And there he sits, smug, in a a mansion in Floriduh, living the life of luxury on $2B of Saudi money. It's an indictment of the US system of justice that exempts rich white men from accountability.
Sorry - all the fault lies with Trump himself. He directed all this MASS DEATH. And I will say this over and over - HE SHOULD BE TRIED AT THE HAGUE FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. One million dead. And President Biden declaring the "pandemic is over" - in September 2022? No! Not true - according to Dr. Peter Hotez, who helped create the amazing mRNA vaccinations, and will win a Nobel Prize for that. THE PANDEMIC is NOT over. There is a FOURTH WAVE COMING, per Hotez.
As an immunosuppressed transplant recipient, I HAVE to know this information, seek it out. I followed all my protocols prescribed to me by my transplant coordinator at Cleveland Clinic. I will be wearing an N95 and social distancing as long as I'm alive.
Shared. Last night, I was reading the COVID stats and thinking, “WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE??!” and then your post headline came up in my Inbox this morning.
It’s painful but important to review what happened, so thanks, Greg. Trump and Kushner are mass murderers, yes, and when will the press finally do their job and focus on what you just reported?
My sweet, elderly neighbor-friend across the street--knowing full well how I feel about unvaxxed people--finally admitted to me that she’s not vaccinated. She says “I don’t bring it up unless asked, because people are so judgey.” She doesn’t believe in it, has a “great immune system”, and does her “own research”. When I told her recently that a million Americans are dead from COVID she said “How do you know it’s not from the vaccine?” AARGH!
I will not go into her house again. Meanwhile, SHE PROVIDES MASSAGES TO CLIENTS IN HER HOME!
Good morning Greg! Wow three years since the beginning of Covid! Trump Kushner Covid response was horrendous and the media was like meh. My hubby and I have been vaccinated, our circle of friends is small and we followed the CDC guidelines have not yet been infected. 🙏 My son’s family went on a cruise at Christmas in ‘19 and my grandson got really sick looking back probably Covid but of course I have no proof. it was a scary thought at that time! Hope you are feeling stronger every day. Btw what about the news yesterday out of NY FBI office!! We knew it then and soon to be proven in a court of law. Traitors all!
Morning, Christine. Reading the news yesterday, my first thought was they should be reading Greg Olear's Prevail. Perhaps they wouldn't be so shocked/outraged!
The American public has stuck its collective head in the sand. Exhausted from the daily onslaught of drama, deceit and intrigue. National case of PTSD. We need (big) group therapy to get our feelings back. And the will and desire to rage against the dying of democracy’s light.
Exactly. You're always going to have some segment of the population that won't listen -- the same people who refuse to evacuate when the hurricane comes -- but Trump made that all okay. He confused the fuck out of it. It's just...it's hard to wrap my mind around.
I consider it in the context of dealing with a sociopath. They use techniques like shaming, blaming, minimizing, marginalizing, and gaslighting. This is how they get what they want from their targets.
They can turn on the charm when they need to, and can switch roles and themselves play the victim when they need to. They have an uncanny ability to turn black into white, and vice versa. A big clue is the use of projection: accusing others of what they do themselves.
I’m a divorce lawyer. In my practice I’m accustomed to seeing clients who are the targets of sociopaths.
Part of what I consider my job to be is to help people move forward from that victim role, excise themselves from the sociopath ( easier to do when there are no small kids involved) and find their bliss, a full life and healthy relationships. It requires a level of reprogramming which restores confidence and boundaries. I partner with excellent therapists to get this result.
TF-ingG was the abusive spouse to a whole cadre of traumatized Americans who fell under his spell. The reasons for that vary from person to person, but the commonality is a high tolerance for abuse and history of trauma that even causes one to act against one’s own self interest.
This is the context I use to understand for myself and to explain to others how he did what he did.
I send my clients to therapists who are schooled in and familiar with dealing with targets of sociopaths. I introduce them to literature, particularly Dr. Martha Stout’s work. They understand that they are not alone, not stupid, not weak, but just having lived under the influence of a sick person who lacks conscience and moral core.
