Most people probably encounter a number of “get vaccinated” messages every day—television news and PSAs, posters on the bus and rail, web ads, sports/entertainment endorsements, politicians, billboards, etc. Digital highway displays that warn of an incident ahead are another obvious space, since they’re often blank or say not to drink and drive. The Arizona Department of Transportation recycles several Covid-related messages on their overhead signs. This one caught the eye of State Sen. Kelly Townsend, who left a comment.
See, encouraging drivers to get vaccinated is what Communist nations do, never freedom-loving people. I remember that chapter in Marx; or maybe it was Engels who came up with the “let’s keep people healthy” totalitarian trap. Sen. Townsend didn’t even mention the white lines on the highway, and all the sheep staying in their lane—friggin’ Communist roads!
You may have guessed that Sen. Townsend is a Republican. You might’ve even figured, given her tweet, that she’s awfully far-right, even for Arizona, which means cranked to 11 with a dose of Q. You’d be right on both counts.
Sen. Townsend and many in the Arizona GOP, the gang that demanded the re-reaudit, toss around “socialism” and “communism” (or Hugo Chavez) whenever Dems introduce anything that helps most of us. When their policies favor one percenters and corporations, they call it sound economic policy. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’d wager that most Arizona Republicans who fear-monger about Communism probably haven’t read a lick of political theory beyond a tweet.
An anti-vaxxer before Covid-19, when she regularly said vaccines are a communist tool, and one of those jerks like Greene or Boebert, whose messages wink at violence, or outright showcase it, Sen. Townsend was doing this the day before the Jan. 6 insurrection.
PHOENIX — A Trump supporter in the state legislature has crafted legislation designed to give the president the state’s 11 electoral votes even as some GOP lawmakers in Washington work to keep Congress from certifying the election Wednesday for Joe Biden.
SCR 1002, introduced by Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, is based on getting a majority of lawmakers from both the state House and Senate to approve a resolution — and quickly — saying that the general election “was marred by irregularities so significant as to render it highly doubtful whether the certified results accurately represent the will of the voters.”
This was after the Arizona election had been certified, then a hand recount and voting machine check found zip, zilch, nada, nothing. No matter, these bozos were still introducing legislation that would allow Republicans to throw out results they did not like. Happily Townsend’s bills went splat, but she and other goobers will be at it again soon with their voter suppression nightmares.
That’s on top of the diarrhetic audit that’s stinking up everything, brought to you by Arizona Senate Republicans, like Kelly Townsend, who pushed for the audit from the beginning. Think about it: A state’s political party subpoenaed a major county, and threatened to arrest its elected supervisors if they did not turn over more than two million ballots. Then the group hired to conduct the audit, which had no experience with elections, screwed up every step of the process, to the point election experts have little confidence in anything they’re doing.
They have to pause Friday for a week to allow for high school graduation ceremonies in the Coliseum, but Republicans say they’ll be making us confident in the electoral process again soon (which, after all, is why the GOP said they undertook this madness, so we’d be confident), and they just booked the facility through June. Oh, goodie. Even some Republicans here are starting to say, Shut this shit down! We look like the assholes that we are!
Yesterday the State decided to drop the display that upset Sen. Townsend, famous Commie hunter. She wrote in a followup tweet, “One Senator contacted ADOT [Arizona Department of Transportation] telling them to take it down b/c it was inappropriate, & they did.”
Arizona has removed a COVID-19 vaccine freeway message that a legislator compared with one that might be seen in communist China, but state officials say it wasn't because of any specific complaint and that they'll keep encouraging vaccinations.
Just keep it “appropriate,” ADOT. A lot of the lawmakers who control your budget would be okay with a blurb that says the 2020 election was stolen.