Anti-vaxxer family gets what it deserves

Jerome/Bill Kunkel

THE CHICKENPOX. Kentucky teen, Jerome Kunkel, was banned from his school, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Assumption Academy, for refusing a chickenpox vaccination due to religious beliefs. Well, his religion has just resulted in a case of the chickenpox. This proves that school officials were right in keeping him out of school, and just another example of the stupidity of these anti-vaxxers. He could have passed around the disease all over his school.

But Bill Kunkel, the kid's father, "says it’s the 'best thing to do' to become immune." Sure, and during the "becoming immune" phase, usually an unknown period, other children in school catch the chickenpox. These people are dangerous and that is why I feel they should all be corralled together and catch whatever they want from each other. The Washington Post piece shows a picture of father, son with the Christ statue in the background.

They filed a lawsuit through their attorney, Chris Wiest, with some 24 other students who joined in the lawsuit since it was filed, many of whom now infected with chickenpox in the past two months and have religious exemptions against vaccinations. And apparently Jerome caught the measles from his unvaccinated cousins, which clearly shows their friends and the whole family is nuts. Attorney Wiest commented...

“This is a stupid ban that’s never going to work, and absolutely ridiculous in this context where they go to church upstairs every day together,” Wiest said. “We are not at all surprised. This is exactly what we told the court would happen. Over half my clients contracted chickenpox and had no complications, and now they have a lifetime immunity.”

Sounds like the church should be investigated by the health department. Here's what the Northern Kentucky Health Department had to say...

"In a Wednesday statement, the Northern Kentucky Health Department said Wiest’s encouragement for his clients to 'actively' contract the disease to achieve immunity is 'deeply concerning' and bad medical advice."

This kind of fight is probably raging all around the country and it is time for someone to establish parameters. If it is determined that vaccinations outweigh the individual's right to deny them, then laws should be passed. We are currently experiencing an epidemic of the measles and we certainly don't want a pandemic. 

Renown Yale psychiatrist: Muller Report proves Trump is mentally challenged

Dr. Lee and her study

A recent report by Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, a renowned expert on violence and forensic psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, was sent to Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. She is also president of the World Mental Health Coalition and editor of the New York Times bestseller, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.”

It is a mental health analysis of the Mueller report "replete with information for a mental health interpretation." Lee says to Raw Story...

"Seldom do we have such voluminous information on a person’s behavior, verified at the level of sworn testimony. Hence, my colleagues and I saw this as a part of our ongoing, primary professional responsibility to protect society and to warn against potential harm to public health, as our ethics and the law require. The report is an attempt to continue educating the public."

Pretty clear we're are talking about the Donald Trump White House and his administration and already this is very scary. Lee says that the voluminous special counsel’s report "could not be more informative about mental capacity, which is what the report addresses. Mental capacity is the ability to make sound, rational, reality-based decisions free of impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, and false beliefs." It gets scarier. Lee says further...

"A person can have a severe mental illness, for example, but be receiving proper treatment and function perfectly well—the presence of mental illness really says nothing about job performance. On the other hand, someone may not have a mental illness but still be incompetent and lacking in the basic capacities to do a job."

And for those who question no one-on-one between Lee and Trump...

"For a functional exam, a personal interview is not as important as observations by the person’s coworkers and colleagues of one’s actual performance, and this is why the special counsel’s report is so valuable." 

Raw story wanted to know what the report said...

"Our report is quite damning. What the special counsel’s report revealed, through consistent and abundant data, was a pervasive and profound pattern of lack of capacity."

 Folks, Dr. Lee is talking about the man who sits in the Oval Office, in control of the most powerful country in the world. Just scarier and scarier. More snippets of her findings...

lack of basic comprehension--faulty information processing--lack of sound decision making--behavior that places oneself or others in danger

Lee adds: "These are crucial failures in the basic components of mental capacity test, which in his [Donald Trump] position constitute a medical emergency that requires a response." There's much more in the Raw Story report and I recommend that you read it. What is clear here is the fact that Donald Trump may not be competent to serve as President of the United States and should be required to have a complete psychiatric examination at once.

