Monthly Archives: February 2021

Joe Walsh, ex-Republican, anti-Trump, but still conservative

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It’s no secret that as a progressive/liberal/leftist I bitterly despise most conservatives, seeing nearly all of them as hypocrites who deserve no respect at all. But there is one that I have noticed recently on Twitter that challenges that perception quite well and so he may indeed be the exception that brings redemption to conservatism as a philosophy. He is Joe Walsh.

But before I actually talk about him, read this first:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn

Heel–Face Turn

When a bad guy turns good. This usually makes for a good plot, for three reasons:

  1. It lets the writer reintroduce the villain as a “darker, edgier” hero.
  2. It reinforces a desired notion of the inherent goodness within people.
  3. It prevents the Worthy Opponent from falling victim to What a Senseless Waste of Human Life.

There are also various in-story motivations for the bad guy to make the turn:

  1. An encounter with an All-Loving Hero or gaining a Morality Pet.
  2. Discovering that Being Evil Sucks or possibly that Good Feels Good.
  3. An Enemy Mine situation leading to Fire Forged Friendship or The Power of Love in the form of Deliver Us from Evil or Love Redeems changing their priorities. Conversely Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal makes them rethink their loyalties.
  4. Realizing that they are a Noble Demon.
  5. A Heel Realization, if they had never considered their actions evil or wrong in the first place.
  6. They become friends with a hero after fighting them.
  7. A case of Even Evil Has Standards, if one villain becomes a good guy to stop another villain from doing something so horrible that they just cannot allow it.

Now on to our actual subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walsh_(American_politician)

William Joseph Walsh (born December 27, 1961) is an American politician, conservative talk radio host, former social worker, and former 2020 Republican presidential candidate who served one term in the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois’s 8th congressional district.

Rep Joe Walsh.jpg

Born and raised in the Chicago metropolitan area, Walsh began his career as a social worker providing education and job skills training to students in low income areas, gradually becoming more politically active. Walsh had unsuccessfully campaigned for Congress in 1996 and the Illinois House of Representatives in 1998, but was elected to the U.S. House in 2010, defeating three-term incumbent Melissa Bean. Though he received little Republican Party support in his bid against Bean, he was popular with the Tea Party movement. In the 1990s, he identified as a moderate Republican, but he later became a conservative and a Tea Party activist.

During his time in Congress, Walsh was criticized for his often personal attacks against members of the Democratic Party and, specifically, President Barack Obama. He accused the president of abandoning the U.S.–Israel alliance and bankrupting the country. Walsh maintained a no-compromise approach to legislating that included rejecting any tax increases. He consistently voted against raising the federal debt ceiling and authored a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. Walsh rejected the scientific consensus on climate change and supported tougher border control. Later, during his presidential campaign, Walsh expressed regret for some of the comments and stances he made during his time in Congress.

As a result of redistricting following the 2010 United States Census, Walsh’s district was redrawn by the Democratic-controlled Illinois General Assembly in 2012. While he initially planned to run in the newly drawn 14th district against fellow Republican Representative Randy Hultgren, he eventually decided to run in the remapped 8th district against Democratic candidate Tammy Duckworth. Walsh was defeated by Duckworth in the general election on November 6, 2012. After leaving office, Walsh began hosting a talk radio show. Though initially a strong supporter of Donald Trump, Walsh became increasingly critical of the president and, on August 25, 2019, he announced his presidential campaign. He dropped out of the race on February 7, 2020, after a poor showing in the Iowa caucus, and subsequently left the party.[2] He later endorsed Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who won the election.

Say whatever else you will about this guy, but he is not (anymore, at least) a liar. He just doesn’t seem to be a backstabber like so many others I could refer to.

His Twitter account: https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom

And here are some of his actual recent tweets:

I’m going to be watching him over the next few months, at least. And maybe listening to him too.

http://fsilencepodcast.com/

If he really wants to make a difference soon, I think he should join the Libertarian Party and build it up to overthrow the corrupted Republicans.

https://www.lp.org/

Bigotry and laziness disgrace America’s medical profession

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Look at this story:

https://news.yahoo.com/am-worth-why-thousands-doctors-194203051.html

‘I Am Worth It’: Why Thousands of Doctors in America Can’t Get a Job

Emma Goldberg

 

Dr. Kristy Cromblin knew that as the descendant of Alabama sharecroppers and the first person in her family to go to college, making it to medical school might seem like an improbable dream. Her parents watched in proud disbelief as she inched closer to that goal, enrolling in a medical school in Barbados and enlisting in the military with plans to serve one day as a flight surgeon.

