#service and selection!

[thingsifoundongeoguessr]

PITBULL TABACCO

[cainvstheworld]

Draft Dodger by Cain Birch

Thank you for all the love on my last poem btw <3

[Text ID: Draft Dodger by Cain Birch. I am a man by most means, mediums, measures. But the law leaves me out; it doesn’t want my boots on the ground, doesn’t recognize my manhood. I’m grateful: that there is no slim chance, no open window or cracked door, that I’ll be shipped off to murder, boxed up to butcher. I skirted the tragedies of boyhood, the relentless teasing and awkward boners, the fistfights and choked-back-down tears. The guilt rains down heavy, like endless rounds of gunfire, that I got off easy, that my knuckles never bruised. I huddled in wait for my moment, patient sniper on the battlefield, my weapon my needle, my ammo my medicine. My target was camouflaged in a sea of crew cuts. The boy bestowed me his boots and haircut; I blessed him with an exit wound the moment I came of age. The guilt dies with the memories that rush thick and fast: phantom knives ripping through my abdomen, rape whistles for Christmas, a self-defense class that taught me how to bring a man to his knees when he palms your breast. Girlhood was a battlefield, and there was no draft. /End ID]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

America’s richest Medicare fraudsters are untouchable

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/13/last-gasp/#i-cant-breathe

"When you're famous, they let you do it": eight words that encapsulate the terrifying rot at the heart of our lived experience, a world where impunity for the powerful trumps the pain of their victims.

"Populism," is shorthand for many things: rage, despair, distrust of institutions and a desire to destroy them. True populism seeks to channel those totally legitimate feelings into transformative change for a caring and fair society for all. So-called "right populism" exploits those feelings, using them to drive a wedge between different groups of victims, turning them against each other, so that elites can go on screwing the squabbling factions.

The far-right parties that are marching to victory through a series global elections are different in many ways, but they all share one trait: they appeal to mistrust of institutions, claiming that the government has been captured by elites who serve them at the expense of the governed. This has the benefit of being actually true, and while the fact that far-right parties are owned by these government-capturing elites might erode their credibility, the fact that so many "progressive" parties have stepped in to defend the institutional status quo leaves an open field for reactionary wreckers:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-slogan-219908

Why would voters turn out to support a "Department of Government Efficiency," run by a bully whose career has been defined by abusing the people he is in charge of? Maybe they're turkeys voting for Christmas, but they also have personal, traumatic experience with government departments that protected the abusive corporations that preyed on them.

Today on Propublica, Peter Elkind tells the incredible story of Lincare, the nation's leading supplier of home oxygen, a repeat-offender fraudster and predator that has made billions in public money without any real consequences:

https://www.propublica.org/article/lincare-medicare-lawsuit-settlements-oxygen-equipment

Lincare has been repeatedly found guilty of defrauding Medicare; in this century alone, they have been put on probation four times, with a "death penalty" provision that would permanently disqualify them from ever doing business with the federal government. In every case, Lincare committed fresh acts of fraud, but never faced that death penalty.

Why not? Lincare is far too big to fail. In America's bizarre, worst-in-class, world-beatingly expensive privatized health care system, even public health provision (like Medicare) is outsourced to the private sector. Lincare has monopolized oxygen, a famously very important molecule for human survival, and if it were disqualified from serving Medicare, large numbers of Americans would literally asphyxiate.

Lincare clearly knows this. Too big to fail is too big to jail, and too big to jail is too big to care. They are the poster children for impunity, repeat offenders, multiply convicted, and still offending, even today. Lincare has been convicted of fraud under the administrations of GW Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden, and they're still in business.

What a business it is! Elkind takes us to the asbestos-poisoned town of Libby, Montana, where more than 2,000 of the 2.857 population suffer from respiratory diseases from the open-pit mine that operated there from 1963-1990. The elderly, dying population of this town rely on Medicare and Medicare Advantage oxygen concentrators to draw breath, and that means they rely on Lincare.

That means they are prey to Lincare's signature scam: charging Medicare (and 20% co-paying patients) to rent an oxygen concentrator every month, until they have paid for it several times over. This is illegal: under federal rules, patients are deemed to have bought their oxygen concentrators after 36 months and contractors are no longer allowed to charge them. Lincare doesn't give a fuck: the bills keep coming, and Lincare patients who survive long enough have paid the company $16,000 for a $799 gadget.

When Brandon Haugen, a local Lincare customer service rep, noticed this and queried the company's home office in Clearwater, Florida (home to Scientology and the Flexidisc), he was given the brushoff. After multiple attempts to get company leadership to acknowledge that this was illegal, he quit his job, along with his colleague and childhood friend Ben Montgomery. Between them, Haugen and Montgomery had 14 children who depended on their Lincare paychecks. Despite this, they both quit and turned whistleblower, with no job lined up. Eventually, Lincare paid $29m to settle the claim, with $5.7m to the whistleblowers and their lawyers. For Lincare, this was part of the cost of doing business and the fraud rolls on.

