Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.
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McCarthy Admits 65 House Republicans Are Unvaccinated
Screenshot form C-SPAN
Reprinted with permission from American Independent
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday railed against the new mask rule from Congress' attending physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, who on Tuesday ordered that all members of the House — vaccinated or not — return to wearing a "well-fitted, medical grade, filtration face mask" while at the Capitol complex.
In the process, McCarthy (R-CA) appeared to admit that roughly one-third of the Republicans in his conference have not gotten a COVID-19 vaccine.
"The vaccination rate for the members of Congress is over 85 percent," McCarthy said in an angry rant on the House floor Tuesday afternoon. "And as of today, the transmission rate on the Capitol campus is less than one percent. The facts would tell us this isn't a hot spot. So the CDC recommendation doesn't apply to us."
If McCarthy's estimation is correct, that means roughly 15 percent of members of Congress are not vaccinated.
Careful observers on Twitter jumped on McCarthy's comment.
Kristin Wilson, a reporter for CNN, wrote: "roughly 15 percent of the House isn't vaccinated, and we know all the Democrats are.That's 65 Republicans, give or take."
If you do that math, 15 percent of the House amounts to around 65 members. Given that every congressional Democrat in both the House and Senate has said they have been vaccinated, that means those 65 members are Republicans. That means nearly one-third, or around 30 percent, of the 211-member House Republican Conference is not vaccinated.
"Kevin McCarthy has some real gall screaming at us about masks if it is true that 65 of his own Members are still refusing to get vaccinated. That's a third of his conference," Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).
The announcement that masks are once again required on Capitol Hill sent Republicans like McCarthy into a tailspin. He's blaming the updated guidance on "liberal government officials" without mentioning his own members who have refused a vaccination.
"Make no mistake — The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state," McCarthy tweeted on Tuesday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected McCarthy's accusation, calling him a "moron" for his remark.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
Screenshot from C-SPAN
Reprinted with permission from Alternet
"The storm" is a term that the far-right conspiracy theorists of QAnon are fond of using, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy used that term during a July 29 press conference when he was criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's support of a mask mandate for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The mandate came from Capitol Physician Brian Monahan, and Pelosi has said that she will "honor it." But McCarthy, obviously pandering to anti-masker extremists and coronavirus deniers in the MAGA movement, is vehemently opposed to the mandate. Monahan is calling for the House mask mandate in response to the COVID-19 surge that has been attacking the United States, especially in red states with low vaccination rates.
McCarthy, during his July 29 speech, was standing near Rep. Elise Stefanik — who chairs the House Republican Conference — when he said, "If you are vaccinated and you get the variant, there's .003 percent you'd go to the hospital. There's a greater chance you'd get hit by lighting. For some reason, Pelosi thinks the storm is coming."
The fact that McCarthy used a QAnon term was not lost on Vox's Aaron Rupar, who tweeted:
Pelosi expressed her frustration with McCarthy's anti-masker views when, on July 28, she told reporters, "He's such a moron."
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