Then came an unexpected hurdle: A contentious divorce led Cromblin to take seven years away from medical school to care for her two sons. In 2012, she returned for her final year, excited to complete her exams and apply for residency, the final step in her training.

But no one had told Cromblin that hospital residency programs, which have been flooded with a rising number of applications in recent years, sometimes use the Electronic Residency Application Service software program to filter out various applications, whether they’re from students with low test scores or from international medical students. Cromblin had passed all her exams and earned her M.D., but was rejected from 75 programs. In the following years, as she kept applying, she learned that some programs filter out applicants who graduated from medical school more than three years earlier. Her rejection pile kept growing. She is now on unemployment, with $250,000 in student loans.

“There are times you question your worth,” Cromblin, 43, said. “You wonder if you’re useless. I’ve had to encourage myself over and over: I am worth it. I am useful. I am damn good.”

Cromblin is one of as many as 10,000 chronically unmatched doctors in the United States, people who graduated from medical school but are consistently rejected from residency programs. The National Resident Matching Program promotes its high match rate, with 94% of American medical students matching into residency programs last year on Match Day, which occurs annually on the third Friday in March. But the match rate for Americans who study at medical schools abroad is far lower, with just 61% matching into residency spots.

Note the description of the doctor in question:

the descendant of Alabama sharecroppers and the first person in her family to go to college

A contentious divorce led Cromblin to take seven years away from medical school to care for her two sons.

Which indicates to me that she is black, and as a single mother as well she has TWO strikes against her!

Continuing the article:

Last year, the Association of American Medical Colleges released a study that found that the country would face a shortage of 54,100 to 139,000 physicians by 2033, a prospect made all the more alarming as hospitals confront the possibility of fighting future crises similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet each year thousands of graduates emerge from medical schools with a virtually useless M.D. or D.O.; without residency experience, they do not qualify for licensure in any state.

Then don’t make residency experience an issue, obviously.

Residency directors say that although they are committed to diversity and consider many factors beyond test scores, they sometimes use filters in sifting through applications because they receive thousands of applications for just a handful of spots. “Nobody has the time or desire to read this many applications,” Dr. Suzanne Karan, an anesthesiologist at the University of Rochester, wrote in a 2019 blog post. “It makes my job a lot easier when I can filter your applications by M.D./D.O./foreign graduate.”

But Dr. William W. Pinsky, the chief executive of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, which credentials graduates of international medical schools, said residency directors who down-rank medical students from abroad were missing out on opportunities to diversify their programs.

“I understand program directors have to do what they have to do,” Pinsky said. “But if they put on a filter to leave out international graduates, they’re cheating themselves.”

Of course, but to a racist, cheating yourself doesn’t matter if in the end you can surround yourself with people like you. We need to stop making excuses for these biased hiring practices and just call these residency directors out on their bullshit.

Aspiring to help

The pool of unmatched doctors began to grow in 2006 when the Association of American Medical Colleges called on medical schools to increase their first-year enrollment by 30%; the group also called for an increase in federally supported residency positions, but those remained capped under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., introduced the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act in 2019 to increase the number of Medicare-supported residency positions available for eligible medical school graduates by 3,000 per year over a period of five years, but it has not received a vote. In late December, Congress passed a legislative package creating 1,000 new Medicare-supported residency positions over the next five years.

Dr. Adaira Landry, an emergency physician in Boston, said of all the young doctors she had mentored, those who went unmatched were the most challenging to assist: “They want to be part of our health care system,” she said. “But they have this boulder blocking them.”

But it’s not just black doctors that are discriminated against.

