She is one of the people who claim to know more and be more moral than everyone else so she / them get to tell the rest of us how we must live and how our schools should be run. The article below shows how unqualified these people are to tell others how to live their lives. These people are simply self entitled ego driven people who feel entitled to rule over how others live, while often not living that way themselves. I won’t be coloring this one, too much in it is triggering to me.
Randy was visiting us the other day and we touched a bit on my abuse. For something realted. I told them something I had not told before. By the time I was 7 during my adoptive parents parties with their friends, I would be set / perched on the counter with all the booze and mixers and would be required to fix drinks for the people. They would come to me and hand me their glass, tell me what they wanted, I would make the drink and hand it back. If I did the job correctly and everyone left happy, I was rewarded but if anyone complained I was disciplined. Often right then and painfully humiliated. Sometimes I would have to stand at the counter and wait on the people playing cards, watching for their drinks to get low and offering to refill them. I learned to never let an empty glass go unaddressed. Needless to say, I did not go into detail and it was a brief mention.
A former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate and outspoken voice in the conservative “parental rights” school movement has been charged with punching a teenager while hosting an underage drinking party at her Bucks County home in September.
Clarice Schillinger, 36, is facing criminal charges of assault, harassment and furnishing minors with alcohol during her daughter’s birthday party, according to the case filed in late October. Her attorney has denied all charges and said she will fight them in court.
Schillinger made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor as a Republican last year and has played an instrumental role in a political action committee that has poured more than $800,000 into Pennsylvania school district races since 2021. The PAC has focused on supporting school board candidates who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns and argue left-wing ideologies are invading the education system.
In the recent criminal case, Schillinger is accused of punching a partygoer several times in the face during a series of alleged outbursts by drunken adults at her home on Liz Circle in Doylestown, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
The documents state that during the event — which started Sept. 29 and went past midnight — Schillinger’s then-boyfriend allegedly grabbed a 16-year-old by the neck for intervening in a fight between the couple and hit a 15-year-old in the face during an argument over football. According to the allegations in court papers, her intoxicated mother also punched the older teen in the eye and chased him around the kitchen island. Police said they had cellphone recordings of some of these reported events.
To escape the unruly adults, several minors started making their way out of the home, even as Schillinger ordered them to stay, court documents allege.
Cellphone footage showed that as the teens gathered in the foyer Schillinger lunged toward one partygoer before others began restraining her. That individual told police Schillinger struck him three times with a closed fist but that he wasn’t injured, according to the affidavit.
Schillinger had been throwing a 17th birthday party for her daughter that night, hosting about 20 teens in her basement, where there was a bar stocked with New Amsterdam vodka and Malibu Bay Breeze rum, police wrote in the affidavit. In addition to supplying the underage group with alcohol, she allegedly poured liquor for the teens, asked them to take a shot with her and played beer pong with them, witnesses later told authorities.
State law makes it illegal to serve or allow minors to drink alcohol.
One of the teen’s parents called police early the morning of Sept. 30 to report the assaults and the underage drinking at Schillinger’s home. Investigators interviewed multiple teens who had attended the party, the affidavit states.
This wasn’t the first time police visited Schillinger’s home — which she’s been renting since the spring — for reports of an underage party, according to court documents.
Emergency dispatch data provided by the Bucks County Emergency Service Division logged at least four different calls at the address.
Buckingham Township police responded to a noise complaint call and possible underage party at Schillinger’s home on Sept. 24, the weekend before the birthday party, according to 911 data and court records.
Police reported in one affidavit spotting a number of beer cans strewn around the property and street that night. They also saw about 20 teens dart into the home and, when they tried speaking with Schillinger, found her to be “intoxicated and uncooperative,” the affidavit states.
Authorities responded to another noise complaint at Schillinger’s home involving “intoxicated subjects” just after midnight on Sept. 29, though an affidavit says police only made contact with Schillinger’s then-boyfriend, Shan Wilson, that night.
Schillinger is scheduled for a late January preliminary hearing. Her mother, Danette Bert, and Wilson were charged with assault and harassment in connection with the party, but those charges were withdrawn when they pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in early December, court records show.
In an email, Schillinger said that her case had been dropped and suggested Wilson, whom she described as an “angry ex boyfriend,” was behind the accusations. However, online court records show the case is still active, and a spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that the charges are not being dismissed.
Schillinger has not responded to a request for further comment, including why she believes the charges against her were dropped.
While Wilson did contact the USA Today Network about the incident, the affidavit against Schillinger did not include any statements from him and relied instead on the testimony of teenage witnesses and the cellphone footage.
“Ms. Schillinger has dedicated her life to public service,” Schillinger’s attorney Matthew Brittenburg said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “Additionally, she has always been a law abiding citizen. Ms. Schillinger looks forward to the opportunity to defend against these allegations.”
Who is Clarice Schillinger?
Dissatisfied with school closures that followed the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Schillinger created a political committee to help fund school board candidates who made strict adherence to in-person education their top campaign promise.
That PAC, Keeping Kids In School, focused more closely to school districts near Schillinger’s former home in Ambler, Montgomery County, by giving out thousands of dollars to smaller PACs backing slates of candidates running on an “open schools” platform.
Bucks County venture capitalist and Central Bucks parent Paul Martino took notice of Schillinger’s PAC before the municipal primary in May 2021, and the two created Back To School PA later that summer.
Martino initially put up $500,000 of his own money for Back To School PA to disburse $10,000 checks to local school board races across the state.
Schillinger told the conservative news organization Broad+Liberty after that year’s election that Back To School saw an “incredible win” with 113 of 182 candidates supported by the PAC winning elections.
Back To School took credit for flipping at least six school districts in that story, including Pennridge and Quakertown Community school districts in Bucks County; Harrisburg City in Dauphin County; Hempfield in Lancaster County; Palmyra in Lebanon County; and Southeastern in York County.
The PAC also gave $10,000 to Bucks Families for Leadership, which was an earlier PAC Martino created and funded backing Republican candidates in the 2021 Central Bucks school board race.
Three of the five Central Bucks Republicans that ran in 2021 made it onto the board, but this year’s municipal election saw Democrat candidates sweep five seats and take a 6-3 majority.
