1: "Well, you have to give your social security number, a picture of the weakest part of your skull, and your home address to Hammers The Clown. You also have to download COVID 19 into your eyeball once per month."
2:"What that sounds terrible what does that have to do with--"
1:"Wow. Ok. HEY EVERYONE THIS GUY HATES CHILDREN!!!!!!!"
Profit is antithetical to positive healthcare outcomes. Period. End of story.
Researchers examined Medicare claims for 662,095 patients at 51 different hospitals owned by private equity firms and compared the outcomes to those of more than 4 million hospitalizations at 259 hospitals that were not owned by private equity firms:
At private equity firm hospitals:
25.4% increase in hospital-acquired conditions
27% increase in falls
38% increase in central line infections despite performing 16% fewer percutaneous central lines
100% increase in surgical site infections despite 8% fewer surgeries
And all despite treating younger and therefore presumably healthier patients
In 2015, Democratic Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper voted for Senate Bill 34, which restricted law enforcement from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities. In 2023, now-Sacramento County Sheriff Cooper appears to be doing just that....
So, I don't know how many people know this, but several Republican organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA, the Family Policy Alliance, the American Conservative, and others are working with former Trump administration officials to develop a comprehensive plan to remake the entire federal government into Trump's image if he wins the election.
They published a playbook titled "Project 2025" this year in which they spell out how they're going to take on the "deep state" by stocking ever agency - FDA, State Department, DHS, USAID, EPA, NIH, etc. - with MAGA loyalists to cut every DEI program, end all support for LGBTQ+ people, eliminate food stamps, cut humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and so on.
All Republicans are at least as bad as Trump, if not worse.
Texas A&M announces a new journalism dean. She's black and she's qualified— and an alum of the school! Ex-New York Times too.
They announce her appointment in a splashy event.
Dark forces of reaction mobilize.
The offer is watered down to one year, with no tenure. She says no way, and withdraws. National news is made. It's negative. And today, the president of A&M resigns!
"Describing [RFK's] views as ‘controversial,’ I think, is dishonest. They’re not controversial. They’re false. He’s not spreading controversial views, he’s spreading lies. And so the framing matters enormously, and that’s something that I foresee being a huge, huge issue in the 2024 campaign."
Agreed!
Some key distinctions made by journalist Seth Mnookin in this sharp interview. (He wrote a book about the anti-vaccine movement in 2011.)
In 2020, a contingent of Trump supporters used trucks and vehicles to form a "Trump Train", which harassed and endangered a Joe Biden campaign bus driving through Central Texas.
Fearing for safety, the bus operator requested police support. Except once it entered San Marcos (just south of Austin), the local cops refused to intervene.
Several travelers on the bus sued, claiming the city violated the Klan Act of 1871.
Hi Fedi Family,
In 2008 Californians voted for Prop8 that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman in the California constitution. While this was defeated in courts this draconian Prop8 language is still in the California constitution. Justice tHomas and the right wing SCOTUS is openly hinting at destroying precedent and trampling rights. If they overturned Obergefell - the Prop8 language in the California Constitution will act as a “trigger law”, raining havoc on queer families like mine across California.
Please spread the word to vote “YES” to repeal Prop8 (2008) from the California constitution in Nov 2024. Talk to your friends, family and colleagues about it.
That's my shortand for the organizing principle we most need from journalists covering the 2024 election. Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for our democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.
Today the New York Times published an example of stakes reporting:
"Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government...."
I've been drawing strips for years about attacks on students' right to protest, yet strangely I've never been invited to give a TED Talk, speak at an "ideas festival," or pen a column for the Atlantic.
Pay attention to what's happening in this case: the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just essentially ruled that it's fully legal to jail journalists for reporting leaked information, or any information they obtain from government officials without going through "proper channels."
Hey Ohio Mastodonians, if you have not done so already, today is your day to vote on Issue 1. Don't forget to disappoint the conservative politicians who want to take away your rights and scheduled a vote on a traditionally low-participation date to sneak it by you! Here's a helpful sign about it. #uspol
We called the rural Idaho in-laws last night. Knowing they subsist on a diet of Fox "News," we alerted them to the present COVID surge and requested that they take due precautions.
Their reply? "Well, we don't think there's much of that going around here. Usually, when cases are high, the medical staff wear masks, and we haven't seen that."
I quickly popped up the wastewater data from their county on my phone and saw a precipitous incline on the graph.
"The wastewater data in your area shows a surge," I said. "Please be careful."
When we hung up, their comment about masks stuck in my mind. They look to medical personnel for signals about the state of the pandemic. Employee masking at their doctors' offices provides a visual cue that prompts them to resume precautionary behavior. Absent the masking signal, they feel safe.
To me, this anecdote sums up why masking should be required in all medical environments. Aside from the obvious benefits of deterring the transmission of COVID (and other airborne viruses), the public looks to the medical community for behavioral guidance.
(1) a Presidential coup that has not (yet) succeeded, but had a flashpoint with the insurrection of January 6, 2021.
(2) a Judicial coup in which Mitch McConnell denied President Obama a Supreme Court appointment. then rushed Justice Barrett onto the bench. That coup succeeded.
Don't give up. We need to show the same courage the abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights activists had then, to save our democracy now.
One, the judges in the case very clearly were not buying it, and it doesn't seem likely that the US Supreme Court would either.
Two, let's be clear that if this argument did pass judicial review and Trump did become president, he would absolutely 100% start murdering people. He wouldn't even blink. #uspol
#USPol
In #NewHampshire a bill was passed to end child marriage and raise the min. age to marry to 18.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously and in the House it passed 192 to 174.
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY FOUR!!! voted to sustain child marriage! WTF? And they say they need to protect kids from trans people!
One GOP representative argued this would restrict the freedom of those who are of “a ripe and fertile age”.
This is the modern day republican party folks.
The candidacy of Ron DeSantis? The raging moral panic over trans people which is threatening to expand and come after all LGBTQ+ rights?
The moral panic was inflated to support the candidacy of Meatball Ron, a guy so uncharismatic he didn't even stay in the race for the New Hampshire primary. Now all of us will pay the price. #trans#news#uspol#journalism#transgender
This has been months in the planning, now on Assigned today:
Sacramento Sheriff is sharing license plate reader data with anti-abortion states, records show (www.sacbee.com)
In 2015, Democratic Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper voted for Senate Bill 34, which restricted law enforcement from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities. In 2023, now-Sacramento County Sheriff Cooper appears to be doing just that....