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<title>29 December, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Case for Wearing Masks Forever</strong> - A ragtag coalition of public-health activists believe that America’s pandemic restrictions are too lax—and they say they have the science to prove it. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-activism/the-case-for-wearing-masks-forever">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>From Climate Exhortation to Climate Execution</strong> - The Inflation Reduction Act finally offers a chance for widespread change. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/from-climate-exhortation-to-climate-execution">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kirk Douglas, the Guitarist for the Roots, Revamps the Holiday Classics</strong> - A bona-fide guitar hero puts a fresh spin on some holiday classics. And the former United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith on reading poetry across the political divide. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/kirk-douglas-the-guitarist-for-the-roots-revamps-the-holiday-classics">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Water Wranglers of the West Are Struggling to Save the Colorado River</strong> - Farmers, bureaucrats, and water negotiators converged on Caesars Palace, in Las Vegas, to fight over the future of the drought-stricken Southwest. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-water-wranglers-of-the-west-are-struggling-to-save-the-colorado-river">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Devastating New History of the January 6th Insurrection</strong> - The House report describes both a catastrophe and a way forward. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/the-devastating-new-history-of-the-january-sixth-insurrection">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Why hasn’t pandemic aid fraud become a bigger scandal?</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="Text of the CARES Act seen through the lens of a pair of glasses resting on the document." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rVvPRBsBFdGeCmABZEvQDwXgi3o=/286x0:4834x3411/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71802549/GettyImages_1265366028.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Getty Images/iStockphoto
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The scope of the fraud is staggering, but there are reasons the political impact has been muted.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r8rB79">
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The United States government’s historic spending on pandemic aid in 2020 and 2021 was accompanied by a historic amount of fraud and theft, with potentially <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664">hundreds of billions of dollars stolen</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBwGzn">
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Yet despite much <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/covid-money-trail-investigation-explained/">excellent</a> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-unemployment-insurance-fraud-exploded-during-the-pandemic">investigative</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664">reporting</a> into Covid relief fraud and various <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/inspectors-ask-for-authority-to-go-after-more-covid-fraud/">government</a> <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/news/press-releases/clyburn-fintech-fraud-ppp-doj-sba">investigations</a> into it, it’s never really risen to dominate the news agenda or made much of a political impact. It’s become the sort of issue that burbles on in the background, not a major scandal demanding everyone’s attention.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5dnhKQ">
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The Covid relief bills did an enormous amount of good, cushioning devastating economic blows from the abrupt halt to much in-person activity in 2020 and helping millions of people across the US. Still, I have been surprised that the high level of fraud hasn’t gotten at least a bit more attention, considering the staggering sums of money involved, and how much the right obsessed with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/5/7490593/F-35-vs-solyndra">overblown controversies</a> over far smaller amounts of supposedly misspent funds in President Barack Obama’s stimulus law.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fW8jdu">
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The main reason for the relatively muted reaction is likely that focusing on this doesn’t play to either party’s political advantage. Democrats and Republicans collaborated to pass the Covid relief bills at issue under President Donald Trump. And the specifics of the fraud don’t really fit with either party’s current top messaging priorities, with Democrats hesitant to demonize big-spending government aid programs, while Republicans are increasingly consumed by the domestic culture war.
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</p>
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<h3 id="5k9BWD">
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How the fraud happened
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EYvYBH">
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As the federal and state governments tried to get pandemic relief funds out quickly to people and businesses who needed it in 2020, fraudsters and scammers pounced.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9qdZbe">
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<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664">NBC News’s Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler</a> wrote in March that, per experts they consulted, pandemic fraud across three major relief programs could reach the $250 billion to $560 billion range (though no one really knows because the exact amount is difficult to estimate). The federal government approved about $5 trillion in total pandemic relief money, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/28/covid-aid-pandemic-fraud-oversight-budget/">per the Washington Post</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PukDtW">
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Matthew Schneider, a former US attorney, told NBC that this was “the biggest fraud in a generation,” adding, “nothing like this has ever happened before.” And ProPublica’s Cezary Podkul <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-unemployment-insurance-fraud-exploded-during-the-pandemic">wrote that</a> the pandemic relief fraud “may turn out to be the biggest fraud wave in U.S. history.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OffTyh">
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Some culprits were domestic, but much of the fraud was targeted internet crime from foreign scammers operating in countries such as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/easy-money-how-international-scam-artists-pulled-epic-theft-covid-n1276789">Russia, China, and Nigeria</a>. These included <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-unemployment-insurance-fraud-exploded-during-the-pandemic">self-motivated hustlers</a> just trying to pick up what they saw as easily available money, while others were more organized criminals. It turns out that when US government or state entities offer free money on the internet with minimal safeguards for identity verification, people will come along and try to take that money.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RmUXiO">
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The main programs targeted included the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-unemployment-insurance-fraud-exploded-during-the-pandemic">expanded unemployment insurance benefits</a> and the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664">Paycheck Protection Program</a>. Both of these were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/27/congress-coronavirus-house-vote/">signed into law in the March 2020 CARES Act</a> by Trump after being passed by a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. That means the Trump administration was in charge of the executive branch when much of the theft took place — though it was often antiquated state unemployment benefit systems that were specifically targeted. After President Biden took office in 2021, Democrats <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/10/22320350/biden-sign-stimulus-bill-covid-19">passed their own pandemic aid plan</a> that extended the expanded unemployment insurance benefits several more months.
