HorsesAss.Org

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Al Franken: Why the founding fathers didn’t mention abortion in the Constitution

WaPo: Is Congress searching for UFOs? Sort of.

Jimmy Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship

Ethnonationalists and Other Despicable Disciples of The Dotard Трамп:

John Oliver: Utilities

Rep. Kim Schrier (WA-8) on national baby formula shortage

Lauren Mayer: ♫ Musk’s a Shmuck ♬:

WaPo: Supporters of abortion rights rally in D.C., nationwide

Robert Reich: How private equity is making your life more expensive

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Comments

  2. 2

    The Starliner docked with the ISS about 5:28PM, our time, over the South Indian Ocean. So far, so good. Will be interesting if Boeing and NASA have to do this unmanned test again when the Atlas V is superseded by the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan booster?

  3. 3

    “Moseley has long combined legal work and fringe political activism. In 2008 and 2011, he worked for Delaware Tea Party figure Christine O’Donnell, best known for capturing the GOP Senate nomination in 2010 and running an ad stating that she was not a witch. Moseley later unsuccessfully sued O’Donnell for unpaid wages.”

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/sidney-powell-january-6-lawyers-kelly-meggs-jonathan-moseley-juli-haller/

    What is it with rightwingers that they stiff their own allies? Not that I feel sorry for this asshole. Maybe someday he’ll learn not to do business with these people. (Note: He can’t represent regular people because he was disbarred for depositing client funds to a personal account.)

  8. 8

    Some updates out of Australia. Looks like they may not know who will form government for days or weeks. Labor is ahead by 10-11 in the seat count, but is in danger of losing a couple to the Greens. Liberals cannot afford to lose one seat unless they get a pickup or two elsewhere. A couple Liberal seats in Sydney are in danger of falling to an organized group of independents. Still waiting on Western Australia.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-21/federal-election-live-blog-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese/101085640

  9. 9

    The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is projecting Labor will form at a minimum, a minority government, Right now at 70 seats, Liberals way down.

  10. 10

    From the last thread:

    You can’t honestly compare rates in lily-white states directly with states that are one-third black without accounting for the differences in those rates based on the differences in the demographics

    Damn. Those five words are doing HELLA work where you aren’t supposed to see, aren’t they?

    That’s some Bell Curve bullshit working its ass off there. Take four hundred years of slave ships, and whipping poles, followed by a century of enforced apartheid, Night Riders, poll taxes, red lining and chain gangs and waive it all away neatly with “Demographics”.

    I’m in awe.

  11. 11

    @ 10

    Take four hundred years of slave ships, and whipping poles, followed by a century of enforced apartheid, Night Riders, poll taxes, red lining and chain gangs and waive it all away neatly with “Demographics”.

    Yeah, whip, cage, and rape a red blood cell enough times and you’ll cause it to sickle.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116635/

  12. 12

    Honorable and not the least bit corrupt, a wise man once told me, referring to this woman:

    OPINION REVIEW & OUTLOOK
    Hillary Clinton Did It
    Her 2016 campaign manager says she approved a plan to plant a false Russia claim with a reporter.

    The Russia-Trump collusion narrative of 2016 and beyond was a dirty trick for the ages, and now we know it came from the top—candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was the testimony Friday by 2016 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook in federal court, and while this news is hardly a surprise, it’s still bracing to find her fingerprints on the political weapon.

    For years I have wondered if said wise man was being sarcastic while in the midst of an electoral ass-kicking that he took great pains, statistically, to prove was unlikely to occur. Was it just snide commentary?

    Or did said wise man truly believe that the Democrat candidate for president whom the DNC propped up after she essentially bought and paid for the DNC, who was cleared of felonious criminal culpability by the tortured explanation of the nation’s FBI director after pressure was placed on his boss by the Democrat candidate’s ex-president husband, somehow had conducted herself honorably and without corruption, during her entire adult career?

    It’s a mystery.

  13. 13

    @ 12

    I don’t think that Robby Mook appreciated being made the fall guy for the idiotic campaign Hillary Clinton conducted in the Fall of 2016.

    “She’s running.”, admittedly, is now quite a bit less likely. I’ll still use it, of course. After all, Steve has been on the Putin shtick since, oh, about 11/8/16.

  14. 14

    “Back to the salt mine.” used to be a thing around here. YLB, can you provide some context?

    NLRB’s ‘Salt Mine’ Tweet Decision Overturned by 3rd Cir. (1)

    The NLRB was wrong to rule that the publisher of conservative online magazine the Federalist unlawfully threatened workers by tweeting that he’d send them “back to the salt mine” if they tried to unionize, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia held.

    The National Labor Relations Board lacked the evidence to support its ruling against FDRLST Media LLC, which runs the magazine, for publisher Ben Domenech’s “salt mine” tweet, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Friday.

    “The record contains no sign—indeed, no inkling—of any circumstance at FDRLST Media that leads us to conclude that a reasonable employee would interpret Domenech’s tweet as a veiled threat,” the court said.

