I’ve seen chipmunks with their heads stuck in Mountain Dew cans that were better adapted to their environment than today’s lumpish throng of anti-vaxxers. Their reasons for eschewing the COVID-19 vaccines are as varied as they are stupid: Jesus will protect them, God gave them an immune system, the vaccine will kill half the population by October, the vaccine is the mark of the Beast. (I kind of hope that last one is true, because I’m tired of having to flash my George Soros Illuminati Club Card every time I want a baby’s blood Big Gulp.)
The latest? Oh, this is a good one. A rabidly anti-vaxxer attorney who’s represented several Jan. 6 rioters, as well as Kenosha shooter and conservative cause célèbre Kyle Rittenhouse, is in the hospital with—wait for it ...
COVID-19!
The news comes via recent tweets from Washington Post reporter Rachel Weiner and independent journalist Marcy Wheeler (of the well-regarded Empty Wheel blog), who have been monitoring the hearings of those charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Wheeler has more deets at her blog.
At a status hearing for Shane Jenkins, a January 6 defendant accused of assault, this morning, his currently retained attorney, Public Defender Maria Jacob, started by saying that she believes that she’s being replaced. John Pierce’s colleague, Ryan Marshall (who is not barred in DC but nevertheless handled Pierce’s appearance in Nate DeGrave’s case yesterday), piped up to say, yes, that was happening but unfortunately the notice of appearance he thought had been filed last night had not appeared on the docket yet. When Judge Amit Mehta asked where Pierce was, Marshall said, “Mr. Pierce is in the hospital, we believe, with COVID-19, on a ventilator, non-responsive.”
Judge Mehta wished the Pierce family well and scheduled a hearing next Thursday rather than accepting the appearance of a lawyer on a ventilator to represent his 18th client in this matter.
Oopsie. That can’t be good.
And, of course, there’s a digital paper trail chronicling Pierce’s rank (and recent!) stupidity. Note the date on this tweet!
That was about a week ago. Looks like the comeuppances are coming fast and furious these days.
Of course, Pierce’s anti-vaxxer stance is hardly the full measure of his gormlessness. Rittenhouse actually fired him, but lately he’s been collecting Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists like they’re Pogs.
The Daily Beast:
Once a high-flying civil attorney, lawyer John Pierce has reinvented himself, in the face of mountains of debt, as a go-to lawyer for conservative causes célèbres. After being fired from representing accused Kenosha, Wisconsin, murder suspect Kyle Rittenhouse over a financial dispute, Pierce has become perhaps the most public legal face of the Jan. 6 defense, representing more than a dozen clients as he tries out unorthodox legal strategies and jousts with his critics on Twitter.
...
Pierce now represents at least 17 of the Jan. 6 defendants, more than any other lawyer. His clients include Proud Boy William Pepe and L. Brent Bozell IV, the son of conservative media commentator L. Brent Bozell III. Pierce also represents Ryan Samsel, an accused rioter identified by prosecutors as the man caught on video consulting with a top Proud Boy leader before attacking police officers in the riot’s first minutes.
Wow, that’s a lot of clients to leave stranded just because he couldn’t be bothered with a proven medical preventative. Guess they’ll be burning up Barry Zuckerkorn’s phone line now.
It’s tempting to say that anti-vaxxers are dropping like flies lately, but flies are actually much harder to kill. You have to buy swatters and fly paper and sprays and such, and even that doesn’t guarantee success. WIth anti-vaxxers, all you really have to do is wait. They’ll do the heavy lifting for you.
When these fools show up at the Pearly Gates, I hope St. Peter at the very least gives them a timeout to reflect on their last days, because this is some serious nonsense, y’all.
I sure hope these people wise up sometime before smallpox and polio return, but there’s really no guarantee of that. At the very least, folks like Pierce should have the decency to forgo treatment when their deeply held convictions steer them off a cliff, but we all know they won’t. Clogging up ICU wards and spreading freedom phlegm from coast to coast is their God-given right, after all. And if it’s not, well, God will let them know right soon.
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