While Schillinger’s original PAC and Back To School were described as bipartisan and focused on the single-issue of school closures by her and Martino, most of the candidates endorsed were Republican and often opposed to other pandemic mitigations like requiring masks in schools.
Schillinger threw her hat in the ring for public office in 2022 joining eight other candidates in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor. Schillinger finished fourth, gaining over 148,000 votes of the 1.2 million cast for that office.
Schillinger announced that Back To School PA would be going national during a July 25, 2022, episode of 1210 WPHT’s The Dom Giordano Program.
“Back To School USA is really going to be focused on putting candidates in place that will put our children and their education first,” Schillinger said. “Right now, we are not doing that. We are more focused on these woke and gender ideas.”
A website for the national PAC, created in October 2021, is no longer publicly accessible.
Martino told Lehigh Valley News in September that Back To School USA was “more of an idea right now” but indicated Schillinger was still involved in a fundamental way.
He declined to comment on the charges against Schillinger but wrote in an email this week that Back To School USA “never got off the ground” because other projects took priority last year.
Thanks to ten Bears for the link. This is a scary and important read, and people need to understand what will happen this time if tRump and his ilk get into power again. We must put small time bickering of age and other things aside until the threat posed by these people are gone. If we don’t stand together and vote for Biden and other democrats in large numbers or democracy goes away and the US becomes a hell of inequality, no rights, no personal freedoms, and required living as you are ordered to do so. The LGBTQIA will be illegal, as will other personal freedoms. Reading material and movies will have to be state sanctioned and follow party lines, like in China. Hugs. Scottie
If you thought it can’t happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with you…
If Trump is re-elected, he’d be America’s 47th president, so he’s named the plans for his second term “Agenda 47.” At best, it’s a dystopian nightmare: at worst it means ending our current system of American government; aligning the US with Russia and other autocratic nations; and the USA leading the charge against democracy and in favor of authoritarian, strong-man forms of government across the world.
Over at his website, Trump lays out the details of his governing agenda, complete with short videos promoting each of the steps he plans to take. They, and his many statements about future plans, include:
Criminalizing homosexuality
Part of Agenda 47, Trump says, is “finishing the job” he started as president between 2017 and 2021.
Just two hours after he and Pence were sworn into office, they removed all mention of LGBTQ+ issues from the White House website.
Two days later, his State Department deleted former Secretary of State John Kerry’s apology to the nation for the “Lavender Scare” government persecution of gays and lesbians during the McCarthy era 1950s and early 1960s. A month later, Trump’s Justice Department announced they’d no longer defend the civil rights of trans kids.
His Education and HUD offices both withdrew their court defenses of queer people, particularly students and those in homeless shelters, and his Secretary of State refused to mention to the Russian Foreign Minister the detention and brutal executions of gay men by Russian soldiers in Chechnya. On May 4, 2017 Trump signed an executive order letting the DOJ ignore claims of illegal discrimination against queer people and women throughout every single one of the nation’s federal agencies.
In September, 2017, Trump’s Secretary of Education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, officially ended that agency’s Title IX guidance requiring schools to do something about sexual harassment, including sexual violence, against women and LGBTQ+ kids. In response to a question from the media about the change in policy and gay men, Trump said that his Vice President “wants to hang them all.”
In January of 2018, Trump rolled out the “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom” at HHS, which would backstop people who wanted to use the excuse of “deeply held religious beliefs” to justify explicit discrimination against queer people and women, or to simply to make life difficult for government agencies.
All of this is just the beginning. The Human Rights Campaign has documented page after page of anti-queer policies put into effect by Trump that will be resurrected and put on steroids in a second term.
Destroy academic freedom and gut our public schools
In the Agenda 47 section of his website, Trump explains how he’s going to use our schools and colleges to indoctrinate young Americans in rightwing ideology. He explicitly says:
“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”
Any colleges that continue to teach “under the guise of [racial] equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
In other words, just like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary and Putin did in Russia, he’s going to bankrupt the nation’s schools and colleges if they continue to teach the true history of America and promote egalitarian values. As Trump notes at his website:
“[W]e are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.”
Gut the EPA, OSHA, CPSB, IRS, the Labor Department, and other federal agencies that keep our air clean, our water pure, and protect average Americans from predation by the morbidly rich and their corporations
Back in the 1970s, Richard Nixon said he was going to use “impoundment” to strip funding from agencies his donors didn’t like, claiming that, even though Congress had appropriated budgets for them, he could, as head of the Executive Branch, simply “impound” the money and refuse to spend it. His plan to remake the federal government was interrupted by Watergate.
In 1974, Democrats in Congress got together and passed legislation outlawing this and Jerry Ford signed it into law. But Trump’s lawyers apparently think they can get it overturned through their appointees on the courts or even, if they can take both branches of Congress, through new legislation. As Trump says on his website:
“I will use the president’s long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”
Since the fossil fuel companies, banks, refineries, anti-union big employers, and their billionaires who fund the GOP hate all of these agencies, it’ll be a bonanza for them.
Not so much for working people, retirees, and those of us concerned about a livable future environment for our kids and grandkids, though.
Destroy the media and the truth
First, he wants to make it illegal for the federal government’s security services to notify social media platforms about Russian disinformation and other foreign efforts to swing elections, since nearly 100% of those efforts are coming from authoritarian countries in support of Trump and against democracy.
“I will ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information,” Trump proclaims on his Agenda 47 website.
He also wants to force social media to carry his buddy Putin’s trolls’ lies and attempts to pit Americans against each other, and limit the companies’ ability to label or block lies and propaganda. As Trump puts it:
“I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business.”
In Hungary, one way Viktor Orbán got rid of actual news media and replaced the ownership of all the nation’s major radio and TV networks, websites, and newspapers was by changing the libel laws so that public figures (like Orbán himself) could sue for libel when they thought they were treated unfairly.
They then sued company after company, commentator after commentator, reporter after reporter, into bankruptcy.
Orbán’s rightwing buddies could buy the media properties out of bankruptcy which is why now virtually all the media in Hungary is like Fox “News,” broadcasting suck-ups to Orbán and criticism of “liberals,” immigrants, and gays 24/7.