They also have the benefit of reading Dr. Stout’s rules for dealing with sociopaths. I tell them to hide the 13 rules in their underwear drawer where the kids can’t see it…and I ask them to read the rules every day and implement them in their dealings with the sociopath.
Over time, they are able to separate from their abuser, see the abuser for what he or she is, and move forward, educated and wiser. The techniques that Stout teaches do work.
I am able to draw a parallel to people who abandoned the GOP early and started the Lincoln project or became media stars who started speaking up against Trump early in the game: knowingly or not, they used Stout strategies to identify and combat the ogre.
These people were able to separate from the pack early because, I believe, they did not come from lives of unaddressed trauma, but from the strength of justice, fairness and a commitment to democracy. They recognized the poison pap that TF-ingG and his pal Putin are promulgating for what it is and called it out.
Maybe this is why my heart hurts when I see minions indicted, arrested, and prosecuted for January 6. They have free will, but they were under the influence of a dangerous sociopath. My heart will heal when he is called to account. Ditto Covid. Ditto Khashoggi. Ditto our international relationships. Ditto his biggest fraud, election interference and his coup attempt.
Karen, I LOVE what you wrote. You are a blessing to all your clients. I was raised by a narcissist and all the dire qualities she created in our family. I was, however, her favorite target and knew it from a very young age. It took me a LONG time to recover - but I was determined. Thank you for your encouraging and caring comments.
Thank you. My Joy is the ones who find me on social media even decades later and remember the intense past and report a rosy future. You did great. Blessings back.
Thank you for this Karen! Ditto. Which one of Dr. Stout's books do you recommend a client should begin with? As a nurse currently working in mental health I have clients who could benefit. As an aside, years ago I was browsing in our local used bookstore and found a copy of "The Psychopath Next Door", and bought it thinking it would be a funny gift for my delightful next door neighbor. When I showed up on her porch with it, she hollered to her husband inside the house to get the book she had just bought for me the day before at a garage sale: "The Sociopath Next Door"! We laughed so hard at the titles and the coincidence!! I later read both books for my work, not even suspecting that another of our neighbors was going through the liviing hell of a spouse with "severe abusive borderline personality disorder," a sociopath by another name.
At the start, I recommend the Sociopath next-door to help people identify who it is that they have been living with, and to recognize that they are not alone. This happens to intelligent and sophisticated people with great hearts and good values. Those wonderful characteristics make them a target.
It is important to go slowly with this and educate them hand-in-hand with getting them into therapy.
Her latest book is called Outsmarting the Sociopath next door. I use this guidebook for trying to deal effectively with opposing counsel and some judges, because believe it or not, my profession is replete with sociopaths. Dr. Stout recognized that in her first book… and knowing that completely changed the way I practice law. It is a good tool for people in business, and to help understand colleagues and supervisors, who don’t ring quite true for you.
I would not recommend both books at once for someone in the trauma of trying to understand where they are and find a path out. It is too much. Like every trauma victim, focus may be difficult and progress may not be immediate or straightforward. It takes people a few tries to get it right and get out and get beyond.
Once someone is in the healing phase and working with a therapist, they may be able to benefit from her later book. I find it helpful to introduce some of these concepts to older kids who are dealing with Sociopathy in their family tree. According to Stout, there is a genetic component to this. I have sad tales from clients who escaped the sociopathic partner, but then raised a child who had that tendencies. Unfortunately, sometimes the only solution is to end contact. Yes, even with your child.
Thanks for this excellent explanation, Karen. I agree. Not only that, we have a piece that's in the works for PREVAIL taking a similar tack.
I'm not familiar with Stout so I will look into it.
And I agree about the minions. I don't know anyone who stormed the Capitol, but I do know people who are GOP, Fox watchers, and MAGA. The ones I know are otherwise very good people. It's just sad, all of it.
And we sailed past three years of covid and two years of coup and all we have is the eyepatch guy in prison.
DOJ working from the bottom up (as is their procedure). Guess who is next.
"Sentencings:
Approximately 351 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on January 6. Approximately 192 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 87 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 14 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration.