At some point, Dr. Saideh Farahmandnia lost count of the number of residency rejection emails she had received. Still, she could remember the poignant feeling of arriving in 2005 at Ross School of Medicine in Dominica, thinking she was “the luckiest person in the world.” She had grown up in a religious minority community in Iran in which access to higher education was restricted. When she passed her licensing exams, she ecstatically called her parents to tell them they had raised a doctor.

After medical school, she spent two years doing research with a cardiothoracic surgeon at Stanford, thinking it would make her residency applications more competitive. But she applied to 150 residency programs, from rural to urban community hospitals, and received 150 rejections. She kept applying every year until 2015, when her mother died suddenly and she took a break to grieve.

“You leave your family to follow your passion and promise you’re going to help the country that adopted you,” Farahmandnia, 41, said. “At the end, you’re left with $300,000 in student loans and a degree that took so much of your life and precious time with your mother.”

Note this detail:

She had grown up in a religious minority community in Iran in which access to higher education was restricted.

Most likely, she is a Baha’i, and Baha’is in Iran ARE denied higher education. Even as a critic of the Baha’i Faith, that strikes me as stupid.

The average medical school debt for students graduating in 2019 was $201,490, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Students who match into residency positions soon advance and become attending physicians, making an average of nearly $200,000 a year. But unmatched students are left scrambling to find other areas of work that can help them repay their debts.

With the ongoing controversy over student debt in general, this is even more serious. I wonder if some kind of class action lawsuit would help.

Dr. Douglas Medina, who graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 2011 and has been unable to match, says he pays at least $220 each month in loans, though some are now paused. “Just a couple of weeks ago I tried to decide between student loans or a stroller for the baby that’s coming,” he said. “It’s not just our careers being ruined, it’s our families.”

Remember this the next time you see some conservative in politics speak about the need for “family values”. They mean WHITE family values.

‘The cold smack of reality’

Students graduating from American colleges choose to go to medical school abroad for many reasons. Some have test-taking anxiety and prefer to apply to schools that don’t rely on MCAT scores for admission; others are attracted by the warmth and adventure promised by schools based in the Caribbean, which tend to have acceptance rates that are 10 times as high as those of American schools.

But many applicants, especially those coming from families unfamiliar with the intricacies of medical training, say they aren’t warned of the low match rates for international medical students.

“When I graduated, I got the cold smack of reality that all my credentials don’t matter, because you’re not getting past that match algorithm,” said Kyle, an international medical school graduate who asked that only his given name be used because he is reapplying for residency after an initial rejection.

Most frustrating, Kyle said, is being unable to work when he is aware of the urgent need for Black physicians like himself, especially in places like Atlanta, where he was raised. “It really hurts, because everyone thinks I should be a doctor,” he said. “They saw me pass my tests, they celebrated with me.”

Pinsky of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates said that the organization was working with the World Directory of Medical Schools to ensure that international schools described their credentials in a more clear and honest way.

“Unfortunately, there are schools that perhaps exaggerate a bit on their websites in terms of the success of their graduating students,” Pinsky said.

The 61% match rate for international students may understate the problem, some experts say, because it does not account for medical students who receive no interview offers. With those students included, the match rate for international medical students may drop as low as 50%.

Residency program directors said that in recent years they had increased their efforts to look at candidates holistically. “Straight A’s in college and perfect test scores does not a perfect applicant make,” said Dr. Susana Morales, an associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “We’re interested in diversity of background, geographic diversity.”

Question: Why do medical students who study abroad insist on coming back to America to proceed with their careers?

Standing on the sidelines

Some international medical students struggling to match have looked for alternative pathways into medical work. Arkansas and Missouri are among the states that offer assistant physician licenses for people who have completed their licensing exams but have not completed residency. Unmatched doctors, eager to use their clinical skills to help in the pandemic, said that they had found the opportunity to serve as assistant physicians particularly meaningful during the crisis.

After she failed a first attempt at a licensing exam, then passed on her second try, Dr. Faarina Khan, 30, found herself shut out of the matching process. Over the past five years, she has spent more than $30,000 in residency application fees. But with an assistant physician license, she was able to join the Missouri Disaster Medical Assistance Team in the spring, helping out in medical facilities where staff members had tested positive for coronavirus.

