marble falls
marble falls's JournalFacing another cancer related surgery tomorrow and I need to to repost this ...
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1002252691The slaughter of innocents.
Last edited Wed Feb 1, 2012, 04:06 PM - Edit history (1)
My story is not short and may take a few minutes to read. You will read it or you will ignore it and either way I am content. But if you should be so inclined I would appreciate your thoughts and comments especially as they pertain to solutions. That is what this board is supposed to be about, isn’t it?
You may be asking yourself why, in the whole wild world of thoughts and worthy causes that you should give this one even a moment of your precious time and that is a good question. After all, there is the Republican primaries and the many laughs those are providing us with.
Let me present you with this reason, and if you feel it is worthy then read on and I will explain at the end why it should matter to us all and not just me, although I must admit to having more than a passing interest in the subject. Here’s the thing. I am dying and I shouldn’t have to. It could have been avoided easily, but it wasn’t and the reason is the crazy patchwork quilt of health care delivery that we call private insurance.
Here’s my story.
Six years ago I was healthy, employed, happy, and in good shape. I ran 10 miles a day (half of it on stairs), had a healthy diet, saw a doctor when appropriate, and contributed to my community through volunteer work. My wife and I loved each other and we were about to finally start a family. We had finally settled down after wandering the world and finishing our masters and doctors degrees (she’s the one with the brains). We had just bought our first house (an old fixer upper well within our budget) and had started fixing it up. In addition to trying for a kid of our own we were also looking at adoption because it was a need that we felt an obligation to fulfill both in ourselves and for children in need. Life was, in short, pretty good.
Then a company vehicle, driven by an unlicensed driver, ran a stop sign and plowed into me. I had a spinal injury and a lot of pain but surgery wasn’t initially indicated contingent on PT (physical therapy) and other therapies to see if they would reduce the pain. And if it didn’t work then I would have the surgery. I was making some progress, my boss was holding my job, and I almost recovered in about 6 months. It was hard painful daily work, but I felt that I was getting my life back one screaming session at a time. Hard work was paying off again.
And then it happened again. Ironically I was driving back from another PT session when someone in a big assed pick up truck ran a stop sign and T boned my ass. This time I couldn’t feel my arms, back or legs, was in incredible pain, lost control of my bladder and bowels, and had to be hauled out of what was left of my car on a back board. I clearly remember people beeping their horns and yelling at me to “move my fucking car.” Oh, the humanity. Did I mention that I live in Michelle Bachmann’s district? Anyone surprised? As a former certified First Responder, this stunned me as much as my physical injuries. I didn’t know that such casual disregard existed.
The ambulance took me to an ER where I laid for 6 hours in my own cold urine before being seen by anyone on staff. Hmmmm. In my experience the much-ballyhooed great care in the US wasn’t so good. I was in an ER in Canada about 10 years ago for a much less serious injury and I was seen in less than an hour.
I couldn’t move. I thought I was going to die and it frightened me. And then I thought I might live and be paralyzed and that frightened me more. I think I aged about 10 years lying on that table.
Eventually I was released from the hospital with a strong recommendation for spinal surgery and either vertebral fusion and/ or disc replacement. Because of the location and complexity of this procedure, there was a 1 in 20 chance of death or total paralysis with a lesser chance of partial success. But between a choice of that or of having to live with the pain, diminished feeling and partial paralysis that I had (have) it was easy to say to the surgeon “start cutting baby. I’m feeling lucky. Daddy needs a new pair o’ shoes. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”
Here is where the story becomes relative to the rest of you.
As you know, America’s health care is paid for by a worn out patchwork quilt of insurance companies (read: devils masquerading as thieving con men masquerading as middle men masquerading as efficiency experts). They are the “Department of No” that the mentally unhinged worry about when they moan, “keep the government out my Medicare.”
This is when the shit got bad. There were, at this point, 3 insurance companies involved in my care; two auto insurances and one health insurance (mine). The first accidents’ insurance company claimed that they weren’t responsible because my problems were the second insurance companies responsibility. The second insurance company claimed that my injuries were the first insurance companies responsibility. My health insurance said that it was a car accident so they weren’t paying either.
Understand that all of them admitted that I should be treated. They all said that I deserved treatment. But they all said it was the other companies’ problem.
My doctor wanted to help but the hospital wanted to be paid and they had 3 refusals of claim forms in hand, thus they asked for either cash or a credit card with a limit in the 6 figures. What had been “the other companies responsibility” had become my problem.
