A Republican Senator Actually Said, “Well, We All Are Going to Die” in Response to Backlash on Medicaid Cuts

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian.)

As Elon Musk departs government service, The New York Times provides us with an answer to what had thought previously to be largely a rhetorical question: “Jesus, what is this guy, on drugs?”

Well, in fact, yes.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it. It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi, and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

If a guy is telling people he’s using too much ketamine and keeps using ketamine, then the odds are pretty good that he was using ketamine when he was “a fixture in the White House.” I mean, my God, this man was a one-man weekend for Led Zeppelin.

Mr. Musk has described some of his mental health issues in interviews and on social media, saying in one post that he has felt “great highs, terrible lows, and unrelenting stress.” He has denounced traditional therapy and antidepressants. He plays video games for hours on end. He struggles with binge eating, according to people familiar with his habits, and takes weight-loss medication. And he posts day and night on his social media platform, X.

Mr. Musk had been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs, according to people familiar with his consumption. The line between medical use and recreation was blurry, troubling some people close to him. He also took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events.

Care to wonder what would have happened to this guy if he weren’t a gazillionaire and, instead, was some poor schlub living in a shack on the beach in California? He’d have been locked up years ago. I’m sure that the House oversight committee—Rep. James Comer, chair-hog—will get right on this after his probe into an anonymous bag of cocaine found while Joe Biden was president is wrapped up.

Well, it looks as though my old pal, Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, had a bit of a time with the home folk at her town hall this week. (Props to her for even having one, Republicans having suddenly been struck with unbreakable periodontal appointments once they got back home.) From Politico:

Constituents on Friday gathered in Butler County, Iowa, to hear Ernst defend the Trump administration’s work, including efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency and Republicans’ congressional priorities.

Butler County, it should be noted, is rural even by Iowa standards, which are considerable.

But when a constituent questioned Ernst about the reconciliation bill, things became heated. The woman, who said she had previously emailed Ernst’s office with her concerns, argued the bill’s proposed cuts seemed neither “compassionate” nor “fiscally responsible.” She accused Ernst of supporting a “tax shelter” for the wealthy.

As the audience applauded the woman, she continued, expressing concerns about the bill’s proposed cuts to SNAP benefits and Medicaid spending. Ernst said those who would lose Medicaid were not currently eligible for Medicaid. “You are arguing—when you’re arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid benefits, 1.4 million, 1.4 million they’re not—they are not eligible so they will be coming off,” Ernst said. One audience member could then be heard shouting, “People are going to die.”

What Ernst said is, of course, a crock. What came next was undeniably accurate but just a touch lacking in empathy.

“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded.

If you’re going to quote Country Joe McDonald, do it right. That line is supposed to begin with, “Whoopee!”

Audience members gasped and booed the senator, but Ernst seemed unbothered.

“Listen to me when I say that we are going to focus on those that are most vulnerable,” Ernst said as constituents continued to shout at her.

Believe that. I’ve seen Senator Ernst be unbothered by booing and by her own untruth. It is truly her superpower. That and de-balling hogs.

WWOZ Pick to Click: “Everybody’s Whalin’ ” (Huey Piano Smith): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Here, from 1913, is the tragic sacrifice of suffragette Emily Davison, who threw herself under Anmer, a horse belonging to King George V at the Epsom Derby as an act of protest. Davison already had been arrested a number of times, mostly for throwing stones at various government officials, and she had gone on hunger strike several times, which resulted in her being tortured with nightmarish “forced feeding.” During her last incarceration, she threw herself off a balcony in the prison. Her last arrest was for horse-whipping a Baptist minister whom she thought was David Lloyd George. This resulted in her seventh hunger strike and her 49th forced feeding. The introductory slate to the film calls this a “thrilling incident.” Which is not what I would call it. History is so cool, even when it is unbearably awful.

