The Irony Board: Personal Freedoms

Gee, the Republicans are running into a bit of backlash on their whole "people have the right not to vaccinate their kids" talking points. That whole personal freedom thing is a little more complicated that they thought, it seems.

For a while now, the R's have inserted little lines into their state party platforms, like this excerpt from the Texas GOP platform in 2014:

All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves, or their minor children,without penalty for refusing a vaccine.  We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that wold contain personal records of citizens without their consent. 

Obviously, personal freedoms, particularly personal medical freedoms, are very important in Texas and in many other red states.

The same folks who believe that people have the right to vax or not vax don't seem to have any problem with kids who are not vaccinated hanging out with other kids in school, day care centers, playgrounds, Chuck E Cheeses, bounce houses and birthday parties and all the rest, even if the personal choice of a parent can in fact jeopardize other people's children. And when there is no way of knowing whether the kids present have been vaccinated or not.

And there's no legitimate reason for the government to jeopardize anyone's right to participate in society, to go freely about their lives as a citizen, exercising their personal freedoms, right?

So where on the personal freedom continuum, do some of these typically Republican-supported ideas, regulations, and strongly held beliefs fall?

• Limiting the right of a person to vote, by reducing hours at urban polling stations, or requiring government-issued ID to allow a person to vote, but not automatically issuing said government ID (and vehemently opposing a national ID card), or not allowing a person to leave a voting line once they're in it, or other foolish steps that have been taken under the guise of preventing virtually non-existent in-person voting fraud in America? (Joe Biden would have said 'literally non-existent' and he wouldn't have been far off.)
• Forcing women to undergo invasive medical procedures like trans-vaginal ultrasounds? 
• Keeping people on life support against the wishes of the patient and family?
• Extending benefits to one class of Americans that you would refuse to pass to another class of Americans because they exercised their own personal freedom of speech?
• Declaring that judicial candidates must have a 'biblical' world-view but also insisting that certain religions assimilate or referring to them as a 'cancer' ? 

Chris Christie, who put a healthy, symptom-free Ebola worker in a plastic bubble in New Jersey, until she could leave the state (and go into forced quarantine in Maine), apparently doesn't see the irony between that action and his statements in England about 'personal choice' when it comes to vaccines.  But if he was right on Ebola, can he also be right on vaccinations?

Well, of course, silly! As the blustery,belligerent Governor of New Jersey, he has the right to protect the people of his state.

And as a blustery, belligerent potential presidential candidate, he has to protect the state of the people on the Right. 

Poll Watch: Post Midterm Edition

Here's a smattering of what's happening out there, according to what we tell pollsters.

Most of it is political, given that we've just come from 'that election' last week, which 'shellacking' falls short of adequately describing.  Dems lost the Senate, several gubernatorial races which they thought they might have had a chance of grabbing, and a couple others, including Massachusetts.

On the other hand, it was not all a lost cause; progressive initiatives such as raising the minimum wage scored a few wins, and legalized marijuana scattered a few more seeds of change.

Now, before anyone gets too overwrought or overjoyed with the results, here's some food for thought from Rasmussen Reports:

• President Obama's overall approval rating has actually improved three points since the election, up to 48% from 45%.  The media and political consultants tried to make this election about the President and his negative rating, but here's the thing they don't tell you:  for 56 of his 70 months in office, his total approval rating has been between 45% and 49% --  including all of 2010, 2011, and so far in 2014, two-thirds (eight months) of 2013 and three quarters (nine months) of 2012. 
• Yes, Americans voted in a Republican majority in the Senate, and expanded the majority in the House but a majority of us (59%) think that the new Congress will be a disappointment.
• Not sure whether there's a correlation, but 35% of us have a drink at least once a week. Of the imbibers, 25% of them drink several times a week or every day.  The questions didn't include "have you had a drink today?" but one can only figure that, if political candidates were surveyed last Tuesday, the number raising a glass to that question would have been very high. 

Remember Ebola? You know, that "issue" facing America that surfaced in ads from the right-wing interest groups right before the elections?  That "issue" that right-wing anti-czaristas like John McCain felt needed an czar? Yeah, turns out not so much.  According to a Fox News poll from the end of October, most Americans were not on board with that. 

• When asked whether they thought appointing an Ebola czar was a PR stunt or a serious attempt to address the problem, only 23% thought it was a serious attempt.  That would be Republicans elected officials, apparently.  Two thirds of us know better.

The Pew Research Journalism Project took a look at media habits of folks, and have some interesting findings on which media sources are trusted, and by whom.  

• Not surprisingly, 47% of people who identify as consistent conservatives get their news from Fox. Consistent liberals are all over the map, with CNN (15%) NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) sitting on top of the heap. 
• When it comes to trusting media sources,  the consistent conservatives trust more than distrust only these: The Wall Street Journal; The Blaze (Glenn Beck's outlet) and Glen Beck himself; Fox News; Sarah Palin-favorite Breitbart News Network; the Drudge Report; Sean Hannity; and Rush Limbaugh. Consistent liberals, on the other hand, trust most than distrust 28 of the 36 media sources, including both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Which at least reaffirms they have a sense of humor. 
• Everyone apparently trusts more than distrusts The Wall Street Journal. Of the news sources mentioned, it's the only one that received a 'trust' from all groups, which in addition to consistently liberal and consistently conservative also included mostly liberal, mostly conservative, and mixed. On the flip side, Buzzfeed is the only one distrusted by folks of all stripes. 
• Of the major networks, only ABC captured trust ratings from all but the consistent conservatives. (Note to NBC: perhaps paying hiring inexperienced children of former presidents is not helping your credibility as a news organization?)
• I wonder what the trust score would have been for Inforwars, home of the false flag?

