Right now, Minnesota has a conservative/centrist Democrat as governor. It would be nice if we had a reasonable set of alternatives to vote for in the next election, but I fear I’m going to have to vote for gun-nut Walz again, because the Republicans have announced who they’re putting on the ballot: Scott Jensen, an MD from Chaska, one of those suburban towns that ring Minneapolis/St Paul and that spawn horrible creatures like Bachmann who embarrass us with their open endorsement idiocy.
Guess what his positions are: he thinks COVID wasn’t as bad as the government says it is, and didn’t warrant the disruption of our economy. When all the piles of dead people were pointed out to him, he trivialized them and claimed that the numbers were inflated.
I think that what we have, when you say killed, I would say that COVID-19 may well have played a part. I would say that if this is a person who’s dying of stage 4 colon cancer, and COVID was diagnosed in the last 48 to 72 hours and it was put down as a COVID death I think that’s problematic.
How nice to know as I get older, the value of the days of my life are less and less valuable.
You can trust Dr Jensen, though! He’s an authority!
I studied epidemiology in 1976 and ‘77 when I was in dental school.
Wow. He took a class more than 40 years ago, so now he’s an expert.
He’s also anti-choice. He wants to ban all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
I would try to ban abortion, I think that we’re we’re basically in a situation where we should be governed by … there is no reason for us to be having abortions going out. We have tremendous opportunities and availability of birth control. We don’t need to be snuffing out lives that if left alone will produce a viable newborn, that may go on to be the next Albert Einstein. We can be so much better than we’ve been. We do not need to be having Hillary Clinton casually discuss the value and the reasonableness of late third trimester abortions, when you’ve got literally, you’ve got a life that’s a few inches away from passing through a birth canal and being the source of tremendous love. And we’re saying no, if mom changes your mind, she can go ahead and slice and dice it and be done with it. I don’t think that’s where we want to be.
I guess our lives are on a sliding scale, from incredibly precious before birth to casually discardable in your old age. What’s most important isn’t the life you’ve lived, but rather the potential of the days you have remaining.
I guess I’ll be punching Walz’s name in the next election.
Regarding this Republican idiot, and the future ahead.
I am currently reading Neal Stephenson’s SF novel ‘Fall, Or Dodge In Hell’ about a near future where there is no consensus reality, the on-line stream of messages and information is automatically edited to your preferences. This is making the various groups of Truthers the majority in increasing swathes of land across USA. “Ameristan” is gobbling up rural areas first in the South and slowly creeping north. The three centuries of enlightenment are drawing to a close, thanks to technology.
All of this is described in a way that looks frighteningly plausible.
😫
Late trimester abortions are extremely rare. You can see the number on the CDC website.
The goober might claim the Evil Government is lying and the real number is much higher. But if the number stayed roughly the same during Trump, it means Donald Trump was in on the conspiracy!
Someone should confront the idiot on this issue.
Fill in the trailing ellipsis: “I think that we’re we’re basically in a situation where we should be governed by …”
???
We have an actual proud boy running here in Oregon. The Republican primary here is a real shit show. Pro-life, all lives matter, replacement theory, all the crazy is on full display this year.
@3 hemidactylus
CATS!
I think the analogy is this: Birth is just like driving the new car off the lot. We lose half our value as soon as we leave the womb. Perhaps that is why most men spend their entire lives in a struggle to get back in.
@5, Surely you mean spiders?
(“Shelob for governor!” suggests the mildly deranged penguin, with the legislature called “Mirkwood.”)
This guy is worse than PZ notes. He is an antivaxxer quack.
What we’ve found is that the immunity to the vaccines declines rather rapidly. It also declines rather rapidly if you have antibodies acquired by getting the Covid-19 virus itself.
He would definitely kill thousands or tens of thousands in Minnesota if he could.
@7 blf
No cat’s for me. They can be bribed with scritches and treats, and I’m good at skritches and treats. Spiders can’t be bribed, which is probably a good thing, but they also don’t do much besides eat. I guess they would be the Reform Party. So still probably better than the Libertarian Squirrels.
I’m not seeing that Jensen’s Friends of the Covid-19 Virus political position is going to work all that well.
Only 22% of the US population are antivaxxers.
And in fact, 55% of the GOP have been…vaccinated.
Being a reality denier during a pandemic isn’t a survival trait.
My idiot antivaxxer neighbor decided in January that the Covid-19 virus pandemic was over with and he didn’t have to wear masks or be careful any more. He caught the virus and died.
