Unintended Consequences

Many Americans don’t want to be vaccinated. The President tried offering bribes. Some Americans weren’t buying. So now he wants to order it. Since he is not powerful enough to make such an order stick, he is going to enlist businesses to do it for him.

Joe Biden has required Federal employees to get the vaccine, or face bothersome rules like extra testing, masking, etc. He offered Federal funds to school districts who ignored the executive orders of their governors and required vaccines and masks. (Even though he can’t offer money for anything unless passed by Congress, but does the Constitution really matter to anyone at the DC level at this point?)

Now his latest is denying Medicare and Medicaid funding to healthcare facilities who don’t require employees to be vaccinated. There is a shortage of nurses, along with other healthcare workers, in this country to begin with. States that are requiring vaccination are already reporting that they are losing healthcare workers. Hospitals are so desperate for staff that they are offering sign on bonuses of up to $15,000 for Registered Nurses.

The hospitals are short staffed. The healthcare field is huge, and so Nurses, like most people who work in healthcare, tend to specialize. The nurses and other support people needed for COVID patients aren’t the same types needed for other health problems. So those personnel are in short supply. The hospital where I work has plenty of beds, rooms, and medical equipment. What they don’t have is enough staff. Hospital staff normally work three 12 hour shifts per week. Right now, we are being paid a bonus of $200 to $1,000 a day (depending on your qualifications) for every extra shift you work, on top of your overtime pay. There are ICU nurses that are being paid $2,500 a day to come to work.

I don’t see this playing out like Biden thinks it will. His vaccine mandate will only cause that shortage to become worse.

I got the vaccine because I felt it was the right thing for me to do at the time. Now that people are getting so pushy, I am reconsidering that position. I am not getting a booster. I am going to resist this, and help others do so as well. I just don’t like being told what to do.

Satire

Good satire is difficult to tell apart from truth. The Babylon Bee nails it, again.

KABUL—Approximately twelve minutes after U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters have completely taken over the entire country.

“Woah, that’s a bummer,” said the Biden Administration’s foreign policy team. “We didn’t see that one coming.”

On second thought

In an earlier post, I thought that counterfeit vaccine cards were the way to go. It turns out that I was wrong.

The FBI is going after counterfeit cards using 18 USC 1017. Here is what the law says:

Whoever fraudulently or wrongfully affixes or impresses the seal of any department or agency of the United States, to or upon any certificate, instrument, commission, document, or paper or with knowledge of its fraudulent character, with wrongful or fraudulent intent, uses, buys, procures, sells, or transfers to another any such certificate, instrument, commission, document, or paper, to which or upon which said seal has been so fraudulently affixed or impressed, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

18USC1017

If you use an appropriated card that has the CDC seal on it before you get it, it seems to me that you are not the one who affixed or impressed the seal on the document. It doesn’t matter, of course. They will try to chuck you in prison. It is up to each person to decide for themselves if it is better to let them inject you, be a pariah, or risk prison.

Litmus test

A cruise ship just docked in Belize. Every crew member and every passenger over the age of 12 was vaccinated. Every living soul on board was tested and shown not to have COVID in the 72 hours prior to sailing. By the time the ship had entered port in Belize City, 27 passengers had COVID. All 27 were vaccinated, had mild or no symptoms, and were in isolation, according to the statement. The tourism board said 99.98% of the ship’s crew was vaccinated, as well as 96.5% of its passengers. Passengers are required to wear masks while they are inside of common areas.

How you view the above paragraph has become a litmus test of your politics. You either believe that this is evidence that vaccines and masking aren’t effective, or you find yourself believing that these steps are keeping the people who are ill from experiencing more severe symptoms.

I think that, if you tell me which camp you fall into, I can predict your political leanings on almost any other controversial subject with 90% certainty.

The path to the dark side

Now we get to forced vaccination. The newspapers are publishing letters to the editor calling for punitive steps like the denial of tax credits, student loans, and prohibition on dining out for those who refuse vaccines.

It’s also being reported that employees terminated by their employers for refusing the vaccine will be ineligible for unemployment.

Make no mistake about it- the communists have been looking for a way to get Americans hating those on the right, and now they have found it. They are stirring up hate, and this path always leads to genocide.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

EDITED TO ADD:

If your employer fires you because you won’t get the COVID vaccine, don’t expect to collect unemployment from Marketwatch

Don’t Expect Unemployment If You Refuse COVID-19 Vaccine: from an attorney

60 percent failure rate

News out of Israel is that the Pfizer vaccine fails to prevent the vaccinated from getting COVID 60% of the time. The figures also show that among those who were vaccinated in January, there was an 84% infection rate, compared to 56% of those vaccinated in February, 33% of those who received their shots in March, and 25% for those vaccinated in April. The vaccine is less effective over time. Expect a lifetime of jabs every six months, just to remain 75% effective.

Never fear, only 14% of those infected had to be hospitalized.

How does that compare to people without vaccines? Well that depends on age, health factors, etc.

A 50-year-old man with just two symptoms in their first week, has less than a 25% chance of needing hospital treatment. 

But a 60-year-old woman with 10 different symptoms in their first week, is at very high risk, with a more than 75% chance of needing oxygen later on.

The question remains: What, exactly, does the COVID vaccine do? What does the science say? I believe that little of what we are getting from the government, the press, and government scientists is actual science, and even less about the truth.

NOLA promises broken

I am from New Orleans. There is a cemetery in Mandeville, a town on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, where my family history can be traced back more than 8 generations. We go to New Orleans often, and love staying there for little weekend getaways.

We were in New Orleans during Mardi Gras of 2020, along with a large contingent of my family. None of us got COVID, and we went to some of the balls, with my aunt riding on a parade float.

For 2021, the mayor of New Orleans cancelled Mardi Gras, the Jazz festival, and other celebrations, things that the city’s businesses need to survive. The promise was that they could be rescheduled later in the year.

That turned out to be a lie. Our government is destroying us. I am beginning to think that this is deliberate. If you wanted to destroy this country, I can’t think of anything you would be doing differently.