“Hospitals need to realize that there are people in my position who could show up to work in the next hour if we’re called,” Khan said. “I didn’t go to medical school to sit on the sidelines.”

Legislation allowing for similar licensure is being considered in a handful of states. This position typically pays about $55,000 per year — much less than a physician might earn — which makes it challenging to pay off loans, but it allows for medical school graduates to keep up with their clinical training.

Cromblin, in Prattville, Alabama, felt a similar urge to join the COVID-19 front line in the spring. She had defaulted on a loan and had little in her bank account, but as soon as she received her stimulus check she bought a plane ticket to New York. She spent the month of April volunteering with the medical staff at Jamaica Medical Center in Queens.

She applied again for residency positions this year, although she says her sons have a hard time believing that their mother will ever become a practicing doctor.

“Every time I get a rejection letter, I go through my positive affirmations,” she said. “I say, ‘There’s a place for me, this just isn’t the one.’ ”

I know a place that must be desperate for doctors to come help its people: AFRICA!

Two Reasons for Public Ignorance

There is a reason why I call Africa the Cursed Continent. It was almost entirely taken over and beaten down by European imperialism around the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries:

africa-partition

And even after the Europeans gave up control of those areas after World War II, they mostly left the Africans to fend for themselves. The results were horrific. The following cartograms, representing different territories in the world by size according to various statistics, show what Africans are suffering:

http://archive.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=230

Malaria Deaths

https://i1.wp.com/archive.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/230.png
In 2003, 92% of malaria cases and 94% of malarial deaths were recorded as being in African territories. The other 6% of deaths were mainly in Asia Pacific and Southern Asia. The total deaths recorded were 0.15% of the total cases. Whilst there were most malaria cases in Southeastern Africa, there were most deaths in Central Africa. Symptoms of malaria include fever and vomiting. Most deaths occur in cerebral malaria.The term ‘malaria’ comes from the medieval Italian ‘mala aria’ meaning ‘bad air’. The term was coined at a time before the mosquito had been identified as the carrier of the parasite.

http://archive.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=232

Cholera Deaths

https://i1.wp.com/archive.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/232.png

Cholera deaths result from severe dehydration caused by diarrhoea. This is treatable: in 2004 the number of cholera deaths was only 2.5% of the number of cholera cases that year. Distributions of cholera cases and deaths differ due to differing availability of treatments.

In 1962, in Papua New Guinea, 36% of cholera cases, which was 464 people, died. In 2004, in the Central African Republic, 15% of cholera cases, which was 48 people, died.

In contrast, there were 73 territories where nobody died from cholera, because of good sanitation, clean water and available treatment. These territories have no area on this map.

http://archive.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=236

Yellow Fever

https://i2.wp.com/archive.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/236.png

Yellow fever is a disease that is spread by mosquitoes. Unlike malaria, also carried by mosquitoes, yellow fever is not found in Southern Asia. This disease is almost exclusively found in Northern Africa (68% of cases) and South America (31% of cases).

Yellow fever is also known as black vomit (vomit negro in Spanish). Both of these names describe some of the more severe symptoms. “Yellow fever” due to the fever and jaundice that can occur. “Black vomit” because of the congealed blood in the sick of its victims.

A vaccine against yellow fever exists, but not everyone has access to this. 1 in 10 yellow fever cases lead to death.

http://archive.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=227

HIV Prevalence

https://i2.wp.com/archive.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/227.png

HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection, attacks the immune system. It eventually causes AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. With cases first recognised in the United States in 1981, AIDS increases the risk of many infections and tumours.In 2003, the highest HIV prevalence was Swaziland, where 38%, or almost 4 in every 10 people aged 15 to 49 years, were HIV positive. All ten territories with the highest prevalence of HIV are in Central and Southeastern Africa.Transmission of HIV is through sex, using infected needles and in the womb. Infected children are not shown here. HIV/AIDS often has an acquired social stigma.