    The ruling marks a setback in the NLRB’s efforts to crack down on high-profile figures tweeting anti-union comments.

    The silly things that liberal-controlled agencies try to force on the rest of us…

  15. 15

    Concurring opinion @ 14:

    In its haste to join the tedious chorus of disapproval against whatever disfavored view has most recently appeared somewhere on the internet, the Board shelved serious supervision of the protections for America’s employees.

    Essentially this means that YLB plays the role of silly twat with such frequency that on the rare occasions when she does have a point, nobody takes her seriously.

  16. 16

    Senator Cassidy’s state says that according to their data, about 3000 children and adults in Louisiana have SCD out of a population of 7,660,000. That’s a rate of about 0.04% within the overall population of the state.

    I’m sure it’s possible to look up the differing pregnancy rates by race. Pretend the pregnancy rate among Black people in Louisiana is three times the rate among whites. That might raise the SCD rate among pregnant mothers to as high as 0.12%.

    Louisiana’s ratio of pregnancy mortality between Black mothers and white mothers is four to one – four Black mothers die in pregnancy compared to every one white mother.
    Nationwide that ratio is only three to one.

    A disease that maybe impacts 0.12% of the subject population accounts entirely for a 25% greater mortality.

    Bill Cassidy is a fool. And he’s obviously shitty at math. But at least he might be a doctor.

    And every real doctor in America ought to be aware that healthcare and medical treatment is racist as fuck. Everywhere. It’s just 25% more racist in Senator Cassidy’s shithole state.

  17. 17

    @ 16

    1. Every time you think vascular thrombosis/embolism as a pregnancy complication in a pregnant black woman you need to think
    • hypertension (and its causes)
    • SCD

    2. Rather than looking at entire populations, look at the ones that are relevant to the discussion at hand. In the previous thread, which you referred to, it was pregnancy complications in various demographic groups.

    Rather than your 0.12% “maybe” figure, use relevant data. Like this:

    There were 4262 births to women with SCD for an overall prevalence of 4.83 per 10,000 deliveries. 28.5% of women with SCD developed crisis at the time of delivery. The maternal mortality rate was 1.6 per 1000 deliveries in women with SCD, compared to 0.1 per 1000 in women without SCD. Pregnant women with SCD had a higher risk of developing preeclampsia, eclampsia, venous thromboembolism, cardiomyopathy, intrauterine fetal demise, and intrauterine growth restriction.

    You dismiss SCD as something that “maybe” affects 12 out of every 10,000. The data above indicates that it’s associated with the death of 16 out of every 10,000 women during their maternity.

    In the context of maternal mortality, QoS McHillbilly, SCD is associated with a 1600% greater mortality incidence, not 25% as you claim.

    This whole thing goes back to racial demographics being important as context, and I provided an example of how that might be. It turns out that my example (16:1) demonstrates an even greater disparity than your overall excess mortality (4:1) example.

    It’s a good example, and keeping the black man down has nothing to do with a genetically transmitted disease when the gene responsible for it is carried by one in every 13 black Americans.

  18. 18

    Degen, “a doctor”, declared that it was “the demographics” of the state of Louisiana that explained the 25% higher rate of pregnancy mortality among Black patients in that state.

    Next, he appeals to data from a nationwide study to explain the differences in patient outcome by race.

    Finally, after expanding his data set to the entire nation, instead of the single state where Senator Cassidy proclaimed “Its The Blacks™”, Degen then mistakenly calculates the increased risk of mortality among patients diagnosed with SCD, again nationwide, to explain the increased risk of mortality among pregnant Black women in Louisiana.

    The maternal mortality rate was 1.6 per 1000 deliveries in women with SCD,

    As if all the pregnant Black women in Louisiana have SCD.

    It’s a fucking disgrace. I promise you, nobody this arbitrarily bad at math got into medical school. These are categorical errors of enormous magnitude.

    Bill Cassidy might be a doctor. The troll is not.

  19. 19

    After all, Steve has been on the Putin shtick since, oh, about 11/8/16.

    Prescient, wasn’t I? Funny, I just did a search starting with “all the times republicans have expressed”, and Google auto-fill had two suggestions and only two, “support for Putin” and “support for Russia.” Odd, huh?

    I scrolled through four pages of hits and had seen enough. They go back to when your Putin-loving POS raging orange man-baby expressed his love for Putin during his four years in office.

    Many hits through the years are other Republicans, culminating with many in the last two months who have voiced their support for Russia over Ukraine.

    Yes, I’ve indeed “been on the Putin shtick” for seven years now, and for damned good reason.

    From Brookings.edu, July, 2017…

    How the GOP became the party of Putin

    Shall I post links all week long, burying you with the GQP’s love of Putin? Or should I just cut to the quick and bury you with a bullet hole in your head in a shallow grave with you draped in a Russian flag, wearing a “I love Putin cap”?

    Go fuck yourself, you low IQ treasonous, Putin-loving POS.

