queermunist

The end of the article jumped out at me:

The Palestinian health ministry said 40 patients died on Tuesday, after five days without the fuel needed to power generators that fed dialysis machines and other vital medical equipment. The hospital had also run out of clean water, and doctors said they were subsisting on dates to survive as food supplies dwindled to nothing.

Corpses were piled in front of the hospital, with staff too terrified to move between buildings. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs said staff at al-Shifa, for decades the linchpin of Gaza’s medical system, had begun preparations for a mass grave to entomb 180 bodies in front of the facility, as there was no way for them to leave in order to bury the dead.

Of particular note:

The Association of American Railroads, which represents freight railway operators, said its members have been hiring in recent years to address staffing needs and recognize employees' desire for better scheduling. The group said the number of overtime hours worked by BMWE union members increased to 4.7 hours per week in 2022, compared to 4 hours in 2016.

Cory Ludwig, who works as a machine operator repairing railway tracks in Iowa, said he’s been working Saturdays and some Sundays along with 10- to 12-hour shifts since September. Recently, he worked 13 days without a day off. With the mandatory Saturday work, he’s had to rely on friends and relatives to take care of his five-year-old and nine-year-old kids. He said the overtime demands have increased as he’s seen the number of workers assigned to his crew go down.

“You fall asleep and then you wake up in the morning and you go right back to work. It can really break a person down, it gets really wearing on a person after a while,” Ludwig said. “With less people trying to do the same amount of work, working long hours, working multiple weeks in a row without one day off, you get irritated and you get burnt out.”

Recently one of the union’s members had been working 22 hours straight when he fell asleep on the job, an error that could have put his colleagues’ lives at risk but also could have been avoided had the employee had a rest period, said Ballew. Another member was recently disciplined for refusing to work through his scheduled days off on short notice so he could care for a family member having health issues, Ballew said.

“The stress it puts on marriages and parenting and the things you leave behind for your spouse to deal with or the things you miss, that kind of stress builds up,” said Ballew. “In the rail industry, we have noticed recently a spat of suicides and I can’t help but think there is a correlation there.”

Thank God Biden stopped the railroad strike!

I swear if I hear another fucker say that the railroad workers got everything they wanted because Biden helped them negotiate I'll lose it.

Good thing I voted for the lesser evil in 2020! Gosh if I had stuck to principles we'd have had a genocide or something 😒

I recommend listening to the whole thing, but here's the nug:

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes, I just want to say one thing. I want to say this, and I want the world to remember my words. In my culture, in my language, we say, ”Kama tadinu tudan, walaw ba’ada heen.” In your culture, in your language, they say, “What goes around comes around.” And when it comes around, like this whole world is watching the genocides happening in the Gaza Strip, we shall be watching, too.

Israel fucked up. God damn journalists saying this openly? I mean, obviously the Western press won't cover this, but this is after Biden went whining to Qatar to reign in Al Jazeera lol

I held my nose for that shit in 2020 "to stop fascism" but fuck, this motherfucker endorsed genocide anyway. Not making that mistake again 🤢

The nug:

While assertions have been made by both sides about the incident and death toll, the available evidence is less clear. However, analysis of the video footage rules out most explanations aside from an Israeli strike.

The devastation underlines the heightened risk civilians are facing as tens of thousands flee the north, on Israeli orders, during hostilities. The bodies of at least three children can be seen in multiple clips verified by the FT.

At least 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the government, including many women and children. At least 2,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment, about half of them women and below the age of 18, according to Palestinian officials.

On Saturday, Israel told Gazans that it would refrain from bombing two evacuation routes for six hours, including Salah-ad-Din street, where these explosions took place, so that civilians could continue to move south

Following months of negotiations with Teamsters, UPS announced in June that it would install air conditioning in new trucks starting next year. The company said it would send new trucks to the hottest parts of the country first, if possible. The company also said it would retrofit its existing package cars with cab fans, exhaust heat shields, and cargo area ventilation.

"While these improvements will make a difference in the months and years ahead, we had to fight like hell to secure them," the Teamsters union said in its social media post Thursday. "Chris Begley should still be alive to experience them. All companies, including UPS, need to remember that their past failings to protect workers can have deadly serious consequences in the future."

