JANUARY 2022 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

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1. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has been trying to make a name for himself as a Republican willing to be a Worse Donald Trump, and he hasn't been missing a single beat lately in trying to out-Trump the former Dear Leader. He was quick to realize that Republican voters really, really wanted fake COVID-19 treatments, and while he ceded the "what if we somehow shoved a disinfecting light up everyone's ---" territory to Donald, he went all-in on hydroxycholorowhateveride, then switched to becoming the nation's top promoter of monoclonal antibody therapies after the state's hydroxywhatever stockpiles were proven utterly useless.

DeSantis has, in fact, been touting extremely expensive monoclonal antibody treatments as preferable to being vaccinated against Covid. Imagine his fury, then, as the emergence of the omicron COVID-19 variant turned those drugs from expensive-but-plausible early treatments to utterly useless.

The FDA announced this month that it will be revoking the emergency use authorizations for regeneron and Eli Lilly-manufactured monoclonal antibody treatments. The reason for the reversal is straightforward: While the therapies did appear to have some merit in fighting earlier COVID-19 variants, they have proven to be ineffective in combating the omicron variant now responsible for over 99% of new U.S. Covid cases. They've been tested; they don't work. The FDA, therefore, is withdrawing emergency use authorization for now so that people aren't being treated with drugs that the FDA and the companies themselves agree aren't useful.

The point of treating sick Covid patients is to make them less sick, after all. The point isn't to load them full of treatments that don't work so that scientifically illiterate political figures like Ron DeSantis can boast to their fans that they know the secret cure for our pandemic troubles.

As you can imagine, Ron is extremely furious that he has once again centered his political ambitions on a miracle cure that turns out to not do a damn thing, and because Ron is a Republican, and therefore a hoax-promoting fascist, he is instead insisting that this is all a trick, the FDA is doing it to spite him and to hurt Florida, and he's going to make sure Florida's many, many seriously ill Covid patients are pumped full of the two treatments even if he has to sue the federal government to make it happen. .

And, that is not all. Commenting on a speech where he railed against testing for the Coronavirus, DeSantis raised eyebrows when he asked whether people got screened for illness prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now think about it," DeSantis said Friday. "Before Covid did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick? It's usually you feel like you're sick and you get tested to determine what you maybe have come down with."

Sorry, moron. Preventive screenings for numerous diseases, including sexually transmitted infections and forms of cancer, are common even in people who do not have any symptoms of the disease. Even DeSantis’ wife advocates for preventative cancer testing and talked about her own breast cancer diagnosis.

Someone needs to tell Governor Shit-for-Brains that new discoveries cause behavioral changes. Before polio, did anyone go out and seek the polio vaccine? Before cancer, did anyone go out and seek mammograms, colonoscopies or pap smears? Before fire, did anyone go out and seek to boil water? 

What a man! The same man who allowed one million COVID-19 tests to expire in a warehouse. Do we need more evidence that DeSantis’ brain has been separated from his cerebral cortex? And, this imbecile has serious presidential ambitions. He has all the credentials for the GOP.

2. Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers—whose whiny sense of entitlement has been positively Trumpian lately—is at it again. During a Wednesday press conference, he was asked about comments made by Chicago sportswriter Hub Arkush, who said Rodgers should be excluded from MVP consideration because of his ample off-field behavior. Arkush is one of 50 sportswriters who vote on the annual NFL MVP award.

ARKUSH: “After what you said last week about what it would mean to win your fourth MVP, what do you think of one of the 50 voters coming out and saying yesterday, quote, ‘I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the MVP. I think he’s a bad guy, and I don’t think a bad guy can be the MVP at the same time’?”

RODGERS: “I think he’s [Arkush] a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is, no one knew who he was, probably, until yesterday’s comments … I listened to the comments, but to say he had his mind made up in the summertime, in the off season that I had zero chance of winning the MVP, in my opinion should exclude future votes. You know, his problem isn’t me being a bad guy or the biggest jerk in the league—he doesn’t know me. . . This sportswriter is “a bum and I’m not going to waste any time worrying about that stuff. He has no idea who I am and he never talked to me in his life.”

Let’s see:

First, the guy who said he won’t waste any time “worrying” about that stuff just spent a minute and a half talking about it. Trust me, he cares. A lot!

You probably heard that Rodgers had a big standoff with the Packers’ front office during the off season. Was it because they didn’t respect him? Or pay him enough? Nah. There were a lot of reasons, apparently, but two of the big ones were that the Packers drafted another quarterback in the first round of the NFL draft to serve as his understudy and cut one of his favorite wide receivers, Jake Kumerow, who’s gone on to do basically nothing with the Buffalo Bills. So, he seemed to want to have input on personnel decisions but is clearly clueless about what’s best for his team.

Second, “I don’t know him, he doesn’t know anything about me” is the kind of thing teen guests scream at audience members on Maury.

Third, Rodgers still doesn’t get it. People don’t think he’s a bad guy because he’s unvaccinated (though I personally do think that). They’re mad at him because he misled other people into thinking he was vaxxed when he said, with clear intent to deceive, that he was “immunized.” He’d actually taken some sort of woo-woo homeopathic remedy and thought the NFL should count that as full vaccination. Then he got COVID-19 and proceeded to whine some more. Because whining is his favorite pastime.