I didn’t have the money so I had to wait. 6 months later, my boss said she was very sorry to tell me that she HAD to replace me. That was pretty nice of her actually. She kept me on the books and my family covered with insurance for a full year. But I was replaced. There went my health insurance and my income and my disability insurance. I thought things were bad, but they were about to get worse.
After that I didn’t have the money to ever see a doctor much more than every other month and then every 4 months and then every 6 months and then never. The income just wasn’t there. With the loss of my income and the extra bills, my wife and I went from solidly middle class to poor. My car bloke down and I couldn’t afford to fix it so I had to walk anywhere I needed to unless my wife was around and could drive me in her car. And she took a second job out of town to help cover the bills so I walked a lot. And in the winter, in Minnesota, let me tell you, walking everywhere sucks ass.
I hired a lawyer, a very good lawyer. In fact I hired the lawyer that none of the insurance companies wanted to see in court because he is very, very good. Of the top 10 payouts in our states personal injury history, he owns 3 of them. But the insurance companies are allowed by law to stall and not respond for up to 6 months to every request made and every question asked and they do. Why? Because they can. And it isn’t their problem. It’s our problem.
Using procedural and other dodges all the insurance companies in question have pushed off any settlement now for almost 6 years. Just last week we got our first settlement offer from the first insurance company - $2000. This is an insult. Counting just lost income I’m out more than 300K. It is an invitation to sue which we are now doing. Finally the end is in sight. In about a year, we will likely get a court date.
Of course this is the part of the story where shit goes from worse to worst.
About 6 months ago I started to bleed out of my nose on a regular basis. This was accompanied by migraines. But I didn’t think much about it because; I couldn’t afford to do anything about it anyway, I already hurt, and what is one more symptom in the old shit sandwich. I figured it might just be another symptom connected to my spinal injury, or maybe just dry weather. I didn’t know and I was worried about it, but I couldn’t afford to see a doctor and I sure as shit couldn’t afford any diagnostic tests, and even if I could afford those test, how in the hell could I afford any treatments? It was a dilemma and one I decided to ignore because, well, I couldn’t do anything about it anyway.
This is the same dilemma that every man, woman and parent in this country makes if they lack coverage or have a crappy policy (that percentage is about 50% of the population and raising). This attitude may not make much sense to anyone with money in the bank or functioning insurance coverage, but remember that I had all of those things too and that coverage was denied to me. The insurance companies claim it is just a contract dispute, a minor administrative detail. To far too many of us, it is murder.
Here’s the rest of my story. The bleeding and headaches got worse. So my current boss at the clinic, where I work part time, offered to pay for an MRI. The MRI indicated a few more tests that my boss also paid for. She’s a wonderful woman. And while I’ve earned my keep, some days I feel like a charity case. These days I feel like a complete one, because I am.
The tests came back. The news was bad. Real bad. Life ending bad. Which sucks.
What pisses me off is that if I had had access to even a basic physical exam with some basic lab exams a year ago, it might likely have been diagnosed early and I wouldn’t be facing my death soon. The type of cancer I have is so treatable that it is considered non fatal if caught early enough. But it is too extensive, too pervasive to deal with now. It’s mutated. It’s spread. It’s now highly malignant.
And understand. Even if it wasn’t it doesn’t matter. Because I can’t afford treatment. If anyone want to claim that medical care is free at an ER I will just be more polite than you deserve and say “you are a low life, low information, immoral, pig ignorant, hateful suckass motherless asshat.” You can and do get basic ER care in an ER. The law is specific. Public hospitals are required to treat you just enough that you are stabilized and then they release you and bill you and then sue you if you can’t pay. And they will do NOTHING for any long term, chronic, and deadly disease like cancer. That is NOT what they are set up to do. They are called EMERGENCY ROOMS because that is all that they deal with. How fucking stupid does someone have to be not to understand that? (OK – I’ll stop ranting now, but seriously, WTF?)
In other words it didn’t have to happen and wouldn’t have if I had coverage and could have seen a doctor occasionally. In fact the original surgery would have been done and none of this story would have happened. I would be working on my house. My wife wouldn’t be working herself into an early grave. My car would work. I would be employed. And I would be a father. And I would have a future. And my family and I would grow old together.
I will die soon and the ONLY REASON is that I don’t live in a civilized country. Let that sink in for a moment.
