Right-wing radio host Phil Valentine succumbs to coronavirus

NEXT!

Right-wing radio host Phil Valentine has passed away after battling coronavirus.


"Yes, the rumors are true. I have COVID. Unfortunately for the haters out there, it looks like I'm going to make it," Valentine wrote on Facebook in July.

Valentine's death was announced online by his radio station.



"Though Valentine downplayed the efficacy of vaccines and even went so far as to record a parody song mocking them, he reversed his opinion while in the hospital, advising his family members to get the jab," The Daily Beast reported. "Before he fell ill with the virus, Valentine had spoken out against mask mandates and written a parody of The Beatles' song 'Taxman' called 'Vaxman' mocking the preventative. He sang it on the air."

https://www.rawstory.com/phil-valentine/

 

That was his choice. It's sad that he succumbed to his illness, but how does that affect you?

 

If his death gets some people to reconsider or even get vaccinated then maybe his death was worth something.
That could affect all of us in the long run.

 

I just find it mildly disturbing that Frydaddy seems to find joy digging up articles on conservatives succumbing to this virus. I thought the left loved everyone. Silly me.

 

I get you MD but as small as this forum is if such news is shared elsewhere it might help in the long run.

I honestly can't say I feel that bad for those that push anti-mask and anti-vaccine talking points but I am not one to just wish people dead either.

 

How many did he kill besides himself with his anti vax nonsense? Do I wish he wasn't dead? yes
How many more people need to die for this kind of foolishness?

 

This is what everyone is ignoring...people aren't avoiding the "jab" because they're afraid of the needle or the vaccine (perhaps a small number are)...they're not getting vaccinated because they've lost trust in our government. If we're really concerned about COVID, we would close our Southern border and prosecute all those who committed felonies while promoting the Mueller Investigation. That would be a good start!

This incessant brow beating is only making matters worse.

 

and the reason people like hannity and tucker get vaccinated but encourage others not to would be....?

 

Just because someone is against vaccine "mandates" doesn't mean they're against vaccination. When has Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson EVER suggested people not get vaccinated?

 

doh!

Tucker Carlson rails against vaccination campaign at the same time Biden credits Fox

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/21/medi...lson-vaccinations-reliable-sources/index.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/23/fox-news-covid-vaccination-tucker-carlson

 

why won't they answer whether or not they've been vaxxed? woops

 

The right's strategy on COVID-19 vaccines, as planned and executed by the Republican Party and Fox News, was a simple as it was sinister: sabotage President Joe Biden's rollout by sacrificing the bodies of their own supporters. If they could convince enough of their people to avoid the vaccine, they could keep COVID-19 transmission rates high and garner headlines from easily duped mainstream outlets declaring things like "Biden falls short" or "Biden fails to contain the virus." For a brief moment in early July, it seemed the plan was working, with a series of headlines that seemingly blamed Biden, flatly ignoring the growing partisan divide on vaccine uptake.


Then the delta variant, an extremely contagious and virulent strain of the virus, started tearing through red-state America, creating hot spot maps that neatly correlated to political maps showing rates of support for Donald Trump. There was no longer any denying that a Republican identity is the best predictor of anti-vaccine sentiment. Mainstream media started to pay attention to how much anti-vaccine sentiment was pouring out of Fox News and how popular Republican politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky were discouraging vaccination. There was no more ignoring the link between Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis selling gear mocking Biden health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and the soaring rates of COVID-19 in his state. The plan to sabotage the pandemic response and blame Biden was backfiring.

That was when Republicans and their propagandists at Fox News decided to strategically put out some mealy-mouthed pro-vaccine sentiments. A clip from Sean Hannity, where the Fox News host offered a superficially pro-vaccine sentiment, went viral, fueled by journalists and liberals who are desperate for any sign that Republicans are giving up on this anti-vaccine thing. What people who championed the clip didn't know, however, was that it came from a larger segment on Hannity's show that was overall negative about vaccination, and was sandwiched by two other popular shows that were also anti-vaccine.

