Medical Professionals Don't Trust Ohio's Statehouse
Medical Professionals Don't Trust Ohio's Statehouse
It's because they're smart and our legislators are dumb as shit.
HOUSEKEEPING: I’M TAKING NEXT WEEK OFF WHILE IN COSTA RICA. PERHAPS THE DEPRESSION RESUMES MARCH 2.
One thing this presidential campaign has laid clear is why Democrats lost the trust of working people. These centrist freaks had their chance at a compromise candidate in Elizabeth Warren. Here’s how that turned out with her campaign on life support:
Instead the centrists tried to trample us with their failed worldview in milquetoast candidates like Joe Biden, Mayor Pete (who just lied for the fourth time about black endorsements), Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and this abusive boss from Minnesota that I forgot until now is still in the race for some reason:
Now you have multimillionaire pundits on MSNBC concern trolling about Bernie’s “full medical records” which aren’t even a thing and not something they would be qualified to interpret if they were. They wish him dead and wouldn’t vote for him anyway, which is why they’re pretending the position of Vice President doesn’t exist.
Hmmmm. Starting to think the wealthy pundit class doesn’t have its hand on the pulse of those that would rather die than be hauled away in ambulance to bankruptcy court.
Here’s a thread (you’ll have to click through to read it all) from an actual doctor detailing that Bernie Sanders is in good health:
How these centrists revile a run-of-the-mill crank from the ‘60s lets you know they’re Republicans who want other people to think they care about the less-fortunate.
Democratic centrists revile a run-of-the-mill crank from the ‘60s because they don’t actually care about people outside their cocktail social circle; they just want to project the image that they do.
In any country with integrity, Sanders would be considered a moderate social democrat which is a fancy way of saying conservative. Instead these worthless empty suits will look at a choice between Trump and Sanders and wonder “where their America went.” The pathetic cretins were never on our side to begin with.
Credit to the Centrists, though. They’re going out exactly like they came in: Squabbling over tickets on the platform as the train leaves the station:
My entire life I’ve voted for the lesser of two evils, outside of that time in 2008 when I voted Obama without realizing that he had hoodwinked me (touché, Obama). I look forward to Centrists having to hold their nose for once and vote for somebody they find morally repugnant for the high crimes of wanting to ensure quality healthcare for every America.
That is of course unless they’re Republicans.
NOBODY TRUSTS THE OHIO LEGISLATURE
After Ohio governor Mike DeWine stifled Attorney General Dave Yost’s attempt to bogart Ohio’s share of the opioid industry’s settlement payment for the epidemic they unleashed on America, Yost and DeWine joined with local government officials and agreed that money should be kept out of the hands of the idiots running roughshod in the state legislature.
From Julie Carr-Smyth of seattletimes.com:
Ohio’s governor, attorney general and dozens of local governments are nearing agreement on divvying up proceeds of a potentially huge settlement with the opioid industry, hoping to avoid mistakes made with the national tobacco settlement.
The so-called “One Ohio” agreement, still not final, would give local governments much of the control of the purse strings — all but cutting out state lawmakers remembered fordiverting tobacco settlement money at one point that had been intended to cover smoking-related health care costs to pay for other things.
No other state has announced plans for dividing settlements over the toll of opioids. And so far no national opioid settlement has been finalized. One with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is being worked on in bankruptcy court, and a group of three drug distribution companies and two manufacturers are working on a settlement intending to resolve all litigation against them.
Communities in Ohio would receive 30% of the money up front — double the 15% reserved for the state, and hold some long-term sway over a network of regional boards reporting to a nonprofit foundation that would manage the remaining 55%. The number of opioid deaths suffered by a community would be among criteria for determining its share.
“People agreed the Legislature really shouldn’t have access to this,” said Kent Scarrett, executive director of the Ohio Municipal League.
Ohio is a deeply gerrymandered state which has the effect of putting idiots in office because voters are only accountable to the most batshit insane people in our state, Republican primary voters.
But I’ve since come to realize that Ohio’s government is the way it is because these are the types our state produces: Selfish people who can’t be trusted with an opioid settlement payout because they’d spend it some dumb shit. Meanwhile, these legislators are the same people actively making life harder for poor people.
And it’s not just Republicans, either. All you have to do is take a glance at the corruption in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati to see that by and large, we have the government we deserve. These crooks do business in broad daylight and nobody does shit about it because we’re all overworked and underpaid.
THE SOCIALISM OF COLLEGE SPORTS
I covered Ohio State athletics for a couple years, and it remains hilarious to me that ostensible institutions of “higher learning” have wedded themselves to professional athletics because that’s one of the best vehicles to advertise a university in America.
While Ohio State is big enough to pay its own tab, no other public university can do that. The solution of university administrators has been the old trick we love to know: Passing the literal buck down the line to students.
From Rich Exner of cleveland.com:
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ten public universities in Ohio spent a total of $192 million in student fees and other non-athletic money from sources such as tuition and taxes to cover the bill for Division I athletics on campus last year, up from $164 million five years ago.
Subsidies ranged from $10 million at Wright State University, which does not field a football team, to $29 million at the University of Cincinnati, cleveland.com found in its annual review of college sports spending based on financial reports each school files with the NCAA.
…
On average, subsidies amounted to $1,000 for every student on campus, regardless of whether the student plays sports or even ever attends a game.
Not included in these totals is Ohio State University, Xavier and Dayton. Ohio State is the only public school in Ohio that generates enough money through ticket sales, TV contracts, athletic department donations and other sources to entirely fund its sports program within its athletic department. Private schools Xavier and Dayton do not release their NCAA reports.