Chris Bagley should still be alive and it's a damn shame the Teamsters failed to protect him from social murder. Only new trucks? Only next year? They drove trucks without fans, heat shields, and ventilation? What the fuck.

The Teamsters could have, at the very least, demand a total halt on driving trucks without fucking fans. "Oh but that'll cause package delays!" Well I guess we just have to murder drivers for the sake of logistics.

If anyone tells me how great and historic the new contract is one more fucking time I'll fucking lose it.

I want to read you two recent headlines from New York magazine. They were written within a week of each other. The first is “A.O.C. Is Just a Regular Old Democrat Now,” and that accuses you of compromising on your progressive ideals as you work within the party system. And then came the rebuttal, which was “The ‘A.O.C. Left’ Has Achieved Plenty,” which argued that your wing has pushed the party leftward. Why do you think your role is still being parsed this way by Democrats and by those on the left?

Part of it is because we haven’t really had a political presence like this in the United States before. I think very often you had this consummate insider that was bankrolled by corporate money and advancing this, frankly, very neoliberal agenda. And those were the people that we were used to seeing in power. And so I think over time there’s been an inherent association between power, ascent and quote-unquote selling out.

I often say to my grass-roots companions that the left, for a very long time, was not used to having power in the United States. And so when we encounter power, we’re so bewildered by it —

Yes, the reason we are suspicious of you is because we're too fucking stupid to understand. Thank you boss queen!!!

Moving your ideas internationally, even if they might conflict with the foreign policy of the leader of your own party?

I wouldn’t necessarily characterize my foreign policy goals as oppositional to the president’s or to the United States. I am a member of Congress. I have sworn an oath to this country, and I take that oath very seriously.

That says it all, doesn't it?

Do you feel more comfortable in the Democratic Party now? The way you described it initially was fraught. They rejected you, and you were definitely trying to change the party. You have said you’ve pushed the party leftward. Many would agree. So is it OK to be a regular Democrat now?

The activist in me always seeks to agitate for more. I think despite there being progress, many people are still woefully underserved in this country. But the Democratic Party has changed dramatically in the last five years. Even if you just look at the numbers, I believe it’s something around 50 percent of House Democrats have been elected since 2018. And so what is considered center and moderate now is dramatically different than what it was five years ago.

No no wait, that says it all.

Being center and moderate is good now folks!

County GOP activists could have picked a less controversial nominee for the auditor's race, but they stuck with Whipple. The move backfired spectacularly.

Overreaching is the norm for the Party now because the base doesn't give a shit about electability anymore. That's good for Democrats... until Republicans stop caring about elections entirely.

Imagine the thought process of "the election was stolen, so I'll vote harder next time"

Extremely American

Look at it! What is that? It looks kind of like a cross section of a human, kind of, except the eyes are pools of blackened fire and the brain is sending electrical pulses out to... are those Jupiters? Why? Why??? This is absolute nightmare shit lol

"Good things are going to happen in this country, and it just might take a different generation to help lead us there," Vivek Ramaswamy said a few minutes into his "fair-side chat" with Governor Kim Reynolds on August 12. The youngest candidate in the GOP presidential field (he turned 38 last week) regularly reminds audiences that he is the first millennial to run for president as a Republican.

But here's the thing: a large majority of Iowa GOP caucus-goers are Gen X or older.

The Republican Party of Iowa does not publish details about caucus-goer demographics, but entrance or exit polls from the last three competitive caucuses give us a rough idea. Those surveys indicate that GOP caucus-goers under age 45 comprised only about 28 percent of participants in 2016, about 31 percent in 2012, and about 26 percent in 2008.

It's a pretty long article but it tells you all you need to know about this guy: his 10 Commandments are especially dire, because he's essentially distilled everything Republicans believe into bite-sized talking points. They're all nonsense, but I could totally see these resonating with people who have adult children that don't talk to them anymore.

If Trump actually gets sent to prison before the caucuses, this guy might have the swag to replace him.

Do you get it now?

The law doesn't apply to them.