University of Wisconsin System interim president Tommy Thompson is a Republican who once served as the secretary of health and human services under the George W. Bush administration. He’s also pretty well known in Wisconsin — he was the state’s longest-serving governor.
Republicans in disarray.
Though props to Thompson for putting science and safety ahead of politics.
Breaking news: it’s official - DoD has mandated vaccinations against Covid for all active duty personnel and the Ready Reserve including the National Guard.
The tweet contains the official memo with the vaccine mandate.
There is a growing rebellion against the efforts of Republican politicians to stop safety measures that are meant to protect people. The Republicans are making a poor political calculation…as case counts go wild in Republican controlled states and schools show outbreaks, they are acting in a way that endangers more people. It might help them hold control with the crazies in their party, but the rest of the nation is turning against them, and if they lose a small slice of voters they will lose power.
The thing is, at least some of them are so afraid of their base that they are doing what the base wants, even as they know it is going to lead to suffering and death. The base is clamoring for this, even Trump can’t tell them to get vaccinated without getting booed. The few Republicans like Thompson standing against this aren’t up for election in the face of the crazies who would rather risk death than have science save them. It serves them right to have the monster turn against them, hopefully it drags them down and we see and end to the nonsense they are spewing…though I worry they will drag the entire nation down with them.
I wish reporters would start asking anti-vax Republicans how many more will have to die before they accept vaccine mandates - 10,000; 100,000; 1,000,000? Unlimited death?
Apparently there are some Republicans who are semi sane on some issues sometimes. (if it doesn’t rain on Tuesday)
Thompson is that political rara avis you’ve heard about but seldom seen—a thoughtful Republican who understands the major issue of COVID-19.
Damn, they’re supposed to defend our freedom, not undermine it. Time for the GOP to demand we defund the DoD.
he puts his Republican bonafides to the side while “I run the university to the best of my ability.”
So Republican principles conflict with running a school system to the best of your ability. Just putting a sticky note on that.
He’s a RINO! A traitor! He’s sold out! You can’t listen to anyone who disagrees with the anti-vax gospel because the anti-vax gospel is the only source of truth. Anyone who disagrees is just proving that they’re a liar and a sellout.
“It is sad that Interim President Tommy Thompson has once again shown his belief in big government control over the rights of individuals to make their own health related decisions,” Nass wrote in a statement, according to MJS.
This rhetoric that the Republicans have chosen to go with about authoritarian big government crushing individual rights of people who just want the freedom to infect everybody is starting to make me crazy because it is not accompanied by a disclaimer each time that this is just batshit crazy nonsense.
I never thought I’d say this, but way to stick to your guns, Tommy.
That felt weird.
This comment, that “some” Republicans are "semi sane " is my biggest fear about this whole mess. Namely that a “moderate” Republican will now be defined as someone who is anti COVID and crazy about everything else just like it once was defined as not opposing abortion when the life of a mother was in danger.
As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, attended UW Madison and was even a page for the WI Senate when Tommy was minority leader in the state legislature, let me just say for the record you will seldom find a bigger ahole.
As Governor Tommy tried to kill public education and end any safety net for people not in rural areas. Some one needs to ask old Tommy what he thinks of 1/6/2021 and if Biden won the election.
"MJS reported that Thompson believes that he is “still a strong Republican,” but that he puts his Republican bonafides to the side while “I run the university to the best of my ability.”
What would he do if he did not put his GOP predilections aside?
Yes. We may feel some obligation to prop Republicans who show a spark of humanity and respect for law or science mainly because the bar for them has sunk so low but they are still Republicans for a reason: hatred of progressive policies, the safety net and recipients of that net not like them, is in their bones and blood.
Sounds like he will be running for Johnson’s Senate seat? Don’t see a Democrat in Wisconsin who would be able to compete against him for that seat do you?
At some point, sane individuals must ask themselves how they can be a member of the Republican Party. That does not mean they will/should become Democrats. But the present Republican Party is a cult of death, nihilism, and absolute control. The Party needs to go the way of the former Whig Party in the 1850’s and cease to exist as an entity. Their demise has been a slow motion wreck, starting in the 1960’s (perhaps a bit earlier with Nixon’s Checkers speech?) that has only picked up speed.
With all due respect to senior Republicans, your party is not what it used to be and is now dead. Their silence (or infrequent tisk, tisk, admonishments of disapproval) is simply complicity. While they may not know where to go next, they need to leave the party. Sorry, the GOP brand has flown its colors, and they need to be replaced.
Key to Repub strategy is that they’re not trying to win over public opinion, they’re trying to maximally energize their rabid base, hoping that along with voter suppression and gerrymandering they can regain power at the national level. All of the references to polls, logic and science are irrelevant to their plan…or at least they’re betting they are.
The top three in the primary are Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski and Alex Lasry, on leave from his executive job with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Seven other Democrats are also running in the primary.
“Control every adult that walks on campus…”.
Uh huh, Yeah. Next they’ll demand that flamethrowers not be allowed in the library. These absurd extensions of all or nothing bullshit that they argue are the core of “freedom.” I’m so sick of it.