Despite Africa being the most disease ridden continent, it also has the fewest doctors to treat those diseases.

http://archive.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=219

Physicians Working

https://i0.wp.com/archive.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/219.png

A physician can also be called a medical doctor. Physicians may be general practitioners or may specialise. The Caribbean island of Cuba has the most physicians per person working there; the fewest physicians per person are in the Southeastern African territory of Malawi.In 2004 there were 7.7 million physicians working around the world. The largest number were in China, which is the largest territory on the map. If physicians were distributed according to population, there would be 124 physicians to every 100,000 people. The most concentrated 50% of physicians live in territories with less than a fifth of the world population. The worst off fifth are served by only 2% of the world’s physicians.

So there is the obvious solution: if you can’t get a position in America, MOVE TO WHERE YOU ARE REALLY NEEDED!

Rush Scumbaugh is dead

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Read this story:

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/rush-limbaugh-conservative-radio-titan-172612686.html

Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio titan, has died of lung cancer at age 70

Maria Puente, USA TODAY

Rush Limbaugh, the talk titan who made right-wing radio financially viable in American media and himself a Republican kingmaker years before Fox News, died Wednesday, after he revealed in 2020 that his lung cancer was terminal. He was 70.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Kathryn, at the beginning of Limbaugh’s radio show, from which he’s been absent for almost two weeks.

A longtime cigar smoker who stocked the humidors in his homes and studios with the finest, Limbaugh succumbed to cancer after battling drug addiction and loss of hearing earlier in his career (he was deaf by the end and broadcast his daily show in spite of it).

A Republican conservative and die-hard supporter of former President Donald Trump to the end, Limbaugh was among Trump’s most important enablers of his failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election with baseless claims of voting fraud.

At one point in December, Limbaugh declared he thought the country was “trending toward secession,” then had to walk the comment back the next day. He wasn’t advocating another civil war, he was only repeating what he had heard being said, he told listeners.

After a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, provoking outraged sputtering from Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives alike, Limbaugh stood out in dismissing the controvery.

“We’re supposed to be horrified by the protesters,” Limbaugh scoffed on his program on Jan. 7. “There’s a lot of people out there calling for the end of violence…lot of conservatives, social media, who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances…I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual tea party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn’t feel that way.”

Love him or loathe him, few would deny that Limbaugh was one of the most influential commercial broadcasters, if not the most influential, in American history, says Michael Harrison, founder and publisher of Talkers trade magazine, which covers talk radio.

Harrison believes Limbaugh’s legacy – his impact on public policy, on the national culture and on GOP politicians from the presidency on down – remains unmatched.

“Limbaugh’s radio talent an dedication to the medium are unparalleled in the modern talk industry,” he said. “At a time when the very future of radio and its talent pool could very much be on the wane in terms of cultural relevance and prestige, he raised it to a level of importance on a par with the most influential media platforms and players of our time.”

Journalist Ze’ev Chafets, whose 2010 biography of Limbaugh (“Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One”) grew out of a New York Times magazine cover story in 2008, says Limbaugh was one of the top two or three most important figures in Republican politics in the 1990s.

“The reason is his show was heard in every congressional district in the country, and certainly every state, by a huge number of Republicans who almost entirely made up his audience,” Chafets says. “He was able, at a granular level, to affect elections. The year Newt Gingrich became speaker of the House (1994), he gave Limbaugh an honorary membership in (the Republican caucus in) Congress because of his influence.”

“Coastal Americans” who didn’t listen to Limbaugh had no idea of his “gravitational pull” because they underestimated his communication talents and his smarts, at least initially, Chafets said.

“They didn’t understand because they thought he was a carnival barker talking to rubes,” Chafets said. “He talked about issues, not gossip. His show (consisted of) three-hour monologues without notes and included minute details about arcane matters that most talk-show hosts could not do.”

He was original, he was funny and he was adept at assembling key elements of broadcasting to produce entertaining and compelling radio, Harrison says.

“He was a consummate pro and even people who disagreed with him politically, most who are honest will tell you what a great broadcaster he (was),” Harrison said. “Because he used so many elements of great radio: pacing, his voice, satire, sound effects. The flow and feel of his show was very appealing in his use of sound and broadcast principles.”

Limbaugh’s show was the most listened-to talk radio broadcast in the United States, with an estimated cumulative weekly audience of 15.5 million listeners at his peak, according to Talkers’ tracking. “No one beats Rush in the political-news talk-radio format – he’s #1,” Harrison said.

