This by Charles Pierce:
"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign...
and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc...
and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston,
South Carolina.
These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that....
But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings...
They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman...
whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers,
and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House...
The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides....
Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."
– Charles Pierce
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Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards….
With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer's medical plan….
because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Sue gets it too.
She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry….
Two women I know ‘beat the system’ by opting out of getting vaccinated based on a ‘religious exemption’. They work at a nursing home caring for many people they grew up with.
Let me share with you a story that made me livid when I found out…
My husband’s best friend was diagnosed with bone cancer right when COVID hit. While we were obsessed with trying to find toilet paper he was trying to find places for chemo and bone marrow transplants. He was in various hospitals for over a year…..
Visitors were not allowed to visit. Not even his wife and 21 year old son. The son they adopted later in life. The son he wanted to live for and the reason he went through any and every painful treatment option the doctors threw his way…
I was 30 years old.
I was married.
We were happy.
We were established.
Our 401k runneth over.
We decided to start a family.
I got pregnant right away.
Like right away.
We were over the moon.
I kept a journal of every day of the magic.
I got a bump.
…
I felt our baby kick.
I embraced it fully.
I rejected tests because "it won't change our path"
Emily sent out baby shower invitations.
The nursery was under way.
And then.
I'm almost halfway there!
I'm 18 and a half weeks pregnant.
The doctor called.
It was 7pm.
…
I was out at dinner with my friend Deb.
I stepped outside.
The day before on a whim I agreed to a blood test.
"There's probably nothing to worry about but we need you to come in. There's a 1 in 36 chance something is wrong"
I called Liza sobbing.
…
Message from a physician who wishes to remain anonymous:
We wanted to help people
We were smart and driven
We loved science and physiology, humans and disease
So we made a commitment
We signed up
It was an honor
We read thousands of pages
Attended hundreds of lectures
1/9
Pulled all-nighters
Took more exams than we thought possible
Finals week felt insurmountable
But it didn’t break us
It made us stronger
We learned statistics and biochemistry
Immunology and pathophysiology
We mastered genetics, virology and pharmacology
2/9
We read scientific papers and learned how to dissect them
Papers, not videos
It was an honor
We came running when you needed us
Literally, running down the hallway
To the ICU, the trauma bay, labor and delivery
I need help, you said
We can help, we said
It was an honor
3/9
“In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress..
that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's...
madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing 'Amazing Grace' in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina....
Our Drunk Driver President
By Richard Oxenburg
What is the appropriate way to feel about a serial drunk driver who has plowed his car into others on the highway, killing and maiming many, but who is now in the hospital himself,...
being treated for the damage his own car crash has caused him?
Is sympathy appropriate, given all the suffering he is experiencing? Is rage appropriate, given all the suffering he has caused? Might one feel some glee that "karma" has caught up with him?...
Shall we hope that this will be for him a learning moment? Shall we wish that he reap all the misery he has sown?
Perhaps there is no simple, single, answer. Perhaps all these feelings are appropriate to some degree, and in their own ways.