Tag Archives: #COVID19

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We can see it coming: the spreading of fear to allow the government to impose new restrictions on our constitutional rights

When the elites see control slipping away, they resort to fear tactics.

“Fear is crucial for state authority. When the population is filled with it, they will acquiesce to virtually any power the government seeks to acquire in the name of keeping them safe. But when fear is lacking, citizens will crave liberty more than control, and that is when they question official claims and actions. When that starts to happen, when the public feels too secure, institutions of authority will reflexively find new ways to ensure they stay engulfed by fear and thus quiescent.” — Glenn Greenwald, “The New Domestic War on Terror Has Already Begun — Even Without the New Laws Biden Wants”.

Mr Greenwald wasn’t writing about COVID-19, but the efforts of the Biden, and past, Administrations to fight terrorism by restricting civil liberties. There is a lot with which I disagree with Mr Greenwald, but on this, he’s dead on target.

Fear, of course, was what governments used to get a free people to go along with restrictions on their constitutional rights. Now that almost everyplace in the United States has lifted restrictions — Pennsylvania’s mask mandate ended today — we are seeing the fearful wanting them back:

Gottlieb says parts of U.S. could see “very dense outbreaks” as Delta variant spreads

By Kimani Hayes | June 28, 2021 | 7:39 AM EDT | CBS NEWS

Washington — As the U.S. continues to navigate its way through the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said areas of the country could experience “very dense outbreaks” with the concerning Delta variant continuing to circulate.

“It’s going to be hyper-regionalized, where there are certain pockets of the country [where] we can have very dense outbreaks,” Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

The most vulnerable areas continue to be those with low vaccination rates and low rates of immunity from prior infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many southern states have vaccination rates that lag behind the national average.

“I think as you look across the United States, if you’re a community that has low vaccination rates and you also think that there was low immunity from prior infection, so the virus really hasn’t coursed through the local population, those communities are vulnerable,” he said. “So, I think governors need to be thinking about how they build out health care resources in areas of the country where you still have a lot of vulnerability.”

Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a state where hospital admissions are up 30%, expressed concern about the Delta COVID-19 variant and low vaccination rates in his state.

“The Delta variant is a great concern to us. We see that impacting our increasing cases and hospitalizations,” Hutchinson said on “Face the Nation.” The governor also noted that vaccine hesitancy is high in his state, which he attributed to conspiracy theories, the pause in Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot regimen in April and individuals simply not believing in the efficacy of the virus.

There’s more at the original.

Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY), having scheduled the end of almost all of the restrictions for following day anyway, argued before the state Supreme Court that he needs the laws passed, over his veto, by the state legislature earlier this year to be declared unconstitutional, because they would restrict his executive authority to fight a pandemic like COVID-19. One can argue that the restrictions on the Governor’s authority under KRS 39A were unwise, which is what his mouthpiece, Amy Cubbage, did, but unwise is not an argument that a law is unconstitutional. I, however, do not trust the state Supreme Court not to make its usual obeisance to Mr Beshear and let him get away with things again. Despite the best efforts of Republicans, and Kentucky’s voters,[1]In 2020, Republican candidates for the General Assembly ran against the Governor’s orders, and voters rewarded them with 14 additional seats in the state House of representatives, for a 75-25 … Continue reading Governor Beshear has pretty much gotten away with his dictatorial and unconstitutional actions. At this point, the battle is to keep him from being able to do it again. I am not confident that the state Supreme Court will follow the law; they’ve been far too compliant with the Governor’s wishes. But, with the restrictions over, there is no reason at for the justices to ignore the laws passed by the General Assembly other than the argument of what might happen sometime in the future.

It’s easy enough to see coming: just a few cases of the new ‘Delta variant,” and the Governor might once again issue his mandatory mask orders and attempt to close down ‘non-essential’ businesses, because dictators gotta dictate!