His was a life and career of wild success pockmarked by controversies and health calamities, including years of chronic back pain and unsuccessful surgery, leading to long-term prescription opioid addiction and 30 days in rehab in 2003.

In 2006, he was criminally investigated and arrested for alleged “doctor shopping” to obtain multiple prescriptions in Florida, a charge eventually dropped after a plea agreement and his promise to continue addiction treatment (although Limbaugh continued to maintain his innocence).

Earlier, in 2001, he announced he had gone deaf over three months for unknown reasons, although his doctors said it could have been due to years of drug addiction. Eventually, he had cochlear implants to restore some of his hearing.

Then lung cancer struck. Limbaugh gave his legions of fans plenty of advance notice of the coming end. On Oct. 20, he told listeners that his lung cancer was terminal.

“You measure a happy life against whatever medication it takes. And at some point you decide, you know, this medication may be working, but I hate the way I feel every day,” Limbaugh said on the air. “I’m not there yet. But it is part and parcel of this.

“It’s tough to realize that the days where I do not think I’m under a death sentence are over.”

His listeners were shocked when he first revealed his diagnosis on his show in February 2020, not long after being told on Jan. 20 the grim news by “two medical institutions.”

“This day has been one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me. I’ve known this moment is coming in the program…I’m sure that you all know by now that I really don’t like talking about myself and I don’t like making things about me,” Limbaugh said. “I like this program to be about you and the things that matter to all of us.”

But, he said, he knew he had to explain what was going on in his life because listeners would be curious if he wasn’t at his usual post every day. Even though he had no symptoms at that time, he realized that would not last and he would have to be absent for treatment.

“It’s not that I want to fool anybody, it’s just that I don’t want to burden anybody with it and I haven’t wanted to,” he said. “But it is what it is. “You know me, I’m the mayor of Realville.”

A day later, he was visibly moved when his longtime friend and Florida neighbor, President Trump, awarded him the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, during the State of the Union address in the House of Representatives.

Attending as one of Trump’s “special guests,” the white-bearded and ruddy-faced Limbaugh sat in the House gallery next to first lady Melania Trump, who fastened the medal on a blue ribbon around his neck.

“In recognition of all that you have done for our nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and that you inspire, and all of the incredible work that you do for charity, I’m proud to announce tonight that you will receive our nation’s highest civilian honor,” Trump said to applause in the chamber.

In May, Limbaugh updated his listeners on the state of his health with a candid assessment.

“I vowed not to be a cancer patient on the radio. I vowed to shield as much of that from the daily program as I can,” Limbaugh said before talking about his third wave of treatment. “I have to tell you, it’s kicking my ass.”

He said the previous week of treatments had left him “virtually worthless” and “virtually useless.” He hasn’t left the house or done much of anything, as doctors warned him would happen.

“It’s the price that you pay if you make the decision to go ahead and do treatment to try to prolong your life,” he said, adding that he is doing “extremely well, all things considered.”

Then came his grim assessment in October. He tried to be upbeat but the progression of the cancer or the treatment or both had not been easy.

“Some days are harder than others,” he said. “I do get fatigued now. I do get very, very tired now. I’m not gonna mislead you about that. But I am extremely grateful to be able to come here to the studio and to maintain as much normalcy as possible – and it’s still true.”

The day before Christmas 2020, on his final show of the year, he updated listeners on his health again, saying he hadn’t expected to make it past October let alone into December. “And yet, here I am and today, got some problems, but I’m feeling pretty good today… God knows how important this program is for me today,” he said, thanking listeners.

Limbaugh is survived by his fourth wife, Kathryn Rogers, whom he married in 2010. Three previous marriages ended in divorce. He did not have children.

Born on January 12, 1951, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Rush Hudson Limbaugh III came from a line of conservative Republicans that included lawyers, judges and ambassadors. His was a family that looked askance at his early yen – while still in grammar school – to become a radio star.

“I said, ‘Pop, I love this. I know I’m great at it. I’m gonna get even better,'” Limbaugh told interviewers later.