I can’t wrap my mind around it either Greg. As a nurse working in a large medical center over the last several years it’s appalling that this virus became a political weapon. I have many times invited the Covid deniers and antivaxers to walk a 12 hour shift that becomes a 16 hour shift in the shoes of a Covid ICU Nurse. Once the vaccine was widely available it was the unvaccinated that had to be intubated and populated the ICUs and most died. It was disheartening and perplexing when the deniers and antivaxers started blaming us. We started out the heroes and ended up getting death threats. Our Emergency Department had to put metal detectors at the entrance. Between that and the constant chopper blades of LifeFlight overhead we felt like we were in a war zone. tRump and his band of idiots are fully responsible for the 1.1 million deaths, and the morbidity suffered by hundreds of thousands that have long Covid, still not completely understood, but debilitating and life changing.
Thanks for sharing, Karen, and for the heroic work you do.
I think that as a society, we've only scratched the surface of the adverse mental health impact of the pandemic, and of Trump's sabotage of the response. In no reality should you and other medical professionals be hailed as anything but heroes, but here we are, even as the evidence, the life and death evidence, is staring you in the face every day. I'm sure burnout is high. It's easy to be disillusioned.
Do you see medical colleagues fall prey to the vaccine disinfo? Because I have.
If only Messonier’s message had been amplified and calmly validated by those in power. It’s so damn maddening the loss of life and loved ones. Criminal.
When I first learned of the "plot" to kill voters in Democratic states, I immediately thought of the story of the Israelites being instructed to smear lamb's blood on their doorposts as a sign to God that it was a Hebrew household, and he would know to pass over that home.
No way did I believe that God would have instructed Kushner to do the same to "save" Republican states. As we now know, it was only a matter of time that the plague let it be known it had no political affiliation.
The only thing saving us is that, as I understand, when viruses mutate they get more contagious but less virulent. If this was one tiny bit more virulent in 2020, good lord.
Thank you again Greg. Lost my uncle to IT early on, April 2020. Got the call about midnight. Spoke to a head nurse there at the NJ nursing home, the next day. She'd been off duty that weekend; he'd gone before she returned. She wept with me on the phone. They couldnt stay on top of it. Could only get so many tests. She'd never seen anything like it in her entire, long career. So much death. Even staff members.
A family member ( our sister) caught it a few times. In another nursing home IN Ct, which with a compromised immune system & COPD, probably contributed to ending her life, sooner than later last year at 62. EVERYTHING you've pointed out, a lot I've gathered from documentaries, news, commentaries & you're right. A lot of folks are covid weary & don't want to talk about it much, if at all. We masked, hand sanitized after any shopping, once we were made aware in February that year. Did my research & once vaccines were available, our entire family went to get either Pfizer ( my preference) or Moderna. Got boosters, especially for the variant last fall. In an area of NE Georgia, where trumpers abound & anti vaxxers/ maskers live ( the county we frequent most often, has a vaccinated rate of only 33% last i checked); yet we still largely mask, sanitize & we've been covid free 3 years. Neighbors around us, many have had it. Most make a comfortable living, somewhat educated, business owners, but this area is a republican stronghold, so fox & the disinformation folks rule many.
The hospitals are filling yet again I hear...and yes, I'm disgusted with how trump, Kushner, Birkin & Pence ( the ventriloquist's dummy) set so much of this misinformation in motion, to protect their own self interests. There was also some things hinted at about Kushner leading the way on ( very costly flights) planes flying overseas for supplies; suggestions of some money made there..but by whom..him? Pharmaceutical & supply companies? Heard no more about it. Hospitals bidding online against one another for valuable & limited supplies. Bodies stacked like cordwood in freezer trucks..Pictures of stoic, exhausted hospital staff. Yet we looked to leadership to protect us, to lead the charge..& yet the pandemic team established during the Obama administration had been disbanded by trump in 2018. Some leaders fired, some folks sent to other departments. ( Trump's strategy, he didn't pay for people he assumed weren't working. But an unprepared person by nature, can't conceive of a department meant to be in a constant state of preparedness, readiness, developing strategies, each step of the way.)
