…it’s been a confusing week in a lot of ways, so by way of prefacing the bulk of this (since there’s a high probability of it going off the rails before I get to the end) here’s what we call a clear example of a little thing called corruption
…also…I figure probably I ought to just straight up apologize…I do know it’s the weekend…& hard as it may be to believe I used to consider those pretty much sacred in the sense that they were a brief lull between the endless bullshit of the workaday week…but despite the endless profusion of predictions that we’d all feel some sort of outrage fatigue before this term was over…I may barely be able to tell what day it is but I’m never less than entirely certain that I’m fucking outraged…& my guess is once you let this little gem sink in it’ll top yours off
…a man shot upwards of a half-dozen times by law enforcement
…who very probably will never walk again as a direct result…whose fate has been the catalyst for a renewed surge in demonstrations drawing on a simmering pool of righteous outrage caused by an actual litany of names who never lived long enough to occupy a hospital bed...WAS SHACKLED TO THAT FUCKING BED
…so
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/protests-violence/2020/08/27/story.html
…yeah…if anybody happens to be keeping score…for somewhere around 1400-odd straight days…I am here to tell you it is in fact possible to only get angrier
…so, maybe this is clear enough?
…who am I kidding
…how clear can we make this
Trump Grants Full Pardon to Woman Who Praised Him at Convention
…does anybody seriously believe that lady gets that pardon absent the campaign stunt?
…of fucking course not…you have to be able to do something for him before he’ll consider doing something for you…because he is an intensely transactional fuckwit who (apparently by dint of the extreme degree to which he’s delusionally solipsistic) cannot seem to comprehend that in so very many ways that makes him explicitly guilty of abuses of the power of an office he still does not begin to understand the underlying nature of any better than how to effectively wield it
…but surely it ought to work the other way, too
…for every action there is, after all, an equal & opposite reaction
…particularly if – like the unpresidented president – you consider everything to be a zero-sum game
…so if your quid is a bunch of factually-challenged fuckwit-fodder
Trump attacks Biden and casts himself as an insurgent in his acceptance speech
…surely the pro quo ought to be slamming face-first into the ugly reality that you’ve hung your own ass out there to dry…along with a bunch of entirely less deserving folks
…so…back to the adventures of twittle lord taunt-le-roi
…& speaking of facts
…whereas
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/donald-trump-s-rnc-speech-won-t-please-lincoln-project-but
…I’m sure I’m not the only person who may never understand why he wasn’t torn from office…I know we all accept that he had his bottom bitch Mitch to provide a Senate stonewall because they were overreaching themselves to deny Obama Supreme Court picks before the dawn of his fatuous, fanta-tanned, flatulently felonious fecklessness at a federal level…but if you pull back a little that doesn’t actually make sense?
…whatever side of the aisle you were sitting on it was clear back when they called themselves the tea party that the foaming-at-the-mouth wing of the GOP was dead set on eating itself & the federal goverment in an autocanabalistic orgy of mutually assured destruction…so “the establishment” knew this thing was doom on legs for every game in town…but they rolled over for it even in the face of it requiring a helping hand belonging to a hostile foreign interest to lend extra weight to the thumb they already had on the vote manipulation scales…& the boot they wanted on the neck of Hilary’s campaign…& in so doing put the lie to the entirety of the GOP platform
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/28/google-ads-mail-voting
…& here we are
Apple makes a privacy change, and Facebook and advertising companies cry foul
…& the GOP has literally foregone so much as having a platform in terms of policy proposals…they’re all in on serving up empty promises made by a man who wouldn’t keep them even if they had any substance to begin with
…at what point
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-maga-music-has-rock-n-roll-icons-crying-ncna1238530
…& I know it shouldn’t be but this is a genuine question
…at what point do we finally say enough with this shit
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/feels-different-black-postal-workers-usps-fate-n1237977
…we know your lying ass is lying
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/quiet-part-trump-won-t-dare-say-out-loud-n1238662
…& this shit doesn’t work when you get to lie & get away with it in order to achieve &/or maintain your hold on office
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-democrats-seek-hold-pompeo-contempt-n1238705
…I know the concept of socialism has been painstakingly misconstrued for generations but “of the people, by the people, for the people”
https://www.today.com/tmrw/glass-cliff-why-women-people-color-are-often-set-fail-t189060
…that used to mean something
…& you know what
…that something is a whole hell of a lot more like actual socialism than whatever the fuck you call the steaming midden that we insist on referring to as “politics as usual”
…in a world where basketball players are doing a better job than the people whose job it is to un-fuck this shit
…still…maybe the llama’s will save us
yeah well….to be fair…they had to shackle him to that bed…
i mean shit….dude might make a run for it
(tbh….going by the pics i keep seeing of american cops…he’d probably actually still be able to outrun most of them… do beat cops there not have a physical they need to pass or something?)
