Today is Saturday, July 30, 2022. I’m glad to see that moderate Republicans are now worried that extremist strains of their abysmal party that have taken things too far in their unpopular culture wars against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights will have the entire party pay the price at the polls. This has been forecasted as early as yesterday by MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilemann in yesterday’s blog when he was interviewed by the station’s John Berman. This opinion, espoused by more rational segments of the repugnican party, which seem more and more rare these days, appeared in an article in The Washington Post today.

In an online article for RawStory by Bob Brigham entitled “Extremist Republicans have ‘taken things too far’ with culture wars and moderates are worried: report,” this more pessimistic view of how the repugnican party will perform during the midterms is provided. The influential paper reported, “Uncompromising positions and loaded rhetoric on key social issues are escalating concerns within GOP circles that the party is moving too far out of sync with popular opinion, projecting new hostility to gay people and potentially alienating women voters in high-stakes races.” The newspaper interviewed Christine Matthews, a GOP strategist in Virginia.

Matthews opined, “I feel we’re on this sort of see-saw where one party sort of gets the upper hand on social-cultural issues, then they overplay that hand.” She noted the obvious, “Republicans have taken things too far.” She agreed with Democrats’ views that the Republican Party “wants to take our country back to the 1950s.” Maybe even back to the 1850s, I would propose.

California GOP strategist John Thomas admitted abortion is “not a winning issue for us.” But one prominent GOP strategist, who preferred anonymity from the newspaper, did not think comments from the most extreme repugnicans would harm them in the midterms. Let’s hope and pray this anonymous GOP asshole will be proven wrong in November. I feel enough of us are fed up with the direction that this country is now taking because of the dictates of this powerful repugnican minority on we the majority that untold numbers of us will gladly wait on line at the polls this November to send a powerful message to the party of Dumpf, Gaetz, Hawley, Greene, et al. forcing all of them into much-needed retirement.

Another story I haven’t reported on until now is the emergence of a new worry for a certain segment of the population, and that is the appearance of a new virus called monkeypox primarily seen among gay men. These kinds of infections are continuing to rise right here in New York and an article in today’s Daily News on the crisis appeared on page 3. The article is called “Call pox a crisis: Pols urge Kathy, Eric to declare health emergency,” by Michael Gartland and Denis Slattery.

The article mentions that a coalition of Manhattan lawmakers are calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency as monkeypox infections continue to ramp up in the metropolitan area. The group argued on Friday that such a declaration of emergency would help facilitate disaster response efforts by cutting red tape and speeding up the distribution of testing, treatment, and vaccines.

This request comes a day after State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett deemed the virus an “imminent threat to public health” in the Empire State as cases soared past 1,200 in the city. In a joint statement, the lawmakers say, “New York is in the middle of another health emergency that shows no signs of abating.” The group includes Sen. Brad Hoylman, Rep. Jerry Nadler, Assembly members Deborah Glick, Dick Gottfried, and Linda Rosenthal, as well as Councilman Erik Bottcher.

The governor’s senior adviser Bryan Lesswing said the governor’s office is reviewing the request. In the city, meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams said city officials are weighing making a similar determination for the Big Apple.

Those at risk of getting the infection have been hampered lately by numerous problems in the city’s rollout of vaccinations, including glitches on an appointment website and a lack of supply from the federal government. To address these issues, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and President Biden this week helped secure 110,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine for the state, of which 80,000 will go to New York City. According to Hochul’s office, the doses will be delivered over the next four to six weeks. Would you consider this a timely manner, especially when you take into consideration how dreadful the effects of this infection generally are on patients?

Just as New York City proved to be the epicenter for the coronavirus, it can now be regarded as the epicenter for this unusual virus originally occurring in central and west Africa. The virus causes rashes, bumps, and blisters often on hands, genitals, or face. Those infected also endure flulike symptoms, such as fever, headache, muscle aches, chills, and fatigue.

Monkeypox is spread through close, physical contact, and though rarely fatal, symptoms can be extremely painful, and people might experience scarring resulting from the rash.

Let’s hope that vaccinations will be rolled out without incident in due time and that people will be treated successfully and spared the suffering associated with this sort of infection. Let’s hope also that politicians – those on the far right – will not weaponize this new medical emergency like they did with AIDS way back in the 80s. The gay community will not stand such stigmatization and ostracization on the part of asshole politicians who will seize this issue in order to appeal to their base of homophobic supporters. We do not need another Jerry Falwell type of “fire and brimstone” preacher to label this a “gay disease,” declaring that “they got what they deserve” kind of talk. But time will tell!

All I can say is that, boy, we need another medical health crisis like we need a painful abscess! Isn’t one encountered over these last two years basically enough?

Have a good Sunday.

Stay safe and be well.