Shit that Pissed me Off 4/26/19

Washington State Senator Maureen Walsh Says Nurses Probably Just Play Cards all Day

Walsh has apologized for what she said and, of course, claimed that her comments were taken out of context. She’s also been sent nearly 2000 decks of playing cards because you don’t fuck with nurses.

But let’s try to look at what she said in context because it’s actually pretty bad and I’m really sick of the “out of context” excuse anyway.

Walsh was speaking for an amendment to a bill that would have provided nurses in Washington State with uninterrupted meals and rest periods. Basically, if a nurse is on a twelve hour shift and they are on their lunch break, they are on their lunch break. Find another nurse because, you know, there is more than one working that shift and they don’t all take lunch at the same time.

The amendment Walsh was pushing for (that made it into the bill) would except “critical access hospitals” in rural areas from the bill.

Walsh was arguing that outstate hospitals with smaller staffs would be hurt by this law because no nurse would leave her contractually mandated rest period if there was an emergency and they were the only nurse in the building thus possibly risking the life of a patient nurses clearly don’t give a shit about as much as having uninterrupted breaks.

Besides, she said, nurses in rural areas probably already get breaks. They probably, she said, play cards for a “considerable amount of the day.”

This is an actual picture of a Washington State nurse

In context, what she was saying was that nurses in these areas don’t work that hard anyway. She later said she was tired and regretted the comment. Maybe she should have taken an uninterrupted break.

And yeah, Walsh is a Republican. I only bring this up because the bill in question was supported by the nurses union.

In general conservatives don’t like unions. So when a union is in support of a measure, they are probably going to be against it. Unless it’s a police union.

There might be nurses in “critical access hospitals” that play cards during the day. I mean, I have no idea. Maybe they are all playing Minecraft if Minecraft is still a thing. Is Minecraft still a thing?

But no they aren’t. Walsh was pretending she was concerned about patients but really she just wanted to make sure nurses didn’t slack off. When we are tired, we usually say exactly what we mean.

Congresspeople are Actually Voting Against The Violence Against Women Act

I’d think that reducing domestic violence against women would be something we could all get behind. It’s one of those few bipartisan issues we can all agree is a good thing.

Aside, perhaps, from some on the extreme religious right who believe women should have even been given the right to vote. They probably think beating their wives is a god given right. Fortunately, there aren’t very many of those in congress.

So, while a bill that closes some loopholes in the existing law was passed this week, what was wrong with the bill that inspired 158 members of congress to vote against it? And what is the problem that may well prevent the bill from passing in the Republican controlled Senate?

Of course. It’s guns.

See the original bill prevents ex-husbands, family members, and live-in boyfriends from possessing a firearm if they have been convinced of felony domestic violence or stalking. The revised bill would have included non live-in boyfriends and those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking.

It may surprise you to learn that, in spite of the fact women are more likely to be killed by one of the individuals listed above, the NRA doesn’t like this bill because it takes guns out of the hands of convicted criminals. I’m sure they argue it is a slippery slope. If we prevent convicted criminals from having guns, why wouldn’t we move on to preventing the military from having guns? I mean it’s the next obvious step.

Now someone is going to argue that men who beat their wives and girlfriends and would rather kill them than see them live free of an abusive relationship would kill that wife or girlfriend with a knife. The gun isn’t the problem. The dude with the gun is the problem.

I don’t know a lot of wife beating assholes who can throw a knife with enough accuracy to kill.

The NRA pisses me off because they are a lot like PETA. PETA doesn’t give a fuck cats are obligate carnivores and must eat meat to survive. They think keeping cats is abusive in the first place and we should just let them all out to kill birds which, I guess, is OK.

The NRA doesn’t care if keeping guns out of the hands of convicted abusers would save the lives of dozens of women every year. They just don’t want any law that limits gun ownership because it will mean gun manufacturers make less money.

And no, I don’t want to take away your fucking guns. Unless you beat up your wife/girlfriend. Then fuck you. Not only do I think you should be prevented from owning a gun, you shouldn’t be able to have a knife either. You should have to eat all of your food by hand like the primitive fuck you are. Hell, you shouldn’t even be able to own a hammer because you already know how to pound things with your fist.

Columnist Says Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Forgive Student Loan Debt is a Slap in the Face of People Who Have Worked Hard to Pay off Their Student Loans

Student loans are the worst. They are basically unforgivable debt that means kids leaving college are weighed down with years of payments on their education. And yes, people work very hard to eliminate that debt. Which sucks.

So Warren, a candidate for President, is suggesting we forgive a lot of that debt because it hurts our economy and it financially cripples the youngest members of our workforces. And to be fair, that’s kind of expensive. The column above point that out and questions Warren’s plan to pay for it. Which is fair.

Where they lose me is when they suggest that forgiving debt would be a bad idea because what about all those people who worked to pay off their student loans? Wouldn’t that suck for them?

I think I can speak to that because I paid off student loan debt. I also have children who will, one day, possibly have student loan debt.

No.

It won’t suck for me at all. Paying off my student loans was a pain in the ass and I’d really love it if my kids aren’t saddled with that kind of debt coming out of college.

It’s like we should all go back to using outhouses because indoor plumbing is unfair to everyone who used to have to go outside to poop in winter.

When I was a child, I had to walk uphill through a snowstorm just to take a crap! BOTH WAYS!

Or maybe we need to look at it from the perspective of taxes, which is what the column really seems to care about. How about this – driving on interstates is unfair to all those people who payed their taxes before the money paid for interstates. They didn’t get interstates. Why should we get them?

Because we try to do better, asshole. That’s what Warren is trying to say. We can do better.

And we shouldn’t give a fuck if we had it harder back in the day. We didn’t have the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in the day and I’m still going to watch the fuck out of “Endgame.”

Look, if you want to argue that Warren’s plan isn’t financially feasible, that’s a fair argument. But don’t claim it shouldn’t be done because it will hurt people who have already paid off their student loans. We shouldn’t argue something shouldn’t be done because other people were born too early to benefit from it.

Girl Expelled from High School After She Hit A Boy Trying to Enter the Girl’s Restroom

I can’t believe the girl was expelled for defending herself but honestly, what is more upsetting is the reason a bunch of boys were entering the restroom in the first place.

It was a protest.

Because a transgender boy was allowed to use the boy’s restroom.

The boys organized this protest by saying they “identified as women” and therefore could use the women’s restroom because they have no fucking clue how any of this works and they are basically just little assholes who will probably grow up to wear MAGA hats and wonder why women keep ghosting them. The girl who was expelled was using the bathroom for reasons most of us use the bathroom (hint – not to stalk people) and was blocked from leaving the bathroom by the boys entering the bathroom.

So she was – what’s the word I’m looking for – scared. And she responded by kicking one of the boys in the groin.

Which would be hilarious if the school didn’t proceed to expel her for the act.

Now one could argue that the boys are a bunch of transphobic pricks who desperately need an education so they should be the ones to stay in school. And if I believed for one moment the school was going to teach those boys the lesson they should learn (hey assholes – stop being assholes), I might be willing to entertain that argument.

What ends up happening however, is these boys ended up victimizing a girl at the school twice. They did it the first time with their bullshit “protest” and they did it the second time when they all got to stay in school because she defended herself.

And someone is going to say that I don’t know the whole story. Maybe this boy had just dumped the girl and she used the moment as an opportunity to get some revenge. Maybe she was a discipline problem and this was the last straw.

Or maybe those boys, who advertised their intent to stage a protest ahead of time, should have been stopped in the first place.

Sometimes I hate this country.