GOP lawmaker who called COVID-19 a 'hoax' is sued by ex-staffer for endangering employees

With the new mask guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Thursday, the COVID-19 pandemic feels like it’s nearing an end for many of us. I get my second Moderna shot next week, at which point my transformation into the little-known Batman supervillain Blood Clottus will be complete. (Okay, just kidding. Side effects don’t scare me. Needles, on the other hand …)

There are plenty of things I want to go back to, like movie theaters, restaurants, worry-free shopping trips, and my favorite sex fetish game: “Bats in Pants.” It feels pretty good because I feel like I’ve earned it by quarantining, social distancing, masking, and, most recently, getting half-vaxxed. I also feel like I’ve spent the past year respecting the rights, dreams, and wishes of my fellow travelers on this fragile blue-green globule of wanton pestilence.

But there are plenty of people who refused to take the vaccine seriously—at all—for the past year and change, people who eschewed common-sense health guidance in favor of the former guy’s sporadic head-methane emissions. We call these people assholes. Another good word for them would be “Republicans.”

Meet Rep. Doug Lamborn. The Colorado Republican is getting sued for what could only be described in layman’s terms as “chronic assholery.” A former Lamborn staffer named Brandon Pope filed the suit on May 13 in the District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming he was fired after raising objections to his boss’ “reckless and dangerous approach” to COVID-19.