Governor Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday expressed regret for signing Act 1002 into Arkansas law. The new law bans the state and local officials from enacting any mask mandates.
Any other laws like that on the books in Arkansas? Bans on calling the fire department when the house goes up in flames? Bans on vaccinating children? Bans on teaching toddlers not to run across the street? Bans on ducking when someone throws a brick?
During a press conference, Hutchinson answered questions about why he signed the proposal into law. He said that when he initially approved it a few months ago, both COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were at a “low point” in Arkansas and were declining.
That’s a stupid reason.
He is concerned that since students ages 12 and under are not approved to receive the COVID-19 vaccinations they could be put at risk of contracting the virus when school returns in the fall.
Oh never mind that, it’s much more important to play these idiotic murderous games with the population’s health.
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9 responses to “On second thought”
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It is currently mostly people with COVID who wish they had gotten vaccinated.
Somebody’s POWER is at stake here.
Very sad.
“That’s a stupid reason.”
Well, only if you assume that the goal of a governor should be to protect the health and welfare of his state’s citizens. If you assume that the goal is to boost one’s political standing by “owning the libs”….
True, true, it all depends on your basic assumptions.
And regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention…
I think we’re probably at the “spitting it out” part of the lyric.
But owning the libs by officially, discontinuing safety precautions prematurely, and by encouraging your own political base, and anyone else stupid enough to follow your lead, to disregard basic, simple public health precautions during a deadly pandemic? Yep, stupid reason.
YNNB,
To be serious for a moment, I think that Hutchinson’s comment about how COVID rates were declining at the time is revealing. I think a lot of these GOP leaders felt like they could have it both ways — that even without their support, and in many instances with their opposition, vaccination and other factors meant that COVID was going away no matter what they did, so might as well boost their credentials with the antivax and/or antirestriction base. Sure, some people will still be appalled at their actions, but they’re likely unreachable voters anyway; this way, they felt they could hang on to the lunatic base without ticking off the folks in the middle (for lack of a better term) who don’t have strong feelings on the subject and will just shrug and say, “well I think it was dumb not to encourage vaccination more, but it didn’t end up mattering I guess, COVID went away despite the governor’s actions.”
Basically, they thought they could free ride off of the responsible people, and are now realizing that it didn’t work — that their actions and policies are having consequences.