Speaking of  mostly distrusted Buzzfeed, they're sharing access (with the afore-mentioned highly trusted ABC News) to Facebook's 'sentiment analysis' data, which aims to analyze user preferences based on what gets posted. Looking ahead to 2016, here's a sampling of who's hot:

• Pianist/golfer/former Bush Administration hawk Condi Rice (72%), Medicare-slashing budgetarian and former Veep candidate Paul Ryan (65%), union-busting governor Scott Walker (57%) and Rand Paul (56%) on the Republican side
• Literally Joe Biden (67%), Hillary "what difference at this point does it make" Clinton (57%), Elizabeth "a better Hillary than Hillary" Warren (56%) and our own Sonofa Governor, Andrew Cuomo (56%).  

As I said, liberals sure do have a good sense of humor. They're going to need one for a while.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v8)

Nancy Snyderman, the NBC News doctor who didn't pay attention to her voluntary Ebola quarantine, is now officially free to pick up soup in Princeton, NJ. And Ashoka Mukpo, the freelance cameraman who Snyderman associated with in Liberia, and who was diagnosed with the disease, is now Ebola-free and has been released from the hospital.

The two nurses who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who succumbed to the disease, are doing better since contracting Ebola, according to reports.

Syracuse University rescinded an invitation to an award-winning photojournalist, on the 21st day of his symptom-free return to the US from covering the Ebola epidemic; they'll have him back later, if he's willing.

Idiots who yell "I have Ebola" on buses, planes, trains and automobiles, are not making any more appearances.

That leaves politicians and their associates in the media as the last remaining Ebola constituency we continue to hear from; they make (or grab) the headlines, and monger fear with their calls for border closings and flight bans and the like.

I'd love to know what their thoughts are on the statements below, which were included in a letter submitted by Dr. Thomas Welch, Medical Director of Syracuse's Golisano Children's Hospital.  The full letter is a worth a look; these excerpts will give you a sense of  that.

Preening politicians, ever ready for cameras, harass one of the world's most expert public health professionals in a theatrical performance billed as a Congressional hearing.

Children, including some in Syracuse, die in the US every year from vaccine-preventable diseases. Where are the Congressional hearings demanding to know why parents can "opt out" of immunizations and send their children to school, putting everyone elses's children at risk of fatal disease?

Thousands of Americans die of influenza, a disease which can be prevented by immunization and spread through the air.  Where are the calls for restrictions on air travel by unimmunized travelers or those with coughs?  

The economies of these impoverished regions are drawing to a standstill. The devastation of the disease will be followed by famine, and likely, political and social collapse. Such conditions breed terrorism and even worse political instability. This is the real threat of Ebola, not an American returning from vacation on a plane with a Liberian. This is the face of Ebola, not a stranded luxury cruise liner outside Belize. 

Would our politicians recognize themselves in these comments?  For example, I'm thinking specifically of the ones who wrote the Republican platform for the state of Texas, ground zero for Ebola in America, which addresses (in the worst possible way) the immunization issue Dr. Welch discusses in his letter:

All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves, or their minor children, without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent. 

Would our media companies recognize themselves?  Perhaps the major news organizations might see a chance to step back from the panic (Shep Smith being a notable exception)?

I'm wondering, on Wednesday.

What Was She Thinking?

Statement from NBC News*

 Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the chief medical editor for NBC News, had been in Liberia covering the Ebola epidemic, and while there, worked with a free-lance cameraman who contracted the disease and is currently being treated.

popscreen.com photo

Snyderman and others of our team were brought home shortly after the cameraman was diagnosed, and were asked to honor a 'voluntary quarantine' lasting 21 days, during which they would be monitored for symptoms. 

As a "health professional" (which is how Dr. Snyderman refers to herself), she should have known better than to go out in public while under quarantine, and should have done everything in her power to prevent other members of the group from doing the same.

Sadly, that was not the case: multiple media outlets have reported that Snyderman and others were seen in a car outside a popular New Jersey restaurant, and that one of the people left the vehicle, went into the restaurant, and came back with soup. For that, we are deeply sorry. 

 In a statement that's being read on all of our broadcasts, Snyderman notes that she and others "remain healthy" and their "temperatures are normal" and that she  is "deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused" but she does not state that she herself violated the quarantine, only that "members of our group" did. For her lack of candor at this time, we are deeply sorry. 

While we talked with Dr. Snyderman, and were happy to read her statement, we made no mention of the specific incident which led us to this point, instead generically mentioning that Snyderman has been in the news. We did not report on our own employee's ill-advised behavior, and for that we are deeply sorry. 

The strongest message that Dr. Snyderman could have delivered at this time was to obey the voluntary quarantine, and  follow the advice of those who are best equipped and experienced with combating something like Ebola, which Snyderman, a cardiologist, is less prepared to do.  Instead, she chose to ignore the request. For her ignorance, we are deeply sorry.

She and her team are now under mandatory quarantine for the remainder of the 21-day period.  Police are now patrolling the area where Snyderman and members of her group are staying, probably as much to protect them from potential threats from the angry, frightened, confused and disillusioned people of Princeton as to ensure that the group stays inside for the duration of the quarantine. For the extra costs and the disruption to the people of Princeton, we are deeply sorry. 

Whether or not you believe that Ebola is a threat to Americans at home, and whether or not you believe the quarantine was necessary, are not at issue here. What is at issue are the actions taken by Snyderman and others under her sphere of influence. We strongly believe that her actions were irresponsible, and that they have embarrassed all of us here at NBC. For that, we are deeply sorry. 

We also strongly believe that the best place for you to get the medical information you need is from your doctor, and from your local public health officials, not from our photogenic medical editor or from our broadcasts. 

*which we'll see maybe on the twelfth of never.