  21. 21

    It’s a fucking disgrace. I promise you, nobody this arbitrarily bad at math got into medical school.

    Heh.. First a tortured, reaching obsession over painting RR as David Duke (the repuke btw)…

    Now “fuzzy math” over being caught with its pants down over being a triumphalist and advocate for black genocide…

    yawwwnn.. we’ll see those three degen scotus justices babbled many more times in the future..

  22. 22

    “Back to the salt mine.” used to be a thing around here. YLB, can you provide some context?

    Sure.. A certain troll babbled about putting its religious practices and its family, its sex life with its wife in particular, FIRST..

    Then it was caught trolling HA after sunsets on Friday. And “religiously” spending every Saturday evening around sunset trolling HA FIRST before “takin’ care of bidness” with the wife.

    HA HEROES FIRST, then “baaaack to the salt mines…”

    It’s documented here in threads degen shitforbrains, look at any Saturday evening when the troll was active.. The friday faux pas’ were less frequent, still there just the same.

    The troll was gone for a stretch after the drumpf’s dismal midterm. It came back to gloat hoping for a drumpf victory in 2020.. During the whole stretch of its return it only put HA HEROES FIRST maybe once on Saturday.. i,e. we had an effect on its silly behavior and its phony priorities.

    heh, that was fun, reliving old laughs. thanks for bringing it up..

  23. 23

    It was loads of fun watching teh babblin’ butthole troll HA right UP to VERY MINUTE before sunset on Friday..

    and then sometimes beyond… I congratulated Elijah one time for making the troll go past the pull date.

    On that day, a certain “special friend” of the troll who went by the handle “God” chided the troll.

    It was fucking hysterical.

  24. 24

    So degen is getting all triumphalist over Hillary approving using a piece of oppo against her opponent that was vetted by Computer Scientists?

    Her opponent who never lost an opportunity to coo to its sweetheart crush Putin…

    Dessssperation time…

    But its ok that so many in the repuke party have swallowed one piece of shit lie after another after their hearts were broken when their great white hope couldn’t win.

    First “the man who understands [vulture] kapitalism”, then their phony baloney reality tv serial sex assaulter god.. Sux to be them.

  25. 25

    I have a cat and she doesn’t quite understand doors. One door swings outward and every single time she tried to pull it open, she’d hit her nose with it.

    So like our troll who posts comments here only to get smacked in the face every goddamned time he posts. My cat, having a IQ higher than our troll, stopped doing that. Our low IQ Putin-loving traitor, lacking even a lick of sense, simply cannot stop.

    I glad for that. It gives all of us the opportunity to smack him in the face and he keeps coming back for more.

    However, for my part, I’ve grown weary of this. It’d be so much more satisfying to bury him in a shallow grave with a bullet hole in his head, draped with a Russian flag, wearing a “I love Putin” cap.

    I’d bury him in the forest behind my home so I could visit him any time I want to piss on the low IQ traitor’s fucking grave.

  26. 26

    From Peter Zeihan’s latest newsletter:

    “Several signs point to THE possibility of Chinese officials instituting at least a partial lockdown of the northern port city of Tianjin as early as this weekend. The largest northern Chinese port, Tianjin is also a city of over 12 million people, and its port is vital for delivering goods–bulk ores, coal, liquid fuels–for the region’s heavy industries and textile manufacturing….

    Even in cases where the government seeks to ease lockdowns for critical manufacturing and port operations, worker shortages in China are causing all manner of delays and supply chain dislocations. Over a hundred ships are waiting off of the port of Shanghai as of writing (Hong Kong and Shenzen have nearly 200). Lest you think that labor issues have been sorted out at Western ports, let me remind you that there is still a wait of over three weeks for ships to dock at the port of Vancouver.

    It is hard to overexaggerate the role of the Chinese worker in our current globalized economy, and the impact Chinese labor has had on the post-Cold War system. All of that is going away. In return? Rising labor costs, at a minimum. Assuming you can find the workers. Think inflation is bad now? Just wait.”

    Awbutt just blame Joe.. Easier than thinking, sifting through the facts.

  27. 27

    Regarding Ginni Thomas,

    “You, know there are federal statutes and there are judicial canons and they don’t parse the questions are asking,” she explained. “They don’t try to figure out who is an independent ethical agent, they don’t try to figure out whether spouses or working in tandem with their spouse, they simply state, and this is 28 U.S. Code § 455, any justice, judge, our magistrate judge is required to disqualify in any case where spouses are known to have an interest in the proceeding.”

    Oops! A Raw Story link. My bad. Perhaps I should show the low IQ traitor some respect and stop doing that, but I won’t. Why? Because I have absolutely no respect for traitors, especially those who are loyal to Putin, love Russia, and hate American democracy.

  28. 28

    21,
    It really is Black genocide.

    The entire medical, healthcare, insurance establishment is a system to disproportionately produce an excess of deaths among targeted populations. Which btw also happen to include women.