References

References
↑1 In 2020, Republican candidates for the General Assembly ran against the Governor’s orders, and voters rewarded them with 14 additional seats in the state House of representatives, for a 75-25 majority, and 2 additional seats, out of 17 up for election, for a 30-8 majority.
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The politics of the #COVID19 vaccines have always been more important than the science Today's left have no tolerance for divergent views

I am not an #AntiVaxxer by any means, and I have had both doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. But I also do not dismiss the concerns of those who are skeptical, especially given that we have no information on any long term effects, because the vaccines haven’t even been around for a year yet.

The left try to dismiss such concerns as simply those of the uneducated, or as the lovely Amanda Marcotte tried to do, blame it on Republicans.

But when The Wall Street Journal starts to take notice of vaccine side effects, it’s no longer just the evil reich wing Republicans:

Continue reading →

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Andy Beshear: Lying through his scummy teeth!

As we have previously noted, the state Supreme Court has consolidated the cases against the General Assembly’s new laws restricting Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) ’emergency’ powers under KRS 39A, and a lawsuit against the Governor exercising those powers. The state Court then set June 10th, then eight weeks away, to hear oral arguments in the cases. That means, in effect, that the Governor will continue to exercise authority the General Assembly denied him, for at least 3½ months after the state legislature took its action, and, in all likelihood, a couple of months after that.

Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY)

Several lawsuits were filed in state courts last year to stop the Governor’s emergency decrees under KRS39A. On July 17, 2020, the state Supreme Court put a hold on all lower court orders against Mr Beshear’s orders and directed that “any lower court order, after entry, be immediately transferred to the clerk of the Supreme Court for consideration by the full court.” Three weeks later, the  Court set September 17, 2020, another five weeks later, to hear oral arguments by both sides.

The Court then waited for eight more weeks to issue its decision, until November 12, 2020, which upheld the Governor’s orders.

If the Kentucky Supreme Court, officially non-partisan but in practice controlled by the Democrats, follows the same pattern, a second eight week delay will mean a decision around the first week of August! Even if that decision supports the duly passed laws of the General Assembly, the state courts will have given the Governor half a year to exercise power that the General Assembly restricted.

On May 6th, Governor Beshear announced that he would loosen the restrictions, but not eliminate them entirely, effective just before the Memorial Day weekend. Then, on May 14th, the Governor announced that almost all restrictions would be lifted on Kentuckians, including the hated mask mandate, even for those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. He had, the previous day, followed the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations, and stated that “fully vaccinated” Kentuckians could dispense with face masks.

‘A huge relief.’ Businesses, politicians celebrate end of KY COVID-19 restrictions.

By Alex Acquisto and Daniel Desrochers | June 11, 2021 | 6:00 AM | EDT | Updated: 7:45 AM EDT

A year of mask-wearing and social distancing ends Friday, as Kentuckians were given clearance to stop taking routine precautions against spread of COVID-19 for the first time since the virus initially invaded the state.

Gov. Andy Beshear first required masks be worn in public places and around others outside one’s household in July of 2020 as a way to blunt the spread of the disease and has renewed that order each month since.

On Friday, that order was lifted, along with restrictions on crowd capacity in restaurants and most other businesses, ripping off the state’s COVID-19 protective band-aid.

So, despite the best efforts of Republicans, Governor Beshear has pretty much gotten away with his dictatorial and unconstitutional actions. At this point, the battle is to keep him from being able to do it again.

KY Supreme Court hears arguments on limiting the governor’s power during emergencies

By Jack Brammer | June 10, 2021 | 1:37 PM EDT | Updated June 11, 2021 | 7:57 AM EDT

A day before Gov. Andy Beshear is to remove most COVID-19 restrictions in Kentucky, the state Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments on Beshear’s challenge of Republican-backed laws that limit his authority to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and other emergencies.

Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. said after nearly two hours of oral arguments on two related cases that the state’s highest court will rule “as quickly as we can.” A decision is not expected for several weeks.

The state Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that Beshear’s orders were legal but that was before the legislature passed laws earlier this year restricting the governor’s powers.

There’s a lot more at the original, but basically the Governor’s attorney was arguing that the Governor had to have the powers he exercised.

