Yet more verifiable evidence showing what healthcare in the United States is really about, really cares about. It certainly isn't fostering wellbeing. Until Democrats control the Whitehouse, and both branches of Congress with solid majorities nothing is going to change this nefarious system.
Illustration credit: Nash Weerasekera
On June 14, 2017, just before noon, a doctor made an incision near a patient’s groin. Kari Kirk, a representative for the world’s largest medical device company, Medtronic, looked on and began texting her colleague a play-by-play.
“Fixing both legs from the ankles,” she wrote.
It was a fairly common procedure at the Robert J. Dole Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas, performed to treat blockages in the leg vessels.
Within reach were an array of Medtronic products: tubes with blades attached to shave hardened deposits off of artery walls; stents to widen blood vessels; balloons coated with therapeutic drugs.
Each time a doctor puts a foreign device in someone’s body, it carries a risk of complication, which can include clots or even require amputation. So medical experts, research and even Medtronic’s own device instructions
EditSign urge doctors to use as few as are necessary.
But, as revealed in Kirk’s text messages, this doctor took an aggressive approach.
“Just used 12 [drug-coated balloons]!!” Kirk texted her colleague.
The Republicans are now invoking communism again. What seems clear to me is first, these Republicans have no idea what communism is, since what they are talking about has nothing to do with communism; and, second, they are using the word communism because for their older voters communism is a big buzzword.
MAGAt Republican fascist Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Credit: Gage Skidmore
Steve Fraser: The Republicans Face Off Against… Yes, Communism!
Recently, at a well-publicized dinner, our former president — the one who encouraged a coup d’état to keep himself in power after losing an election — expressed his latest fear. “The problem we have,” he said ominously, “is that we are headed toward communism. We are beyond socialism. A lot of people say, ‘Well, not really.’ Of course we are.” And then he added, “If you do something spectacular, they don’t talk about it. If you do something not so good, they’ll make it into a travesty. If the other side does something bad, really bad, you’ll never find it. There’s never been a period of time like that in our country’s history. And that’s the way communism starts. And… we’re not gonna let it happen.”
OMG! A new red scare in America, as in my childhood when anti-communism was a part of everyday Republican politics? Did someone revive the Soviet Union when none of us were looking? Have […]
Laura Strickler and Julia Ainsley, - NBC News / Yahoo News
Stephan:
The other day I published what I see as a new and very alarming trend, corporations lobbying Red state legislatures to get Republicans to allow child labor. Think about this: you are 13 years old and you are working the night shift at a slaughterhouse cleaning up the blood and gore of slaughtered animals. Does that sound like a good idea for the United States? Does child labor at nasty jobs for cheap pay foster wellbeing? As this article describes, It is already happening.
Packers Sanitation Services a company with no integrity that employed children as young as 13 to work the “graveyard” shift cleaning slaughter houses.
Packers Sanitation Services Inc. paid $1.5 million in fines after the Labor Department found minors using chemicals to clean saws and equipment at 13 facilities in eight statesThe Labor Department said Friday it found 102 children as young as 13 working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states in what it called a “corporate-wide failure” by one of the largest food sanitation companies in the country, Packers Sanitation Services Inc.
In a statement, the company said, “We are pleased to have finalized this settlement figure as part of our previously announced December resolution with the Department of Labor (DOL) that ends their inquiry. We have been crystal clear from the start: Our company has a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18 and fully shares the DOL’s objective of ensuring full compliance at all locations.”
“As soon as we became aware of the DOL’s allegations, we conducted multiple additional audits […]
Yet another objectively verifiable measure showing that the United States is moving in the wrong direction. As the report says, "The US ranks worse on impunity than Hungary and Singapore, one a poster child for democratic backsliding and the other an illiberal democracy." This all arises from the reality that American culture is focused on only one thing. Greed and making profit.
Anti-riot fencing around the US Capitol for Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Washington, United States, 7 February 2023. Credit: Allison Bailey / NurPhoto / Rex / Shutterstock
The US scores surprisingly badly in a new ranking system charting abuses of power by nation states, launched by a group co-chaired by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband.
The US comes close to the median of 163 countries ranked in the Index of Impunity, reflecting a poor record on discrimination, inequality and access to democracy. The country’s arms exports and record of violence are an even bigger negative factor.
The US ranks worse on impunity than Hungary and Singapore, one a poster child for democratic backsliding and the other an illiberal democracy.
The UK performs creditably at 147, only 26 rankings away from the most accountable state. Its score is brought down by its protection of offshore tax havens that facilitate tax abuse in other countries.
Former colonies, many affected by the slave trade, fare poorly in the index, suggesting the experience of imperialist subjection has caused a continuing […]
The world in general, and the government and people of the United States very particularly, just don't seem to get it. Climate change is going to radically and, in many cases, catastrophically, going to change the environment and the lives of every being (human or otherwise) in dramatic and negative ways. Do you see anyone on television talking about this? Not often. We are barrelling down a road that leads to a cliff. I am deeply concerned about what kind of world my daughter and her son are going to face when they get to my age. Do you feel the same? You should. I study trends, and this is not a good one.
Endangered Key Deer are pictured in a puddle following Hurricane Irma in Big Pine Key, Florida, U.S. Credit: Carlo Allegri / Reuters
leading conservation research group found that 40% of animals and 34% of plants in the United States are at risk of extinction, while 41% of ecosystems are facing collapse.
Everything from crayfish and cacti to freshwater mussels and iconic American species such as the Venus flytrap are in danger of disappearing, a report released on Monday found.
NatureServe, which analyzes data from its network of over 1,000 scientists across the United States and Canada, said the report was its most comprehensive yet, synthesizing five decades’ worth of its own information on the health of animals, plants and ecosystems.
Importantly, the report pinpoints the areas in the United States where land is unprotected and where animals and plants are facing the most threats.
Sean O’Brien, president of NatureServe, said the conclusions of the report were “terrifying” and he hoped it would help lawmakers understand the urgency of passing protections, such as the Recovering […]
