Post inauguration Trump:

[pietillidie]

[stui magpie]

Stui, you are saying that the Australian healthcare system is NOT

* expensive?
* bureaucratic?
* inaccessible?
* nightmare?

You have fair-dinkum rocks in your head. The American system is worse, of course, any fool knows that, but pretending that the Australian health system is in good shape is laughably naive.

I can only go from my experience of 10 years working in Public Health and as a lifetime as a consumer.

It is bureaucratic, it's owned and run by the government, it's always going to be but it is getting better.

It's not expensive, inaccessible or a nightmare.

My most recent personal example was fixing some umbilical hernias. GP identified the problem during a check up, sent me for an abdominal ultrasound which was covered by medicare. referred to a specialist, I had the option of going public and wait for around 12 months and get it done for nothing or go private and get it done immediately, I chose the latter and between medicare and private health cover I ended up around $500 out of pocket.

When my mother broke her hip a few years ago, she wasn't out of pocket 1 cent. That includes surgery, hospital stay, ambulance transfers, rehab, OT visiting her house to write up list of required adjustments. All the services combined seamlessly.

You may have had a shit experience, that doesn't mean the system is shit.

[Tannin]

Yep. Typical bureaucrat's answer: "The pox-ridden system is fine. Really. Just because millions of Australians have experienced bad healthcare, or shockingly high bills, or horrendous wait times, or sat in emergency with serious issues for hour after hour, or been infected with Golden Staph during routine minor surgery, or dropped out of private health insurance because the fees are insane, or stayed in private health insurance and somehow paid those insane premiums only to discover that they have to pay multiple thousands of dollars out of pocket anyway, or gone for a routine test, been billed $200 cash and received a piddling $68 refund because Medicare rebates are hopelessly out of touch with reality ... really, just because of those isolated minor things only experienced by the majority of Australians, the system is fine".

You should stand for parliament Stui. You are probably marginally too close to sane for Pauline's lot, and Clive's rabble has done its dash, but I reckon the Nationals would welcome a man like you.

[stui magpie]

I could probably do that, and with your flair exaggeration if sure you could pick up a staff writers job at The Guardian quite easily.

[Tannin]

A well expressed observation: Arwa Mahdawi on extremist nut-job Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Ah, the American dream! In some countries being a gun-obsessed racist who has spread gruesome conspiracy theories about a Satan-worshipping cult, mocked the deaths of schoolchildren and suggested Democratic lawmakers should be executed might get you put on a watch list.

In America it gets you a job in Congress.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ican-party

[PyreneesPie]

^ It's downright frightening that the Republicans are doing nothing to repudiate her.
It's also rather disturbing that the majority of Republicans are still wanting to hitch their wagons to Trump, at least until the mid-term elections.

I watched "Trump's American Carnage" on SBS last night and I was deeply horrified all over again!
SBS has also broadcast another program in recent weeks "The Rise of the Nazis" and the parallels with present-day America are very disturbing.

[roar]

^^ The Republican politicians that aren't white supremacists will alienate a lot of their base if they move to rid the party of that cancer.

[watt price tully]

4 Corners tonight will be worth watching. The formidable Sarah Ferguson on Trump and the insurrection of Capitol Hill by the racists, white supremacists and their fellow travellers. A lot to see here.

[PyreneesPie]

4 Corners tonight will be worth watching. The formidable Sarah Ferguson on Trump and the insurrection of Capitol Hill by the racists, white supremacists and their fellow travellers. A lot to see here.

I greatly appreciate Sarah Ferguson's " straight to the point" interviewing. The leader of the Proud Boys was a stone wall however and connivingly smart eg his convenient explanation of "Stand back and stand by". He interpreted it as a call from Trump to stand by him, not to be ready for insurgence! So many others must have just got it wrong!!!!

It was intriguing how the program gathered evidence to suggest that from some quarters, the invasion of the Capitol was a thoroughly planned advance. Also the belief by some office holders that had the mob got hold of Pelosi, they would 've killed her Very alarming stuff.

[Pies4shaw]

^ There is (at least) one present Republican member of Congress who has stated openly that Pelosi should be executed, so it's as "normalised" for them as it is shocking to actual humans. Meanwhile, AOC has said that she actually feared for her life during the raid - not just in the general sense of being fearful of the chaos and violence but in the specific sense that she'd had so many death threats she expected that she was an actual target.

[watt price tully]

4 Corners tonight will be worth watching. The formidable Sarah Ferguson on Trump and the insurrection of Capitol Hill by the racists, white supremacists and their fellow travellers. A lot to see here.

I greatly appreciate Sarah Ferguson's " straight to the point" interviewing. The leader of the Proud Boys was a stone wall however and connivingly smart eg his convenient explanation of "Stand back and stand by". He interpreted it as a call from Trump to stand by him, not to be ready for insurgence! So many others must have just got it wrong!!!!

It was intriguing how the program gathered evidence to suggest that from some quarters, the invasion of the Capitol was a thoroughly planned advance. Also the belief by some office holders that had the mob got hold of Pelosi, they would 've killed her Very alarming stuff.

That footage of inside Trump’s area before he went to speak while his throngs of supporters had gathered was gobsmacking and remarkable. It seemed like Nazi party of the 1930’s with their Nuremberg rallies.

The warm up by the Representative from Alabama was unadulterated incitement to violence as was Trump.

I suppose the brilliant title of the 4 corners programme “Downfall” was no coincidence.

[Tannin]

Trump's Mar-a-Lago place ignored Covid mask rules and was threatened with a fine. And now, sure enough, Covid has broken out there.

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... each-covid

A federal grand jury in Miami has indicted a Florida man and his three sons for fraudulently marketing and selling a toxic industrial bleach as a supposed cure for Covid-19, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, autism, malaria, hepatitis, Parkinson’s, herpes, HIV/Aids, and a range of other medical disorders.

According to the indictment, Mark Grenon, 62, and his sons Jonathan Grenon, 34, Jordan Grenon, 26, and Joseph Grenon, 32, all of Bradenton, “manufactured, promoted, and sold the chemical solution that ingested orally became chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach typically used for industrial water treatment or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper.”.

....

According to Guardian reporting, in April last year Mark Grenon wrote to then president Donald Trump to promote industrial bleach as “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”.

At a subsequent White House briefing, and to the visible astonishment of experts, Trump said disinfectant “knocks [the coronavirus] out in a minute. One minute!”

He went on to ask: “Is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”

....

The Grenons are alleged to have sold their bleach solution under the guise of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, a pseudo-charitable business they are accused of creating to side-step regulation and prosecution.

[David]

Some will say it’s unfair to associate the Trump movement with a group of low-level grifters. But I tend to think the entire thing was the political equivalent of a spam viagra email.

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Prosecutors in New York have given former president Donald Trump’s attorneys a deadline of Monday afternoon to make any final arguments as to why the Trump Organization should not face criminal charges over its financial dealings, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Are we there, yet?