Much like 9/11, & January 6th, we can not allow ourselves to forget about the losses & some of the reasons for so many losses. Nor forget about what they did ( and didn't do & the $elfish reasons why); how they contributed to this world health crisis and that it is, unforgivable.
I'm sorry about your uncle. It's heartbreaking, all of it.
We need a Congressional investigation into the monetization, and also what actually happened. It's like everyone wants to forget. I don't understand it at all.
I think the signs are already here. My cousin who passed away, had to be life flighted to a city several hours away because there were NO hospital beds available at any of the hospitals in her own city. She lived in a red state and the stats seem to indicate a higher rate of mortality due to Covid among red state residents. I would venture to guess that this is why those beds are already at capacity.
Lots of people in my community currently have covid and between all the rampant coughing & 'it's just allergies', I still wear a mask especially indoors around groups. I still can't fathom the incredible mismanagement of the pandemic under the tRump administration but you have summarised it beautifully Greg.
This last strain was very contagious. I try and wear a mask when I travel, when I'm in a public space...but then, there's no point in a restaurant. It's hard to know what to do. There's a line between being safe and going nuts. I hope you stay safe, Helen.
I eat at home before I go to a restaurant to meet friends, wear a mask the whole time I am in the restaurant, then order a to-go meal. Looking forward to late spring when we can eat outdoors at all the marvelous venues in Northwest Michigan! Please Be Safe.
Eugenics we’re in play with Jay Rockefeller and many Uber-wealthy like minds since the Supreme Court’s Buck v Bell decision in 1927! It wasn’t a surprise that Kushner saw millions of not only monetary, but political benefits, acting accordingly.
These smug self-fellating chodes deserve the noose, simple as that!
I understand the pathology of this Pied Piper and his sycophants, but the undying devotion of his followers continues to confound me. When the history is written, which story will lead? The slow build up describing his mafia connections? The underage women who were raped and then tossed aside, some to die? The Russian money laundering? The compromising of our national security information to line his pockets? Me, I think it should start with this Pied Piper leading millions of innocents to their deaths - Covid - or destruction - Jan. 6. And those of us trying to stop it? We’ll be yelling into the wind or scratching at the fortress walls that protect the piles of gold, the racks of guns, the military and police, the media and those thousands of sycophants who stay because they can eat a small ball of ice cream at his table.
Barbara, this has been the challenge since Day One. I've been writing about this for seven years now [shakes head sadly] and there's SO MUCH criminality that it's hard to know how to begin. The surfeit of evil makes it seem like it can't be true, almost. But it is.
And people were screaming about that at the time, too.
It's no different than trying to dismantle NATO. He was making it easier for Putin to win.
Putin and Wall Street's directive$.
I'm watching the Netflix Madoff doc now. Infuriating. Evil men capturing federal agencies is a recipe for disaster.
Thanks for those quotes. And, of course, he knew THE WHOLE TIME that it was really bad. Just evil, plain and simple.
Forget all of Kushner's other corrupt acts, he should be charged with mass murder.
Even if we go by the numbers in the study, he is responsible for "only" 300,000 deaths. It's mind-blowing, the evil.
And there he sits, smug, in a a mansion in Floriduh, living the life of luxury on $2B of Saudi money. It's an indictment of the US system of justice that exempts rich white men from accountability.
And rich white Republican men especially. It's an outrage.
Sorry - all the fault lies with Trump himself. He directed all this MASS DEATH. And I will say this over and over - HE SHOULD BE TRIED AT THE HAGUE FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. One million dead. And President Biden declaring the "pandemic is over" - in September 2022? No! Not true - according to Dr. Peter Hotez, who helped create the amazing mRNA vaccinations, and will win a Nobel Prize for that. THE PANDEMIC is NOT over. There is a FOURTH WAVE COMING, per Hotez.
As an immunosuppressed transplant recipient, I HAVE to know this information, seek it out. I followed all my protocols prescribed to me by my transplant coordinator at Cleveland Clinic. I will be wearing an N95 and social distancing as long as I'm alive.
Putin wants us broke, sick, angry, and shooting each other en masse.