(im going for asshole bingo here…ive got poor taste and fat shaming…i feel like i should probably say something racist now)
This happens often with imprisoned or arrested persons. I think I had one or two patients that were cuffed to the bed when I was in training, but not since. So I don’t know how much power the hospital/docs actually have over it. I would assume it’s the PD’s call but admin might be able to put pressure on in cases like this where it’s very bad PR? In general, assault on staff is a real concern from patients without a criminal record, so I doubt many hospitals are willing to take the risk of throwing their weight around to remove cuffs because if staff is later assaulted it would be a major liability.
Anyway, I’m just speaking generally and went off on a tangent. Obviously Blake isn’t going anywhere with the paraplegia after the attempted murder by the Kenosha PD. I’m unaware of his current clinical status, but he had been arrested this summer for sexual assault (but not charged as of yet), correct? If he’s awake and able to move his upper body w/ strength, I would have to say I could not fault a nurse for being concerned for safety. I cannot reiterate enough how common assault on hospital staff is.
Life is complex, people contain multitudes, even if he did commit the sexual assault he didn’t deserve the attempted execution by the cops. I feel like I’m typing too much but am trying to clarify my thoughts on a challenging situation from a perspective that I think is not often considered in a knee-jerk reaction to the injustice this man has faced.
…you’re absolutely right about the staff deserving not to fear assault, of course…& perhaps I’m being thrown by the term applied…but I would expect “restraints” to be different from “shackled” which to me implies cuffed to the bed to prevent escape attempts?
Medical restraints are different than being handcuffed, which I assume he is/was the latter. But medical restraints are meant to keep delirious patients from pulling out tubes, mostly; I don’t think they would be very effective in keeping a coherent adult from doing what they wanted. Again, I don’t know what condition Mr. Blake is in other than his reported BLE paraparesis, , and the case of a victim of a police shooting then being cuffed to the hospital bed has *so many* horrifying angles to it, but there are other considerations than “can s/he run away.” Additionally, imprisoned women who give birth are often also handcuffed to their beds during labor.
We need to work on not dehumanizing imprisoned people in all areas, but my expertise is healthcare so that’s where I’ll focus. I don’t think I’ve ever been privy to why a patient was arrested or imprisoned; certainly someone with a history of violence I would want to be restrained for the safety of myself and my staff, but drug offenses or petty theft? Those folks don’t need that kind of treatment. There’s always an officer posted inside or just outside the room, anyway, so escape would be unlikely.
…I don’t mean to encourage bad habits or anything…but if you want to confirm every one of those prejudices look for an episode or two of that show where steven segal is playing honorary member of the police
…he wasn’t exactly in great shape by then & it seems like contractually they had to source only officers more out of shape than him…it’s sort of funny
…until you hit the story about them storming somewhere with basically a tank & killing a dog in the process…so maybe don’t click on that stuff today?
lol…oh man…im half tempted to google that stuff coz it sounds hilarious
well up untill that last bit…
anyhoo…over here theres a stereotype…basically..all americans are fat and stupid
then yous elected trump
i suspect that stereotype may outlive earth now
I was originally going to contribute companion pieces to the curtailed 2020 conventions. I decided not to, so as not to clutter and muddy deadsplinter.
As a palate cleanser to what we saw over the last four nights (did Laura Ingraham show up at some point to give the Nazi salute to our Führer, like in 2016?) read what happened to the Democrats in 1924:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Democratic_National_Convention
I was going to write about this. There’s a lot of good stuff. My favorite perspective on this is that the convention occurred in NYC during Prohibition, but in New York that was honored more in the breach than the practice. The Democratic Party was a strange amalgam of northern urbanites and white southerners. The southerners came to town and I’m sure they took advantage of the loose speakeasy laws. Candidate Al Smith was on home turf and he packed the galleries with drunken locals, who were instructed to boo and spit on delegates who didn’t vote for him. To make this even better, there was no air conditioning in the old Madison Square Garden. When a person’s name was entered into contention for the 28th or 47th or whatever time, sweaty dancing would erupt in the aisles, all-male conga line things.
And best of all, this was the first convention broadcast live on the new medium known as radio.
in unrelated news…heres a dutch news update
https://nltimes.nl/2020/08/28/groningen-man-accused-selling-sonic-weapons-use-police
hehehe….im finding it hard not to like that guy….wonder where the fuck he found that shit tho
annoyingly enough…i cannot find a link in english for the story that ran yesterday (i think) about the first dutch volunteers getting a rona vaccine next month…i think it was about 130 of them.. i guess thats probably a hopefull sign for the future…unless they all keel over and die
aaaaand we are finally banning mink farms https://nltimes.nl/2020/08/29/mink-farmers-completely-surprised-accelerated-ban
wont save the mink that are in there…but still…progress
(and tbh…its mostly coz mink keep infecting people with rona…)
but generally im a believer in the right decision made for the wrong reasons is still the right decision
(also im pretty hardline about killing anything you dont plan to eat….)
Haven’t been as active due to the fact one of my closest friends has been in the hospital with pancreatic cancer (found out yesterday.) The only thing that hasn’t turned this diagnosis into a grim situation is that it hasn’t metastasized yet (but it is still pretty damn bad.)
