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HOSPITALS

Forbidding places until you need one.

I needed one recently in a critical, emergency way.

I had all the symptoms of Covid, even though I have been vaccinated. ER doctors and personnel determined I had a major infection. They suspected the infection was in my heart—a lethal condition.  I was rushed by ambulance to a major heart hospital (Methodist Tex-San) in San Antonio. An immediate round of tests and blood work determined I had bacterial pneumonia instead. It was nonetheless, serious.

A week of surgical procedures, tests and exams took me out of harm’s way. I now face a six-month pneumonia recovery—not a welcoming adventure.

During my stay in the hospital I was treated by a host of doctors, nurses, technicians, support personnel, and a gracious religious chaplain. They were all extremely professional as well as compassionate and caring.

Hospital protocol required mask wearing by everyone. I had no problem with that. In fact, I both welcomed and appreciated this patient safety protocol.

But some nurses and medical personnel in Houston and Indiana have recently stolen an unfair share of public attention with their petulant refusal to undergo Covid vaccination as mandated by their hospital employer. These professional yokels believe that their “right” not to be required to undergo vaccination supersedes medical safety protocols. In other words, selfish “me, me, me” over everything else.

I did not ask any nurse if they had been vaccinated. I assumed a responsible health care delivery system would make sure that my “right” to safe medical care is a priority over that of any health care provider assumed rights.

If health care personnel do not want to wear a mask in the interest of individual patient safety and general public safety, then, please, by all means go take up truck driving. There is a growing demand for truck drivers and there is a critical need in the health care delivery system to replace irresponsible medical personnel.

Three days before the bacterial pneumonia hit me like a Covid train I sat for three hours in a surgical center waiting room while my wife underwent an outpatient procedure. I’m convinced I picked up the pneumonia bacteria in that waiting room—a bacteria left by a patient, a relative, or some medical personnel.

My point is this: hospitals can be life-saving places as I recently experienced or they can be potentially life-threatening places as I also recently experienced (as I am convinced).

The first, and most essential responsibility of a hospital is to protect the safety of the patient, and at any point that medical personnel feel that this employer responsibility conflicts with their self-created “rights,” then by all means these employees should be swiftly and irrevocably shown to the door with directions to the nearest truck driving academy.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene

This ideological extremist was sent to Congress in the November 3, 2020 election by voters in the 14th Congressional District for the State of Georgia. Demographics of this district by race are: 85.3% white and 9.8% Black American with a 10.1% Hispanic ethnicity. 79 percent of population in this district secured a high school education while only 16.6 percent graduated from college. The median household income is $42,700.

The 14th District lags behind the rest of the nation is educational attainment and median income. Roughly 91 percent of Americans have a high school diploma while 66 percent have some college with 47 percent having some kind of degree. The national median income in 2019 was nearly $69,000.

The 14th District is predominantly white, right-wing conservative, and Republican Party affiliated. It is not surprising that Greene defeated her Democratic opponent by a 74.7 to a 25.3 percentage margin. The Democratic candidate actually withdrew from the race before the November 3 general election, meaning Greene effectively ran unopposed.

The relatively educationally challenged and economically deprived people of the 14th Congressional District have an enshrined constitutional right to send to Congress the individual they want to represent them. They sent Marjorie Taylor Greene.

But that right of representation does not entail a right to be respected, accepted, and approved of by the members of the Congressional House of Representatives. Greene has publicly endorsed political assassinations, espoused wild-eyed conspiracy theories that not even a deranged crack addict could accept, and has spewed racist and anti-Semitic views over the entire social media landscape. The highest ranking Republican in Congress called her a “cancer” to the Republican Party.

That is why a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of all her congressional responsibilities. She has not demonstrated the political fitness or intellectual ability, either at a moral or ethical level, to carry out the responsibilities a Congressperson.

That said, let’s look at some good news.

Recent polling shows that 8 of every ten Americans have at least some trust in President Biden’s governing abilities while 75 percent of Americans approved of his management of the government. That is compared to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s admitted political mentor. Donald J. Trump never once—not even a nano-second—ever received an approval rating during his four-presidency that reached a 50 percent approval rating.

