#I once saw a tweet saying Buck is used to doing it outside/in public but Eddie?? there’s a hand over that mouth constantly

[aillewrites]

“Bottom Buck” “Buck is a submissive bo—”

WRONG Eddie Diaz is the biggest bottom I have ever seen in my entire life and once he, mr only has had sex with women as a gay man, has his first proper orgasm??? It’s over. He’s going to be insufferable. His libido? Soaring through the roof. His self control? GONEEEE

[onemanbandstand]

So I was helping this guy, J, out with money and people kept telling me I shouldn’t. “You sound like you’re being threatened,” is what somebody told me last week. I met this guy outside my building, he loosely ran with a group of drug dealers who operate out of my building. 

But as far as I could see he was mostly on his own, hanging out at a bus stop around the corner from me.  J didn’t seem to have much of anything, and I tried to give him money when I could. He started to get more and more aggressive with it, asking for increasing specifics: my neighbor, for example, a drug dealer and a sex worker, would let him crash on a spare couch for $20 and he needed the money. So, I go to the ATM and get him $20, for a few nights in a row.

J’s asks started to increase. He had just been released from the hospital, he told me. He started telling me a lot. He was Panamanian but didn’t really identify with anything related to that culture, he was bi, he didn’t like living on my neighbor’s couch because of all the sex he overheard. He was applying for benefits and public housing with the hope that a bar around the corner would give him a barback position in a few weeks. He just needed some help at the moment.

So I gave J some more money. I paid for his housing more, I paid for his birth certificate to be copied at 100 Centre Street, I paid for his MetroCard to get to 100 Centre Street, I paid for his grandmother’s diabetic medication.

I don’t have a lot of money. Like, I get a monthly salary and I can pay my own goddamn rent but I’m not making a lot of money, let’s just keep it there. But for the purposes of this story: as of last Friday, I had given this guy $200 in a weeklong period. That’s more than I really have to give somebody but I figured it was a limit I could hit. 

Sometimes, when I didn’t have money, I would let J come into my apartment to use the bathroom or get a drink of water. It’s been really hot in New York.

Like i said, J was becoming more aggressive. I started telling him that I couldn’t give him money and it was in one ear and out the other. He’d start to knock on my door, asking me if he could use the bathroom, and once that happened he’d start asking for more money for various things. He’d get this sad face after I closed the door on him at 7 AM, when he tried to sell me a speaker, like I was the one wounding him. He’d come back in 20 minutes begging for help, swearing this would be the last time, this would be the last time he ever asked me for money. “Dave, you’ve got to understand, I just came out the hospital, I don’t have anything, Dave, you’ve got to understand, you’ve got to understand, you’ve got to understand.” Yesterday J came by asking for money for haloperidol. Like i said, I had given J what for me was a lot at this point. I’ve got groceries, etc. J showed me his prescription and said he needed the haloperidol for his schizophrenia. I told him I couldn’t help him anymore. He put his foot in the door and refused to leave. Again, he told me that this was the last time he’d bother me, the last time he’d ask me for money.

I asked if he would sign something that said that. He agreed. I hated doing this, it felt humiliating, but I felt I desperately needed to create boundaries with J and that this would be a good start. He signed the back of an envelope saying “I will not ask David for any more money” and I gave him $40.

Within two hours, he was back. The haloperidol wasn’t $40, he told me. It was, as he had written down on the prescription, $69.95. And I had promised that I would pay for this one last thing. Not exactly true, but if it took $30 extra bucks to get this guy out of my hair for good, I could stomach that. This brought my bank account to a place that was below my comfort level, but I could manage.

Within two hours, he was back. He knocked on the door and we talked in the hallway. The haloperidol, he told me, was actually two separate drugs. He needed injections and pills. He needed more money. I told him blankly that I had given him everything I possible could, that I needed money to pay for myself. 

After a little bargaining in the hallway, J shoved me in the chest and pushed his way into my apartment. My apartment opens up into a main kitchen area, followed by a door to my room. He walked me back into my room and told me that I was reneging on our deal, that I had agreed to pay for this one last thing, that this was bullshit. 

I was furious and decided to default into a broken record. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY APARTMENT, over and over again. He kept on saying how angry I was, how I should calm down. He sat at my table and told me he wouldn’t leave. We had signed a deal, he said. I kept on yelling. He started calling me an asshole.

