Julia Ioffe:
I've Got Whooping Cough. Thanks a Lot, Jenny McCarthy.
There’s a reason that we associate the whooping cough with the Dickensian: It is. The illness has, since the introduction of a pertussis vaccine in 1940, has been conquered in the developed world. For two or three generations, we’ve come to think of it as an ailment suffered in sub-Saharan Africa or in Brontë novels. And for two or three generations, it was.
Until, that is, the anti-vaccination movement really got going in the last few years. Led by discredited doctors and, incredibly, a former Playmate, the movement has frightened new parents with claptrap about autism, Alzheimer’s, aluminum, and formaldehyde. The movement that was once a fringe freak show has become a menace, with foot soldiers whose main weapon is their self-righteousness. For them, vaccinating their children is merely a consumer choice, like joining an organic food co-op or sending their kids to a Montessori school or drinking coconut water.
The problem is that it is not an individual choice; it is a choice that acutely affects the rest of us.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008— "Compromise" and the Lieberman fiasco:
No one is considering expelling Lieberman from the caucus. That's a straw man set up by Lieberman's people to try and muddy the waters. But if the issue is "compromise" as I've highlighted in the quote above, then that means Lieberman has to give something in return. A "compromise" isn't "give Lieberman everything he wants.
Now now, I know that in our Democratic Congress the last two years, "compromise" has been "give Bush everything he wants", so it's perfectly natural for the pseudo-Republican Joe Lieberman to think nothing has changed. And maybe nothing has changed. But plum committee chairmanships should go to those who worked to elect Democrats to the Senate and White House, not those who, like Lieberman, spoke at the RNC convention trashing our nominee and campaigned for Republicans in Senate races in Maine and Minnesota. And the "he votes with us on everything but the war" crap is just that -- crap, as a comprehensive study by the Center for American Progress notes.
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Tweet of the Day:
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin updates the Virginia AG race, and reactions to the
60 Minutes Benghazi apology. More discussion of Simon & Schuster's plan to discreetly vacuum up RWNJ cash. Gun nuts are showing up with weapons to protest even the smallest gatherings of gun safety advocates, this time four members of the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action who got together for lunch. Philly elects a Whig. "White Anti-Gay Activist Wins Election After Pretending To Be Black." More from the Center for Public Integrity's series, "Breathless and Burdened."
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.