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</p>
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<h3 id="bO4tOr">
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Why the politics are playing out this way
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GMH1Pe">
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All of the above makes for a messy picture of political culpability. Republicans can’t frame this as a purely Democratic scandal when Trump signed the bill and was president while much of the theft happened. Democrats, for their part, helped craft the initial relief bill and extended it further under Biden. So that’s an incentive for both parties not to look too closely at what might have gone wrong. Unless, of course, some Republican with an incentive to make Trump look bad — like his possible 2024 presidential primary rival Ron DeSantis — decides to lay it at his feet.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ugHBML">
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Among Democrats, there’s likely a generalized fear that making too much about any fraud in government benefits will be used to discredit the use of government benefits to help people generally (harking back to the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/20/255819681/the-truth-behind-the-lies-of-the-original-welfare-queen">welfare queen</a>” attack from Ronald Reagan). Both <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22394677/unemployment-insurance-ron-wyden">mainstream</a> and <a href="https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-introduces-bill-extend-pandemic-unemployment">left Democrats</a> were thrilled at the generosity of vastly expanded unemployment benefits, and hoped they could make these changes permanent in some form. Dwelling too much on all the money that was stolen would not be helpful here.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1uOTBp">
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One would think, though, that it would be anti-spending Republicans who would typically make a big stink about an issue like this. And yet with the GOP increasingly fixated on the domestic culture war, the specifics of the pandemic relief fraud (money stolen by foreign hackers) don’t seem to fit too well with their current message.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IIqQAZ">
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This is evident in an amusing recent exchange on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-republican-oversight-government-transparency-democrats-gop-border-fentanyl-energy-inflation-majority-covid-11670789661?mod=article_inline">wrote an op-ed</a> on pandemic relief fraud, along with five other issues he plans to investigate. But his most specific concern was that some states and localities used pandemic relief funds for “electric buses and controversial ideologies.” In <a href="https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/release/comer-foxx-reveal-new-evidence-of-covid-relief-dollars-funding-woke-initiatives/">an earlier press release</a>, his office claimed to find evidence that pandemic relief money funded “woke initiatives.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VbxT5l">
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American Enterprise Institute fellow Matt Weidinger responded to Comer’s op-ed with a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-oversight-pandemuc-unemployment-fraud-benefits-11671477221">letter to the Journal</a> urging him to focus on the bigger fraud picture so it could be stopped from happening again. “Criminal gangs, including some based in Russia and China, used stolen identities to seize U.S. tax dollars on an industrial scale,” Weidinger wrote. This could be read as saying: Focus on the real issue, please, not just the culture war crap. We will see next year whether the GOP House majority listens.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gLPFBM">
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Finally, and more broadly, there could well be a general feeling of leniency from both the political system and the public because this was an unprecedented situation, and many people who did need help got it — even if many scammers got some too. Some fraud was inevitable, and sure, this might be a lot. But haven’t the past few years been a lot for everyone?
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>The best, worst, and just plain dumb of American politics in 2022</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XPR1R5jAs-UfT3VzeBfYkTyrbQ8=/432x0:3900x2601/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71802476/GettyImages_1446783547a.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Herschel Walker speaks during a campaign rally in Loganville, Georgia, on December 4. Walker lost to incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock in Georgia’s Senate runoff election on December 6. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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From dinner with Kanye West to orating about werewolves, 2022 was strange.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HYmFjZ">
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From the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/1/20/7854969/state-of-the-union-facts">State of the Union</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23448316/midterm-elections-2022-results-winners-losers">the midterm elections</a>, Vox’s politics team has noted many political winners and losers throughout 2022.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U8Rsz7">
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With the year almost in the rearview, we want to take a moment to single out some of the most noteworthy achievements by current and aspiring public servants, and revisit some of their biggest flops and failures. Here are the best, worst, and weirdest political moments and phenomena of the year.