After the court hearing, Beshear told reporters that a governor’s emergency powers certainly “have to be large enough with a one-in-every-hundred year pandemic that creates the deadliest year in our history, it has to be significant and strong enough to do what’s necessary there.”

“You look back at different things that this legislature has tried to do in the midst of this pandemic and they would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary,” he said. “We would have looked like the Dakotas and not what we looked like here in Kentucky.”

The Governor was lying through his scummy teeth. The laws did not prevent him from issuing declaring a state of emergency or issuing executive orders under it; what hey did was to limit those orders to thirty days unless the General Assembly specifically authorized an extension. The legislature passed House Joint Resolution 77, which granted extensions to some, but not all, of the Governor’s executive orders, but did not include the hated mask mandate, and then highly partisan Judge Phillip Shepherd issued an injunction against that, saying that the Governor’s existing executive orders and emergency regulations constituted “proper responses to a public health crisis.” That’s a political judgement, not a legal one.

Mr Beshear was pissed off that the legislature did not agree with all of his executive order, only some of them. Saying that the legislature “would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary” is a political argument, not a legal one.

Republicans, frustrated by the courts’ refusal to rein in the Governor’s mandates, ran against the Governor and his actions in the 2020 elections, and the voters rewarded Republicans with 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives, for a 75-25 majority, and two additional seats in the state Senate, out of 17 being contested, for a 30-8 majority in that body. The state legislature, in passing the bills at the beginning of this year’s session, was doing whet the voters of Kentucky wanted them to do. The Governor does not like that the voters did not agree with his dictates.

Mr Beshear, who was very, very, very concerned about the law when he was state Attorney General and doing his best to frustrate Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY), doesn’t seem to care much about the law anymore, not when the law is a problem for him. He has argued necessity, as though the Governor’s personal judgement of what is necessary somehow trumps or supersedes the law.

Well, not just no, but Hell no! The law is the law, and the constitution is the constitution, and no Governor, not Mr Beshear or anybody else, should have the authority to just suspend or ignore parts of it.

Alas! I am not confident that the state Supreme Court will follow the law; they’ve been far too compliant with the Governor’s wishes. But, with the restrictions over, there is no reason at for the justices to ignore the laws passed by the General Assembly other than the argument of what might happen sometime in the future.

The real solution for Kentuckians will come on November 7, 2023, when they will have the chance to vote this wannabe dictator out of office.

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It has come awfully late in the game, but at last it has come! Governor Beshear has been slapped down by the courts!

As we have frequently noted, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) has been trying to run out the clock with his ’emergency’ decrees under KRS 39A. The Kentucky state Supreme Court, on April 16th, decided to hold a hearing on the disagreement between courts in Franklin and Scott counties over the Governor’s executive orders, and then set June 10th, a date then eight weeks into the future, for a hearing.

On May 6th, Governor Beshear announced that he would loosen the restrictions, but not eliminate them entirely, effective just before the Memorial Day weekend. Then, on May 14th, the Governor announced that almost all restrictions would be lifted on Kentuckians, including the hated mask mandate, even for those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. He had, the previous day, followed the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations, and stated that “fully vaccinated” Kentuckians could dispense with face masks.

Well, today is June 8th, just two days before the state Supreme Court hears oral arguments, and three days before our dictatorial Governor will (supposedly) lift almost all of his emergency COVID-19 orders. But today, the Boone County Circuit Court declared the Governors actions to be illegal and unconstitutional.

THEREFORE, JUDGMENT IS HEREBY ENTERED in favor of Plaintiff and DECLARATORY RELIEF is GRANTED in that the Court finds and declares that all actions taken by Defendants, Hon. Andrew Beshear, as Governor, Mr. Eric Friedlander, as acting Secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and Dr. Steven Stack, M.D., as Commissioner for the Department of Public Health, and all emergency orders imposed by said defendants, or that are being continued by said defendants, are unconstitutional, void and without any legal effect, to the extent that the same are in conflict with, or otherwise contrary to, House Bill 1, Senate Bill 1, Senate Bill 2, and House Joint Resolution 77, as passed by the 2021 session of the General Assembly.