…
Now let this sink in: I’m not alone. There are 100,000 Americans who face the same thing every year. This is an honest to god slaughter of innocents.
People dying of preventable disease in the USA every day because insurance companies decide they deserve to die. A clerical snit between my insurance companies has killed me.
In answer to some of you who may suggest that I check with the hospitals and charities and programs, and I have. The problem is that both my wife and I are self-employed so we make too much gross income (on paper) to qualify for any aid or any programs. However the net income is too little to afford much beyond the basics. And so here I sit, close to the end. My wife of 20 years will be alone. This make me so sad.
It feels strange to be so accepting of my own fate. I’m dying and I’ve spent the last few weeks calling old friends and family and reconnecting. I’ve been thinking about what I have done and accomplished in my life and except for the fact that I never had kids, I am content.
I’ve lived in Canada, the USA, and Venezuela. I have traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Columbia, Panama, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. I have friends all over the world. I have experienced some really cool shit in my life. I’ve worked as a rig pig, corrections officer, teacher, conductor, musician, private chef, and medical administrator. I’ve hiked glaciers and mountains, shot white water rapids, played with jazz, rock and symphonic bands, explored the Amazon, and eaten way too much ice cream.
I’ve helped set up a food co-op and a school in Guatemala, taught English as a second language to immigrants, taught composition and elocution to Chinese diplomats, worked with the sick, developed curriculum for developmentally delayed students, helped find housing and education for homeless people, donated to charities, conducted an orchestra, worked to get progressives elected (I’m a graduate of camp Wellstone – a highly worthy cause) and I make one mean roast leg of lamb.
I’ve been diving, mountain climbing, mountain biking, camping, hiking, skiing, and so many other things. I’ve had great friends and I’ve had an impact on my world. My life, although shorter than I wanted it to be and missing a few adventures, has been good. I am content except for my worry about my wife.
Someone once said that we all live the same amount of time. We are born and then we die. What happens in the middle is what counts. My life has been full. My life counted. I just wish it could have counted for a little while longer.
But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about. What I want to talk about it is why we tolerate this.
It has been estimated that about 100,000 people die in the USA a year from lack of proper care. That is more people every 2 weeks than died on 9-11. We spent about a trillion in response to that event. So why aren’t we responding to this with the same passion and strength?
More importantly, what are we going to do about it? Well, not we, but you. I won’t be around for the rest of this fight. So it’s up to all of you.
I want to ask that question to every politician, media person, lobbyist and advocate in the country; “what are we going to do about this?” But I’m out of time.
Farewell DU. This will be my last post and with the exception of answering questions on this post for the next day or so, I’m done. I probably have about another month or 2 and I’d rather spend them not worrying about the state of things. I plan on spending as much time with family and friends as possible. There are still a few books I haven’t gotten to and a few songs still un-played.
In my opinion, progressives are the last, best hope for America. Don’t give up the fight. Too many lives depend on what you do and the opinions you influence. Don’t stop taking the fight to the enemies of democracy. Don’t just stay on DU. This place is a store-house of knowledge and help and vision. Use that. Then go out into the world and make a difference. And then get up tomorrow and do it again. Be the difference you want to see in the world.
In closing I would like to apologize for every mean word, turn of phrase, misunderstanding, or slight that I have delivered to anyone here. I wanted to be a better person and I failed in that, so I hope you will forgive me. My mom used to say that those who were the hardest to love probably needed love the most. Be good to each other and respect and honor our differences, as they are our greatest strength. Thank you, DU, for giving me a home these past few years.
Good luck everyone. May your road home be filled with sunshine, gentle slopes, green grass and many a glass of fine beer on warm summer nights.
on edit - the title of the essay does NOT refer to me. I could be called many things, but innocent isnt one of them.
I am fortunate. Just so my dad could not shut me up about my opinions about the Viet Nam war at the dinner table, I joined the Navy a year after I was exposed to the draft lottery.
This is the reason I get treatment, up to date, top grade treatment.
I know I am fighting for a longer life, a chance to die of something other than bladder cancer (from years of second hand tobacco smoke) or prostate cancer (possibly a side effect of BCG treatment for the bladder cancer) and at worst at this point I have at least some good years in front of me. But I also know I am covered by VA. Too many of us aren't covered by anything at all. Feeling safe but vulnerable.