    I think that’s really the cultural driver behind the Trollito Forced Birth movement. We all get that “right to life” is a fucking joke. The same people who argue for the unitary executive authority to order the crushing of a child’s testicles can’t put those three words in their mouths. And it’s pretty obvious they aren’t really even trying to ensure more pregnancies. Not when you follow the rest of the policy demands.

    They just want to ensure more pregnancies among “Those People™” because they know it will burden them financially, limit their opportunities, and ultimately help produce an excess of deaths. Effective, long lasting birth control? Why of course that’s the MOST restricted kind, being categorized with Fentanyl. While the WHO categorizes them as safe to prescribe with no restriction. And the CDC guidelines agree. No wonder the VAX-Curious Commander AssFlashlight so despises the CDC and the WHO.

    Modern advances in safe, amazingly effective, long-acting, and reversible contraception have transformed healthcare. But not here in the United States if Bill Cassidy or Ted Cruz have anything to say about it. Why do you suppose people who oppose abortion would oppose modern birth control?

  31. 31

    So Oklahoma and Idaho are enabling rapists to monetize their behavior..

    So “getting off to their sins” comes with a monetary reward…

    “In Idaho, the family members of rapists have been allowed to sue abortion providers for up to four years after the fact, legislation that even the state’s Republican governor warned will likely retraumatize victims of violent crimes (he of course signed it anyway). Now Oklahoma has passed its own assault on reproductive rights, and somehow it’s worse than everything that came before it.

    On Tuesday, Oklahoma lawmakers approved what is essentially a total ban on abortion by a vote of 70–14. The measure, Senate Bill 612, makes performing an abortion at any point during pregnancy, “except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency,” a felony that can result in up to 10 years in prison, plus a fine of $100,000. In other words, while Texas and Idaho have given people a mere six weeks to obtain an abortion—a point at which many women don’t even know they are pregnant—Oklahoma has said nope, that’s too generous. And while the bill says there will be exceptions for someone in the midst of a “medical emergency,” it’s not clear exactly what emergencies would be deemed acceptable. Ectopic pregnancies, for example, are the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester, but there are biologically illiterate politicians out there who believe they’re just fine.”

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/oklahoma-abortion-ban

    But blame all that on black voters and liberals who wanted Hillary over the piece of shit that is drumpf…

    Martin who? Some nobody w/ a geetarr? o wait a sec.. he was actually the mayor of a city our degen troll called a “shithole”.. and teh black guy was bad because he served the south side of teh windy city. yawwwn…

  32. 32

    Looks like I was wrong, thought Morrison would once again show opinion polls were wrong. Well, Australia’s PM Scott Morrison has conceded, Wasn’t necessarily a Red Wave, although Labor is 4 seats short of a majority, but tge Teal Independents taking Liberal seats in Melbourne and Sydney. Those Independent candidates did the Liberals a favor, took out the party’s moderates.

    Going to be a few days before the Senate is decided, each state has 6 Senators up for election this year, using the Single Transferable Vote system. Still have a few counts to go.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-21/labor-anthony-albanese-projected-to-win-2022-federal-election/101084660

  33. 33

    And while the bill says there will be exceptions for someone in the midst of a “medical emergency”

    That “someone” would be a white woman.

  34. 34

    Say, “Doctor”, how are you feeling after the ass-whupping you received from me about “Russia, Russia, Russia”?

    How much does it hurt? Want to talk about it? Or do you need more time to heal before you come back to share more of your low IQ stupidity with us?

    Heh. An IQ lower than my cat.

    My previous cat Betty-Mabel was picking locks. If a low IQ stupe like you can become a fucking radiologist, Betty-Mabel could have become head of the cardiac surgery department at Stanford University Hospital.

  38. 38

    …has nothing to do with a genetically transmitted disease when the gene responsible for it is carried by one in every 13 black Americans.

    Recessive genes are such a bitch. Otherwise Cameron Diaz could have worked for another thirty years without contact lenses.

    Degen Math Test

    If only one in thirteen of “The Blacks™” have the recessive gene for SCD,

    and no screening takes place,

    what percentage of the overall population of “The Blacks™” can be predicted to suffer from full blown SCD ( as opposed to merely carrying the gene)?

    Please assume that local custom has vigorously condemned all sexual activity between “The Blacks™” and any other racial/ethnic groups lacking the Anopheles mosquito adaptation.

    Fair warning: this math test assumes the test subject has successfully completed a basic undergraduate college genetics cousework. Do med school applicants complete that work?

    (checks momentarily)

    Why yes. I see that they do.

    I’ll post a response tomorrow.
    I don’t really expect Degen to return for a while.

  40. 40

    I don’t think one gay person would ever kill a bear for fun like that. Heteros are Neanderthals! Prone to violence and prone to really fucking things up.

  43. 43

    @42 I’m sure there must be honest people in Florida. Just not enough to win elections.