Trump wants to do the same here in the US.
When Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury came out with some unflattering characterizations of Trump in it, the then-president said:
“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. And if somebody says something that’s totally false and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled, will have meaningful recourse.”
Simply reporting on what Trump’s up to could bring lawsuits that would bankrupt even the Times or the Post, and, like in Hungary and Russia, pretty much end the existence of a free and independent press in America.
Turning America into a vigilante police state
Trump has promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to murder the Vice President and Speaker of the House (and whose actions led to the death of four police officers), and put into place a national “stop and frisk” law that upends the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
It would also — like Duterte in the Philippines who executed over 10,000 people during his reign of terror — authorize the federal government to immediately execute anybody convicted of trafficking in drugs without further due process or appeals.
Republicans in Texas have already pioneered using vigilantes to hunt down women who’ve had abortions and the people who’ve helped them. Expect these vigilante-enforced laws to spread across the country with a second Trump administration, with groups like the Proud Boys and III Percenters becoming the modern-day equivalent of the old west’s 19th century bounty hunters.
In a flashback to Hitler’s “work camps” that preceded the death camps by five years, Trump’s also proposed building concentration camps around the country to house “millions” of undocumented aliens and his political enemies. As he noted in a speech on Veterans’ Day this year:
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” adding that Russia isn’t a problem. Instead, he said, “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
Presumably that means people like me and you, who would oppose his fascist agenda.
Corrupting the federal government
Way back in 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau thought he’d properly bribed President James Garfield by giving the president, during an in-person visit in the White House, a speech he’d written for Garfield to use. Garfield was polite but didn’t offer Guiteau a federal speechwriter’s job, which provoked a murderous rage: shortly thereafter, Guiteau met Garfield’s train and shot him twice, killing him.
The explicit and institutionalized practice of exchanging gifts and personal loyalty for federal jobs dated back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), arguably the second-most depraved president in American history behind Trump (which is probably why Trump hung his picture in the Oval Office; Jackson’s favorite nickname for himself — given him by the Cherokee he slaughtered — was “The Indian Killer”).
Jackson had elevated the practice of bribing the president — himself, at the time — to get federal jobs into an art-form: it was called the “spoils” or patronage system and was insanely corrupt. It was also, by Garfield’s presidency in 1881, routine.
After Guiteau failed to gain his “spoil” or “patronage” from Garfield and killed him, President Chester Arthur oversaw the writing and passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
It separated all those government jobs from the administration in power, turning federal workers from patrons of the president into permanent bureaucrats, whose first loyalty was to the nation instead of the guy who happened to be in the White House at any particular time.
It also explicitly outlawed bribing the president for a job. The goal, which it accomplished and has held for 140 years, was to end corruption in the bureaucratic branches of the federal government.
Donald Trump wants to functionally end the Civil Service system and replace the top levels of the nation’s 2.7 million federal workers with people loyal exclusively to himself.
He tried to do this in the last months of his presidency through an October 21, 2020 executive order, Schedule F, (which Biden reversed on his first day in office) that reclassified those workers out of their Civil Service jobs and into political appointee positions, doing the same work but now entirely dependent on the good will of the president to keep their jobs.
The next Republican administration will almost certainly put Schedule F back into force, reestablishing the 1829 spoils system for the federal government, and ending any possibility that people in the government will push back against Trump the way they did during his presidency.
Making the nation’s police into Trump’s private enforcers
The Department of Justice was established by President Ulysses S. Grant after the Civil War, in part to enforce federal laws protecting the rights of people who’d recently been freed from slavery.
After Richard Nixon tried to use it against his enemies (and his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison for his efforts), Congress in 1978 passed the Ethics in Government Act which put a wall of separation between the DOJ and the White House.
Trump has explicitly proclaimed his intention to tear that wall down and go farther than Nixon ever imagined in using our armed investigative services for personal revenge and harassment of people he perceives as his enemies.
He wants the nation’s premiere police agencies to become his own personal enforcers, and has already said they will be hunting down “liberals,” Black Lives Matter protest participants, and Joe Biden, his family, and members of his administration.
He wants to imprison them, as well as the prosecutors and judges who have been participating in the effort to hold him to account for the crimes he committed over the past 7 years.
This politicization of law enforcement has been a first-order and primary feature of every authoritarian or totalitarian regime that’s risen to power over the past few hundred years, worldwide. It’s always one of the first things fascist leaders do when they seize power.
“Freedom cities”
In an apparent attempt to portray himself as a visionary like JFK, with his promise to send men to the moon and bring them back safely, Trump is promising to build “freedom cities” in his second term. The main feature he’s discussed is that people will get around in them in “flying cars.”
While it’s being portrayed as a goofy stunt designed to make him seem like an imaginative idealist, in fact there has been a movement among rightwing billionaires for some time to create cities that they basically run as little feudal fiefdoms, the same way the morbidly rich run their companies and their football teams.
Some libertarian billionaires assert that the only reason there’s never been a successful libertarian nation in the history of the world is because true libertarianism — government doing nothing but running the police, army, and courts and everything else left to private charity and business owners — “has never been tried.”
The ”freedom cities” could be a new libertarian experiment, or they may be the 21st century version of the old “company town,” where nobody has rights or protection of the law but is subject to the whims of the local billionaire owner. A group backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has already put forward what appears to be a plan to build a new city in California that they may or may not envision running along these lines. The group has so far purchased more than 53,000 acres of land, an area larger than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Ending democracy across Europe and the world
Trump is also promising that he’ll end the brutal attacks against Ukraine on “day one” by simply turning the country over to his good friend, Vladimir Putin.
For the first time since World War II, this would legitimize a nation attacking another nation simply to seize their land, resources, and people.
It would greenlight China to do the same with Taiwan, and encourage every other tinpot dictator in the world to grab nearby territory that he wants. It would encourage war, and could very easily lead to a world war.
Abandoning Ukraine like this, along with Trump’s oft-stated preference to leave or end NATO and stop support for the UN, would lead the autocracies of the world — particularly Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea — to destroy the democracies in their sphere of influence, replacing those democracies with strongman autocracies.