Dreaded anti-vaxxers still resist the truth

They did and social media lied

Robert Reich doesn't didn't think it was much fun. Oh sure, we got to stay home from school and mom gave you pretty much anything you wanted, within reason. But it was a disease that none of your friends wanted so they stayed away from you like the plague; as they should have. And then along came measles vaccinations in 1963 and soon after the same for mumps (1967) and rubella (1969). By 2000, all were basically eradicated.

Anti-vaxxers should be required to read the history of measles (a short version here) and then decide if they want to go through the pain of having to expunge the disease again. There was a resurgence of measles in the United States between 1989 and 1991, then it quietly went away in the early 1990s. At that point we worked hard on ridding the country of the illness, which became official in 2,000.

But wait, along came the dreaded anti-vaxxers, resisting vaccinations for their children, when many of these same parents had been vaccinated as a child, and turned the infected kids loose on society. Others came down with the disease and passed it around the country to over 23 states with the outbreak now totaling at least 764. There is also an outbreak in Europe where they have 34,000 cases. All because a gang of mentally depraved parents made some very bad decisions.

With New York's new law they have cited 84 individuals for not getting their kids vaccinated, resulting in a fine of $1,000. The NIH says Anti-vaxxers threaten U.S. workplace, economy, The UK's health secretary Matt Hancock claims anti-vaxxers have blood on their hands. And one of my latest posts, Vaccine exemption bills on rise despite measles outbreak. Popular Science says
"This is already the worst year for measles since 1994."

Based on the unvaccinated given us by anti-vaxxers, PS provides the following stats...

"we're still accumulating new outbreaks, some of them in places that researchers predicted were at risk due to low vaccination rates. Portland, Houston, and Kansas City all had small outbreaks and were identified as risky areas in a 2018 PLoS Medicine study. The outbreak in Clark County, Washington, just across the state border from Portland, Oregon, has been the most widely covered. Now the Detroit area is also experiencing a substantial one in precisely the county the paper predicted.

Predicted because these are the areas in which the dreaded anti-vaxxers work their madness. 

Wanna know why Donald Trump won't release his taxes?

Show of disgust for Donald Trump

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has told Richard Neal, D-Massachusetts, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, that he won't be getting President Donald Trump's tax returns. CNN says this will result in the form of a subpoena, a contempt vote or a lawsuit. Because of the Oval Office lunatic, the Democrats are spending most of their time lately with threats and subpoenas. The question, of course, is will this all result in exposing the deceit of T-rump's administration?

On the other hand, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and IRS because the Trump organization hasn't responded to her request for tax information. T-rump loves lawsuits, but he prefers being on the complainant side rather than the receiving side. With recent loses in the Trump businesses of $1 billion over the past 10-years, you'd think he'd be running out of money. Hell, he'll just borrow more.

Mnuchin's actual statement...

"In reliance on the advice of the Department of Justice, I have determined that the Committee's request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, and ... the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information."

Another typical Donald Trump move, but CNN's Chris Cillizza thinks he knows why the Oval Office lunatic won't release his taxes...

1) Trump is not as rich as he says; 2) He has Russia ties; 3) He didn't pay many (or any) taxes; 4) He donates no (or very little) money to charity

Each of these could be embarrassing to all but the loyal Trump supporters who are ill-informed and mentally challenged. Trump actually said during the 2016 campaign that he would release his tax returns, but this, along with most things he says, turned out to be a lie. And the 'I'm under audit' excuse isn't valid since "there is no law that forbids a president -- or any citizen -- from releasing their taxes while under audit."

We just have to assume that Donald Trump has so much to hide as far as his taxes are concerned, that it could ruin his reputation and shame him for life. But not sure he has the mental capacity to actually understand that.

The disgraceful Mitch McConnell lies to Congress

Who the hell does Mitch McConnell think he is by assuming that he has the right to close the Mueller probe with a quick statement and a wave of the hand? This arrogant and obnoxious oaf is described in an Esquire article by Charles P. Pierce as a person who...

So he thinks

"Will Not Act in Good Faith, Even When the Security of the Country Is at Stake."

That's heavy but not unexpected. The Senate dictator has performed feats of unbelievable proportions solely for the sake of his ego and the Republican Party in the past, while completely ignoring the good of the country. But getting back to the headline and the fact that McConnell lied on the Senate floor, ThinkProgress says...

"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke from the floor Tuesday and lied about several aspects of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election."