When he was 9, he got a toy radio as a gift and began “broadcasting” on AM frequencies in his home, entertaining his family playing DJ with his records. In high school he worked as a DJ at a local station co-owned by his father. He lasted only one year at Southeast Missouri State University before leaving to pursue a career in radio.

It did not go well at first. He was fired from stations in Missouri and Pennsylvania for being too controversial as a news commentator. In the mid-1980s, he landed at KFBK in Sacramento as an on-air host. Within a year, he was Sacramento’s top radio host.

The 1987 repeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine gave Limbaugh his head to broadcast his controversial opinions without having to present opposing views. In July 1988, he launched his own show on a talk station in New York City, and he was off to the races: His star was rising, and people noticed.

“A large new noise echoes across the invisible cacophony that is talk radio,” reported Louis Grossberger in The New York Times in December 1990. “His subject is politics. His stance: conservative. His persona: comic blowhard. His style: a schizoid spritz, bouncing between earnest lecturer and political vaudevillian.”

It helped that the first Gulf War was under way and Limbaugh demonstrated his fervent support by ridiculing anyone who sought peace. His show was moved to stations with larger audiences; eventually Limbaugh was broadcasting on more than 650 stations nationwide. The election of President Bill Clinton in 1992 only fueled the possibilities of lacerating satire aimed at Democrats.

Ever since, Limbaugh maintained his position as the king of talk radio while fending off multiple flaps over controversial things he said on the air, about racial and ethnic minorities, feminism and the notion of sexual consent, environmentalism and climate change, his admiration for Trump and his disdain for former President Barack Obama; Limbaugh was an on-air super-spreader of the “birtherism” lie that Obama was not born in the United States.

Most of these controversies rolled off him, except for Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified in Congress in 2012 in support of mandating insurance coverage for contraceptives. Limbaugh mocked her, suggesting this view made her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

“That was the most damaging thing he ever did,” Harrison says. The outcry that followed kicked off boycotts by major sponsors of talk-radio, even though Limbaugh issued a rare apology for “insulting word choices.”

“It had a terrible economic impact on the talk-radio business in general,” Harrison says. “It’s the one major blemish on his history that hurt his fellow broadcasters. Now he’s been forgiven because of what he’s done for the industry that outweighs that.”

In between doing his show and advising Republican presidents and candidates, Limbaugh wrote best-selling books (“The Way Things Ought to Be” in 1992, followed in 1993 by “See, I Told You So”), including a series of children’s books.

He supported several charities, including a telethon for leukemia and lymphoma, the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which honors a firefighter who died saving others in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York.

Chafets, who grew up in Michigan, remembers when he first heard Limbaugh on the radio as he was driving one day near Detroit.

“Before Rush Limbaugh, you could not hear conservative thought on the radio in the USA – Rush is the first guy to provide that, the rock-and-roll DJ with the news. And that shocked people,” Chafets said. “I could not believe it myself. I actually pulled over to listen to what he was saying. I couldn’t believe it.”

Considering all the terrible things Limbaugh said and promoted, and his demonization of liberals, I can only think of one thing in reference to his death:

index

I mean I don’t believe in hell because there is no evidence it exists, but people like Limbaugh make me wish he could be sent there!

A critical analysis of the Transformers Movie of 1986

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Back in the 1980s, the time of my late childhood and teen years, one of the biggest toy franchises was the Transformers. I often watched the TV show based on the toyline after coming home from school and so when I heard a movie based on the show was being released, I went to see it. It proved to be quite a shocker, considering the toyline and the TV show was marketed to children…..but no child could have been prepared for the extreme violence seen in the movie!

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Mormon leaders need to STFU about tithing!

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A common complaint in the ExMormon subreddit is over the obsession the Mormon leaders have with tithing, which is paying 1/10th of your earnings to the church. Many Christian churches encourage this and some also accept “offerings” (any payment that is not a part of tithing).

I can understand a church suggesting tithing as a means of its support, but making it MANDATORY seems absurd. And yet…….

“If you have to choose between feeding your family and paying tithing, pay tithing first.” This idea really makes clear it’s all about power and money, and not the sanctity of life. from exmormon

I couldn’t believe the Mormon church would do such a thing. And then I saw the proof:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2012/12/sacred-transformations?lang=eng

The Vigils’ bishop, César Orellana, also saw changes in their lives. Soon after their baptism, Amado approached Bishop Orellana and said, “We want to pay tithing, but we don’t know how.”