The democratic experiment on this planet is only 250 years old, more or less, and this would signal a return to the way the world had been ruled for the 7,000 years prior to that: by kings, popes, mullahs, strongman warlords, and the morbidly rich.
Between Agenda 47 and Project 2025, Donald Trump and the rightwing billionaires who own the GOP have big plans for this nation, regardless of which Republican takes the White House next. They’re dead serious and far more well-funded than any of the groups that fight for and advocate democracy.
If you thought it can’t happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with you.
Triple check your voter registration, especially if you live in a Red state where the voter purges have already begun, and make sure everybody you know is registered vote.
Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.
FILE – Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at an annual Basque Fry at the Corley Ranch in Gardnerville, Nev., Saturday, June 17, 2023. The mother of a transgender girl sobbed in federal court Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, as she contemplated having to move away from her Navy officer husband to get health care for her 12-year-old if Florida’s ban on gender dysphoria treatments for minors is allowed to take affect. (AP Photo/Andy Barron, File)
A federal judge hearing achallenge to a transgender health care ban for minorsand restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating children’s genitals even though there’s been no such documented cases.
The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care, Judge Robert Hinkle said to Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer for the state.
“When I’m analyzing the governor’s motivation, what should I make of these statements?” Hinkle asked. “This seems to be more than just hyperbole.”
Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law. He raised some skepticism about the state’s motivation as lawyers gave their closing arguments.
Jazil said the motivation behind the law was simply public safety in an area that needs more oversight and can have permanent consequences.
“It’s about treating a medical condition; it’s not about targeting transgender individuals,” Jazil said.
Jazil added that if the state was targeting transgender people, it could have banned all treatment for adults and children. Hinkle quickly replied that Jazil would have trouble defending such a law.
At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and many of those states face lawsuits. Courts have issued mixed rulings, with the nation’s first law, in Arkansas,struck down by a federal judgewho said the ban on care violated the due process rights of transgender youth and their families.
Enforcement is blocked in two states besides Florida, and enforcement is currently allowed in or set to go into effect soon in seven other states.
Thomas Redburn, a lawyer representing trans adults and the families of trans children, said DeSantis and the Legislature have shown a pattern of targeting transgender people. He listed other recent laws that affect the community, including restrictions on pronoun use in schools, the teaching of gender identification in schools, restrictions on public bathrooms and the prohibition of trans girls from playing girls sports.
Read the full article. Hinkle first appeared here in 2021 when he blocked Florida’s law that sought to prevent social media platforms from banning users for hate speech.
A federal judge says Florida Gov. DeSantis repeatedly spread false information while advocating for a transgender health care ban for minors law in his state. https://t.co/SEEpu8rmxR
So he wants to pass a law to protect children against genital mutilation that doesn’t exist and even if there was genital cutting it would be done on a person old enough to ask for it. Yet countless thousands of boys in the state of Florida have part of their genitals cut off without their consent every year and no one has even considered a law protecting males from involuntary genital cutting. I’m all for anyone doing anything they want to their own genitals when they’re old enough to make the decision themselves but 100% against anyone having anything unnecessarily cut from their body without their consent.
Circumcision performed on a male before he’s old enough to understand and consent to the procedure is involuntary genital mutilation, plain and simple.
The Genital Autonomy Legal Defense and Education Fund (www.galdef.org/equal-protec… has a strategy to remedy the fact that over 1.25 million baby boys in the U.S. each year are subjected to medically unnecessary genital cutting with no legal protection of their bodily integrity or eventual autonomy. Subscribe to GALDEF’s newsletter at their homepage and help them build their war chest to launch an equal protection lawsuit.
The practice started in Egypt millennia before the Israelites were a people. They adopted circumcision from them, in the same way they adopted monotheism from the Babylonians.
Not quite. Christianity did away with the Jewish requirement for male circumcision at the Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council, circa, 48-50 CE. It was the fear of masturbation which sparked its resurrection in the U.S. in the early 1870s.
Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law.
For those wondering, Robert Hinkle is a judge put on the courts under Bill Clinton and is a longtime LGBT ally. But both sides are the same right? I’m sure someone like this would totally have been put on the courts under Trump or George W or a Cruz etc. Oh wait…
DeSantis is a laughing stock at this point in time. The stuff of SNL. Even if Trump were to disappear, there’s no way in hell that the Republicans would nominate DeSantis as their 2024 candidate.
Besides being a total asshole, he is SO weird and awkward. We need to get rid of him and his government in Floriduh as well.
I’m just chilling with my long time best friend (60 years) in Delray Beach, having a tasty Knob Creek 9 on the rocks. Gonna get gummied soon. Nice plans for the Christmas weekend here. Wishing your and your hubby a wonderful holiday weekend!! Cheers!!
Ron is still struggling with his leg. I told the pharmacy I would get my narcotics tomorrow instead of today, yes it is an issue in this state. More on that another time but I live in a state where right wing Christian part-time legislator bigots think they know more than pain doctors and pharmacist with training in the drugs and experience in the medical field. Their view is people in pain just need Jesus and to dedicate their lives to him rather than pain medications. I have over done today due to Ron still hobbling on his twisted knee.
After he got up from a three hour nap Ron made a beef burrito in spicy red sauce and several baked potatoes along with a thick red sauce gravy for them. Yes, I helped him, but the creation and the spices are all to his credit. Now I offered to help put it way, but he said he wanted to do it. Funny thing, each of us could only eat one burrito and one potato. Ron gave me two and himself two and I asked him to take one back, and after we ate he admitted he wished he had only taken one also. He had to put his second one back in the pan.
It is only 5 Pm but I am so tired I would go to bed now and be happy. But I have not played Halo in a few days. I am trying to decide if going to the work of pulling out the TV on that very heavy bracket and playing an hour or two would be better than just going to bed. Silly question. Halo won that debate without even trying. I will try to play. If I don’t work out, I will go to bed. I was up most of last night. So I really am tired out after all I did today.
It’s not rhetoric, but action that proves how different the two parties are. Can we PLEASE stop treating them as if they’re two sides of the same coin? It’s not only lazy, but dead wrong.
I wanted to post an update of something I got wrong. The tatted up guy at the end of the video had a VERY different story than the one that was told to me.
