Monthly Archives: September 2026

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by Reid Fitzsimons

On August 25, 2026, PA Governor Shapiro traveled to Lancaster to melodramatically announce the “first two measles-associated deaths in PA in 35 years,” specifically noting that both of these deaths were in unvaccinated people. One might ask, “why measles?” when there are so many diseases people die from. He answered this later in his press conference when he attacked the Trump administration for its “rhetoric.” The background is that the Trump administration has been revising the recommendations for routine childhood vaccinations, and this has become another anti-Trump bandwagon to jump on. As a point of reference, in 1986 (the year my son was born) the schedule consisted of 11 total vaccinations against 7 diseases, whereas at present 50-54 doses covering 16-18 illnesses.

Josh Shapiro press conference announcing two "measles-associated" deaths in PA in "unvaccinated" people

My career was as a medical practitioner (PA) and I am supportive of vaccines. Nevertheless, I question the wisdom of routinely interrupting natural immunity in less severe illnesses, such as chickenpox. I’ve been around long enough to speak politico-medical jargon and am weary when qualifying words such as “associated” are used: a subtle means of transforming medical science into political science, as Gov. Shapiro egregiously did. Keeping in mind that not a single authority has advocated against the measles vaccine and the Trump administration fully continues the measles recommendation, Shapiro used these two tragic deaths to establish a false narrative, possibly to bolster his Trump-hating credentials as the Democrat party moves to increasing extremism.

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An older relative I grew up with had a troubled adolescence, which included a flirtation with national socialism. Thankfully he never became a Nazi per se, but he had some friends who were actual Nazis, like in the 1980 Blues Brothers movie. One day, perhaps in 1971, one of them came to the house while I was watching cartoons and asked if I noticed they were of lesser quality than before. I said not really, but he enlightened me by declaring "It's the Jews!" Apparently he was referring to the animation quality measure of frames per second FPS), and that somehow "the Jews" decreased the FPS to save money. I doubt he had no actual knowledge of this.

Scenes from the Blues Brothers movie- funny Nazis

People under 55 or so probably don't realize that long before anyone who disagreed with progressives was a Nazi there were actual Nazis, notably the National Socialist Party of America (forming in 1970 and dissolving in 1981). They paraded around in Brown-Shirt type uniforms and wore swastika armbands, and were most famous for the pro-Nazi demonstration planned for Skokie, IL (a suburb of Chicago with a large Jewish population including Holocaust survivors) in 1977. Ultimately the demonstration was held in Chicago in the following year, with a whopping 25 Nazis showing up.

Real American Nazis from the 1970s
1978 Nazi rally in Chicago
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