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The fine art of laughing and grifting while your constituents choke to death on your lies. [1]

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Date: 2022-10-23

Earlier this week, the CDC released guidance suggesting it'd be a good idea if schoolkids get vaccinated for COVID. Which is a suggestion that should go right up there with "you should probably wear a seatbelt" or even "inhale oxygen 12-16 times per minute" as common sense suggestions the CDC might make to work towards improving the health of everyone.

But as I'm sure we're all well aware, "common sense" doesn't sell, particularly not to grifters who are masquerading as politicians. Fresh off the news that he doesn't even poll above 1% without Donald Trump on the ticket, and that Donald Trump wants Majorie Taylor Green to be his running mate if he does run, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-Sweatervest) decided if he was really going to pull a Sarah Palin, he'd better get moving.

So he released a statement decrying "CDC mandates" and declared loudly that Virginia would defy the CDC and refuse to mandate the COVID vaccination be given to school children. Never ones to miss out on a grift, Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert immediately went on a Twitter rant on how he would " Bear Patrol " any CDC mandates, and our Attorney General, Jason Miyares- God Bless his sweet, confused little heart- used his expert legal skills to take most of a day to decide that Virginia wasn't bound by any mandates the CDC didn't issue.

When an avalanche of retorts from progressive politicians flooded his mentions, Speaker Gilbert was forced to trot out the ‘ole " lol i troll u ", as if it’d been his plan all along. Of course, while he and these other Virginia Republicans were busy chortling and chuffing about how they were really stigginit to the libs, I wasn't sharing in any of their humor. As I wrote about recently, a year ago right now, I was in the middle of twelve weeks of hell in the ER fighting the effects of the Delta surge in our community. I watched a neighboring healthcare system- in part of the Shenandoah Valley that Speaker Gilbert represents in the Virginia House- collapse completely. They begged medical professionals from Charlottesville to use their one or two days off a week to drive across the mountain and pick up shifts. They ordered one morgue freezer trailer after another. Their ICU capacity went to a number that was a multiple of 100%, which just shouldn't be physically possible!

All of these politicians know that, of course. It's just that they recognize they'll pay less of a political price for "stigginit to the libs" than they'll pay to admit that while they were snickering, their own constituents were literally choking to death from the weight of lies sold to them by their own media machine. From lies told by people who literally pushed frontline healthcare workers out of the way to make sure they were first in line to get vaccinated.

This is one of the things that so many of my colleagues in emergency services struggle with- I know I struggle with it. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people died that simply didn't have to. They were foisted upon us because they were lied to maliciously, lied to via a billion dollar campaign to demonize healthcare workers and other frontline pandemic workers like teachers, firefighters, and EMTs, with a recognition by those running it they would literally be killing their own constituents.

Daring them to try their bullshit in front of someone who saw the consequences of it firsthand. There isn't any one reason I'm running for the Virginia House of Delegates ; running to flip the bluest district still held by the Virginia GOP. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit ONE of the reasons is damn well intending to relish standing there, on the floor of the General Assembly building, daring these people to chuckle their way through any of this.them to try their bullshit in front of someone who saw the consequences of it firsthand.

They'll do their damndest to keep me from getting to Richmond, I'm sure; anything to evade being called out publicly. I'm going up against the quintessential establishment politician: completely out of touch and without any substance... but knowing enough rich folks (and being able to write themselves a six-digit check) to make up for that.

But I don't need to be able to write myself a huge check to turn this seat from red to blue for the first time in generations. All I need is the grassroots energy of people like you behind me. That power is what enabled us to hit the "sacrifice fly" that got Medicaid Expansion passed in 2018 , and it’s exactly what is going to send us to Richmond next November.

Donate today, and help us win this race $5, $20, and $55 dollars at a time. That's what powers us through thousands of individual donations, thousands of texts sent, postcards mailed, and doors knocked- and will take us to Richmond on Election Day. . That's what powers us through thousands of individual donations, thousands of texts sent, postcards mailed, and doors knocked- and will take us to Richmond on Election Day.

And I'll be able to tell those folks, directly to their face and for the entire country to see, what happens when you *$#@ with an emergency department nurse.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/23/2130672/-The-fine-art-of-laughing-and-grifting-while-your-constituents-choke-to-death-on-your-lies

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