US Politics, May 2023: May 1 never happened

It seems like yet another one of those honor system norms that always worked, but only when there was at least some sense of an honor system, and norms.

PBKR can correct me here, but I don't think they even bought many ads or did much campaigning.

It's probably easier to sneak one of these dudes in when the number of reps per media market is very high, especially with fewer local publications and limited tv markets. You have to be a real glad-handing grifter who's hitting the road and going to events in a state with four or fewer reps. In a state with twenty-six? Just find the right one and ride it out.

God only knows what would turn up if you did a fact check on 20 years of congress people.

that also reminds me of something i was reading recently about congressional apportionment, arguing that we need way more than 435 house reps. 435 reps was set in 1913, when the US had a much smaller population, so the number of constituents per house representative has gone way up. in 1793, each rep had 34,436 constituents, on average. in 1913, when the overall number of reps was set at 435, it was 210,000. now it's 761,000 constituents per rep.

it seems like a difficult problem to address, because doubling the number of reps means doubling the number of house rep races every 2 years and doubling the number of horrible assholes in congress

oops, xp mh - was typing that at the same time, but also thinking about number of reps

would head a PAC for z-tbc for Congress

as soon as I get his name right

thank u alfred. we should flood the zone with different spellings of candidate names, causing confusion and low voter morale from the very beginning

Didn't someone in one of the Illinois elections a year or two ago change their name to more or less that of their opponent?

You know what kind of feels nice about this Santos thing? Maybe it's just me, but for once it does not feel like a distraction from Trump. It feels like an accumulation, momentum.

actual consequences

^ that, it's refreshing to see tangible consequences, even if it is for the most blatant, obvious, low hanging shit.

Santos will go down for the sin of not being particularly useful to anyone with real power.

But what a walk-on cameo huh? Months of entertainment.

yeah it was fun to have him around. had this real Carter Page-like weirdo energy.

also lets not get ahead of ourselves here this guy may very well be arrested and still get to serve in Congress, obviously Republican leadership ain't gonna do shit about this

George was one of the holdouts in the gang led by Marge Greene who mugged Kevin McCarthy over the speakership. She'll be sorry to see him go.

it's too bad santos was born in the 20th century instead of the 19th. he would've been a legendary flim-flammer going from town to town selling miracle tonics and magic boxes

He still could be but they travel from podcast to podcast now.

Doc Santos’s Intramuscular Elk Semen Injections put the fire back in your loins.

hard to call him a 'disgraced former congressman' when he feels absolutely no shame for his chicanery

He's felt like a disgraced former congressman from the very start.

yikes

“Hi everybody,” Feinstein says as she makes her return to the Senate pic.twitter.com/kH61KlzjVn

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) May 10, 2023

Just a reminder that Feinstein's ailment that kept her home away from the Capitol for 3 months was shingles.

Hospitalizations and Deaths

Approximately 1 to 4% of people who get shingles are hospitalized for complications. Older adults and people with weakened or suppressed immune system are more likely to be hospitalized. About 30% of people hospitalized for shingles have a weakened or suppressed immune system. Shingles causes fewer than 100 deaths annually. Almost all shingles deaths are in elderly or people with compromised immune system.

https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/surveillance.html

Even better (worse) one that looks like an Onion photo and caption:

Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) returns to the Capitol for the first time since February 16th as she was recovering from a case of shingles —> pic.twitter.com/lDtPiUhDh4

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 10, 2023

Remember when McCain flew back with a brain tumor to save ObamaCare? This is nothing

She looks like the grandpa from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

(Is it ageist to make fun of an ancient senator whose physical and mental decline and refusal to step down has hampered the success of her barely majority party?)

Don't worry, his people put out a clarification

Asked if he believed white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the military, US Senator for Alabama Tommy Tuberville said, referring to the Biden administration: “They call them that. I call them Americans.” https://t.co/AkdbonrPyE

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 10, 2023

xp I obv don't want to make comments about an older woman's appearance, but those photos make it pretty clear why she was out for so long... in fact, shingles may be been the condition they decided to share, but perhaps not the only cause of her absence

shingles is brutal she's only 38

I hope someone fixes Tuberville, if a fix is possible. What a villain.

I'd shit more on Feinstein but the revelation of shingles is worth sympathy to me. I've had friends and relations totally, utterly immiserated and humbled by it. It is usually incredibly painful and horrible and enduring. One of them was just-- 'get shingrix IMMED NOW."

(i did)

yeah, I'm thinking I should look into a shingles vaccination, I've heard it's pretty awful

it looks like it affected one side of her face. it must have been incredibly painful

I got the 2-shot shingles vax and it was nothing, the needle jab was the only bad part.

my mum's husband is 70. he had shingles about 5 years ago. his eye still looks like that and he's extremely shaky five years later. it's awful stuff. can't imagine what it's like at her age.

CDC recommends vaccination for everyone over 50 and all adults with weakened immune systems (whether or not you know you had chickenpox).

I had shingles a couple of years ago all over my right hand and arm up to the elbow, and another patch on my right side and my back. Based on the descriptions I've read, it was a mild case, and it still fucking sucked.

So DeSantis's latest legislative fuckery is having the expected effect:

Florida fucked up. pic.twitter.com/tnEoAgVBeS

— The Infamous El Guapo (@InfamusElGuapo) May 9, 2023

I have a good friend that got shingles while she was I believe pregnant, she said it was the worst. This past Christmas my brother in law apparently was recovering from it, but we wouldn't have known had someone else not brought it up. There's a really good Conan O'Brien story about him getting shingles in his '20s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b015KoeUGvc

I remember when David Letterman had shingles and it affected his eye(s). When he came back on the show he said he wouldn't wish that pain on his worst enemy.

Disney's Bob Iger had an earnings call today and had some things to say about DeSantis (not by name, of course):

NEW: Here is the complete transcript of Iger's comments about Florida.

"Does the state (Florida) want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes or not?" pic.twitter.com/3jRw3k8AOz

— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) May 10, 2023

my friend's father (somewhere in his mid-80's) has shingles presently and she said he looks like he's about to die and has looked like this for weeks and weeks now. my dad got it when he was in his mid-40's and he was in a huge amount of pain

I got vaxxed for this shit about a month after I turned 50.

okay I'm making an appointment now

The first shingles vax wiped me out for a day, but I doubled it up w/ tetanus, so I think that may have caused it. The second one was comparatively milder, about the same as the vid vax. (You need to space them out by 6 months.)

2-to-6 months is the official recommendation

Ah yeah, that's right. I did space them out by 6 months, because lazy I guess.

While we are sharing shingles stories when I was 30 I threw out my back and couldn’t move for hours and the lingering pain lasted for a week. The first 12 hours were the worst pain I ever had in my life. Then, immediately upon feeling better, I got shingles. That was the second worst pain ever ever got.

Book of Job 2

I have a hazy memory of having chicken pox as a small child, but there's no one left who can confirm it

(or was it measles? I don't know)

Two Job