I'm so sorry, Dana. Yes, the buck stops with Trump. I'd like both of them tried -- if not at The Hague, then right here, for manslaughter.
No, the pandemic is not over. Only the outrage.
Shared. Last night, I was reading the COVID stats and thinking, “WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE??!” and then your post headline came up in my Inbox this morning.
It’s painful but important to review what happened, so thanks, Greg. Trump and Kushner are mass murderers, yes, and when will the press finally do their job and focus on what you just reported?
My sweet, elderly neighbor-friend across the street--knowing full well how I feel about unvaxxed people--finally admitted to me that she’s not vaccinated. She says “I don’t bring it up unless asked, because people are so judgey.” She doesn’t believe in it, has a “great immune system”, and does her “own research”. When I told her recently that a million Americans are dead from COVID she said “How do you know it’s not from the vaccine?” AARGH!
I will not go into her house again. Meanwhile, SHE PROVIDES MASSAGES TO CLIENTS IN HER HOME!
What's amazing about the vaccine stuff is how it's not just MAGA that eschew vaccinations. Plenty of folks on the left, too. No rhyme or reason to it.
I also hear "But I thought the vaccine made you immune," which, no, it makes you MUCH LESS LIKELY TO BE HOSPITALIZED OR DIE. That's a good thing.
He & Trump have a lot in common - No conscience. Oh - a sociopath both
Correct! And I don't get it either!
Good morning Greg! Wow three years since the beginning of Covid! Trump Kushner Covid response was horrendous and the media was like meh. My hubby and I have been vaccinated, our circle of friends is small and we followed the CDC guidelines have not yet been infected. 🙏 My son’s family went on a cruise at Christmas in ‘19 and my grandson got really sick looking back probably Covid but of course I have no proof. it was a scary thought at that time! Hope you are feeling stronger every day. Btw what about the news yesterday out of NY FBI office!! We knew it then and soon to be proven in a court of law. Traitors all!
Morning, Christine. Reading the news yesterday, my first thought was they should be reading Greg Olear's Prevail. Perhaps they wouldn't be so shocked/outraged!
But I was told there was no collusion?
Hi, Christine!
Cruise ships in 2020, yes, almost certainly covid. I hope he's better now and doesn't have lingering effects.
The FBI news...what's left to say? That makes it all extremely clear. Wray has to be fired. Horrible.
Wray must resign
The American public has stuck its collective head in the sand. Exhausted from the daily onslaught of drama, deceit and intrigue. National case of PTSD. We need (big) group therapy to get our feelings back. And the will and desire to rage against the dying of democracy’s light.
Exactly. You're always going to have some segment of the population that won't listen -- the same people who refuse to evacuate when the hurricane comes -- but Trump made that all okay. He confused the fuck out of it. It's just...it's hard to wrap my mind around.
I consider it in the context of dealing with a sociopath. They use techniques like shaming, blaming, minimizing, marginalizing, and gaslighting. This is how they get what they want from their targets.
They can turn on the charm when they need to, and can switch roles and themselves play the victim when they need to. They have an uncanny ability to turn black into white, and vice versa. A big clue is the use of projection: accusing others of what they do themselves.
I’m a divorce lawyer. In my practice I’m accustomed to seeing clients who are the targets of sociopaths.
Part of what I consider my job to be is to help people move forward from that victim role, excise themselves from the sociopath ( easier to do when there are no small kids involved) and find their bliss, a full life and healthy relationships. It requires a level of reprogramming which restores confidence and boundaries. I partner with excellent therapists to get this result.
TF-ingG was the abusive spouse to a whole cadre of traumatized Americans who fell under his spell. The reasons for that vary from person to person, but the commonality is a high tolerance for abuse and history of trauma that even causes one to act against one’s own self interest.
This is the context I use to understand for myself and to explain to others how he did what he did.
I send my clients to therapists who are schooled in and familiar with dealing with targets of sociopaths. I introduce them to literature, particularly Dr. Martha Stout’s work. They understand that they are not alone, not stupid, not weak, but just having lived under the influence of a sick person who lacks conscience and moral core.