Here’s the decision:

Boone Circuit Court Order by Chris

This should have come at the end of March, not today, but it is at least a bit of a relief that it has occurred.

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Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.

When the Centers for Disease Control finally changed their recommendations for mandatory mask wearing on May 13th, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) quickly went along with it. The Kroger Company KR: (%) did not. Kroger had previously announced, on March 4th, that it would continue to require masks of all employees and customers in the Lone Star State when Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced the end to his states mask mandate, beginning March 10th.

Well, Kroger must’ve heard from its customers, because, after announcing that masks would still be required in their stores following the CDC’s changes, six days later, they changed their minds. I would like to think my couple of tweets, which included Kroger as an addressee, that I was taking my business to Meijer’s instead, contributed to their change of mind.

I may still take my business to Meijer’s. Kroger is more convenient to us, by about four miles, but still . . . .However, fear still rules the day in some people. The Philadelphia Inquirer published an OpEd piece by Cameron Adamez, the front-end manager at South Philly Food Co-op, and Mr Adamez wants everybody to keep wearing masks.

With the recent CDC policy changes, public expectations around health during the pandemic are changing. The city has lived more than a year with masks in public and the populace is beset with pandemic fatigue. Now, in many cases, the people are ditching their masks. Generally, that’s a good thing — a sign that we are in the clear. But there are some instances where, regardless of vaccine status, people should keep masks on for the safety of others.

Essential workers like grocery store employees are still at risk and their safety needs to be considered. Stores like Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and Sam’s Club almost immediately dropped their masking requirements for customers. This is a mistake. Grocery stores should consider the safety of their workers and keep masking requirements in place for customers and employees.

If people like Mr Adamez are concerned that their safety might be jeopardized by people not wearing masks, they are completely free to continue to wear their own. He stated, “It is not always possible for workers to avoid contagion entirely,” and this is true, but it is true concerning every communicable disease. His argument would be just as valid if someone entered the store with chicken pox, which is at its most contagious phase a couple of days before the blisters appear. Measles, rubella and rubeola, are also highly contagious, and spread by airborne droplets.

“There is no way to quickly verify if a customer is vaccinated,” he wrote, and that’s true enough. Any store which is going to ask to see your vaccination papers before allowing you to enter is a store which will quickly lose most people’s business. Mr Adamez apparently knows this, and said, “Requiring anyone in a store to wear a mask is a much more reasonable request.”

But is it reasonable? What Mr Adamez is asking is for other people to protect his health. Is it not his responsibility to protect his own health?

In the end, his article is driven by fear, and fear was what the government used to get so many Americans to comply with restrictions on their individual, constitutional rights. For some, that fear will be a long time subsiding. Frank Herbert wrote, in Dune, that “Fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.” Mr Adamez, who stated that he was fully vaccinated, has expressed his fear, though he couched it in terms of being concerned for the health of other people.

To me, it’s very simple: if you see someone without a mask, and you are afraid that he might not be vaccinated, and you are afraid you might catch the virus from him, then stay away from him. That is your right. What is not your right is to try to impose responsibilities on him due to your own fears.

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Why do the left always want to run other people’s lives?

Twitter did not suspend or delete the account of Richard Marx:

But for “Freckled Liberty,” a Jewish-American libertarian, it was off to 12 hours in Twitmo!

Mrs “Liberty” is a 26-year-old married woman who spends kind of a lot of time on Twitter. She wants to have children, and has expressed reservations about the long-term effects of the various COVID-19 vaccines, as possibly impacting her fertility. We do not know the long term effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, because they haven’t been available long enough.

Now, Mrs Liberty has been pretty strong in pushing her position, but she has never, to my knowledge, said that other people shouldn’t be allowed to take the vaccines if they wish; she has been, like the libertarian she is, saying that it is a matter of personal choice.

