When we were kids, we often played a game where we took everything liquid in the fridge and combined it into one cocktail. The whole idea was to dare each other to see how much anyone could consume without losing their lunch. These activities were usually connected to a game of truth or dare and everything was in good fun until our gag reflexes kicked in.

Apparently, the anti-vax community is doing the same thing with drugs. The Ivermectin treatment is so yesterday. There is a new experiment sweeping the land. None of us seriously thought we would die when we consumed a combination of milk, juice, ketchup, mustard, egg, and chocolate syrup. Most of us also abandoned that sort of behavior when we reached adolescence. I suppose the mere prospect of digestive pyrotechnics and the chortles from most Americans wasn’t quite enough.

Irony may officially be dead. It’s dying along with the hundreds of fools that put a bunch of random crap into their body in lieu of an FDA approved vaccine. Therefore, we reach the conundrum of a dying age: are these deaths COVID related or do we simply classify them as “death by idiocy?” Inquiring minds want to know.

It falls back into what I discussed last week. We will call this “the experts vs. Uncle Sal”. Yes, I know most of us don’t have an uncle named Sal. Sal will represent the person in our family or circle of friends that really isn’t an expert on anything, but people seem to listen to for whatever reason. He projects confidence. It just seems like he knows. He’s “done his research.” Yet, as people around here know, Sal is full of crap. The rest of us just see Sal as entertainment. Unfortunately, some are putting their lives in Sal’s hands.

See, what all of these imbeciles fail to realize is that none of them had heard of Ivermectin or any of these drugs. So, when they say they aren’t sheep and they don’t blindly follow anyone they fail to make the connection. SOMEONE told them about these drugs. SOMEONE told them they would cure or block the Covid. SOMEONE told them they would be perfectly safe. So, it isn’t really a question of whether we choose to follow, but who or what we choose to follow. Are we going to listen to the experts or Uncle Sal? Our very lives may depend on the answer to that question.

John Pierce is an attorney and defender of RWNJs, including 17 Capitol Hill insurrectionists, the Kenosha Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, and…wait for it…Rudy Giuliani.  He disappeared last week, and an associate from his law firm, the so called National Constitutional Law Union, lied to one judge that he’d been in an accident and then admitted to another judge that Pierce is hospitalized for COVID, on a ventilator, and unresponsive.  Pierce is well known as an advocate of right wing weirdos, has denigrated vaccines and protested against masking and social distancing.

Yet another rightwing weirdo is felled by his/her own stupidity.  This time, though, a lot of guys who also bought into The Big Lie are also unrepresented in federal court on charges related to the insurrection on January 6th.

Irony or Karma.  The answer to both inquiries is YES.

A concerned parent from Bethany Elementary School in Plano ISD in Plano, Texas forwarded me the PTA newsletter that went out to parents today, as the school grapples with numerous outbreaks of COVID-19. Anna Hulse, the PTA President at Bethany Elementary gathered the following information that proves the impossible circumstances faced by parents, like me, who feel we have no safe education options for our children in Texas public schools.

Chris Hill, the Collin County Judge, is full-on trolling the parents in Collin County with Facebook posts asking parents “WTF is wrong with you?” and “Freedom is more important than education,” when parents challenge him and his interpretation of the law. Well, that freedom has consequences. As of today, 14,000 public school students have tested positive in the state. 15% of all Texans with COVID last week were public school students and staff.

Willam Joy is a reporter for DFW News station WFAA Channel 8

The following Newsletter outlines exactly how few options Texas parents have:

Y’all, Texas politicians are playing politics with our children’s lives in a way that I’ve really never seen in my lifetime. I’ve contacted so many officials and everyone keeps passing the buck all the way up to Governor Abbott, who won’t make any changes no matter how many Texas students fall ill, in order to have a better chance in the next primary against Allen West and Don Huffines.

Four days after the start of the school year, I did something that I never imagined I would do: I unenrolled my 5th grader from public school.  As an avid supporter of and true believer in public schools, this is a decision I never thought I’d make.

I’m a reasonable parent. Knowing there would be no mask mandate, I sent my child in a mask and encouraged her to take reasonable precautions. She is too young to be vaccinated. Our children’s hospitals are full, so I worry that she wouldn’t get adequate care if she got sick or even broke a leg.  I observed that many students weren’t wearing masks, including the student that sits next to her. Hmm.

I decided to call the nurse and ask what the procedure is if there is a COVID case in the classroom. The nurse told me that the TEA would not, at that time, allow for parents to be told if a child has COVID in their class. This changed a couple of days later – the TEA changed guidance to say that if a child gets sick in my kid’s class, I get a notification. So I asked the nurse – do the children have to quarantine if they are exposed to COVID-19?

Her answer: No, it’s a personal choice. Upon notification of positive cases in my child’s class, I observed that children in that class were being sent back to school, without masks, after being exposed. Not many parents were making the choice to quarantine.

I asked the nurse if the schools would be contact tracing. The school nurse informed me that Collin County is in charge of contact tracing and that the school reports every positive case to the county. I called the county, and the county informed me that they are not doing any contact tracing, they just send the reports up to the state. The state is very understaffed and they have made no attempts to contact trace, based on the accounts of several people I know that were exposed in a classroom and have not been contacted.

So we had no masks, no contact tracing, no quarantine. It’s no surprise that my daughter’s school has more than one positive case in every 5th grade classroom as we speak. My kid wasn’t exposed because I pulled her out Monday, and I’m not sending her back until she is vaccinated.

Texas politicians have put politics over children’s health and safety. They’re not making any attempt to mitigate this disease. This year, our kids are going to see teachers die, students hospitalized, and they will all get this infection that may damage their lungs permanently. All because Abbott wants to win a primary.

I’m angrier than I’ve ever been at Republicans, and that’s saying something.

Last week we talked about the death of H. Scott Apley, Galveston city council representative and member of the Texas GOP executive committee from Covid-19.  Apley’s death was totally preventable, but the extreme far right activist was a loud voice against vaccines, science, and common decency.  He amplified lies about the virus and the vaccines on social media, and mocked those who wore masks and were relying on public health policy established using guidance from actual scientists.  He, his wife, and infant child all were infected.  He died 3 days after being admitted to a hospital in Galveston.

Apley’s foolishness was deadly.  Worse, his ignorance has very likely caused additional infections and possibly deaths.  The Republican party, led by the Orange Menace, has become mired in lies, reality bending, religiosity, and cruel public policy that has no reason to exist but for inflicting more cruelty.

Yesterday, the Washington Post used Apley as the perfect example of the chasm that has widened between normal people and the insanity of extreme rightwing politics.  It noted that even in the wake of his death, the Galveston County GOP was still posting bullshit about vaccines and didn’t even acknowledge how Apley died.  The madness has so engulfed the GOP that the party itself is a threat to public health and our system of government. It has truly morphed into the American version of the Taliban, and that’s not an exaggeration.

Yesterday this photo started floating around social media and it fits Abbott’s re-election campaign better than any I’ve seen so far…

A picture is worth 1,000 words.  Or, more appropriately, 54,819, today’s current count.