Turns out he was not only at the show, he was a fan AND the guy that first got the attention of the police. He was so heated because he is part of the LGBTQ community and had been assaulted previously – so when he saw it potentially happening to a few trans women, he grabbed a cop who was stopped at a light, ran back to the theatre, and got in between the transphobe and the women. He wasn’t trying to escalate as much as he was trying to be the one to take the seemingly inevitable punch. And he left when the cops got there because he was the one who called them over in the first place.
I was told he was a bystander who just hopped in the fray, and I understand why the folks who didn’t know him thought that. In their eyes, he showed up out of nowhere and ran in – but really he was running back to protect folks from sharing the same fate he’d already experienced.
Anyway, my apologies go out to him. And know that if I ever get something wrong in a video, I am happy to correct it.
I know I am late to reading and posting stuff, but this is why I save so many open tabs. This is a simple but so very important message to repeat over and over. On the plus side, I live in southwest Florida. Yes in DeathSantis Florida where the state just had to admit they hid and lied about the massive number of covid deaths, and Ron and I have been talking to our pharmacy about getting the covid vaccine. I am happy to say the pharmacy has asked us to work with them (they know us and we are very friendly with them) and they are over run with demands for the vaccine as soon as they can provide it. So the idea that the entire right is enslaved to the DeathSantis anti-vaccine message is wrong. The people want it, and are swarming any place that advertises they have it. Thanks Ten Bears for this wonderful explanation of how vaccines work. Hugs
This is horrendous. It is caused by people who think they know more than the trained medical professionals because their favorite right wing talk show host tells them medical professionals are wrong. Those hosts are in it for political reasons, and most of them got the vaccines so they know they are lying, but it doesn’t matter that people are dying because of their lies. The people like this man selling bleach to cure autism are the same idiots that claim conversion therapy cures being gay. Also I want to make as clear as possible, autism like being gay or trans is not something that needs a cure! They are not diseases. Now I don’t know much about the medical advice and special needs if any that autistic people need. I do know many autistic people live happy productive lives while I have seen videos of kids in schools that need extra help. The one to ask Is Barry. Barry is a follower who comments often. Barry is autistic. He has helped me understand some of the bigotry, stigma, and torture done as treatment to neurodivergent people in an attempt to change them to act like others. That type of conversion therapy is simply torture and won’t remove autism. Again I did not know it was happening until Barry told me. So if you have questions, hopefully Barry will see them and respond. Hugs
YOUTUBE/JOE SALANT
Joe Salant, an evangelical pastor and rapper, is the new spokesman for Safrax, which makes bleach tablets that are popular with those who belief ingesting the industrial cleaner can cure a range of ailments.
An evangelical pastor who briefly shot to fame in 2015 for recording a rap song in support of Sen. Ted Cruz is now selling industrial-strength bleach tablets to parents and has admitted that many of his customers are using the product to treat autism in their children.
Joe Salant, who grew up in an affluent New Jersey family, became a born-again Christian after coming out of drug rehab when he was in his early twenties, having spent six months in jail for drug possession. Recently, he has become part of the American Renewal Project, which aims to have a pastor from “every church in America” run for elected office by 2024. Salant preaches a Christian nationalist ideology that positions the church at the heart of all aspects of American society.
In his spare time he continues to release rap records with titles like “Human Sacrifices” and “Dies in Vain,” in which he raps about child trafficking.
In recent months he’s taken on a new role as the U.S representative for a company called Safrax, which markets chlorine dioxide tablets that are advertised on the company’s website as industrial products for odor removal, disinfection, and as cleaners for hot tubs and jacuzzis.
But over the phone, Salant said many people are using the treatments in an attempt to treat autism in children.
“Autism? Yeah, I mean it’s a common treatment,” Salant said, according to a recording of a phone call obtained by Ireland-based activist Fiona O’Leary and shared with VICE News. “We’re not allowed to recommend [our products] for it specifically but yeah, the protocols in the Andreas Kalcker book [which] we have on our website… it’s commonly used for that.”
“Autism? Yeah, I mean it’s a common treatment. We’re not allowed to recommend [our products] for it specifically but yeah.”
Andreas Kalcker is one of the most notorious promoters of the pseudoscientific conspiracy theory that a form of bleach, known within that community as a miracle mineral solution (MMS) can be used as a treatment for a wide range of ailments, including cancer, HIV, and autism. In 2021, Argentinian authorities charged Kalcker with selling fake medicines to cure COVID-19 after a 5-year-old boy died from suspected chlorine dioxide poisoning. The case has yet to go to trial.
Safrax is the latest company to profit off the belief that ingesting industrial grade bleach can have health benefits, a conspiracy spread for years by conspiracy influencers like Kalcker and Jim Humble, who died earlier this month aged 99. Despite repeated warnings from the FDA about the dangers of using these so-called miracle mineral solutions (MMS), companies continue to cash in on vulnerable people searching for a cure for their ailments.
If you have any information about people using Safrax or any other type of chlorine dioxide to ‘treat’ ailments and would like to share the details with. VICE News, you can email david.gilbert@vice.com.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other public health bodies have repeatedly warned against the use of chlorine dioxide, labeling it “a powerful bleaching agent that has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.”
“These bleachers are health terrorists, preying on the most vulnerable in our communities and making big profit poisoning people—the police, authorities must do more,” O’Leary, who has autistic children and has been campaigning against peddlers of chlorine dioxide for a decade, told VICE News. “Autistic children are being abused. Cancer patients are being poisoned and often walk away from scientifically proven treatments to ingest this lethal bleach. I watch these people die. It is heartbreaking.”
“Autistic children are being abused. Cancer patients are being poisoned and often walk away from scientifically proven treatments to ingest this lethal bleach.”
But for the Delaware-registered Safrax, which is now being promoted on Facebook and Telegram channels dedicated to sharing information about chlorine dioxide, business is booming.
A message on the Safrax website informs customers that there is a 2-4 week delay in sending out orders specifically due to overwhelming demand for the product as a result of the tablets being featured on the radio show of pseudoscience conspiracist Mike Adams.
Adams, who calls himself the Health Ranger, founded the notorious fake health news website NaturalNews, and has links to far-right figure Alex Jones and the extremist groups the Oath Keepers.