Of course, the left don’t really like that. A guy named Tom, whose Twitter address is, laughably enough, @FreedomSeeker83, condemned her by saying, “Knowingly carrying a chance you can infect other with a disease that may kill when it can be prevented or mitigated is an NAP violation,” and “You have a moral obligation to mitigate risk where one can.”

Freedom: he keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

I’ve said it before: I have taken the vaccine, and have reached the “fully vaccinated” stage. Taking the vaccine was my personal choice, as it should have been, as it should always be. Miss Liberty’s concerns are her own, and her choices are her own. That’s a big problem with the left: they believe that they should get to take decisions for everyone else, too.

Like Jonathan Edwards said in Sunshine, “And he can’t even run his own life, I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine!”

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On lying

Though I have refused to carry my vaccination record, as some form of #VaccinePassport, I have stated publicly that I did receive the Moderna vaccine shots, interestingly enough on April Fool’s Day and then Cinco de Mayo.

The Centers for Disease Control stated, on May 13th, that “fully vaccinated” people could dispense with face masks and “social distancing.” Now, I have been fighting as hard as I can Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) authoritarian dictates, not that fighting has done much good; he has gotten away with his illegal and unconstitutional actions. The Governor has stated that he will lift almost all of his COVID-19 executive orders on June 11th, and already lifted the mandatory mask order for those “fully vaccinated” when the CDC guidance was issued.

I, of course, had never worn a mask outdoors, and only did so indoors at the insistence of property owners.

But, with my status of being “fully vaccinated” not occurring until May 19th,[1]May 19th is special to me as well, because it is Mrs Pico’s and my wedding anniversary. For some unknown reason, she has put up with me for 42 years now! fourteen days after my second dose of the vaccine, I was presented with a dilemma on Sunday, May 16th. The Bishop of Lexington, and my individual parish, stated the same thing, that “fully vaccinated” parishioners could attend Mass indoors without a mask.

Now, I have not believed that a mask was necessary at all, and have noted before that the forecasts that Texas would see doom, doom, doom! for dropping its mask mandate on March 10th instead resulted in the Lone Star State seeing a precipitous drop in cases, but Mass, being held three days prior to achieving that mythical “fully vaccinated” status meant that if I attended Mass without a mask, I would be, in effect, lying to my pastor, to our church sister, and to the other parishioners, concerning my vaccine status. Yes, I wanted to, will always want to, fight the Governor’s illegal and unconstitutional restrictions, but the change in the regulations, which have always been political, also meant a change in the nature of telling the truth. Not wearing a mask previously was a political action, a statement of resistance, and it was not a statement of vaccine status. Once the CDC and the Governor took their actions, not wearing a mask also became a statement that one was fully vaccinated.

Thus, from May 13th through 18th, not wearing a mask indoors would be, for me, the public telling of a lie.

I chose not to lie!

Come June 11th, if the Governor has not lied — and if Mr Beshear told me that 2+2=4, I would check his math — wearing or not wearing a mask is no longer a point of truth-telling. But, until then, not wearing a mask can be interpreted as a public statement, “I have been vaccinated.” Concomitantly, wearing a mask when you have been fully vaccinated can be interpreted by others as a statement that you have not been vaccinated, and might be an #antivaxxer.

So, at Mass on May 16th, I wore a mask, and did not lie. On Sunday, May 23, which just happens to be one year since we were so graciously ‘allowed’ to return to Mass, I did not.

Attendance at Mass should not be a political act, but our Governor has made it one, and I have not missed Sunday Mass once since the Diocese of Lexington has reopened.

References

References
↑1 May 19th is special to me as well, because it is Mrs Pico’s and my wedding anniversary. For some unknown reason, she has put up with me for 42 years now!
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Did the China virus escape from a Wuhan laboratory?

I asked, last month, if it was time to start referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus” again. That was in response to the proposed “COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act,” which, at the time, included language:

SEC. 3. GUIDANCE.

