Speaking of hypocrites, the Republican governors of Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Tennessee all cut the extended unemployment benefits designed to fight the coronavirus pandemic because they incorrectly believed that those benefits were driving laziness and workforce shortages. Those Republican governors must have read the empirical data refuting their bogus economic theory, because they now support expanding unemployment benefits… for workers who refuse to follow employers’ coronavirus vaccine requirements:
Workers who quit or are fired for cause — including for defying company policy — are generally ineligible for jobless benefits. But Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have carved out exceptions for those who won’t submit to the multi-shot coronavirus vaccine regimens that many companies now require. Similar ideas have been floated in Wyoming, Wisconsin and Missouri.
…Observers say it’s a mark of the politicization of the coronavirus — with fights flaring over business closures, mask mandates and more — and how it has scrambled state politics and altered long-held positions. It wasn’t long ago, they note, that two dozen Republican-led states moved to restrict unemployment aid to compel residents to return to the workforce and ease labor shortages.
“These governors, who are using the unemployment insurance system in a moment of political theater to make a statement about the vaccine mandate, are the same folks who turned off unemployment benefits early for millions of workers over the summer,” said Rebecca Dixon, the executive director of the left-leaning National Employment Law Project. Arkansas, Iowa, Tennessee and Florida cut federal unemployment aid in June [Aaron Gregg, “5 GOP-Led States Extend Unemployment Aid to Workers Who Lose Jobs over Vaccine Mandates,” Washington Post, 2021.12.27].
We could chide these Republicans for offering handouts and encouraging laziness, not to mention irresponsible behavior that undermines public health. Perhaps we should just let these Republicans’ hypocrisy ride. A few extra welfare checks may be a small price to pay to keep selfish, virus-spreading ignorami out of the workforce and protect the rest of the workers and customers who care enough about their community to get their shots. And I might prefer giving a check to an honest refusenik to go home to keeping on the job unvaccinated people who lie about their “religious” beliefs to claim a vaccine exemption.
Vaccine sceptics are marching en masse … from their couches and barstools.
12% of South Dakotans aren’t getting enough to eat. Ag producers have destroyed shelter belts to plant industrial crops that deplete aquifers and now drought is blowing toxin-laden silt into downwind states. In Kansas alone recent wildfires blazed across some 400,000 acres during what meteorologists are now calling a derecho that traversed some 1500 miles beginning on the Front Range in Colorado. Record high winds fanned fires some forty miles wide consuming power lines, fences and domestic livestock.
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2021/12/22/wild-winds-tough-kansas-wheat
The vaccinated people have responsibility done what they can to lessen the collateral damage which is caused by the idiocy of the unvaccinated. Now we are expected to pay their hospital bills thru higher insurance premiums and employers have to pay unemployment because they choose to be ignorant. Perhaps we should require these people to dig up the covid dead people and tell them it was all a hoax. What a sad nation we have become.
The US should show the boat to the anti-vaxxers/-maskers/-mandaters. Expulsion from the US and cancelling their citizenship is a just reward.
Reflect that the US military issued no exceptions based on religious reasons. None. Science, disease, and pandemics do not care which magic wo/man in the sky one believes in.
John is right. Let’s get rid of these people. Load them up and ship them to an island that is going to be inundated as the ice caps melt. That may cure them of the anti-climate change insanity, too.
Typical republican, sit on their arse and collect a check.
The Republican party is now officially anti vax. DeSantis will run with this. Paying people to not vaccinate is the future of the party. At least the party is growing past Trump. It will help shrink the party too.
In three weeks, I will leave for Ecuador. Last week, Ecuador was the first country in the world to mandate vaccinations for all over 5. Ecuador’s infection rate is 1/25th that of the US. The US has now officially sunk to 4th world status.
So how is this any different than when CDL rules were implemented? If you did not get your CDL, you could not drive and were terminated.
This is also no different than if you disregard safety protocol at your workplace. If you fail to follow safety rules, you can get wrote up. After a couple of violations or a major violation, you get terminated.
Totally the employees’ fault and one should not be rewarded for not following your employers’ guidelines.