Salant claimed on the customer phone call that Safrax has no official relationship with Adams, but added that “we’re fans” of his show. This is a claim backed up by Safrax owner Steve Dan, who told VICE News via email that he had never heard of Adams prior to his mentioning Safrax on his show.
However, it is easy to see the impact that Adams’ endorsement has had: Some Adams listeners reported on private Facebook groups dedicated to sharing information about using bleach as medication that they bought the product after hearing his show.
In a post reviewed by VICE News, one purchaser wrote that she had taken the Safrax tablets and was now feeling unwell. “I can’t find any information about the dosage of the tablets… and I am currently sick. I tried dissolving one in a gallon [of water] and it tastes like pure bleach. I just wanna get well.”
“I can’t find any information about the dosage of the tablets… and I am currently sick. I tried dissolving one in a gallon [of water] and it tastes like pure bleach. I just wanna get well.”
Another member of the group responded by linking to the Safrax website, where the company recommends adding 30 tablets to a gallon of water. However, the original poster pointed out this dosage was for industrial use, adding: “I just don’t want to kill myself by drinking too much.”
Safrax was founded in 2011 by Dan, a French national who is also known as Steve Jean-Paul Dan. In 2005 he was arrested on three counts of felony financial transaction card fraud the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia confirmed to VICE News, and that case remains open to this day. Dan told VICE News he wasn’t aware the case was still open, and claimed he was arrested “merely because I was in the company of my friend who got arrested.”
For the last decade, Safrax has sold its chlorine dioxide tablets, which are produced in China, wholesale, marketing them as industrial cleaning products. Despite the recent popularity of his products within the bleacher community, Dan claims the company is not suggesting people use their products to cure medical issues.
“We explicitly advise against using our chlorine dioxide tablets for the treatment of any diseases or medical conditions,” Dan said. “If any such claims were made by Mr. Salant, that would not represent the views or recommendations of Safrax. We will investigate this internally and make the proper corrections.”
However the presence of Kalcker’s book on the company’s website suggests otherwise. The book, “Forbidden Health,” is one of the most widely read publications in the bleacher community, and contains an exhaustive list of the ailments Kalcker claims can be cured with bleach.
Dan dismissed the book’s presence on the Safrax site, telling VICE News it was there as “an effective SEO tool to enhance our site’s visibility.” On the phone call with O’Leary, Salant said he had read Kalcker’s book and “appreciates his work.”
When questioned about the credibility of Safrax’s owners in the phone call with a customer, Salant defends his boss, calling him a “very reputable person.” However, as well as the arrest in Georgia in 2005, a court in Hong Kong last year found that Dan had acted fraudulently by misappropriating bitcoins belonging to someone else. Dan told VICE News that the ruling “occurred because I couldn’t afford to hire an attorney.”
Salant said the company was planning on expanding its reach to Europe this month, but currently only ships to the United States and Canada. But, he said, many European customers are already circumventing this restriction by getting people living in the U.S. to purchase the tablets and mail them to Europe.
The tablets are stored in a distribution center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, according to Salant. But due to their recent increase in popularity among individuals rather than companies, he told VICE News, Safrax has found a new distribution center in Texas, which is due to open soon.
In an apparent attempt to make the company appear legitimate, Safrax has also sold its products with the logo of certification company NSF on its packaging, denoting that the brand has been accredited by the organization and is guaranteed safe. Dan claims that the company in the past had accreditation from NSF but had stopped in 2021 due to the high cost of maintaining it.
When asked to provide evidence of this certification, Dan failed to produce it, though admitted the company should not still be selling products with the NSF logo on its website.
NSF didn’t respond to VICE News’ request for comment but a notice published on the NSF website last year warned Safrax to remove the logo from its packaging.
The FDA declined to comment when VICE News asked if the agency was investigating Safrax for selling chlorine dioxide to people using it to treat autism or other ailments.
Multiple phone numbers listed on the Safrax website went unanswered when VICE News attempted to contact Salant this week, playing a recorded message from Salant asking customers to leave a message or send an email.
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It’s a continuation of the long history of chemical and thermal burns being used to punish neuro-divergent children. Boy with development delays wets himself – – boiling water. Girl with ADHD touches herself – – apply lye. Kid’s been driven to the edge of catatonic schizophrenia by the abuse – – well, then they switch to nails and knives.
This isn’t funny; it’s child abuse. But because evangelical Christianity occupies such a privileged place in American society, no one will lay a finger on him.
Even worse, profiting from the abuse suffered by other people’s children through advocating the administration of sodium hypochlorite to treat (WTF?!?) an inherent characteristic as if it was, what, a symptom of something a little chlorox can clear up?
The arrogance of delusional Christ-o-freaks causes so much harm, yet seems quite lucrative to the predators with any influence over a malleable flock.
This is what happens when a governor and his hired henchmen, playing a public health official, constantly misinform, lie about, and work to spread harmful myths about the much-needed vaccine. Florida’s death rate from Covid is much higher than states that pushed the vaccine. This anti-science fundamentalism is head in the sand denial of facts and reality. I am really not sure of DeathSantis motivation for his crusade to not protect the people in his state. Is it religious fundamentalism, is it for political advantage with people that are unable to understand medical fact or is he a conspiracy believer? Hugs
Matt Rourke/AP
Most Floridians believe COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, but many also believe false information about the vaccines. There is a major divide between Democrats and Republicans. (Matt Rourke/Associated Press)
With COVID on the rise and new vaccines arriving in pharmacies and doctor’s offices, the vast majority of Floridians believe the shots are safe, help prevent the spread of infections, and reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.
Those assessments are validated by the overwhelming majority of public health authorities — and, a statewide poll shows, seven in 10 Floridians.
But the University of South Florida/Florida Atlantic University public opinion survey that probed what people know — or think they know — revealed sizable numbers of Florida residents believe inaccurate assertions about the vaccines.
And that’s a problem, said Stephen Neely, an associate professor at USF’s School of Public Affairs.
“The misinformation unnecessarily costs lives. The CDC has said that. The World Health Organization has said that. And the data confirm that,” Neely said. “It’s disheartening, but it’s the reality that we’re facing right now. … Overall, people perceive vaccines to be generally safe and efficacious. But even among those who do, there’s still pretty widespread belief in some things that are not true.”