Fourth, “I think he’s a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is,” says the guy who thinks it’s brutally unfair to harshly judge people you aren’t personally acquainted with.

Before Sunday night’s game, Rogers doubled down on his anti-vaxx nonsense and slyly suggested that Joe Biden may not be a legitimate president:

In December, he was not happy when President Joe Biden, while taking a tour of tornado-ravaged towns in Kentucky, joked with a woman wearing a Packers jacket that she should tell Rodgers to get the vaccine.

"When the president of the United States says, 'This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,' it's because him and his constituents, which, I don't know how there are any if you watch any of his attempts at public speaking, but I guess he got 81 million votes," Rodgers said Thursday. "But when you say stuff like that, and then you have the CDC, which, how do you even trust them, but then they come out and talk about 75% of the Covid deaths have at least four co-morbidities. And you still have this fake White House set saying that this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, that's not helping the conversation."

Of course, because Rodgers never knows what the fuck he’s talking about with respect to the pandemic and the vaccine, ESPN was forced to issue a contemporaneous correction:

(Note: The CDC study found that in a group of 1.2 million people who were fully vaccinated between December 2020 and October 2021, 36 of them had a death associated with COVID-19 -- and that of those 36 people, 28, or about 78%, had at least four of eight risk factors.)

So, the CDC was talking about the vanishing small number of deaths among the fully vaccinated, not the general population. In other words, the vaccine is highly effective against the worst possible outcomes unless you have a lot of serious unrelated health problems. And even then, the number of deaths is minuscule compared to the total number of vaccinated people.

Aaron Rodgers is an extraordinary quarterback, but he’s a piss-poor human being. He endangered others with his carelessness and hurt his team with his hubris. (Because he was unvaccinated, he missed a start, and the Packers lost that week.)

No need to add a letter to the MVP this year, though: “Most Vapid Prick” fits him to a T.

3. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. What would you get if QAnon and the Tea Party had a baby? You got it: Senator Ron Johnson. Johnson has graced (disgraced?) IGGY pages on numerous occasions over the years. Accordingly, I’ve mentioned him as a worthy candidate for the Ignominious Absurdity Hall-of-Shame.

His penchant for spreading false claims and misinformation reached new heights in early January when he touted falsehoods related to both COVID-19 and the January 6 insurrection.

Regarding Covid-19, YouTube suspended Johnson’s account after it posted a video of the senator making dubious claims about treatments for the coronavirus. In the video, Johnson again voiced support for using hydroxychloroquine against the virus, a claim not only not supported by facts, but according to the FDA use of hydroxychloroquine could cause dangerous heart rhythm risks.

The Wisconsin Republican has recommended several unproven methods, such as zinc, vitamin D, and the "standard gargle of mouthwash," as preventions against the contraction of COVID-19.

"By the way, standard gargle mouthwash has been proven to kill the Coronavirus," Johnson claimed during a virtual town hall on Wednesday. "If you get it, you may reduce viral replication ... It just boggles my mind that the [National Institutes of Health] tell people, 'Do nothing. Maybe take Tylenol.'"

Yea, a little dab of Listerine will do it.

Johnson went even further, ranting on a conservative radio show about the merits of relying on the body’s “natural immunity” to COVID-19 after being infected with the virus, the senator asked, “Why do we assume that the body’s natural immune system isn’t the marvel that it is?” “Why do we think that we can create something better than God in terms of combating disease?” he added. “There are certain things we have to do, but we have just made so many assumptions, and it’s all pointed toward everybody getting a vaccine.”

As is his preoccupation, Johnson again went after Dr. Anthony Fauci, likening the way Fauci has issued warnings about the omicron variant of COVID-19 to the way he warned about the threat of AIDS. Since cropping up as a potential threat late last month, the variant has prompted new travel bans around the world as scientists worked to determine whether omicron causes more severe illness, and whether existing treatments are sufficiently effective in combating it.

“Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS. He over-hyped it,” Johnson told “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade. “He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the entire population when it couldn’t. And he’s doing, he’s using the exact same playbook with Covid, ignoring therapy, pushing a vaccine,” the senator said, of course receiving no pushback from the host.

On the January 6 insurrection, Johnson has been a tireless defender of the pro-Trump mob, whom he referred to as “peaceful protesters,” saying things like:

"The group of people that supported Trump, the hundreds of thousands of people who attended those Trump rallies, those are the people that love this country," Johnson said.  "They never would have done what happened on Jan. 6. That is a group of people that love freedom; that’s a group of people we need to unify and keep on our side."

He later said he did not feel threatened by the pro-Trump peaceful protesters but might have been if they were Black Lives Matter or Antifa activists.

Johnson has continually tried to downplay and rewrite the events of January 6, claiming this month that the riot was not an armed insurrection because people had stayed "within the rope lines" in the Capitol.

"We've seen plenty of video of people in the Capitol, and they weren't rioting," Johnson said during a Fox News interview Sunday. "It doesn't look like an armed insurrection when you have people that breach the Capitol --and I don't condone it -- but they're staying within the rope lines in the Rotunda. That's not what armed insurrection would look like."

Johnson's attempt to downplay the insurrection is obvious nonsense. Trump supporters brought and used weapons during the riot. Within the ropes, rioters did things like beat a police officer with a flagpole, use police shields to smash through windows, clamber over the Capitol walls and attempt to break through to the House chamber.

As CNN has reported, the list of weapons among those who attacked the Capitol includes a baseball bat, a spear, a fire extinguisher, a wooden club, crutches, a flagpole, bear spray, mace, chemical irritants, stolen police shields, a wooden beam, a hockey stick, a stun gun and knives. Hand-to-hand combat led to more than a dozen officers being sent to the hospital, some of whom had bone fractures and concussions. All told, at least 151 officers from the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department suffered injuries.

These “peaceful protesters” attacked police, ransacked congressional offices, caused vast destruction, and, to leave no doubt about their intentions, called for then-Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged.

Enough, enough! The last straw. With his latest salvos, Ron Johnson has proven himself worthy of member ship in the IGGY Hall-of-Shame. He will be inducted at the end of the year, possibly along with other habitual ignominious cretins.

BUT, there’s good news for billionaires: their most loyal servant has decided to betray his pledge not to run for a third term. Aren’t we lucky?

4. Former Football Star Herschel Walker. If the fact that he lied about graduating from college, almost appeared at a fundraiser thrown by a woman with a Nazi insignia on her Twitter profile, or his long history of domestic violence doesn’t sway you, maybe pro football star-turned-Georgia Senate candidate’s new “dry mist” for COVID-19 will sell you.

The Daily Beast found an August 2020 interview where Walker told right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck about the new FDA-approved “spray” that kills Covid on contact.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Walker says, adding “Do you know right now, I have something that [you can bring] into a building, that will clean you of Covid, as you walk through this, this dry mist?”

Even Beck looked suspicious, but Walker rambled on.

“As you walk through the door, it will kill any Covid on your body,” he continues. He leans in and adds, “EPA-FDA-approved,” then continues: “When you leave—it will kill the virus as you leave, this here product,” Walker says. He adds that he has a second unspecified miracle product, a “spray” possibly indicated for use after the dry mist treatment.

“They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to hear about that,” Walker says. “And I’m serious.”

And all this bullshit comes from a man who has never been involved in politics. He has zero experience, and the Republicans have cleared the field for him. This shows you how obedient they are to former President Donald Trump.

But big props to Atlantic Journal Constitution (AJC) reporter Greg Bluestein for pointing out something a lot of people didn’t: Walker’s camp has been propagating the myth that Walker graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. That’s a lie.

A lie found on his Amazon author site, his Speaker Booking Agency -page, and his Georgia Encyclopedia entry, the AJC reported.

Walker is hoping to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022, but only after going toe-to-toe with a slew of other GOP candidates. Warnock became Georgia’s first Black senator in 2020 and is also a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, once led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even as Walker’s multimillion-dollar treasure chest grew, he was headed to an October fundraiser in Parker, Texas, co-hosted by dubious figure Bettina Sofia Viviano-Langlais—a film producer, proud birther, and president and owner of  Accelerated Entertainment, which offers a very short slate of very bad movies.

Viviano-Langlais not only produces crap entertainment but she’s also a vehement right-wing anti-vaxxer who, until she was called out about it, used a swastika symbol made of syringes on her Twitter profile, later commenting: “It’s insane to think that pic was Anti-semetic [sic]. Desperate actually. It was a pic showing what happens when fascists demand people insert foreign material into their body they don’t want ...”

When the AJC asked for a comment regarding the swastika symbol on Walker’s host’s page, his camp responded with: “This is clearly an anti-mandatory vaccination graphic. Herschel unequivocally opposes anti-Semitism and bigotry of all kinds.” Okay, and we don’t see the resemblance?

According to public records reviewed by the Associated Press, Walker repeatedly threatened ex-wife Cindy Grossman during his divorce. In 2005, Grossman secured a protective order against him, alleging violence and controlling behavior, AP reports.

In an interview with ABC News, Grossman said Walker held a gun to her head, saying, “I’m going to blow your f---ing brains out.” She filed for divorce in 2001, citing “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.”

The two-time Pro Bowl champion running back refused to say whether or not he’s been vaccinated or boosted, but of course, he continues to poll high among Republicans. After all, if Republicans can elect former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, who also had no political experience, why not Walker?

Getting the truth out of a Republican these days is like trying to find Louie Gohmert’s brain on an MRI scan. You really have to squint to see it, and even then, you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at. __________________________ And the winner is: Since Senator Ron Johnson has already proved worthy of induction into the Phronesis Hall-of-Shame (and will be inducted at the end of 2022), and DeSantis will no doubt replicate his ignominious credentials in the future, I whittled the choice this month down to Aaron Rodgers and Herschel Walker. In a close race, I chose Rodgers because Walker so far appears more like a flaming idiot than a downright evil person, which Rodgers has well established. Should Walker win the Georgia seat, he could supplant Louis Gohmert as America’s dumbest congressman.