It seems that all his problems the last year have been because of that lesion. If the docs can cut out enough of it then he can survive it.
We talked about the odds. I’ve always been the sort to face bad news head on no matter how horrible it is (it has been what has saved me in the past.) My friend’s brother has been dealing with my friend’s health issues by sticking his head in the sand which might explain why I’ve been doing most of the driving my friend to the hospital or running errands for him while he’s in the hospital or talking about treatment options or funeral planning. I’m not angry at my friend’s brother just sad that he has chosen poorly. Can’t make anyone face things they don’t want to.
If my friend’s brother had been making noises about him taking charge then I would have been furious with him but he didn’t so that is why I’m uncharacteristically been forgiving of my friend’s brother.
That loud mouth posturing of trying to act as a leader yet doing nothing as a leader is the same reason why I hate Trump, many RWers and a lot of my bosses.
If you don’t want the problems, headaches and pressures that go with the fucking job then don’t do it. Get the fuck out of there and let someone else who can, run the show.
There is a reason why winning the leadership of any political entity (small or large) is a fucking grind because it needs to be. It was supposed to eliminate those who can’t deal with the pressure or lack the ability (it failed with Trump.)
I can’t stand leaders who are afraid to make decisions or who won’t/refuse to do the job that is asked/demanded of them. That’s what you’re there for, fuckers! It also explains why I did my best to avoid acting like leaders I hated.
I know leaders are human and make mistakes. Don’t like it, but I’ve been there before myself. I learned to never hide from them or run because that’s worse (and I couldn’t live with myself if I did.)
Probably explains partially why I’m not well liked by management everywhere I’ve been. I have at times literally kicked and dragged them into doing the right fucking thing and I am mean enough to never let them forget it. At one company I yelled at my boss “JUST DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!” Not shocking, I didn’t last very long there (glad I didn’t actually.)
Sorry, I kinda mashed two different things irritating me into one thought…
…best of luck to you & your friend, there
…& as for the other thing…pretty much right there with you…someone once told me it wasn’t a good idea to apply for a job you wouldn’t want to actually be given to do…so while I get that it’s a lot easier to point out the ways someone isn’t up to being president than it is to be president…I still have zero sympathy for someone who thought it would be easy because they never troubled themselves to understand what the job was before accepting it
…honestly I think he thought the job was just getting elected & that after that he could coast along doing whatever he pleased
…because he’s that dumb…&/or arrogant
I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s diagnosis. I’ve got my fingers crossed for him.
oh hey…. my mates got pancreatic cancer…he got told hes terminal a couple weeks ago tho…nothing they can do for him..
hes been a handfull since…. i mean..he was a pretty dilligaf person before…but hes gone full on yeah? what are you gonna do? fire me?..since
cant say i blame him i guess…
anyhoo…best wishes to your mate..i hope they can fix him
also…im sorry if that came across as me turning the story into a me thing…
was not my intent…
i just say things before thinking
No apologies necessary.
I’m sure you’ve already done it – but get a second opinion. My sisters best friend from childhood was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and was told there was nothing else they could do by her first doctor. She got a second opinion and they took out part of her pancreas and are giving her a big dose of chemo – and so far things are looking good. Of course, she could still take a turn for the worse, but at least they didn’t just throw up their hands and say there was nothing they could do. I know pancreatic cancer is hardcore – but just make sure you get another opinion.
I’m sorry about your friend. He’s lucky to have you.
You are a very good person. You may mash up anything you wish…
Pancreatic cancer, even at its best, is very bad. Mostly because it’s so difficult to catch early due to very nonspecific symptoms and no good screening test.
Make the oncologists get a palliative care consult. Oncs/surgeons etc are great at what they do, but they’re often not good with bad news or keeping the picture of the whole person in focus. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “prognosis very poor, terminal cancer, recommend hospice” in one of their notes and then talk to the patient who has no idea that they’re not going to be cured and live a long life.
Palliative docs will be your friend’s allies in care and keep him/her at the forefront of decision making.
At every step of the way, these are the things I would want to know: 1) What is the potential for this treatment to cure me and/or palliate my symptoms (depending on prognosis)? Make them give you a ballpark percentile estimate. 2) What are the potential side effects and recovery from the treatment? Again, ballpark “very likely,” “likely”, “unlikely,” “rare.” 3) What are the risks if I don’t do it?
That’s great advice that I’m sure we”ll all, sadly, need some day. Thanks.
2020 is almost 2/3 of the way over. But it’s not finished with us yet. Chadwick Boseman is gone at 43 from colon cancer.
…not that I don’t heartily agree with the sentiment…but I confess I was surprised to have it come from this source
…this on the other hand…it’s at least a reminder to smile?
WHAT THE ACTUAL, LITERAL FUCK!?!?!?
…very much my reaction
It’s too much.
22 years in the senate and FINALLY he does something that stands out…this tweet will be his “legacy.”
That SNL clip is a classic. This is great too.
Wait, WHAT?!
And all these damn trumps are still living, and even worse, breeding.