Among the findings of the USF/FAU survey, conducted in August:
The biggest factor associated with beliefs in misinformation was political affiliation, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats and independents to agree with a range of false assertions about vaccines. “Unfortunately our best efforts to communicate the truth about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines have not been able to break through these political barriers,” Neely said.
One in four Floridians incorrectly believe the vaccine causes alterations in DNA. Almost as many believe it can cause infertility.
A smaller, but notable, number of Floridians believe one of the most far-out conspiracy theories, that the vaccines contain microchips.
Politics and health
An enormous political gulf has emerged around COVID. And that’s true as well about the vaccines, especially after the initial rush of excitement in late 2020 and early 2021. Vaccinations have become more politically polarized and some people objected to being told what to do and chafed at recommendations from public health authorities.
Despite the belief in various falsehoods — and outspoken vaccine skepticism among some prominent officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis — 66% of Floridians surveyed in August said they were very or somewhat confident in COVID “guidance provided by the CDC and other public health officials.”
And 69% said they were very or somewhat likely to get regular COVID-19 booster shots if recommended by public health officials — which is precisely what the Food and Drug Administration did on Monday and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did on Tuesday.
The CDC recommended that everyone 6 months and older get the latest vaccine, which the agency said “remains the best protection” against COVID-related hospitalization and death and reduces the chances of long COVID.
“I think we all wish COVID would be fully in the rearview mirror, but the reality is, it’s still here with us, it’s still circulating, and it’s still making some people very sick. But the good news is, we have more tools to protect ourselves. We just have to use those tools,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, said on the PBS NewsHour.
Florida has the highest COVID hospitalization rate in the country. Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations were 2,536 during the week ending Sept. 2, the most recent date published by the CDC, up from 951 the week ending July 1.
On Wednesday, DeSantis and the surgeon general he appointed, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, responded to the FDA and CDC by recommending people under age 65 not get the new booster. Cohen decried DeSantis and Ladapo’s move. “Public health experts are in broad agreement about these facts, and efforts to undercut vaccine uptake are unfounded and dangerous,” she said in a statement to news organizations.
That leaves Floridians to decide what advice to follow. Among Floridians surveyed last month, 42% said they were very likely to follow vaccine recommendations “by public health officials.” Other findings: somewhat likely, 27%; somewhat unlikely, 17%, and very unlikely, 15%.
There were significant differences based on political affiliation. Among Democrats, 84% said they were or somewhat likely to get the shots, compared to 69% of independents and 53% of Republicans.
The share who don’t plan to get vaccinated is still too high, said Kenneth Goodman, founder and director of the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.
“It means more people sick, and it kills more people,” he said. Goodman, who was not involved with the survey, said the views it uncovered showed many people believe false statements about the vaccines would translate into a “higher body count.”
Misinformation
Researchers surveyed Floridians in an attempt to understand the impact of public perceptions of vaccines, given the volume of information floating around “particularly in online/digital spaces.”
Neely’s work in public opinion research has delved into COVID since the early days of the pandemic, including a research about people who have defriended others on Facebook because of their views.
To gauge public beliefs, people were given multiple statements and asked whether they believed the claims. The statements were classified by the CDC as “true” or “false,” but respondents weren’t told what was true or false.
There was widespread agreement with three true statements:
COVID-19 vaccines are safe — 71%.
Vaccines help prevent the spread of COVID-19 — 69%.
Vaccines reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19 — 77%.
Statements classified as “false” by the CDC and percentage of Floridians who believe they are true:
Getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine — 51%.
COVID-19 vaccines are causing new variants of the virus to emerge — 42%.
COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA — 26%.
COVID-19 vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus — 49%.
Vaccines can cause you to get sick with COVID-19 — 42%.
Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will cause you to temporarily test positive for the virus — 42%.
Party affiliation
On almost every question, Republicans are far more skeptical of vaccines than Democrats, significantly more likely to believe in statements that the CDC classifies as false, and less likely to believe statements health authorities say are true.
“Attitudes toward the pandemic remain starkly divided along political lines,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.
For example, Democrats were significantly more willing to receive ongoing vaccine boosters than Republicans (84% to 53%).
And Republicans reported lower levels of trust in COVID guidance from public health officials (47% to 88%) than Democrats.
“Politics shapes perception,” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University. “And it’s pretty clear in these numbers that Republican perspective on the world leads you down one path and a Democratic perspective leads you down another.”
Zelden wasn’t involved in the survey.
Statements classified as “false” by the CDC and the percentage of Floridians who believe they are true showed the divide:
Getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine — Democrats, 36%; independents, 53%; Republicans, 67%.
COVID-19 vaccines are causing new variants of the virus to emerge — Democrats, 31%; independents, 43%; Republicans, 48%.
COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA — Democrats, 16%; independents, 28%; Republicans, 32%.
COVID-19 vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus — Democrats, 36%; independents, 48%; Republicans, 57%.
Vaccines can cause you to get sick with COVID-19 — Democrats, 31%; independents, 42%; Republicans, 50%.
Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will cause you to temporarily test positive for the virus — Democrats, 36%; independents, 36%; Republicans, 48%.
Development of some vaccines was accelerated by Operation Warp Speed under former President Donald Trump, and political leaders like DeSantis were initially enthusiastic promoters of vaccination.
But as the pandemic was moving into its second year, many Republicans became much more skeptical. DeSantis ultimately emerged as a vaccine skeptic, and he replaced the Florida surgeon general with Ladapo, a vaccine skeptic.
One effect of the partisan divide: Areas in which President Joe Biden performed better than former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election generally had higher vaccination rates. In July, Yale University researchers who studied Florida and Ohio reported in JAMA Internal Medicine that “excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before.”
In March, Ladapo said that “at this point in the pandemic, I’m not sure anyone should be taking them (vaccines).”
Appearing with DeSantis at a campaign-style event in Sept. 7, Ladapo said there was “no evidence” supporting the new vaccine and asserted there “are a lot of red flags.”