They also have the benefit of reading Dr. Stout’s rules for dealing with sociopaths. I tell them to hide the 13 rules in their underwear drawer where the kids can’t see it…and I ask them to read the rules every day and implement them in their dealings with the sociopath.
Over time, they are able to separate from their abuser, see the abuser for what he or she is, and move forward, educated and wiser. The techniques that Stout teaches do work.
I am able to draw a parallel to people who abandoned the GOP early and started the Lincoln project or became media stars who started speaking up against Trump early in the game: knowingly or not, they used Stout strategies to identify and combat the ogre.
These people were able to separate from the pack early because, I believe, they did not come from lives of unaddressed trauma, but from the strength of justice, fairness and a commitment to democracy. They recognized the poison pap that TF-ingG and his pal Putin are promulgating for what it is and called it out.
Maybe this is why my heart hurts when I see minions indicted, arrested, and prosecuted for January 6. They have free will, but they were under the influence of a dangerous sociopath. My heart will heal when he is called to account. Ditto Covid. Ditto Khashoggi. Ditto our international relationships. Ditto his biggest fraud, election interference and his coup attempt.
Off the soapbox now.
Karen, I LOVE what you wrote. You are a blessing to all your clients. I was raised by a narcissist and all the dire qualities she created in our family. I was, however, her favorite target and knew it from a very young age. It took me a LONG time to recover - but I was determined. Thank you for your encouraging and caring comments.
Thank you. My Joy is the ones who find me on social media even decades later and remember the intense past and report a rosy future. You did great. Blessings back.
Thank you for this Karen! Ditto. Which one of Dr. Stout's books do you recommend a client should begin with? As a nurse currently working in mental health I have clients who could benefit. As an aside, years ago I was browsing in our local used bookstore and found a copy of "The Psychopath Next Door", and bought it thinking it would be a funny gift for my delightful next door neighbor. When I showed up on her porch with it, she hollered to her husband inside the house to get the book she had just bought for me the day before at a garage sale: "The Sociopath Next Door"! We laughed so hard at the titles and the coincidence!! I later read both books for my work, not even suspecting that another of our neighbors was going through the liviing hell of a spouse with "severe abusive borderline personality disorder," a sociopath by another name.
At the start, I recommend the Sociopath next-door to help people identify who it is that they have been living with, and to recognize that they are not alone. This happens to intelligent and sophisticated people with great hearts and good values. Those wonderful characteristics make them a target.
It is important to go slowly with this and educate them hand-in-hand with getting them into therapy.
Her latest book is called Outsmarting the Sociopath next door. I use this guidebook for trying to deal effectively with opposing counsel and some judges, because believe it or not, my profession is replete with sociopaths. Dr. Stout recognized that in her first book… and knowing that completely changed the way I practice law. It is a good tool for people in business, and to help understand colleagues and supervisors, who don’t ring quite true for you.
I would not recommend both books at once for someone in the trauma of trying to understand where they are and find a path out. It is too much. Like every trauma victim, focus may be difficult and progress may not be immediate or straightforward. It takes people a few tries to get it right and get out and get beyond.
Once someone is in the healing phase and working with a therapist, they may be able to benefit from her later book. I find it helpful to introduce some of these concepts to older kids who are dealing with Sociopathy in their family tree. According to Stout, there is a genetic component to this. I have sad tales from clients who escaped the sociopathic partner, but then raised a child who had that tendencies. Unfortunately, sometimes the only solution is to end contact. Yes, even with your child.
Thank You, Karen. This is really helpful. And sad.
I agree that your clients are lucky to have you. Also, I wish more attorneys would take your humanistic approach to the law.
Thank you, Karen. You are helping so many people who otherwise may take the blame for what the other person did to them. You are doing GREAT work!
Thanks for this excellent explanation, Karen. I agree. Not only that, we have a piece that's in the works for PREVAIL taking a similar tack.
I'm not familiar with Stout so I will look into it.
And I agree about the minions. I don't know anyone who stormed the Capitol, but I do know people who are GOP, Fox watchers, and MAGA. The ones I know are otherwise very good people. It's just sad, all of it.
And we sailed past three years of covid and two years of coup and all we have is the eyepatch guy in prison.