Lincare doesn't just defraud Medicare, they also have a high-pressure commissioned sales force that has repeatedly been caught defrauding Lincare customers – overwhelming sick, poor, elderly people. Patients are pressured to accept auto-billing, then Lincare piles medically dubious gadgets onto their monthly bills, as well as useless, overpriced "patient monitoring" services. Customers with apnea machines are mis-sold ventilators by salesmen who falsely claim these are medically necessary.

Salespeople illegally auto-shipped parts and consumables for Lincare machines to patients, then billed them for it. To satisfy the legal requirement that they telephone patients before placing these orders, sales agents would call patients, put them on hold, then part the call until the patient hung up.

Salespeople are motivated by equal parts greed and terror. Make quota and you can get up to $8,000 per month in bonuses. Miss that punishing quota and you're out on your ass (which is why one salesperson ordered a medically unnecessary ventilator).

Lincare also habitually ignores requests to pick up medically unnecessary equipment, because so long as the equipment is on the patient's premises, they can continue to bill for it. As one Ohio manager wrote to their staff: "As we have already discussed, absolutely no pick-ups/inactivation’s are to be do[ne] until I give you the green light. Even if they are deceased." Execs send out company-wide emails celebrating regional managers who have abandoned pick-ups, like a Feb 2022 "Achievement Rankings" email that touted the fact that most regional centers had at least 150 overdue pickups.

Lincare represents a deep, structural rot in American society. They are too big to punish, and too powerful to regulate. A 2006 law meant to curb oxygen payments was gutted by industry lobbyists. Today, Congress is weighing legislation, the SOAR (Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform) Act, which will allow Lincare to bill the public for hundreds of millions more every year, raising rates and eliminating competitive billing. The bill is supported by patient advocates who are rightly interested in getting oxygen to patients who have been locked out of the system, but the cost of that inclusion is that Lincare will be even more firmly insulated from its corruption.

The Trump Administration will doubtless crack down on some of America's worst companies, and the furious voters who elected the only candidate who campaigned on the idea that America was rotten will cheer him on. But Trump has made it clear that he will select the targets of his administration based on whether they are loyal to him or stand in his way, without regard to whether they harm his supporters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Companies like Lincare, repeatedly caught paying illegal kickbacks, know how to play this game.

Image: p.Gordon (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smoke_bomb_with_burning_fuse.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[fraternum-momentum]

Me and the boys on our way to harass PC

portraits only under the cut:

[legionofpotatoes]

I know the discourse well is poisoned and no one hates bioware games more than bioware fans, but I am just 🫠 having so much fun with veilguard it's unreal. It is selfishly the dragon age game I always wanted. with less emphasis on cRPG, a more focused story, curated mission based design that spotlights the high fantasy stuff, slowburn structure with companions, significantly less sidequest bloat, and a fully real-time action-oriented combat system that isn't riddled with the growing pains of previous titles. when I first played origins I imagined something almost exactly like this as my ideal version of a sequel; and it was one of those dirty, selfish thoughts that I knew was disrespectful to the then-established DNA of the thing, but I can't help but feel giddy about having it here and now. like down to the shift away from the childishly dark tone and to something more inherently flexible with a baseline aspirational quality. I hate aesthetically depressing games so much. am I not alive right here and right now already

When I say "aesthetically" there though I do mean it. I'm fully on the opposite side when it comes to tone and positions expressed in the story itself. I am just not including that in my analysis because I am not done yet - so please no spoilers! I think I am where most people consider to be the second act, and I definitely have my gripes with the narrative framework and some of the optics, but I won't put the cart before the horse and will see how it wraps things up first. Above that level, in terms of how it presents itself, of how it plays, of how it balances its core pillars - it is such a bioware-ass game and I could not be any cozier in it. So grateful it exists

[penginlord]

Concept: the Mystery Flesh Pit existing in the SCP universe, yet it doesn't fall under SCP jurisdiction because it was originally sold to the National Parks Service, and despite the Mystery Flesh Pit since being shut down due to the incidents, the National Parks Service refuses to hand over jurisdiction to SCP because it's their mess to deal with and contain.

They allow SCP scientists to visit and share information, of course.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

C.B. Colby - The Weirdest People In The World (Stories Selected from) - Scholastic Book Services - 1974

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Charlotte Clymer at Charlotte's Web Thoughts:

Over the years, I’ve occasionally seen the argument pop up from some conservatives that men’s bodies are controlled through the military draft system. They use this bad faith response to women’s bodies being controlled by anti-choice lawmakers. In recent months, this argument has been more prevalent, particularly online, as abortion has become arguably the single most potent issue in the presidential campaign. So, let's quickly discuss this ridiculous talking point given that some conservative men have betrayed their complete ignorance on the Selective Service System.