  44. 44

    They abused their homeowners insurance, and now they don’t have insurance. They bankrupted their insurers, and they’re all going into a high-risk pool and paying three or four times as much.

  45. 45

    I’m still waiting to know what my AGI is.

    Dumbfuck hasn’t a fucking clue about anything, but I say your AGI is high, and having seen the photo of you on a bike, your AC1 must be low.

    Dumbfuck is the exact opposite. You are a better man than him in all ways that manhood can be measured.

  46. 46

    Dumbfuck has been broken. Not by me, but by all of us.

    He can’t admit it himself, and certainly not to us. That’s why a broken man keeps showing up here. To leave is to admit to us that he’s been broken by us.

  49. 49

    @45 Thanks Steve. It’s a work in progress. Making gains everyday, even with a broken collar bone 2 years ago, and 50 years of never working out. I let myself go from like 25-50. Beer with coworkers 3-4 days a week and poor diet and no exercise. Joined the gym 7-8 years ago, and go quite often. I uese to even go more than currently. And of course not as much during the shutdown. I uset to go 4-5 days a week and 2 hours at a time at times. And a change in diet. Diet is probably more of it than the workout and calorie burns.

    God Bless Rawstory!

  52. 52

    Nope. Broke my collar bone in Juneish, I think. And that was September, I was back riding three months or four months later. I’d have to go look at my medical records and bills to confirm

  57. 57

    @51 You didn’t break it falling off the bike, did you? Just after that photo was taken?

  58. 58

    Haters! That’s all they are, the people who hate Republicans — haters! They just happen to be Republicans, too.

    “With Cawthorn headed for the exit …, he posted on Instagram that he doesn’t plan to go quietly, writing, ‘I am on a mission now …. The time for genteel politics as usual has come to an end … it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command. We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/m-2657361248/

    Man, it’s sooo much fun watching them tear each other apart. And thank God for Raw Story!

  59. 59

    @57 I did break it falling off the bike. Not sure it was that day, I think it was in June and the photo was taken in September. I think I just got back on the bike in September.

    The day I broke it was a day after I left work and was riding on the bike path of Hudson River Park. They put bollards up on the path to prevent vehicles from jumping onto the path. They put the bollards up after the day that driver (terrorist) purposely drove up and ran over a few people.

    Anyways, I was going pretty fast and accelerated to pass a bicycle that was towing a food delivery cart. As I was passing him I came upon one of the crosswalks that have the bollards. I had to get back in line to ho thru two of the three bollards, left handle bar clipped the left bollard throwing from the bike right onto my left shoulder. Cute guy stopped to help me, but he was straight because I asked him, hehehe. He called the ambulance and waited with me until it showed up. Joe and Chris from the FDNY show up in Ambulance #1311 and took good care of me. Two cute guys, both straight, because I asked them too, but not that day.

    I asked them at a later time. I would see these two like every 2 weeks. One day I went to the station house to give them Dunkin Doughnut gift cards. They said they couldn’t take them. But after a while, Joe brought me into his office to meet with his Supervisor and then the Supervisor said it was ok to give it to them.

    I still see them to this day out and about snd stop to talk to them. They tell me that I’m their favorite “patient”

  60. 60

    Pretty bad break. Bone broke in three places. If I had a way to send the X-rays I would.

    No surgery. Doc didn’t recommend. He said it would heal as good without. Was in a sling for about 6 weeks then slowly used it more and more. Checked in with him like 2-3 after out of the sling to make sure it was healing or fusing together. I still have some pain once in a while but it seems almost gone now. Except two days ago at the gym I aggravated it, but today two days later it seems better than the day before aggregating it.

    And he said the surgery would take longer to heal than no surgery.

  61. 61

    Weirdest fucking thing about it, the bollard I hit is at the intersection where the FuckHump lands his helicopters. I’ll Mapquest and send a link.

  62. 62

    Bone really broke in one place but there were three bone fragments, a piece of the bone at the main break splintered off. There were three pieces of bone instead of the one collar bone

  63. 63

    Bone really broke in one place but there were three bone fragments, a piece of the bone at the main break splintered off. There were three pieces of bone instead of the one collar bone

  65. 65

    Steve, you mean this one! Slide #3. Avenue of Americas!

    Looking good, Gman. But I have ask. Were you goggling that woman’s fine ass the way I was goggling her awesome chest? It kind of looks like it.

    Just kidding! But I’m not kidding now, though. I have booked a flight to NYC that leaves first thing in the morning because, 8,000,000 people or not, I’m going to find that girl!

  67. 67

    “Americans in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2020 were 2.26 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than in counties that voted for Joe Biden, according to a new analysis of data.”

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-county-covid-death-rates-more-than-twice-as-high_n_62893743e4b0415d4d782ad2

    May I posit that some of those counties are likely to vote less heavily for Trump if he runs in 2024, due to recent demographic changes?

  68. 68

    Steve writes songs for nine year old girls who died, and yet somehow left the world remarkable legacies. Steve also has hugely talented friends who arrange, perform and record, mix and master the songs

    There was once was a little girl named Shira Putter, and hers was a legacy of courage.