This good news was embraced by a fellow Georgian of Marjorie Taylor Green, 39-year-old Miguel Castillo of Columbus Georgia. Like Greene, Castillo was a Trump supporter who cast his vote for the former president on November 3, 2020.

But here’s the difference between the two Trump supporters.

Castillo recently said that he hopes Biden succeeds in his presidency.

“Whatever he does, it affects all of us as Americans,” he told the media. “I hope that his presidency is a good presidency. I don’t wish him to fail. I honestly do not.”

Democrats, and people of all political persuasions, can unify under Castillo flag of reason and love of country.

But there is no “unity” with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene who subscribes to the political ideology of Couy Griffin, a Otero County, New Mexico Commissioner who was recently arrested for his participation in the January 6, 2021 insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol Building.

A member of the “Cowboys for Trump,” Griffin expressed the political ideology—one supported by Greene—by telling the media that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” and vowed to have “blood running out of the [capitol] building” January 6.

So, the Cowboy for Trump now sits in jail and the QAnon Lady now sits in an empty office in the Capitol Building that Griffin help bloody. One deserve the other.

There may be some hope for America after all!

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“Coexistence is the only option.”

That is the title of an article in the January 20, 2021 edition of The Atlantic written by Anne Applebaum.

She makes the argument that coexistence must be established with a significant portion of the American population who either support or identify with the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

With all due respect to Ms. Applebaum, I disagree.

Law-abiding Americans (regardless of race, religion or political ideology) should never contemplate coexisting with insurrectionists demanding the lynching of a Vice-President and expressing the intent to execute the Speaker of the House live on social media.

I will not call the people in that mob Republicans. They are Trump supporters.

A dingbat real estate agent in Dallas said she was “glad” to be in the “mob” because it gave her a chance to witness “history.” She specifically added that “we are going down and storm the Capitol” She said she was acting in “solidarity” with Trump and was having “the time’” of her life.

There’s no “coexistence” with that kind of lunatic.

She can support Trump and sieg heil to the Proud Boys all she wants. That’s both her constitutional right and personal business.

But she has no place at the table with people who truly love this country with all its warts and who believe that social protest and civil disobedience enjoy First Amendment protections but who would never enjoy being with a murderous mob that left five people dead, dozens injured, scores indicted, social order seriously damaged, and the U.S. Capitol defiled.

And what about the sick pup walking through the Capitol Building with the treasonous Confederate flag over his shoulder?

I’m sure the black descendants of slaves would find it, at the very least, “difficult” to coexist with him.

The Confederate dude, the “Horned” screamer, the “Zip tie” guy, and the ones who killed the Capitol police officer and assaulted others believed they were “following orders” or heeding “instructions” given to them by their former president—the same guy who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still be loved for it—and they also believed that they should have gotten a “pardon” from their leader before he skedaddled out of town with the long arm of the law on his heels.

If it is your personal, social or political preference to coexist with these folks, feel free to do so – that is your right, just as it is your right to jump from the Grand Canyon without a parachute because the History Channel Moonshiners said you could fly.

Not me. No sir. No way.

People who storm the U.S. Capitol to lynch the Vice President and assassinate the Speaker of the House cannot coexist on my land. That “no trespass” sign on my driveway gate is there for them.

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Justice in America.

A Louisiana black man was given a life sentence for stealing a pair of hedge clippers and an Alabama black man spent 38 years in prison for stealing $9 and an Illinois man was given a life sentence for stealing $20 and a pack of cigarettes. 94 percent of the inmates serving three-strike life sentences, hundreds for petty property offenses, are black – and in California black men are 13 times more likely to be sentenced to three-strikes life sentences than white men.

White House staffers, all white, have been either photograph or filmed in recent days leaving their place of employment with government property in hand—one with a bust of Lincoln under his arms.

Some of this property is most assuredly government owned property—maybe not all but certainly most is.

These so-called “honest” white public servants are committing crimes far more heinous than that old black man who spent 38 years in prison for stealing $9.

