Monday Notes: Vaccines and Keystone XL

by Deacon Blues

Here's two items today now that the Super Bowl hype is thankfully over.

Making Vaccines Political
It’s comforting to see how unprepared Chris Christie and Rand Paul are for the presidency in their pandering to the stay at home, “vaccines are the devil” crowd when they both assert that parents have a right to leave their kids unvaccinated. Christie has already had to walk that back, whereas Paul says it is an “issue of freedom.” Hey doc, what about my freedom and my right to protect my kids from you and your unvaccinated kids? You don’t have the right to expose my kids to your unvaccinated kids.

The real issue here is that parents don't have the right, whether they be citizens or non-citizens to create a public health problem. Apparently, to both Christie and Paul, they not only ignore science, they also ignore public health, which makes them electable to the GOP and unqualified for the White House.

How to Veto Keystone
When Obama eventually vetoes the Keystone XL pipeline bill after the House acts later this month, is it too much to ask that his political team handle this the right way? When Obama vetoes the bill, he should do a real media event, whereby he vetoes the bill by saying

When the GOP congressional leadership wants to send me a real energy bill that adds jobs, creates cheap energy here at home without making climate change worse, protects the environment from ever-increasing oil pipeline spills and pollution, and does as 80% of the public wants in providing taxpayer subsidies for alternative energy development, then I will happily sign that bill. Until then, and as long as they keep sending me bills that benefit the Koch Brothers and other energy elites at our expense, I will keep vetoing those bills until Congress does its job.

Will he do this? Of course not. But it's nice to dream.