US Politics, May 2023: May 1 never happened

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

Everybody I know who's had shingles has been totally miserable, even younger healthy people, so yeah. I really need to do that.

I remember our mother deliberately letting my younger sister and me go out and play with the neighbor kid who had chicken pox so we would get it and then be immune. That was the thinking in the 60s. There was no understanding then that Herpes Varicella-Zoster was a virus that continued to live in the body in the dorsal root ganglia and could be reactivated.

I got shingles around the time I turned 50. I was lucky because it only affected my upper torso on one side and my upper arm. My sister had it in her mouth and was beside herself with pain, and she still has residual side effects, mostly aphthous ulcers when she is stressed or gets sick

There was an inferior vaccine which was the only one you could get for many years before Shingrix was introduced in 2017. Shingrix was then largely unavailable for several years, I'm not sure why, maybe because of a lawsuit. I managed to get it in 2020, after requesting it for several years. It is now widely available.

I read that Feinstein got a vaccine, but wonder if it was the one from before 2017. From the looks of it, her facial nerve was affected

yeah, I listened to that Conan podcast thing above, and it sounds like it fucked up the nerves in his eyes/face for years to come... he would feel weird tingles behind his eye, even years after it cleared up.
Anyway, sent a note to my doctor, begging for the vaxx

okay, my HMO says I should come in and get the shot, also one for pneumonia and maybe tetanus... that should be a fun couple days

But thanks to Sen. Feinstein for getting me off my ass about this!

I had my first Shringrix with those two other shots! They jabbed the Shingrix in one arm and the other two in the other arm. Both my arms hurt for a few days, and since I like to sleep on my side it was a little uncomfortable, but it was fine

Lol jab-braggin: i lived in the hosp for two months and got wee shots in me belly every mornin 6:30a for blood thinning et al. I got A LOT of other shots too, just not as regular. Me and needles, big or small, we good.

Shingrix vax was not notable to me wrt side effects, I do encourage them generally if ur doc sez so.

my punk name is Andy Vaxxer, might need to rethink that

Shingles vaxx fucked me up more than Covid vaxx but still worth it