    Born east of Seattle, when she was four years old, Shira was diagnosed as having a rare form of diabetes, leaving her tethered to an IV pole. She would spend most of the last five years of her life living in hospitals from Seattle to Boston.

    Although she knew she would die from the disease, when she was healthy enough, she would spend time each day visiting elderly patients who were receiving no visitors, bringing them cheer as only a happy little could do.. A couple of nurses taught her how to ride her two-wheeled IV pole stand like a scooter so she could make her rounds more easily. Before it was a “thing” in children’s hospitals, Shira put a puppet on top of her pole and named the pole “Peter”.

    In 1982, Shira became the first child to receive a portable insulin pump, freeing her from her constant companion, the IV pole, for the last nine months of her life. Dreams so simple and improbable such as going for a walk with a friend, became real for her. After she died in 1983, a book was written about her, based on the diary she kept during her illness, the title being “Shira, a Legacy of Courage”.

    Shira’s diary makes two appearances in the video, the first scene and the last. Shira died the night before a Jewish holiday, and at the holiday dinner the next day, at her place at the table, her parents placed her diary instead of a plate.

    Shira decorated her drab patient room walls with posters of unicorns and rainbows. She dreamed of one day being well enough to run barefoot on a white sand beach, a dream that would never come true. Shira believed that, when she would die, she would become a shooting star.

    Listen through to the song’s bridge and you’ll understand that this is truly a lullaby for Shira.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUKZRsy5dw

  69. 69

    Rachel Beckwith was a nine year girl who was born 20 years after Shira died, and grew up just a couple of miles away from where Shira Putter grew up.

    In July, 2011, Rachel was riding on the freeway with her mom and her little sister when they were were involved in a horrible traffic accident involving an overturned logging truck. Where Rachel sat in the car, it was crushed. Her mom and sister had only suffered minor injuries, but Rachel’s injuries were critical.

    At the ER, the doctor had to tell the mother that her little girl Rachel would not survive her injuries. The family pastor was at the ER and suggested to her that she reopen a birthday charity campaign of Rachel’s that she had closed just the month before. Instead of birthday presents, Rachel had asked family and friends to donate to her charity instead.

    Rachel had hoped to raise $300 for the charity but fell short, raising $220, but she was going to try again the next year.

    The pastor told the mother that Rachel might still achieve her goal while she lived, and perhaps she could whisper in her child’s ear that her last birthday wish had come true . The mother agreed and reopened Rachel’s campaign.

    We signed all the rights to what we had created over to the charity her mom had started in her little girl’s name. She reached out and were now friends.

    We try to tell the story of what happened next. Like I said before, I have some hugely talented friends.

    Rachel Beckwith’s legacy was one of hope. Courage and hope. Two amazing little girls were Shira and Rachel.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g_XKwsRxfY

  70. 70

    One more and that’s it. A song about freedom. This one is all me, writing, instrumentals, vocals, video, so I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. Well, except for my friends. Shira’s and Rachel’s videos were also made by me.

    I had a black woman who was dying to provide the vocals, and she could do both gospel and Tina Turner. Perfect! But my friends wanted me to keep my placeholder vocals instead

    I didn’t like the idea, not at all. But they kept saying, “No, you sound like an angry Leonard Cohen. You’re perfect!” “No, no, no! I want that black chick! Besides, she’s hot!” “No, listen to us, you fucking idiot! You sound like Leonard Cohen getting more pissed off with each fucking verse. By the end, you’re ready fucking kill somebody! It has to be you!”” “Okay, Okay! I’ll leave it. Now go away. You’re fucking pissing me off.”

    The song is about longing for freedom, but the video cautions the viewer/listener about the price one may have to pay for their freedom.

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

  71. 71

    Nice Steve! Talented and passionate on a mello scale.

    God Bless.

    Ohh, and good luck finding Nikitadragun, follow your dreams.

  75. 75

    @74. It doesn’t matter. Republicans no longer adhere to any values or facts. so republicans will say anything to scare and anger their voters. They will lie one way in one speech and lie a different way in the next one if it scores them points. Their voters don’t care. Their voters want to be scared and angry so they don’t have to think.

  76. 76

    Oregon’s Kurt Schrader appears to have lost reelection to Congress
    https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/05/oregons-kurt-schrader-appears-to-have-lost-reelection-to-congress.html
    Making this a rare case of a member of Congress being ousted by a member of his own party.

    Schrader’s votes against people’s, state’s and US’s best interests have been infuriating.

    The vote to allow US drug companies to charge 20% in US than in Europe was the last straw. It benefited no one but pharmaceutical industry.

    He did same vs. small farmers in Oregon, fighting for Monsanto to be able to charge small farmers if Monsanto’s GMO crops polluted the small farmers fields.

    The acid test comes in the general election.