America in its “finest” hours has always had two standards of justice: one privileged white standard and one underprivileged black standard.

Before the Civil War, blacks had to live under the “pro-slavery” laws and after the Civil War they had to live under the “Jim Crow” and “Black Code” laws.

Not much has changed about these two standards of justice.

White public servants are filmed stealing federal government property in broad daylight with naked impunity while a poor black man in Louisiana was given a life sentence for stealing someone else’s hedge clippers.

We’ve seen at least 75 violent white insurrectionists who stormed the nation’s capitol, left five people dead (one of whom was a police officer beaten to death trying to protect the capitol), ransacked the capitol building, threatened the lives of the nation’s senior leaders, destroyed government property and stole classified government material.

They were arrested without incident, not so much as a greasy hair or a spit-soaked beard harmed in the process.

Yet in recent weeks two black men were killed by white police officers in Columbus, Ohio—one for holding a cell phone in his hand and the other for holding Subway sandwiches in his. Both were not suspects in any criminal wrongdoing.

And let’s not forget the “Mommie dearest” rioters.

The “zip tie” rioter is a 30-year-old bartender who still lives with his 57-year-old mommie. Together, they want to return to 1776 and engage it yet a second Revolutionary War.

Then there is the “horned rioter” whose mommie told the media that the jail menu does not meet her son’s dietary need because he gets “sick if he doesn’t eat organic food.” His riotous little tummy cannot handle jail beans and rice although the food is considered just fine for Black Lies Matter inmates.

Let us hope that law-and-order will prevail. That U.S. Marshals will investigate to make sure that the outgoing White House staff and other “special” aides and assistants are not “looting” the government buildings on their way out.

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“It ain’t over til it’s over.”

That Yogi-ism has been used by the legion of folks who still refuse to accept the outcome of the 2020 election; namely, that Joe Biden won the election in a “landslide.”

More than 50 lawsuits have been filed in 7 swing states challenging the presidential outcome of that election. Virtually every one of the lawsuits have been either laughed or ridiculed out of state and federal courts by both Republican and Democratic judges. The U.S. Supreme Court, with six Republican justices—three of whom appointed by President Trump—have twice unanimously refused to even entertain the myriad of voter fraud claims used to challenge the election outcome.

Altogether, at least 9 Trump-appointed federal judges have summarily dismissed the lawsuits filed in their courts. The judges have simply asked of the attorneys filing these lawsuits, “where’s the beef.”

These legal challenges have been orchestrated by”skilled” right-wing conspiracy theorists like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood under the brilliant guidance of Rudy Tooty Giuliani, the former “gang buster” who now has trouble controlling his hair dye and sphincter muscle in public.

And what is the beef actually?

Tying together Hugo Chavez, George Soros, Dominion Voting Systems, Papa Doc Duvalier, D.B. Cooper, the Bermuda Triangle, Marie Laveau, Comet Ping Pong’s Pizza, the Clintons, Seth Rich and Hunter Biden into a conspiracy to stuff 7 million fraudulent votes in three voting machines in seven states.

“Did you talk to Hugo?” Rudy Tooty asked Ms. Sidney.

“Yes, I did –  just like you asked me, Mr. Mayor.” Ms. Sidney replied.

“Well, what did Hugo say?”

With a side glance at Lin Wood, Ms. Sidney replied: “First thing he told me was how hot it is down there before saying …. And these are his exact words, ‘Release the Kraken.’”

“The Kraken! Who the f..k is the Kraken?” Rudy Tooty bellowed as flatulence blew out of his dark side.

A silent pause passed between them as Ms. Sidney thought about the right answer while Rudy wondered how he would look in Ms. Sidney’s dress.

“All I know – and this came directly to me from Boogaloo in Idaho – is that he is a Unabomber in some federal supermax prison in Colorado.”

And at that precise moment on the sunny side of Heavenly Paradise, Hank Williams turned to Minnie Pearl said: “That’s the problem, Minnie – there just ain’t no beef.”

So, it’s over – the Fat Lady has sung.

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