My neighbor, who has lived here longer than me (I’ve been here around 6 years, I think he’s been here for a couple decades), heard the yelling. We’re on friendly terms, me and my neighbor. He’s also named David and he’s from Georgia originally. He’s an older guy who struggles with alcoholism, I’ve watched his apartment and his cats when he’s been in rehab. Dave started yelling, “You need any help in there?”

I did, Dave came over. J respected Dave and left. Dave started telling J to never bother me again. I asked Dave if he knew J, Dave responded, “Yeah, he’s an asshole!”

I tweeted about it and went to the gym. I had hopes of starting a membership that day but their computer was down. The guy saw that I was in pretty bad shape, my legs somewhere in between running a marathon and collapsing under the weight of the adrenaline coursing through my body. He let me in for free. I ran a very aggressive mile and heard Lorde’s “Green Mile,” which moved through my body like blood. I decided against doing any weights because I was too twitchy. 

I got two slices of pizza. I went back to my apartment and J was there, standing in front of my apartment. He was talking to two people and didn’t acknowledge me. As I was entering the building I yelled at him to stay the fuck away from me, twice. After the second time he said, I heard you the first time, Dave. I slammed the front door as hard as I could.

[itsfinancethings]

(WASHINGTON) — With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House is working to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as President Donald Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November.

The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now spiraling. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his reelection chances.

Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, once the host of TV’s “Love Connection,” claiming that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19. Woolery’s tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most doctors “that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election.”

At the same time, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound.

“We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet,” he said in a talk with the dean of Stanford’s medical school Monday, calling for a “step back” in reopenings.

Last week, Fauci contradicted Trump about the severity of the virus during a FiveThirtyEight podcast. While Trump contends repeatedly that he has done a great job against the pandemic, Fauci said, “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.”

Trump later said Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes.” He pointed to Fauci’s early disagreement with him over the China travel ban and to the evolving guidance over the use of masks as scientists’ understanding of the virus improved — points the White House expanded on in statements to media outlets over the weekend.

Asked whether the president still had confidence in Fauci, a White House official on Monday insisted Trump did. The official said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was regarded as “a valued voice” on the White House coronavirus task force. The official spoke on condition of anonymity even though the president has repeatedly railed against anonymous sources.

“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” Trump told reporters Monday, calling him “a very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.”

That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort.

In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to The Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.” That includes, he said, downplaying the early risk of the virus and expressing skepticism over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which Navarro has aggressively championed despite contradictory evidence on its efficacy and safety.

Fauci, who has not appeared at recent White House task force briefings and has been largely absent from television, told the Financial Times last week that he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 and hadn’t briefed him in at least two months.

He blamed the fact that he has refused to toe the administration’s line for its refusal to approve many of his media requests.

“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said.

Trump’s political foes put it more strongly.

“The president’s disgusting attempt to pass the buck by blaming the top infectious disease expert in the country — whose advice he repeatedly ignored and Joe Biden consistently implored him to take — is yet another horrible and revealing failure of leadership as the tragic death toll continues to needlessly grow,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Democrat Biden’s presidential campaign.

Fauci’s public contradictions of Trump have been viewed by the president as a personal affront and have caused some in the West Wing to sour on the doctor, officials say. Some say that, while he is critical of the president in media interviews, he is largely deferential behind closed doors. And they complain about those outside the administration, including some in the media, who have elevated Fauci at the expense of other officials.

Fauci did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

That lionizing of Fauci is anything but welcome as the White House tries to have its medical experts take a step back from the limelight to keep the election-season focus on economic recovery rather than the persistence of the pandemic.

In the early days of the virus, as Trump bristled at the attention Fauci was receiving, the West Wing took control of the doctor’s media schedule, significantly cutting into his TV appearances though he continued to find alternative outlets — including podcasts and social media.

The president’s team has made clear they have no intention of trying to oust Fauci, knowing the uproar that would create. Instead, they appear content to diminish his reach while encouraging Republican lawmakers, administration officials and other allies to highlight some of Fauci’s early missteps.

The effort is part of a White House effort to “counterpunch” on behalf of Trump, who believes all slights must have a forceful response, said one official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal White House thinking.

At the same time, supporters are flocking to Fauci’s defense. The Association of American Medical Colleges’ president and chief scientific officer issued a statement saying the organization was “extremely concerned and alarmed by efforts” to discredit Fauci.

“We cannot allow Donald Trump to silence Dr. Fauci or any other government scientists,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who introduced legislation in April to protect Fauci and other leaders of the National Institutes of Health from being fired for political reasons. “Dr. Fauci is saving lives every day.”

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.