DOJ working from the bottom up (as is their procedure). Guess who is next.
"Sentencings:
Approximately 351 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on January 6. Approximately 192 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 87 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 14 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/24-months-january-6-attack-capitol
I can’t wrap my mind around it either Greg. As a nurse working in a large medical center over the last several years it’s appalling that this virus became a political weapon. I have many times invited the Covid deniers and antivaxers to walk a 12 hour shift that becomes a 16 hour shift in the shoes of a Covid ICU Nurse. Once the vaccine was widely available it was the unvaccinated that had to be intubated and populated the ICUs and most died. It was disheartening and perplexing when the deniers and antivaxers started blaming us. We started out the heroes and ended up getting death threats. Our Emergency Department had to put metal detectors at the entrance. Between that and the constant chopper blades of LifeFlight overhead we felt like we were in a war zone. tRump and his band of idiots are fully responsible for the 1.1 million deaths, and the morbidity suffered by hundreds of thousands that have long Covid, still not completely understood, but debilitating and life changing.
You and your co-workers are HEROES. Thank you for the work that you do.
Thank you Gail. Your thoughts are very much appreciated. ❤️
Thanks for sharing, Karen, and for the heroic work you do.
I think that as a society, we've only scratched the surface of the adverse mental health impact of the pandemic, and of Trump's sabotage of the response. In no reality should you and other medical professionals be hailed as anything but heroes, but here we are, even as the evidence, the life and death evidence, is staring you in the face every day. I'm sure burnout is high. It's easy to be disillusioned.
Do you see medical colleagues fall prey to the vaccine disinfo? Because I have.
If only Messonier’s message had been amplified and calmly validated by those in power. It’s so damn maddening the loss of life and loved ones. Criminal.
There are streakers at baseball games who are allowed to stay out there longer than she was. It's so sad, so awful.
When I first learned of the "plot" to kill voters in Democratic states, I immediately thought of the story of the Israelites being instructed to smear lamb's blood on their doorposts as a sign to God that it was a Hebrew household, and he would know to pass over that home.
No way did I believe that God would have instructed Kushner to do the same to "save" Republican states. As we now know, it was only a matter of time that the plague let it be known it had no political affiliation.
It really is Biblical, isn't it? Right down to the obdurate pharaoh.
History and Madness repeat themselves.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad
Now a good portion of the population is tied up in anti vaccination nonsense, imagine how well the next pandemic is going to go down.
The only thing saving us is that, as I understand, when viruses mutate they get more contagious but less virulent. If this was one tiny bit more virulent in 2020, good lord.
Thank you again Greg. Lost my uncle to IT early on, April 2020. Got the call about midnight. Spoke to a head nurse there at the NJ nursing home, the next day. She'd been off duty that weekend; he'd gone before she returned. She wept with me on the phone. They couldnt stay on top of it. Could only get so many tests. She'd never seen anything like it in her entire, long career. So much death. Even staff members.
A family member ( our sister) caught it a few times. In another nursing home IN Ct, which with a compromised immune system & COPD, probably contributed to ending her life, sooner than later last year at 62. EVERYTHING you've pointed out, a lot I've gathered from documentaries, news, commentaries & you're right. A lot of folks are covid weary & don't want to talk about it much, if at all. We masked, hand sanitized after any shopping, once we were made aware in February that year. Did my research & once vaccines were available, our entire family went to get either Pfizer ( my preference) or Moderna. Got boosters, especially for the variant last fall. In an area of NE Georgia, where trumpers abound & anti vaxxers/ maskers live ( the county we frequent most often, has a vaccinated rate of only 33% last i checked); yet we still largely mask, sanitize & we've been covid free 3 years. Neighbors around us, many have had it. Most make a comfortable living, somewhat educated, business owners, but this area is a republican stronghold, so fox & the disinformation folks rule many.