Big EDIT: MA's wife's post after MA passed:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1002632763
MedicalAdmin (4,143 posts)
re: Medical Admin
I thought everyone should know that my husband passed away a little more than a month ago. He had devoted the last part of his life to his family, but I know that he really appreciated Democratic Underground and often mentioned to me some particularly good argument he had, or some new information that he learned while posting here.
I would like to thank everyone on here for giving him such passion and fun. I appreciate it and I know he did. I only wish he hadn't been taken (and yes, I do mean taken) from us so early. He was truly a renaissance man. In his life he had worked as a social worker, teacher, oil worker, conductor, print and publishing sales, and an officer. His last career was as a medical administrator, a job that he was gravely passionate about.
I miss him more than words can explain. I feel it like a knife twisting in my heart. I wake up in the night and he isn't there. I look for him to come through the door and he doesn't. My phone rings and it isn't him. But my world is a little less empty every day. Maybe someday the scars on my heart will heal over. In the meantime God help the insurance exec that ends up in front of me when I'm driving anywhere.
I wish everyone here good luck. As for myself and the rest of our family, a cousin of his has sponsored us to move to another country where this insurance BS won't be able to happen again to us. And so we are leaving. I would stay and fight with you but I am so tired that I can't see past survival mode right now.
Thanks again for being my husbands online friends.
Lee Ann.
Ivanka Trump: Ocasio-Cortez doesn't understand the American people like I do
Ivanka Trump: Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t understand the American people like I do
Published: Feb 26, 2019 12:39 p.m. ET
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ivanka-trump-ocasio-cortez-doesnt-understand-the-american-people-like-i-do-2019-02-26?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_3839454
By
Shawn Langlois
Social-media editor
<snip>
“You’ve got people who will see that offer from the Democrats, from the progressive Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Here’s the Green New Deal, here’s the guarantee of a job,’ and think, ‘yeah, that’s what I want, it’s that simple,’” Steve Hilton said. “What do you say to those people?”
Ocasio-Cortez, of course, has made headlines with her bold initiative, which not only seeks to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution in the U.S. over the next decade but also takes aim at inequality by guaranteeing jobs with a living wage.
“This idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want,” Trump said. “They want the ability to be able to secure a job. They want the ability to live in a country where’s there’s the potential for upward mobility.”
<snip>
“I think fundamentally if you ask yourself the question, ‘are we better today than we were yesterday or we were 2 years ago?’ The answer is, undoubtedly, yes,” she said. “So, as an American, families sitting down and thinking about their financial situation relative to a month ago or a year ago, America is doing very well and it stands in quite sharp contrast to the rest of the world. So, not only are we doing well, much of the world has slowed down in terms of the pace of their growth.”
And this is the "reasonable" Trump.
Goodyear Airdock Where the Akron was built.
Goodyear Airdock
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Airdock
fire in 2006
The US Navy airship USS Macon under construction at the Goodyear Airdock in 1932
The Akron being built.
Goodyear Airdock is located in Ohio
The Goodyear Airdock is a construction and storage airship hangar in Akron, Ohio.
Contents
History
Built and previously owned by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, later Goodyear Aerospace, it was constructed from April 20, 1929 to November 25, 1929, at a cost of $2.2 million (equivalent to $24.76 million in 2016[2]). The building was designed by Karl Arnstein of Akron, Ohio. At the time it was built, it was the largest building in the world without interior supports, and provided a huge structure in which "lighter-than-air" ships (later known as airships, dirigibles, and blimps) could be constructed.[3] The first two airships to be constructed and launched at the Airdock were USS Akron (ZRS-4), in 1931, and its sister ship, USS Macon (ZRS-5), in 1933. They were about 785 feet (239.27 m) long.
The building has a unique shape which has been described as "half a silkworm's cocoon, cut in half the long way." It is 1,175 feet (358.14 m) long, 325 feet (99.06 m) wide, and 211 feet (64.31 m) high, supported by 13 steel arches. There is 364,000 square feet (34 000 m²) of unobstructed floor space, or an area larger than 8 football fields side-by-side. The Airdock has a volume of 55 million cubic feet (or about 1.5 million cubic meters). A control tower and radio aerial sit at its northeast end. At each end of the building are two huge semi-spherical doors that each weigh 600 tons (544 000 kg). At the top, the doors are fastened by hollow forged pins 17 inches (43 cm) in diameter and six feet (1.83 m) long. The doors roll on 40 wheels along specially-designed curved railroad tracks, each powered by an individual power plant that can open the doors in about 5 minutes.[4]
The Airdock is so large that temperature changes within the structure can be very different from that on the outside of the structure. To accommodate these fluctuations, which could cause structural damage, a row of 12 windows 100 feet (30.48 m) off the ground was installed. Furthermore, the entire structure is mounted on rollers to compensate for expansion or contraction resulting from temperature changes. When the humidity is high in the Airdock, a sudden change in temperature causes condensation. This condensation falls in a mist, creating the illusion of rain, according to the designer.[5][6]
When World War II broke out, enclosed production areas were desperately needed, and the Airdock was used for building airships. The last airship built in the Airdock was the U.S. Navy's ZPG-3W in 1960. The building later housed the photographic division of the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation.