(a) Guidance For Law Enforcement Agencies.—The Attorney General shall issue guidance for State and local law enforcement agencies on the following:

(1) The establishment of online reporting of hate crimes or incidents, and the availability of online reporting available in multiple languages.
(2) The expansion of culturally competent and linguistically appropriate public education campaigns, and collection of data and public reporting of hate crimes.

(b) Best practices to describe the COVID-19 pandemic: The Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the COVID–19 Health Equity Task Force and community-based organizations, shall issue guidance describing best practices to mitigate racially discriminatory language in describing the COVID–19 pandemic.

When the government wants to tell me how I must speak, it’s time for resistance! Fortunately, that section was deleted in the final version of the bill.

However, more and more evidence is cropping up that “China Virus” or “Wuhan virus” is exactly correct. From The Wall Street Journal:

Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate On Covid-19 Origin

Report says researchers went to hospital in November 2019, shortly before confirmed outbreak; adds to calls for probe of whether virus escaped lab

By Michael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel and Drew Hinshaw | May 23, 2021 2:57 pm ET.

WASHINGTON—Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins.

Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.

Another person described the intelligence as stronger. “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” he said, referring to the researchers.

An obvious point: there were no tests for COVID-19 at the time.

November 2019 is roughly when many epidemiologists and virologists believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing says that the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.

China has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped from one of its labs. On Sunday, China’s foreign ministry cited a WHO-led team’s conclusion, after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, in February, that a lab leak was extremely unlikely. “The U.S. continues to hype the lab leak theory,” the foreign ministry said in response to a request for comment by The Wall Street Journal. “Is it actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?”

There’s more at the original, but one thing is obvious: the Chinese Communist Party is never going to tell any truth that doesn’t work to their advantage.

Even if the Wu Flu escaped from a Chinese laboratory, such isn’t conclusive evidence that it was a developed biological weapon; it could have been a virus that the Chinese discovered, on which they were doing research, and its release was a mistake. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that the release was a mistake, whether accidentally discovered or deliberately engineered, because it sure didn’t go as planned for the Chinese. A deliberate release would have been done by a Chinese traveler, sent to the United States specifically to attack our economy, and done simultaneously in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

The Biden administration has said that all credible theories of origin ought to be investigated by the World Health Organization and international health experts, but let’s face facts: any investigatio9n by the WHO will be politically compromised, and nothing that the Chinese Communists do not want seen will be allowed to be seen. This disease has been far more lethal politically than medically!

 

One side note on the politics. This morning on CNN’s New Day program, the hosts had on this ‘expert,’ lamenting that Los Angeles Lakers’ star player LeBron James would neither confirm nor deny that he had been given the vaccine, saying “it’s not a big deal.” Mr James, CNN’s ‘expert’ said, has more influence than Dr Fauci, and any indication or hint or anything that he hadn’t been vaccinated would lead to less vaccine acceptance among the black community, where vaccine hesitancy is already high. Mr James may or may not have been vaccinated, but he has the same right to privacy as anyone else.

Of course, if he decides to go to a restaurant or store or business in which the owner demands presentation of a ‘vaccine passport,’ and Mr James refuses to show one, I’ve got a big picture of him being turned away!

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Fear is the Mind-killer

We had previously noted the OpEd column by Alison McCook in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the 14th. Miss McCook said:

I have spent the last 20-plus years as a science journalist. I believe in the vaccines, and that the CDC’s new advice is likely supported by the latest data. I believe in Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who says he feels good about the CDC’s new decision and wants people to feel like we are approaching “normality.” But Thursday’s announcement from the CDC has filled me with fear.

Well, the Inquirer isn’t letting up on the fear-mongering!

Help, I’m still anxious about getting COVID-19 even though I’m vaccinated.

That anxiety? It’s totally natural, experts say, and there are ways to start managing, and conquering, it now.

By Grace Dickinson | May 14, 2021

Once you’re fully vaccinated, it’s safe to start resuming activities like traveling and having friends over for dinner, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of recently, you can ditch your mask in most settings, too.