The hospitals are filling yet again I hear...and yes, I'm disgusted with how trump, Kushner, Birkin & Pence ( the ventriloquist's dummy) set so much of this misinformation in motion, to protect their own self interests. There was also some things hinted at about Kushner leading the way on ( very costly flights) planes flying overseas for supplies; suggestions of some money made there..but by whom..him? Pharmaceutical & supply companies? Heard no more about it. Hospitals bidding online against one another for valuable & limited supplies. Bodies stacked like cordwood in freezer trucks..Pictures of stoic, exhausted hospital staff. Yet we looked to leadership to protect us, to lead the charge..& yet the pandemic team established during the Obama administration had been disbanded by trump in 2018. Some leaders fired, some folks sent to other departments. ( Trump's strategy, he didn't pay for people he assumed weren't working. But an unprepared person by nature, can't conceive of a department meant to be in a constant state of preparedness, readiness, developing strategies, each step of the way.)
Much like 9/11, & January 6th, we can not allow ourselves to forget about the losses & some of the reasons for so many losses. Nor forget about what they did ( and didn't do & the $elfish reasons why); how they contributed to this world health crisis and that it is, unforgivable.
I'm sorry about your uncle. It's heartbreaking, all of it.
We need a Congressional investigation into the monetization, and also what actually happened. It's like everyone wants to forget. I don't understand it at all.
And yes, the next wave is coming.
I think the signs are already here. My cousin who passed away, had to be life flighted to a city several hours away because there were NO hospital beds available at any of the hospitals in her own city. She lived in a red state and the stats seem to indicate a higher rate of mortality due to Covid among red state residents. I would venture to guess that this is why those beds are already at capacity.
Lots of people in my community currently have covid and between all the rampant coughing & 'it's just allergies', I still wear a mask especially indoors around groups. I still can't fathom the incredible mismanagement of the pandemic under the tRump administration but you have summarised it beautifully Greg.
This last strain was very contagious. I try and wear a mask when I travel, when I'm in a public space...but then, there's no point in a restaurant. It's hard to know what to do. There's a line between being safe and going nuts. I hope you stay safe, Helen.
I eat at home before I go to a restaurant to meet friends, wear a mask the whole time I am in the restaurant, then order a to-go meal. Looking forward to late spring when we can eat outdoors at all the marvelous venues in Northwest Michigan! Please Be Safe.
Oh, the outrage is still here. Will that smug prick ever be held to account? For anything? Also, I think he gets facials.
[resists urge to make joke about "facials"]
Eugenics we’re in play with Jay Rockefeller and many Uber-wealthy like minds since the Supreme Court’s Buck v Bell decision in 1927! It wasn’t a surprise that Kushner saw millions of not only monetary, but political benefits, acting accordingly.
These smug self-fellating chodes deserve the noose, simple as that!
Excellent collection of truths written here Greg, thanks for the reminder!
Thanks.
Jay Rockerfeller? Do you mean his grandfather John?
Tom Buchanan, in Gatsby, was touting eugenics, the first time we meet him. It's how FSF tells us he's a fucking asshole.
I understand the pathology of this Pied Piper and his sycophants, but the undying devotion of his followers continues to confound me. When the history is written, which story will lead? The slow build up describing his mafia connections? The underage women who were raped and then tossed aside, some to die? The Russian money laundering? The compromising of our national security information to line his pockets? Me, I think it should start with this Pied Piper leading millions of innocents to their deaths - Covid - or destruction - Jan. 6. And those of us trying to stop it? We’ll be yelling into the wind or scratching at the fortress walls that protect the piles of gold, the racks of guns, the military and police, the media and those thousands of sycophants who stay because they can eat a small ball of ice cream at his table.
Barbara, this has been the challenge since Day One. I've been writing about this for seven years now [shakes head sadly] and there's SO MUCH criminality that it's hard to know how to begin. The surfeit of evil makes it seem like it can't be true, almost. But it is.
Excellent points Barbara!
With you in asking: where's the outrage? Who knew that misanthropy was a feature not a flaw :/
It doesn't help that raw capitalism values sociopaths.
I am outraged everyday and my 88 year old mother keeps asking me
"why didn't he die?" Wishes don't always come true mom.
He got the experimental medicine that everyone really sick now gets.
But if he died in October, not sure Biden wins the election. It's like a Choose Your Own Misadventure book...