<snip>
For Sale: Legendary Photographic 'Proof' of Fairies and Gnomes
For Sale: Legendary Photographic ‘Proof’ of Fairies and Gnomes
In 1917, two young girls with a camera pranked the world.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cottingley-fairies-photographs-for-sale
by Jessica Leigh Hester September 28, 2018
Elsie Wright photographed her cousin, Frances Griffths, surrounded by fairies in July 1917. Courtesy Dominic Winter Auctioneers
In summer and autumn of 1917, teenage Elsie Wright and her adolescent cousin, Frances Griffiths, borrowed a glass-plate camera from Wright’s father and tromped to Cottingley Beck, in West Yorkshire. They photographed each other on the bank of the stream and in the grass of a sun-dappled glen—and also captured some special guests.
One image shows Griffiths, looking wistful, chin in hand, with a cavorting troupe of fairies. In another, a smiling Wright greets a gnome high-stepping through the grass.
For those inclined to believe in the existence of small, magical forest creatures, the photos felt like ironclad proof—the ultimate rebuke to the skeptics, clear as day. Some of the most ardent support for the veracity of the images, known as the “Cottingley Fairies,” came from Arthur Conan Doyle. Years after he had dreamed up Sherlock Holmes, the author campaigned for belief in Spiritualism, which boomed during and after World War I. Conan Doyle, who had lost his son Kingsley in the war, seized on the girls’ photographs as evidence of the mystical world. He compiled his arguments into a volume called The Coming of the Fairies. The pictures, he wrote, “represent either the most elaborate and ingenious hoax ever played upon the public, or else they constitute an event in human history which may in the future appear to have been epoch-making in its character.”
Frances Griffiths photographed Elsie Wright hanging out with a gnome in September 1917. Courtesy Dominic Winter Auctioneers
<snip>
The hoax, it turned out, wasn’t so elaborate. The cousins had carefully cut the creatures out of paper and staked them to the ground with little hat pins to create the illusion of floating. Hints of this sleight-of-hand were there, for those looking closely. The gnome’s belly, for instance, had a tiny hole where the pin poked through. Conan Doyle, for one, proposed that the little hole was a navel.
<snip>
Added photos:
&f=1
Just a question: do executive packages at health insurance corporations pay for pre-existing ...
conditions out of our uncovered premiums? Does the White House staff get coverage for pre-existing conditions? At what point will a genetic predisposition become a pre-existing condition. How do we find any of this out?
Overlooked No More: Bessie Blount, Nurse, Wartime Inventor and Handwriting Expert
Overlooked No More: Bessie Blount, Nurse, Wartime Inventor and Handwriting Expert
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/obituaries/bessie-blount-overlooked.html
Blount invented a feeding device and taught amputee veterans to write with their teeth and their feet. She later became a forensic handwriting analyst.
?quality=90&auto=webp
Bessie Blount in 1958 helping a disabled war veteran write with his feet. She later invented a feeding device to help veterans become self-sufficient.CreditCreditElmira Star-Gazette/Elmira Advertiser
March 27, 2019
Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
By Amisha Padnani
Bessie Blount was about 7 when a teacher rapped her knuckles during a classroom assignment. The blow stung her, the reason even more so.
“For writing with my left hand!” Blount told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2008, still incredulous more than 85 years later.
So she taught herself to write with her teeth and her toes, figuring, “If it was wrong to write with my left hand, then it was wrong to write with my right hand.”
She never finished her museum. She died the next year, on Dec. 30, 2009. She was 95.