How many students from Bowling Green actually give a shit about the football team? I would wager less than 3%. And yet 100% of them are getting taxes so Bart Blockhead from Upper Arlington can attend college for free and pretend he’s still going to the NFL.
The kicker is students have no leverage for how these fees are enforced. Oh, you don’t like subsidizing the education of lacrosse players from areas wealthy enough to play lacrosse? Too bad, either pay what you owe or walk away from the $20,000 you’ve already sunk into your collegiate education.
OH MY GOD, I AGREE WITH NIRAJ ANTANI
There’s a specter haunting Ohio—the specter of ending the death penalty, which is racist and classist and ensures that the state will use our tax money to execute an innocent person from time to time.
Ohio has paused executions while it continues its quest to obtain a death cocktail that can pass the Constitutional dawg check banning “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Opponents from the left and right have seized on this moment as an opportunity to abolish a practice that bleeds the state of money.
From Andrew Welsh-Hggins of usnewsandworldreport.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A newly formed conservative group is seeking an end to the death penalty in Ohio at a time when executions have ground to a halt in the state and the House speaker has questioned whether capital punishment should be reconsidered.
Ohio Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which launched Tuesday in Columbus, is part of a network of similar groups nationwide. Members question the expense of capital punishment and have raised concerns about executing the innocent.
The Ohio chapter on Tuesday released a list of Republicans opposed to the death penalty. That tally includes former Gov. Bob Taft, former Attorney General Jim Petro and former U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi.
The list also includes three current GOP House legislators, including Rep. Laura Lanese, of suburban Columbus.
“To give big government power over life and death is rather concerning to a lot of us,” she said. The other House lawmakers are Rep. Craig Riedel, of Defiance, and Rep. Niraj Antani, of suburban Dayton, both of whom have previously co-sponsored legislation to end the death penalty in Ohio.
Heartbreaking to learn that I agree with Niraj Antani on anything. But if it ensures that our state gets out of the murdering business, then so be it. In the words of former Maryland State Senator Clay Davis: “I’ll ally with any motherfucker if they’re trying to end barbarism.”
PLEASE DON’T FALL FOR SCAMS LIKE THIS; IT’S EMBARRASSING
My mind has deteriorated to the point where any time I have trouble in life my default responses are 1) kill yourself or 2) become a grifter.
Stories like this don’t help much.
From kwqc.com:
Darrell Marshall Noel III, 35, of Cincinnati, was booked into the Scott County Jail Tuesday night on one count of first-degree theft, a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Online jail records show he also is wanted on detainers out of Ohio and Johnson County, Iowa.
Around 8:11 p.m. July 29, Noel and “multiple associates” were at the westbound I-80 rest stop, Bettendorf police said in an arrest affidavit.
The group was trying to scam other travelers by claiming to be a recent winner at a casino who was giving away money by matching whatever amount other people had on them, according to the affidavit.
One traveler was solicited by Noel’s associates to display his money with the understanding that Noel would pay him the same amount, doubling his money, according to the affidavit.
The man displayed $800 cash, which Noel grabbed and fled the scene, according to the affidavit.
I’m baffled by the brain math of someone who would pull out $800 from a drifter who claims he just won a jackpot and is giving away cash to people at a highway rest stop who prove they have cash on them.
Some of these people didn’t grow up in a den of con artists and it shows.
DEATH TO THE SCOUTS
Back in 2011, when I still cared enough about Ohio State to tailgate before the Buckeyes ritualistically slaughtered some team of future accounts that bureaucrats had been pimped into arena for the sake of a balanced Excel spreadsheet, a group of Scouts tried to shake me down for a donation.
“Nah,” I said. “Fuck the Scouts.” My friends, per usual, were aghast. How could I possibly be against the Boy Scouts? Well, for one, they were an anti-gay organization.
I think most of them just thought I was being an asshole, which in their defense is my customary setting.
However, not even I knew how rotted that organization was. Yesterday, I linked to a story about the Boy Scouts declaring bankruptcy and fewer than 1% of you jackals clicked the link. I want to double back to make sure you realize the evil that pervaded this organization.
From Kim Christensen of latimes.com:
Many of the lawsuits followed the Los Angeles Times’ publication in 2012 of internal Scout records involving about 5,000 men on a blacklist known as the “perversion files,” a closely guarded trove of documents that details sexual abuse allegations against troop leaders and others dating back a century.
Attorney Paul Mones used about 1,200 of the files in a Portland courtroom to win a landmark $19.9-million verdict against the Scouts in 2010 on behalf of a man who was sexually abused as a boy in the 1980s.
“The biggest takeaway from that trial was that the public saw for the first time that the BSA had this vast knowledge base of sexual abuse that they sat on and did not educate the Scouts or their parents, and kept it from the public,” he said. “The importance of The Times’ release of those files was that people then had the ability to do a search online.”
In its yearlong examination of the files, The Times documented hundreds of cases in which the Boy Scouts failed to report accusations to authorities, hid the allegations from parents and the public or urged admitted abusers to quietly resign — and then helped cover their tracks with bogus reasons for their departures.
100 years! These motherfuckers got away with systemic abuse for 100 years and now they’re using bankruptcy laws to shield themselves from paying what they owe.
Kudos to the states like California that allowed a three-year window for victims to file claims against their abusers.
When faced with a similar situation with Ohio State when it employed a molester for three years, a similar-styled bill went nowhere in the Ohio Legislature.
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