These are moments many of us have dreamed about for over a year. And yet, now that they’re finally here, you may be finding yourself having trouble shaking off the fear of getting COVID-19. That anxiety? It’s totally natural, experts say, and there are ways to start managing, and conquering, it now.

The fear is natural.

We’ve spent months training ourselves to be cautious and avoid anything that could put ourselves at risk of getting COVID-19. While getting vaccinated significantly reduces that risk, vaccines aren’t an overnight cure for anxiety. Nor can they do the work to reverse all that training, says Usama Bilal, an assistant professor in the urban health collaborative and the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University.

“I still wear a mask outdoors half the time, even though I know that’s something I can stop doing,” says Bilal. “We’ve just experienced the worst pandemic in a century, and it’s both normal and OK for people to take the time they need to transition back to normal.”

If you’ve lost a loved one to COVID-19 or are part of a community that’s been disproportionately impacted, the transition may take longer. “I’d expect post-vaccine fear to be more prominent particularly for communities of color, and in a very valid way,” says Rachel Talley, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “No matter who you are, feelings are not something to be judged. We’ve collectively, as a world, went through a traumatic experience, and a pandemic that we’re not truly over yet.”

At least that article is about how people can overcome their fear, but in claiming that “the fear is natural” the article normalizes the fearmongering which drove so many people into becoming sheeple!

On the 17th, columnist Elizabeth Wellington wrote “No, you shouldn’t ask for someone’s vaccination status. Here’s what to do instead,” making suggestions on how to get the answers you want without having to ask that very rude question. It feeds into the media-generated and Twitter-disseminated meme that it’s dangerous for fully vaccinated people to dispense with masks because no one can know if the next unmasked guy is vaccinated or not.

And on Wednesday?

The CDC says vaccinated people can unmask. But don’t feel pressured to let your guard down. | Expert Opinion

If you feel confused and worried about changing recommendations, you are not alone. A visit with your PCP is a good place to start.

by Jeffrey Millstein, For The Inquirer | May 19, 2021

For many, the recent news from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that fully vaccinated people can unmask and discontinue social distancing in most public places is a cause for celebration. However, that was not so for a patient I saw shortly after the May 13 announcement.

“Since I’m fully vaccinated, I know that if I do get COVID, it will probably be very mild,” he said. “But I don’t want to get COVID at all.”

He went on to express his frustration with the new CDC guidelines, which he feels will put him at greater risk because he suffers from chronic lung disease. In the past, even mild, non-COVID infections have caused his disease to flare enough to land him in the hospital. He also fears scorn from family and friends if he chooses to continue masking, or that people will assume he is unvaccinated if he wears a mask.

I said that I understood his concern, and that he should certainly continue to wear a mask in public if he feels less vulnerable doing so. We discussed the science behind the new recommendations, and the hope that it may inspire more people who have been hesitant to receive a COVID vaccination. The vaccines show excellent protection for all prevalent virus variants up to at least six months; firm data beyond that point are still lacking because it’s a new vaccine.

As always, there’s more at the original, but it all works out the same: if you are afraid, your fear is justified.

Fear is how we got to this point in the first place. The government wanted everybody afraid, to use fear to get the American people to accept the illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on our constitutional rights, as being just so necessary, don’t you know. When governors across the country ordered churches closed, churches and bishops went right along with it. When a couple of churches ignored Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) order, he sent the Kentucky State Police to record license plates and vehicle identification numbers on vehicles in church parking lots, on Easter Sunday! Two federal judges ruled against the Governor, allowing churches to reopen, but they did not rule until May 8, 2020.

It wasn’t just last year: purportedly Catholic President Biden’s CDC wanted us to miss services this Easter as well!

Easter Sunday was April 4th, yet within five weeks the CDC were saying that ‘fully vaccinated’ people could go without masks in public.

Fear! As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, fear is the mind-killer, and fear was what the government used to get people to comply. Fear will always be used when a government wants to force you to do something unnatural, something you would not be inclined to do. Fear must be resisted, fear must be fought.