And that's been the pattern: Send out a few strategic statements meant for the mainstream press to make Republicans seem pro-vaccine while the GOP base is still getting a firehose of anti-vaccination propaganda. "Republicans didn't really have a change of heart; this has been mission accomplished for them, minus the part where the public blames Biden for the mess they made," Brian Beutler of Crooked Media wrote in his Big Tent newsletter. Fox News is still pumping out a relentless stream of anti-vaccination propaganda and Republicans are still trying to pin the blame on Biden for the surge of infections and the return of miseries like public masking.

But is the sabotage-and-frame-Biden strategy on vaccination actually working to bamboozle the public?

New polling data from Axios and Ipsos provides heartening evidence that the well-financed GOP propaganda machine is missing the mark on this one. Americans are not blaming Biden for the delta surge. Instead, they are far likelier to blame unvaccinated people, conservative media, and Trump.

About twice as many Americans blame Trump as Biden for the current rise in COVID-19 cases, in fact. But far and away the primary target of blame are the unvaccinated, who 58% of Americans blame for the surge. And it's only that low because of unvaccinated people who are trying to foist the blame on anyone but themselves. When pollsters zeroed in on the vaccinated, they found that nearly 79% of that group blame the unvaccinated. (The rest, presumably, are too busy being sanctimonious on Twitter about how those poor, poor red hats are just economically anxious hapless victims, instead of adults who can be held responsible for their decisions, an opinion much easier to hold if one does not actually spend any time talking to Trumpers.)

Interestingly, way more Americans blame the unvaccinated than blame the conservative media directing people to not vaccinate, suggesting that most Americans are ignoring pleas to see Fox News viewers as hapless victims. And rightly so. The only reason that anti-vaccine propaganda works so well is that everyday Republican voters want to believe the lies. They deliberately tune out good information about vaccine safety and opt-in to listening to the known liars of Fox News. The network's biggest hosts exploit the uglier impulses in its audience — their venality and their tribalist loathing of Democrats — and use that to convince them to eschew vaccination in order to "stick it to the liberals." It's heartening to see that not only do most Americans understand that the unvaccinated are to blame for this surge, but that they likely get the moral complicity of people who would rather get COVID-19 than admit that Biden is right about something.

Well, the people who made that choice certainly are paying the price for it now.

Fox News and the GOP noise machine convinced millions of conservatives that the best way to undermine Biden's presidency was to refuse the COVID-19 jab. And sure enough, they were successful at jacking up COVID-19 rates, filling the hospitals and generating a lot of negative headlines. But the final part of the strategy — where Biden gets blamed for the results of GOP sabotage — is falling apart.

Turns out the public isn't so easily fooled, especially when it comes to situations where the problem is other people acting like anti-social jackasses. And all those people who did as they were asked by Fox News, refused to get the shot, and got sick — in some cases, died — of COVID-19? Their sacrifice was for nothing. They failed, it turns out, to stick it to Biden. Instead, they stuck it to themselves. Too bad people who screwed up this badly tend to double down instead of admitting they were wrong.

It's still not too late, however. The hesitant could still be brought around with some well-placed vaccine requirements, and the sooner that happens, the sooner we can put this pandemic in the rearview mirror.

https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-vaccines-2654424118/

 

See? ...you're conflating "Vaccination" with "Vaccination Campaign". What if the "campaign" was to round up all the unvaccinated people and put them in concentration camps...would opposition to that plan mean you're an "anti-vaxer"?

 

and if yer aunt had nuts she'd be yer uncle

 

“Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.

An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 107,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 1.1%.

And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.”

APNews June 30 2021

 

There...you said it yourself. If you're vaccinated, how does someone else's vaccination status affect you...personally? Is it government's responsibility to keep people from making poor decisions? Should it be illegal to overpay for a coin? Where do you draw the line? ...or are you just drunk on the power of manipulation?

 

You need to grow up. quite a bit. when you self inflict sickness on yourself that means someone has to wait on you hand and foot for a month until you die like they did for Phil Valentine. That consumes costly resources, time and money for no good reason. this affects us all. It also affects our national security. Now go sail off into international waters where no one can tell you what to do,

 

No one has to do anything...that's the point. America is a society founded on "Mutual Assent". If you want people to do something and they don't, perhaps you're not asking nicely enough...or you've lost their trust.

 

good. then you shouldn't be admitted to the hospital without vaccinations or health insurance or a huge cash bond up front.

I agree