Schumer Compares Ilhan Omar To Trump
Source: huffpo
Schumer Compares Ilhan Omar To Trump As Top Democrats Echo GOP’s Criticism At AIPAC
At the pro-Israel conference, Democratic leaders are helping the Republicans’ claim that the left has turned against Israel and toward anti-Semitism.
By Akbar Shahid Ahmed
WASHINGTON ― Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) handed Republicans a political gift at this week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference by equating Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) recent remarks on politicians’ support for Israel with President Donald Trump’s 2017 defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“When someone looks at a neo-Nazi rally and sees some ‘very fine people’ among its company, we must call it out. When someone suggests money drives support for Israel, we must call it out,” Schumer said at the AIPAC event Monday evening.
<snip"
She apologized after the first controversy and following the second, elaborated on her views in The Washington Post, explaining that she, as has every U.S. president for decades, believes Israel has a right to exist in areas historically important to Jews but also must end its occupation of internationally recognized Palestinian territories, and she wants to see a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
<snip>
Democrats’ message was clear: We’re not all like Omar, and we’re not planning to abandon a historic U.S. alliance. It’s unclear how it can help. Their response perpetuates a cycle of name-calling and peacocking rather than shifting the conversation to a discussion of facts. There’s simply no evidence for the claim that Democrats have at an institutional level turned on Israel. President Barack Obama crafted the biggest aid package for Israel in U.S. history, members of the party from the leadership level on down frequently visit the country to better understand its concerns and context, and Democrats like Schumer and Deutch are critical to pro-Israel legislation on Capitol Hill.
<snip>
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/schumer-aipac-ilhan-omar-democrats-israel_n_5c9a66cae4b07c88662c7df0
Very surprised by this trivializing of Trumps misdeeds.
AOC: Removing 'Horrific' Trump Won't Solve Our 'Much Deeper Problems'
AOC: Removing ‘Horrific’ Trump Won’t Solve Our ‘Much Deeper Problems’
Freshman congresswoman says the president alone isn’t the problem. It’s the party that embraced him.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-trump-symptom_n_5c98612fe4b057f7330c97e8
By Ed Mazza
“He can stay, he can go. He can be impeached, or voted out in 2020,” she wrote on Twitter, then added:
“But removing Trump will not remove the infrastructure of an entire party that embraced him; the dark money that funded him; the online radicalization that drummed his army; nor the racism he amplified + reanimated.”
Ocasio-Cortez said those deeper problems included income inequality, racism, corruption and a willingness to excuse bigotry. And those, she wrote, can’t be fixed with an election:
It’s not as easy as voting. It means having uncomfortable moments convos w/ loved ones, w/ media, w/ those we disagree, and yes - within our own party, too.
It’s on all of us.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 24, 2019
<snip>
This is an important voice American voice. I am more impressed by her daily.
Devin Nunes Event Axed After Planned 'Cattle Call' Protest To Honor Cow Twitter Account
Devin Nunes Event Axed After Planned ‘Cattle Call’ Protest To Honor Cow Twitter Account
“Cow-ards,” snort Twitter wits after the GOP cancellation announcement.
By Mary Papenfuss
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/devin-nunes-devincow-protest-twitter_n_5c959bcde4b057f7330afb65
<snip>
The protest plot was launched after Nunes sued Twitter and the parody Twitter account @DevinCow for $250 million for online harassment. Nunes’ planned blow against ridicule backfired as the number of “Devin Nunes’ Cow” followers zoomed to 623,000, far surpassing the number of Nunes’ own Twitter followers.
Andy Lassner, the executive producer of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” set off the protest plans Wednesday with a tongue-in-cheek “I’m not saying” that people should show up to the Fresno Lincoln Reagan Dinner — planned for April 11 — to “moo.” Lassner’s followers quickly suggested showing up in cow costumes, with cowbells and mooing noise-makers.
Fresno Republicans said on Twitter that the event was canceled for “security reasons” and declined to elaborate. They hope to reschedule, a representative told the Fresno Bee. Announcement of the event and ticket sales have been removed from the internet.
<snip>
The @DevinCow parody account was apparently inspired by the Nunes family dairy, which has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies from the federal government. Earlier this month, Nunes complained about “socialism” after a California waitress asked him in a restaurant if he wanted a straw. The state has passed a law to combat plastic waste by limiting plastic straws only to customers who request them.
Profile Information
Name: had to removeGender: Do not display
Hometown: marble falls, tx
Member since: Thu Feb 23, 2012, 04:49 AM
Number of posts: 57,063