Ah, a minor act of rebellion at the CDC. This makes me feel better—which, come to think of it, was the CDC’s original mandate before it was handed over to a famous collector of dead whale heads. From The New York Times:

Days after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that Covid shots would be removed from the federal immunization schedule for children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated advice that largely counters Mr. Kennedy’s new policy. The agency kept Covid shots on the schedule for children 6 months to 17 years old with a new condition. Children and their caregivers will be able to get the vaccines in consultation with a doctor or provider, which the agency calls “shared decision-making.” The shots will also continue to be available under those terms to about 38 million low-income children who rely on the Vaccines for Children program, according to an emailed update from the C.D.C. on Friday.

Alas for pregnant women, the CDC offered no new guidance for them.

The C.D.C.’s new guidance on pregnant women is a troubling turn of events for experts familiar with research showing that their risk of stillbirth, hospitalization, and death rises if they have Covid. Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and chief medical officer with the Association of Immunization Managers, said that based on federal health officials’ statements in recent days, she had expected to see a recommendation for pregnant women to get the vaccine if they had an additional condition putting them at high risk. Days ago, the recommendation from the C.D.C. was that everyone 6 months or older should get the Covid vaccine. Now the advice is that children “may” get the shot but there is no longer any guidance for pregnant women.

We are all going to be lucky if we live through this era of clowns and quacks.

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From CNN:

The complex was discovered across three sites—Los Abuelos, Petnal, and Cambrayal—near the significant Mayan site of Uaxactún in the Petén region of northern Guatemala, the ministry said in a statement. The Mayan civilization arose around 2,000 BC and reached its height between 400 and 900 AD, predominantly in modern-day Mexico and Guatemala. During its height, people built temples, roads, pyramids and other monuments, and developed complex systems of writing, mathematics and astronomy.

Los Abuelos, which means “The Grandparents” in Spanish, lies around 13 miles (21 kilometers) from Uaxactún and gets its name from two human-like rock figures found at the site, believed to represent an “ancestral couple,” the ministry said. These figures, along with several sacred sanctuaries, suggest it was an important site for Mayan rituals, said Luis Rodrigo Carrillo, Guatemala’s vice minister of culture and sports, in a press briefing announcing the findings.

I have to tell you. From that picture, I’m not seeing human forms, anthropomorphic or otherwise, but I’ll take everyone’s word for it. It looks more to me like a place Kristi Noem would take a recalcitrant puppy.

Hey, ScienceDaily, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!

The researchers discovered red blood cell-like structures in a fossil while studying a Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, a duck-billed, plant eating “marsh lizard” that lived between 66-70 million years ago in the Hateg Basin in present-day Romania. The new study used Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques to identify low-density structures resembling erythrocytes, or red blood cells, in the fossilised bone. The findings raise the possibility that soft tissue and cellular components are more commonly preserved in ancient remains than previously thought. By identifying preserved proteins and biomarkers, scientists believe they can gain insights into the diseases that affected prehistoric creatures, including cancer, potentially influencing future treatments for humans.

I’ll be more than happy to take my medical news from Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus than from, say, RFK Jr. I mean, holy prehistory, Batman! Now we may discover that they lived then to make us happy and healthy now.

I’ll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and the New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for everyone touched by the earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand, and by the tornadoes throughout the Southeast, and for everyone touched by floods in Kentucky and in West Virginia, and now in Nigeria, and by the crash in Washington, and by the measles outbreak in the Southwest, and in the wildfire zone around Dallas, and in the fire zones in Los Angeles and now in Canada, and for all the folks in Ukraine, who stubbornly fight on, and all the folks in Gaza, and all the people in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Queens, who were visited by the Crazy before the year had hardly begun, and the folks in Dallas and Tallahassee, who were visited by the Crazy this week. And the people in drought-stricken north Alabama. And the folks caught in floods and tornadoes in Nebraska, and in Missouri. And the folks caught in “historic floods” in Kentucky. And in Oklahoma. And the folks in LA, now fighting floods and mudslides exacerbated by the recent wildfires. And the folks in the wildfire zones in Pennsylvania, and in Minnesota. And the folks in Lahaina, who are still rebuilding. And the victims of the nightclub collapse in the Dominican Republic. And all the folks we regularly cited here in the year gone by, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting. And for all of us, who will be getting exactly what we deserve.