Zelden said the vaccine views reflect an overall shift among many Republicans concerning “attitudes toward government telling you what to do and what not to do, toward expertise. A lot of the culture war positions that the Republicans have challenge existing expertise, because they don’t like what they’re being told. So they question the validity of the underlying science.”
Neely said the survey shows there is no indication that the polarization is easing.
“A lot of us had hoped for a time we could kind of coalesce around a shared scientific understanding,” he said. “Instead, this form of political beliefs around COVID have sort of become a kind of partisan political identity.”
Age, gender
One demographic category stood out: 25- to 44-year-old Floridians.
They had higher beliefs that false information was true — sometimes significantly higher — than other age groups on six of the eight statements considered false by the CDC. In most cases, the belief in the false statements was about 10 percentage points higher among 25- to 44-year-olds than the population as a whole.
Neely said he doesn’t have a good answer for the greater embrace of false information among people aged 25-44. Because it is a large and diverse age group — 25-year-olds are very different from 44-year-olds, Neely said — “it’s a little harder to parse out the meaning.”
He said there may be a lower perceived threat from COVID in that age group “and therefore less urgency to research and talk to your doctor.”
And the oldest group — age 65 and up — had much lower belief in the false claims.
“This is the group that is most at risk for severe COVID illness, the group that is most likely to have spoken to their doctor about a vaccine. They are the least likely to believe in these misinformation themes,” Neel said.
Men and women had almost exactly the same assessments about most of the false statements.
Two exceptions: Men were more likely than women (57% to 45%) to believe getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine, and women were more likely than men to believe (53% to 45%) that the vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus.
Microchips
Even before the first vaccines were administered to the public in December 2020, one conspiracy theory was circulating on the internet: that the shots were being used to inject tiny devices allowing people to be tracked.
Many people regarded the notion as a joke and mocked the idea. But it became fairly widespread; a July 2021 YouGov/Economist poll found 20% of Americans said it was definitely or probably true that the U.S. government was using the vaccines to microchip the population. Though 65% said that was definitely or probably false, many public public health organizations and news media outlets debunked the idea.
And it is believed by enough people that it’s refuted by the CDC website: “FACT: COVID-19 vaccines do not contain microchips. Vaccines are developed to fight against disease and are not administered to track your movement.”
Yet the August USF/FAU poll found 14% of Floridians said the claim that the vaccines contain microchips was definitely or possibly true.
“That conspiracy theory has proven more troublesome than we expected at first,” Neely said. “We’re sadly confident that this is the correct number that believe in that particular misinformation theme.”
That’s one area in the survey in which there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between Democrats (12%) and Republicans (13%).
And it was the only false statement included in the survey in which independents had a slightly higher belief (16%) than Republicans. In all other areas, Republicans had a higher percentage of people accepting the misinformation.
There were variations by age, with people aged 25-44 more likely to say the microchip statement was true and people 65 and older far less likely to say it was true.
The microchip belief, broken down by age, was: 18-24 — 17%; 25-44 — 23%; 45-64 — 12%, and 65 and older — 5%.
To Goodman, Neely and Zelden said the overall share of people buying the microchip theory is in line with Americans’ acceptance of all sorts of conspiracy theories.
“This is your basic conspiracy theory,” Zelden said. “That 14% is about the percentage that believe in most conspiracy theories.”
Goodman said “that 14% were out there for other things too: that the moon landing was staged, the world was created 4,000 years ago, and bitcoins are great investment.”
Neely said the result is consistent with previous surveys, and the result is an accurate assessment of Floridians beliefs in the microchip theory — and not a case of people parking the poll by claiming a belief in the microchip theory.
He said it is possible that some people don’t understand what is meant by microchips and so aren’t equating it with the conspiracy theory that microchips are being implanted in people via vaccines so they can be tracked.
Infertility
The survey found 24% of Floridians believe vaccines can cause infertility. The CDC doesn’t state this is false, Neely said, but that there is no evidence in support.
Concerns about fertility have gotten attention since the early days of the vaccine, perhaps most prominently by entertainer Nicki Manaj, who in September 2021 said she wasn’t vaccinated and told her 22.6 million followers on the social media platform then known as Twitter that her cousin’s friend had become impotent after getting the shot.
A wide range of medical experts debunked the assertion. Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, an associate professor of urology at the University of Miami, wrote at the time that the truth was the opposite of what Minaj said, that the virus that causes COVID — not the vaccine — poses a risk for both erectile dysfunction and male infertility.
Many Floridians believe it does cause infertility.
The survey reported 33% of people aged 25-44 — who are in peak childbearing years — believe the vaccines cause infertility, 9 percentage points higher than the overall population.
Other big believers in the infertility statement: 29% of Republicans and 24% of independents.
Democrats (15%) and people 65 and older (12%) were less likely to believe it.
As with many statements on the survey, there was little difference between men (22%) and women (25%.)
Most say effective
Most Floridians rated the vaccines as effective.
On preventing infection, 71% said they were very or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 86%; independents, 72%; Republicans, 56%.
On preventing hospitalizations, 79% said they were very or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 92%; independents, 81%; Republicans, 67%.
On preventing death from COVID-19, 78% said they were effective or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 91%; independents, 80%; Republicans, 67%.
And most Floridians — 66% — expressed confidence in the COVID guidance provided by the CDC and other public health officials.
Floridians were very confident (31%), somewhat confident (35%), not very confident (18%) and not at all confident (16%).
Very and somewhat confident ranged from 88% among Democrats to 47% among Republicans. As with almost all questions on the survey, independents were in between, at 65%.
Goodman said he’d like to see much more information into people’s COVID and vaccine beliefs, and the behavior it encourages.
“This is no longer politics, this is anthropology. How do you get ordinary people to believe in preposterous things,” Goodman said. “Why are some of the people willing not just to believe, but to embrace the preposterous?”
The fine print
Researchers from the University of South Florida and Florida Atlantic University, sponsored by the Florida Center for Cybersecurity, surveyed 600 Florida adults. The poll was conducted Aug. 10 to 21 using an online survey through market research firm Prodege MR.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Because subgroups (such as Democrats and Republicans or men and women) are smaller than in the overall poll, the margins of error are higher for those groups.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Facebook, Threads.net and Post.news.
Scottie's Playtime 