He stated emphatically that the investigation (Mueller probe) was finally over so the Democrats should accept that fact and move on. He then rambled on...

“What we’ve seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown. An absolute inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion from the special counsel’s report, which said the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. That’s the conclusion.”

A bare-faced lie since Robert Mueller's report did not draw any conclusions, and over 450 ex-prosecutors have stated "special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he holds." The maniac continues...

“Two years of exhaustive investigation and nothing to establish the fanciful conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians and TV talking heads had treated like a foregone conclusion. They told everyone there had been a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign. Yet … the special counsel’s finding is clear. Case closed.”

Well, it isn't, and nothing this moron can say will change the fact that it is pretty much universal that Donald Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, protected only by the chair he sits in. Now "the Democratic controlled-House Judiciary Committee has requested Mueller testify as early as next week to discuss the report and investigation," according to CNN. Schumer rebuked McConnell...

"Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to McConnell, saying 'it's not done' and accused the majority leader of 'whitewashing' Trump's conduct and attempting to protect the President from accountability." 

"The leader says, 'Let's move on. It's sort of like Richard Nixon saying let's move on at the height of the investigation of his wrongdoing."

The comparison with Nixon is highly appropriate, but just wish Chuck Schumer had been more critical of his mentally challenged colleague.

Vaccine exemption bills on rise despite measles outbreak

It is hard to believe the number of lawmakers, federal, state and local, that have the mentality of a goose egg. In spite of the fact that we now have 764 cases of measles in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, legislation to exempt is on the rise. However, bills that fine people who fail to vaccinate are gaining attention

It is hard to comprehend this stupid reasoning of exemptions when these people should be working together to pass bills that would require parents to vaccinate their children. This is not a matter of free choice when parents send their unvaccinated kid to school to infect fellow students and teachers, who then go out and infect the rest of the population. The actual "rights" that exist here are those of the individuals who do not want to be exposed to the disease.

The Business Insider reports...

"On Sunday, Germany's health minister proposed fining parents of school-age children who haven't received a measles inoculation up to $2,790."

"On the heels of a historic outbreak of measles in New York City last month, officials ordered people in four affected zip codes to get vaccines, with anyone failing to do so facing fines of up to $1,000."

I would think fines actually imposed and not just promised would be an excellent means of telling these halfwit anti-vaxxers that a sane public means business. 72% of the public says that parents should be required to vaccinate their children. The NBC/WSJ poll also found that, "There is also variation between different age groups, with Americans ages 35-49 least likely to support required vaccinations." This is interesting in that this is the group most likely to have children.

The Washington Post has actually mapped out measles cases showing where the current outbreaks are with comparisons of years in the past. The report also includes documentation of exemptions...

"Parents in 17 states can opt out of vaccinating their children if they cite personal or philosophical objections. All states have medical exemption laws since some people cannot be vaccinated because of health issues, such as weakened immune systems. Almost all states grant religious exemptions for people who have religious beliefs against immunization."

An epidemic is defined as a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time. Not only is the measles outbreak widespread within communities (like New York state) it is widespread across the country, as illustrated on the Washington Post map. I know the Mueller Report is important but at least people aren't dying from it, at least not yet and as far as I know. 

BREAKING: Trump uses executive privilege to block Mueller Report

More Trump obstruction daily

Well, it happened, the Oval Office lunatic has exerted executive privilege to block the Mueller Report from being released to the public. Nancy Pelosi said...

“Every single day the president is making a case — he's becoming self-impeachable, in terms of some of the things he's doing.”

The Hill reported House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), said...

“This decision represents a clear escalation in the Trump administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’s constitutionally mandated duties. I hope that the department will think better of this last minute outburst and return to negotiations.”

The grueling question is, will all this flak the Democrats are giving Donald Trump come back to haunt them in an increase in his favorability rating, and will it prove helpful to the GOP in 2020? T-rump also continues to refuse to turn over his tax records from past years and there is a fight to obtain these by the Dems. Nadler accused the Trump administration of...

“unprecedented obstruction” in his opening remarks and argued that Trump had already waived executive privilege “long ago” in the course of the Mueller investigation.

There seems no end to what this maniac will do to protect the information that over 450 ex-prosecutors have said clearly stated in writing that he has obstructed justice. There can't really be a winner in all this.