  77. 77

    More Americans label Republican Party extreme and Democratic Party as weak — CBS News poll
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-trump-loyalty-democrats-not-effective-opinion-poll-2022-05-22/
    All sorts of demographic factoids in this poll

    But despite being in power during a time of inflation, Democrats don’t cede that much ground to Republicans on who’s trusted to deal with it. It’s 51% of Americans who trust the GOP, not much more than the 49% who trust the Democrats on inflation. It’s the same nearly even gap on the economy.

    Democrats have an advantage being trusted on abortion and coronavirus.

    Americans overall are more likely to see the Republican Party as fighting for White people than for Black people — by more than two to one. In fact, more say the Republican Party fights against the interests of Black Americans and Hispanic people than is neutral toward them. And by more than two to one, against LGBTQ people than for them. Americans do think the GOP fights more for people of faith than do Democrats.
    —
    Republicans are Forced Birthers.
    Democrats are Pro Life.

  79. 79

    Schrader’s votes against people’s, state’s and US’s best interests have been infuriating.

    The Joe Manchin of the House.. good riddance…

    Manchin strangely.. I have less of a problem with.. We elect more liberals – he’s not an issue. His state is not likely to replace him with anyone better.

  82. 82

    @81 Republicans are not stupid. They meant that. Non racists know a check box on a form doesn’t create racism. Hating people of color is racism. But republican voters don’t want to think they are racist. They just hate undeserving brown people. Republicans says crap like that to keep their base mad and scared which the base loves, because it means they don’t have think about changing.

  85. 85

    Americans do think the GOP fights more for people of faith than do Democrats.

    They’re free to do as they please as long they’re civil about it – not imposing their beliefs on anyone in the public sphere and not hurting anyone.

    Their beliefs about ultimate reality or the ultimate truth, what have you, is not the same as other’s views, so respect other folks’ privacy. Everyone has a right to be left alone.

  86. 86

    Nice Steve! Talented and passionate on a mello scale.

    Thanks so much, Gman! God bless you.

    Awesome vid my man.. the Cohen thing works really well!

    Henceforth I’m an angry Leonard Cohen! Thanks, YLB.

    It started out being about Syria and how peaceful protests in 2011 were met with met with extreme violence. That video had showed people dying.

    Then in 2014, when the black woman wanted to provide vocals, I saw a graphic showing an exponential increase in very large demonstrations around the world though the last decade, so I changed course and made it about that, leaving some Syria clips in there.

    I was also seeing S.O.S everywhere.

    Of course giving Steve a compliment for his art will result in yet another misogynist taunt from kreepshit.. so predictable.

    Indeed. I’m anticipating some low IQ snide to arrive any minute now.

  87. 87

    For the last three years I’ve been having FB charity campaigns, alternating each year between Shira and Rachel. My goal for each is to raise only $300, matching what Rachel hoped to raise.

    I only ask for $9 donations. Besides representing the girl’s age, the vast majority of donations to Rachel’s own campaign were for that amount.

    It isn’t about the money raised, it’s about trying to help the legacies of two little girls to continue to endure.

    Shira’s campaigns support the American Diabetes Association, as her parents requested when she died. Rachel’s campaigns support the charity she loved, Charity:Water.

  88. 88

    @ 76

    Making this a rare case of a member of Congress being ousted by a member of his own party.

    Not a surprising comment, given that The Even Bigger Fucking Moron has never heard of Jerry Nadler or Carolyn Maloney.

    Or Madison Cawthorn.

    Or Joe Crowley.

  89. 89

    MTG defending white supremacists, of course. That isn’t exactly news. What’s interesting is that MTG is turning orange. WTF?

    I wonder if that’s happening to the low IQ traitor too? Eh, probably.

  90. 90

    When Stacey Abrams falls into the embers of the words she cannot ever take back, she sizzles more than most politicians. About 80# more.

    Niles Francis 🇺🇦
    @NilesGApol
    · 22h
    “I am tired of being told that we are the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live.” – Abrams at Gwinnett Dems dinner #gapol

  92. 92

    @69 Rachel’s charity drive, with a goal of raising $300, pulled in $1,271,713 that funded water wells in Africa. That happened in 2011, and I posted about it on HA at the time and personally contributed. The charity is here: https://www.charitywater.org/

  93. 93

    @74 Don’t you realize Kansas was a border state during the Civil War and these people still live in the 1800s?

  94. 94

    One donation to Rachel’s campaign caught my eye as it was for $1.28. A mother was watching the local news with her and her 4 year-old beside her on a sofa. A story about Rachel was on and after it was over her boy took off and she thought he had gone off to play.

    Instead, her little boy returned to her with $1.28 in change in his two hands and told her it was for “the pretty little girl with a flower in her hair”. He had left to break into his piggy bank.

    She closed her comment with, “I have often wonder what kind of man my son my ight someday grow up to become. Now I know. Thank you, Rachel.”

    “Pretty little girl with a flower in her hair” would become the first line of verse in Rachel’s song. The rest of the lyrics were derived from comments left on her campaign page.

