOP doesn't give a single **** about that, not when they have someone to hate.

[Catlady in training]

Anyone else wish Biden was still masking up on all those international travels?

Since I am now more interested in watching all of these international summits, this has been my though for a while, that everyone of those politicians should mask just in case.
Not to mention all those visitors to Ukraine, I keep muttering here, how horrible it would be if covid took down their leadership, after russians didn't manage it.

There has been a huge increase in cases in several European countries lately, but does it make any change in people's behavior? Mostly no, many act like they are over covid.
And then there's all those wildfires now in southern countries... And climate change deniers are bending over backwards to insist it's nothing new.

[Jack Dracula]

BA.5 is f***ing ridiculously contagious, and if you have vaccine antibodies, you'll still get sick (but are still more likely to survive). There are people contracting it right now in July who had other strains of Covid in March, and those antibodies don't track it down.

This f***ing disease.

I was reading just yesterday that the CDC suspect BA.5 is responsible for 2/3 of current reported infections. It’s likely more like 3/4 but with at-home testing becoming more prevalent, many infections aren’t being reported. I recently got over a break-through infection which I suspect was probably BA.5. It was pretty awful but thank goodness I was vaccinated.