While Rhode Island suffers from huge spike in COVID cases, Flip throws a tantrum
By Will Collette
Charlestown, and more specifically the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), keeps sending Rep. Blake "Flip" Filippi back to the State House despite his total lack of legislative achievement and increasingly crazy right wing positions.In recent weeks, Flip has jumped on the wingnut bandwagon against masks and vaccines - the only proven ways to slow down the COVID pandemic, especially with the emergence of the Omichron variant.
Rhode Island's numbers tell the real story. On one hand, we have a very high vaccination rate. Dan McGowan of the Boston Globe reported this morning that 788,463 RI residents are fully vaccinated. That's an excellent number BUT we have a population of 1.1 million people.
That leaves over 300,000 who are not fully vaccinated - one out of every three people.
This group, plus vaccinated people who catch "breakthrough" infections, have given Rhode Island has one of the worst community transmission rates in the country - 701 per 100,000.
At current rates, we are just a few days away from hitting a total of 3,000 Rhode Island deaths from COVID. Last week, the US crossed the 800,000 mark giving the US the highest death toll of any country in the world.
We're in trouble and the least we should expect from our politicians is they listen to the health professionals and scientists and reimpose mask mandates and push for, if not mandate, universal vaccination.
But Flip is having none of it and threw a Twitter hissy fit after our accidental Governor Dan McKee imposed some half-assed masking requirements.
Here are Flip's words of wisdom:
So, Flip, what are you going to do? Call in your friends at the Oath Keepers to mount an assault on the Rhode Island Capitol?
CCA take notice: your boy Flip has lost his mind. And Charlestown and the rest of House District 36 needs a new state Representative.
By the way, the US Supreme Court has consistently ruled that state and local government have the right to enforce public health measures to tackle outbreaks of infectious diseases. The key case was the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision which you can read HERE. So when Flip says "unlawful," he doesn't know what he's talking about.