Bishop Orellana explained that tithing was 10 percent of their increase. Amado was somewhat concerned. At the time, Evelyn had a job, but he did not. “We always come up short,” Amado explained to his bishop, “but we want to pay tithing.”

Bishop Orellana responded, “Brother, the Lord has made many promises.” Together they read scriptures about the blessings that come from faithfully paying tithing, including the Lord’s words through the prophet Malachi: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, … and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).

After reading these scriptures together, Bishop Orellana looked at the new convert and said, “If paying tithing means that you can’t pay for water or electricity, pay tithing. If paying tithing means that you can’t pay your rent, pay tithing. Even if paying tithing means that you don’t have enough money to feed your family, pay tithing. The Lord will not abandon you.”

The next Sunday, Amado approached Bishop Orellana again. This time he didn’t ask any questions. He simply handed his bishop an envelope and said, “Bishop, here is our tithing.”

If you are actually trying to get people to starve themselves or go without any basic necessities to give you anything, YOU ARE A DAMNED PARASITE!!!!

People like Bishop Orellana are con artists, pure and simple.

Understanding Marginal Tax Rates

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Increasing numbers of American billionaires have appeared since the Republicans began cutting taxes for the rich, first under President Reagan, then under Bush Jr (Bush Sr condemned this as “voodoo economics” even before Reagan’s time) and finally under Trump. And it’s time we ended that crap forever! The proliferation of billionaires is not a sign of economic prosperity, but distress, since the members of the working class have not increased their buying power in the same time. That would only happen if their wages went up, but economic conservatives tend to oppose that and thus the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour. A person CANNOT make a living at such a wage!

It is a moral and logical imperative that we raise marginal tax rates on the wealthy to properly fund the government and prevent economic tyranny from those same rich people.

Imagine such a tax policy in place. If we have a tax rate of 0% for people who make up to $50,000 per year, a rate of 30% on those who make up to $100,000 per year, 50% for those who make up to $1,000,000 per year, and finally 90% for those who make above $1,000,000 per year, here’s what the results would look like.

First example is a person with annual wages of $90,000. He would pay nothing on the first $50,000 and then 30% on the remaining $40,000, so he would pay $12,000 in tax, resulting in his keeping $78,000.

Second example is someone with annual wages of $800,000. He would pay nothing on the first $50,000 and then would pay 30% on the next $50,000 ($15,000 in tax) and then 50% of the remaining $700,000 ($350,000 in tax). Thus he would keep $435,000.

Finally, you have someone who makes $100,000,000 per year. His tax rates would be nothing on the first $50,000 and then would pay 30% on the next $50,000 ($15,000 in tax), 50% of the next $900,000 ($450,000 in tax) and finally 90% of $99,000,000 ($89,100,000 in tax). Thus he would keep $10,435,000. He would still be rich!

The ONLY ethical reason to lower taxes on ANY people is if those tax rates were so high that they were keeping people in poverty. That only applies to the working class.

As I noted a long time ago:

Two Reasons for Public Ignorance

We delude ourselves into thinking that if having a million dollars is good, having ten million must be better, so we strive for that while never thinking of anyone who considers himself lucky to even have $100,000. Or never gets even close to having that much.

Greed is a vice and we must do everything we can to condemn it and prevent people from getting away with it.

Obama bashing, Libertarian style

Tax hikes on the wealthy are to punish GREED, not success. There’s nothing wrong with making enough money to live comfortably on, but if you make enough to become a BILLIONAIRE, you become more of a parasite than a contributor to the economy.

And hearing that so many of these rich people have become even RICHER even in the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic (throwing millions of workers into unemployment) makes me want to go after them!

Incidentally, Wayne Allyn Root, the guy who wrote that cynical hit piece I quoted in the blog entry about President Obama, was later disowned by most of the other Libertarians because of his racism and his constant lying. He is now a Republican and ally of Donald Trump. If I were God, I’d send that bastard to hell!

And here is a cartoon that also explains how marginal taxes work: