" the total package "is set to be about the same size" as the military aid package Biden announced last week, priced around $800 million"

There's always billions fabricated quickly and out of thin air to kill, but the pro-lifers say giving you healthcare is too expensive.

Mend well Chase. There's 4/20, but helpful Rx are 4:20s.

Wear your masks, jackasses. This isn’t Alabama.

@3,

You're a dumbass. And always will be.

@1 Brent Gumbo, @4 dvs99, and @5 mike blob for the WIN!!
And Kudos for beating me to it. :)

Now optional or not, I'm still wearing my masks. I haven't had a cold in over two years, and my lips are a LOT less chapped than they usually would be in cold weather, with or without lip balm.
I don't give a shit what some MAGA-bootlicking federal judge in Florida says. COVID isn't done with us yet, folks. Don't be fooled. We're not even halfway through the film, and Orange Turd is still alive and hell on Earth.

I hope you're feeling better soon, Chase.

@4 - Celebrate optionality, don't show shade.

@8 - the problem with "optionality" is that the "option" is to endanger others. Almost 500 Americans died from Covid yesterday, and more will die today. The only reason more people aren't up in arms about that is that we've become numbed to large amounts of death & illness. We know that masks help to prevent the spread of disease. We also know that cases have begun ticking upwards pretty significantly over the last couple of weeks, which means that 500 daily dead is likely to become 700 daily dead, or 800, or more. Why on Earth would we lift the transport mandate at this stage?

Maybe it should be "optional" to put the safety on when you carry your gun in your pocket. Or "optional" to have working brakes on your car. or "optional" to require that surgeons be licensed before they are allowed to operate on people. Sorry, but no. Protecting peoples' lives, with a cheap, simple, and harmless intervention like masking should be a no-brainer.

As to throwing shade on red states, it's fully justified. The WaPost article I saw yesterday discussed a flight from one red state (TN) to another (SC), most of the morons on which ripped off their masks mid-flight and stated screaming. This decision was not based on any sort of reason. In fact, the Trump-appointed infant of a judge (from perhaps the dumbest of all dumbfuck red states, FL) who overturned the ban admitted that masks are effective in reducing infection, but, just like all the other dumbass MAGAts, just did not give a fuck. I would argue not enough shade is being thrown at these idiots. I'm sick as hell of what is left of the Confederacy making life worse for the rest of us.

@9: Seems overly dramatic. I worry those with such attitudes are developing some sort of weird Munchausen syndrome thing.

@3 speak for yourself

@12 in the 1980s in college a large portion of the Chinese students were wearing surgical masks for the whole cold season and you know what it makes so much sense

Here in the USA we fight endless inane culture wars, while Europe breaks out in WWIII-
Get better real soon, Chase!!

They can have my N-95 mask when they can pry it off my cold, dead face - which will be a lot later than they'll be removing those respiration tubes from the cold, dead anti-COVID idiots celebrating their "freedumbs" today...

Fun fact: The global death due to covid19 were quietly raised last week by 9 MILLION. For a total of 15 million dead. And most likely much higher sinceRussia and China are not releasing transparent data and developing nations are not really keeping track. The Economist has used produced an estimate of 12 million to 22 million excess deaths between 2020 and 2022 — or between 2 and 4 times the pandemic’s official toll so far. As high as 22 million dead.

"India Is Stalling the W.H.O.’s Efforts to Make Global Covid Death Toll Public
The agency has calculated that 15 million people have died as a result of the pandemic, far more than earlier estimates, but has yet to release those numbers."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/16/health/global-covid-deaths-who-india.html

America allows an MAGA judge, deem unqualified by her own state bar association, to completely overrule public health science. So I guess we just accept the American life expectancy is going to eventually contract to pre-1970 levels.

This is fine.

@17:

Just more proof - as if any was necessary - that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is valid and that those who are unable to adapt to new environmental conditions are doomed to eventually become extinct.

I just don't think he ever anticipated they'd do it willingly, while simultaneously celebrating their own stupidity in the process...

@10: Wow, Elmer. That's pretty brave talk for someone with his head stuck up his ass.
Is that why you're still lurking downstairs in your mother's dank, dark fruit cellar with the mice and spiders? Don't forget to duck and cover.
Remember, folks, you read it here first--Elmer confesses he made it all up!
FOX TEEVEE triggered the warped "memories", and now he's seen the UFO lights....

@9 dvs99, @12 blip, and @15 & @18 COMTE +3 for the WIN!!