    At first, donations poured in from the US, then as her story began to circle the globe, I could track it nation by nation by translating comments on Google. There were even donations from Russia. I checked and, sure enough, there was a news broadcast in Moscow with a segment about Rachel’s last birthday wish.

  95. 95

    The low IQ traitor’s mother learned what kind of man her son Dumbfuck would grow up to become when he pushed his gay brother in front of a bus.

  96. 96

    @80 I wouldn’t call that a “huge” crowd (maybe 500 people) and with polls showing over 80% of the Russian people backing Putin, I’m not holding my breath waiting for him to get overthrown by a popular revolt. Their young men don’t want to be cannon fodder any more than ours did during Vietnam, but we have to treat Russia as a hostile nation with a hostile population. But that makes it easier to nuke them if Putin nukes us (which I don’t think he will, although I see a risk of him using tactical nukes in Ukraine).

  98. 98

    I posted about it on HA at the time and personally contributed.

    I recall you doing that, Roger, and God bless you for doing that.

    The village in Ethiopia shown in the music video was only the first of 156 water projects funded by Rachel’s last birthday wish, with many of them in other third-world countries located in other parts of the world.

  99. 99

    @81 “‘Well, clearly, we all ought to condemn any hatred,’ the senator replied. ‘And we ought to condemn any white supremacy. We — I mean, we’ve got to figure out how to come together.’ Scott said that the solution was to ‘stop all this racial politics.'”

    Meaning don’t talk about race or discrimination anymore. Or KKK members with police badges murdering black men. Ban Toni Morrison’s books. Tell black students to blend in. And abolish “Black Lives Matter” because that whole idea is divisive. Yeah, we know what he means.

  100. 100

    Just STFU, lie back and enjoy it..

    https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Bombshell-400-page-report-finds-Southern-Baptist-17190816.php

    And give up the kid for adoption.. See? No muss, no fuss..

    People in TexASS don’t care about this issue.. they have to pay the rent, fill the tank..

    But put shitstain Abbott on the case – he said he’d catch all the rapists..

  102. 102

    @85 “Americans do think the GOP fights more for people of faith than do Democrats.”

    They fight to embed in our laws the doctrine that the earth is flat, is 6,000 years old, God created all the creatures in a week, and then stuffed them into a boat with no rudder or propulsion system.

  103. 103

    @88 You cited two examples of congressmen defeated in their party primaries. Out of 435 House seats. I wouldn’t call that “common.”

  104. 104

    @89 “It’s not about race, it shouldn’t be about race, but they’re clearly racist as well” when an 18-year-old white supremacist decides to kill as many black people as he can. She didn’t completely whiff; she’s 1-for-3, and if she could do that with a baseball bat, she could land a nice job in MLB.

  105. 105

    The low IQ dumbfuck traitor appears to be more broken today than yesterday. Probably because of his realization that, in their brief lives, two little girls each achieved far more than he ever will.

  108. 108

    Stacey Abrams goes after Republicans during Gwinnett Democrats gala, claims GOP handling of health, incarceration issues made Georgia ‘worst state’ to live in
    https://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/local/stacey-abrams-goes-after-republicans-during-gwinnett-democrats-gala-claims-gop-handling-of-health-incarceration/article_6763c4cc-d986-11ec-9b37-0bd24856152b.html

    As usual, the greedy racist incel does not include the full quote, he lies by omission:

    “I am tired of hearing about how we’re the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live,” said Abrams before she acknowledged Republicans would attack her for the later part of that statement.

    “Let me contextualize. When you’re No. 48 for mental health, when we’re No. 1 for maternal mortality, when you have an incarceration rate that is on the rise and wages are on the decline, then you are not the No. 1 place to live.”

    Not that truth matters to republicans. If they had nothing to lie about, they would make fat jokes and think they were being clever.

  109. 109

    So, some Catholic cleric says Nancy Pelosi can’t take communion.

    Does anyone think the Catholic Church is relevant any longer?

  110. 110

    they would make fat jokes…

    …like our low IQ dumbfuck did earlier about Abrams.

    Dumbfuck is broken. We all broke him. Then two little girls who each achieved more than he ever will piled on this morning and broke him even more.

  112. 112

    109)Love it when bible-thumping callers go after John Fugelsang. Comedian/Radio host whose father was a Franciscan brother and his mother a former nun. He actually explained his late mothers position on the issue. The ex-nun wasn’t in favor of abortion, but the ex-nurse who worked in ERs pre-1973 wasn’t in favor of going back.

  113. 113

    Um, the real story is something-or-other about Hunter’s laptop. But don’t talk about the chain of custody. That’s not important.

    Ahead of the final day of President Donald Trump’s in the White House, both Jared Kushner and Steve Mnuchin used their positions to score meetings with international leaders. After leaving the Trump administration scored major investments from those same international leaders for their respective hedge funds.

    Nothing to see there.

    God bless Raw Story

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