Arguing the draft is to men like abortion is to women is ludicrous for three big reasons. First, the draft in the United States hasn't been in effect since December 27th, 1972. That was the last day young men were inducted in our Armed Forces. And yes, that means young men in the U.S. have been free of being drafted longer than young women have had abortion access. Second, the consequences for young men failing to register for the draft are not even close to being similar for young women who don't have abortion access. It's like comparing a scratch on your car to a catastrophic wreck. Young men who don't register for the draft essentially cannot be hired by the federal government and some state governments. And in some states, they cannot get a driver's license without registering for the draft.

That's completely unjust, I agree, but it ain't close to being the same. Conservative men will then come back and claim young men can be prosecuted for failing to register, but this is basically false. The Justice Department decided to suspend prosecutions for draft registration back in 1988 because they realized it's pointless and helps no one. Then they’ll claim that young men who don’t register for the draft can't receive federal student aid for college, but this isn't true, either. That law is no longer on the books. A young man's federal aid for college will NOT be impacted by their draft registration. Meanwhile, young women who don't have abortion access can literally die and many have. Women have died at hospitals because doctors were too afraid to offer abortion care for fear of breaking cruel laws implemented after the Dobbs ruling.

[...] For more than five decades, feminist leaders have argued that: 1) young men should have autonomy over their bodies and a military draft is the complete opposite of that and 2) exempting young women from the draft is a sexist double standard. But when efforts come up to either eliminate the military draft entirely OR require young women to register for it just like young men, it's Republicans in Congress who have led the way, every time, in killing those efforts. So, if you're a conservative young man who is angry about this double standard, I agree with you. It's not fair that you're required to register for the military draft and women aren't.

You have every right to be angry about that, but you should be angry at Republicans. Because it's feminist leaders who have been fighting for your equality all this time. It's the feminist movement who was first making the argument that young men shouldn't be coerced into military service. It's an issue of autonomy. And Republicans have consistently opposed that. So, please, don't compare draft registration to abortion access because it makes you look ridiculous, but moreover, you should hold Republican elected officials accountable for stripping away your autonomy in service to a sexist double standard. While you’re at it, thank feminist leaders who were calling this out long before you were born.

Charlotte Clymer wrote an excellent column on how males that were once being drafted to serve in the military is NOTHING like lots of American women losing abortion access as a result of Dobbs.

[thebreakfastgenie]

The MRA types on twitter have been whining about the draft (which hasn't been used in decades even though the selective service still exists) because Kamala Harris and that podcast lady said they couldn't think of any laws controlling men's bodies and it's obviously stupid on many levels but what gets me is the lefty women were all against the draft! Because anyone with a conscience thought sending 18-year-olds to Vietnam was a bad thing!

[ridiasfangirlings]

Public Service Announcement: I'm on vacation so asks are taking a momentary break. I've queued some old asks as usual, new asks will return in a week.

[todaysdocument]

In August 1918, Congress amended the Selective Service Act to expand the age range of men eligible for the draft. This cartoon of September 11, 1918, reminded men of the registration deadline. 

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. Senate Series: Berryman Political Cartoon Collection

Image description: The Statue of Liberty holds a banner reading “ALL MEN 18 TO 46, UNLESS ALREADY REGISTERED, MUST ENROLL FOR THE SELECTIVE SERVICE DRAFT TOMORROW” and points to the sunrise, which has “Sept. 12” in it. 

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Four American Indians, dressed in traditional clothing, appear before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, October 20, 1941. They argued that the Selective Service Act violated their liberty and a treaty between the Indians of the Six Nations. Judge Thomas W. Swan reserved decision. From left to right are: Clinton Rickard, Tuscarora chief; Jess Lyons, Onondaga chief; Harry Patterson, Tuscarora brave and Ivan Burnham, Mohawk brave. The other nations are the Oneida, the Cayuga, and the Seneca.

Photo: MC for the Associated Press

[commonsensecommentary]

“The 2024 NDAA contains provisions related to the draft in both the House and Senate versions. Both would make registration for the draft automatic, with the Senate version going even further to require women to register for selective service as well.”

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Did you see the part where Meg was annoyed that only dogs can be qualified to be service medical dogs? lol guess she's mad a bird can't be a service cardic arrest animal. Once again pulled up the "people think only DOGS can be trained to do this!!! How dare they!!!" *grumbling about mammalian bias* argument. I'm sorry Meg but your fucking bird or a rabbit cannot be a service animal for the blind or anything that dogs have be bred to do

me when they won’t let my service crocodile into Walmart:

[recreationaldivorce]

looked into hello fresh out of curiosity (w/o any intention of subscribing i was just curious about their vegan options) and why the hell is "low calorie" an option for a goal you can set but not "high calorie"? it's pretty common to be aiming to gain weight/eat more calories??

[thechurchofsplatterdaysaints]