Well if babies are the source of love then making sure there are as many babies as possible should more than cancel out all of the hate these fuckers spew, right? Right?
Hmmm.
This is ironic.
Minnesota’s favorite lunatic fringer and antivaxxer, Michele Bachmann is now seriously ill with a Covid-19 virus infection.
No surprise. It’s an antivaxxer thing.
Again with the Einstein. Every aborted fetus would have been the next Einstein. Fuck.
Given what I know of his politics, if there were another Einstein, guys like this “goober” would be calling him a woke leftist radical communist groomer pedophile–and chanting “send him back.”
@13, And Einstein was an immigrant, a scientist, “working” at some elite isolated tower where they admitted those people, etc, etc.
Or the next Adolf Hitler.
…
No, scratch that response – half of these shitbags would consider that an even better reason to forbid abortion.
So Scott Jensen values older people less than young.
And Repubs are over-represented among elderly. Fight fire with fire.
(Creates a fake identity as conservative, then grabs a bullhorn): “SCOTT JENSEN WANTS TO TURN YOU INTO SOYLENT GREEN!”
Hemidactylus @ 3
“AIs cloned from my uploaded brain!”
If it is not too late go enter the primary, you should totally enter as a Republican and attack the goober from the right. It will be easy to point out contradictions, or times he has had different opinions than Lord Trump. Force him to defend himself by endorsing increasingly extreme positions.
PZ, please ask Borat to visit Scott Jensen. It will be hilarious.
@16. birgerjohansson : Problem is too many older folks like too many working class folks & others have decided they don’t care and will be conned into voting against their own groups interests because .. well, dunno. Because they expect it won’t be them or those they love that pay the price only others they don’t care about or actively hate instead. For .. reezonzz.. somehow..
Common surnasme buit Oz has acoupleof toxic religious bigotr Jensens (plural) of its own :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jensen_(bishop)
Dunno if this helps or if there’s any relationship between these klowns.. See also his similarly religiously & homophically bigoted brother Phillip Jensen & theoologian son Michael Jensen on wiki too.
Until me and my buddies on SCOTUS get around to it.
As long as it is “left alone” inside a living host that may not be willing to carry it for the next 9 months, but he don’t care about that.
Sure, but OTOH it may go on to be next Scott Jensen.
StevoR et al
The Young Turks found a video of two rural gentlemen explaining why they will not take the vaccine. It is hilarious.
https://youtu.be/Xjy-UKm4iqU
“They are the salt of the Earth. You know…morons.”
Blazing Saddles.
There is a candidate for governor of California whose entire statement in the voter handbook reads…
“F all politicians.”
@25, That’s Mariana Dawson (link is to her campaign site), who — after an admittedly very Very quick skim of that site — isn’t presenting themselves as a rightwing nutjob per se but rather a very confused mishmash, albeit does seem to favor commanding over cooperating. Perhaps my current favourite bit, , as-if such a thing could be magicked-up by executive order. Also quite anti-environment, wanting to cut fuel taxes & traffic fines. And wants to get rid of all US military bases (in California) and large corporations; and wants concentration camps for the homeless.
“We have tremendous opportunities and availability of birth control”
So I was working out the numbers on this over on Pervert Justice, and discovered that even if there weren’t any abortions due to medical reasons or because of rape or reproductive coercion, the people in the USA who could potentially get pregnant but don’t want to (enough that they’d get an abortion if they did get pregnant) must be using really effective birth control – with an average actual effectiveness of over 97% or so. “Effective birth control” is not an argument – it is being used.
Of course I understand they don’t actually care about that, and in fact would rather get rid of a lot of the most effective options we have – but the argument seems to be persuasive, so I like pointing out it’s wrong.
Re: blf @ #26…
There is historical precedent for “concentration camps for the homeless.” There were called “poor houses”.
So she’s against large corporations…. PG&E? Disney? Oracle? Intel? Apple? As for military bases…the R’s in Congress will be happy to help. As it is, we’ve got a lot fewer than we used to have and a few of them have actually turned over to civilian uses.
It would seem that “third trimester abortions” has become the go-to meme for the talibangelical right these days…and facts like the rarity or medical necessity of the ones that do occur seem to bounce right off them. They keep coming up with the “post-birth abortion” myth or the “near birth” abortion nonsense like it’s real. And for fetuses born before 24 weeks, access to, or lack of maternal health insurance seems to be a better predictor of newborn survival than anything else…welcome to ‘Murrica!
There’s a reason they call it the Goober Notorious Race.