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</p>
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<h3 id="mMmf9I">
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Worst dinner<strong> </strong>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZttTjg">
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One of the more recent innovations in holiday celebrations is “Friendsgiving,” wherein millennials have a Thanksgiving-style dinner with their friends in advance of the holiday, which they celebrate with their family. The day before Thanksgiving, former President Donald Trump partook in something like this at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club: He had a Thanksgiving-style dinner with two prominent antisemites, rapper <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/kanye-west-presidential-campaign-was-a-warning-sign.html">Kanye West</a> and white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="idyoUh">
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The meal was apparently good enough that West <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/25/trump-fuentes-ye/">had a second helping of the stuffing</a>, but it produced a lot of tough headlines for Trump to digest. It came only weeks after Trump-backed candidates <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23450428/donald-trump-midterm-elections-republican-red-wave">had disappointing results in the midterm elections</a><strong> </strong>and shortly after he announced his third presidential bid in a desultory speech at Mar-a-Lago. The news of the dinner leaking out only made things worse for Trump.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SmNpeb">
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The former president equivocated for days about having dined with the two but could not bring himself to condemn them (he denied even knowing who Fuentes was). In the meantime, West and Fuentes gloried in the attention and afterward went on an alt-right media tour together, where West repeatedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/01/kanye-west-alex-jones-hilter-interview/">praised Adolf Hitler</a>.<strong> </strong>
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</p>
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<h3 id="dvEe0h">
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Most deliberate political martyrdom
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9wwnCq">
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Liz Cheney set her political career on fire this year and never seemed to bat an eye. The Wyoming Republican made herself the face of the January 6 committee and burned every last bridge she had to the Republican Party. Cheney’s continued ardent opposition to Trump after January 6 led to <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/elise-stefanik-millennial-maga-moderate-replaces-cheney.html">her eventual removal</a> as the No. 3 Republican in the House, and her decision to join the committee made her a virtual pariah within the House Republican Conference. Cheney didn’t mind. She <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/12/23301904/liz-cheney-wyoming-donald-trump-gop">lost her primary</a> in a landslide, without even <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/16/23309182/liz-cheney-wyoming-trump">really trying to win</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jMcWj5">
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Instead, she became a guided missile, pointed directly at Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. She even endorsed select Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Like Samson, she was fine bringing the temple down on her head as long as it took down Trump and his acolytes as well.
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</p>
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<div>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GrA1u_n8eevkGpojwJfDYHVWaTc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24308172/GettyImages_1450372873a.jpg"/> <cite>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Liz Cheney, vice chair of the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, participates in the committee’s last public meeting on December 19.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ri8jfG">
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Cheney will never be completely irrelevant in American politics. Her last name, her former position as the No. 3 House Republican, and her transformation into the GOP’s most ardent Trump opponent after January 6 ensure that. But, barring any Sunday show greenrooms being admitted as states by Congress, her electoral career is over for the foreseeable future.
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</p>
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<h3 id="V4urfX">
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Worst political speech<strong> </strong>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RpIlYJ">
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There were a lot of reasons that Herschel Walker <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/6/23497495/georgia-runoff-herschel-walker-raphael-warnock-donald-trump">lost his Senate race</a> to incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock this year. Pundits could point to the fact that he ran a flawed campaign while Warnock ran a good one. They could also point out the plethora of scandals swirling around Walker’s personal life, including what seemed to be a regularly increasing number of children he fathered and a regularly increasing number of times he allegedly paid for a partner’s abortion. There were also fresh allegations of domestic violence, in addition to those he chronicled in a memoir that described his struggles with mental illness.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qDdQVv">
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In comparison to these, his oratory wasn’t his biggest issue. But Walker encapsulated all his political challenges in a speech he gave in November during the Senate runoff, where he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=MTPzRp2XO2A">discussed the various merits</a> of vampires versus those of werewolves in combat.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EOJhH1">
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The Republican Senate hopeful and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23412672/herschel-walker-georgia-football-jeff-pearlman">former college football star</a> proclaimed to a crowd, “I don’t know if you know, but vampires are some cool people, are they not? But let me tell you something that I found out: A werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CrKnoj">
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Walker continued, “So I don’t want to be a vampire anymore. I want to be a werewolf.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ckqR1K">
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The clip was used in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/us/politics/warnock-walker-georgia-ad.html">closing ad by Warnock</a>, mocked by Barack Obama when he stumped in the Peach State, and became a lasting part of Walker’s political legacy.
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</p>
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<h3 id="IGYrMC">
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Best rap video<strong> </strong>
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vekCyB">
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||
Linda Paulson, an octogenarian running for state Senate in Utah, went viral for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXyRPEscXCQ">releasing a campaign video</a> of herself rapping — or at least performing something vaguely resembling hip-hop — in September. Paulson was running as a Republican against an incumbent Democrat in suburban Salt Lake City. She lost by 15 percent but at least got a lot more attention than most losing state legislative candidates do.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="VLWF63">
|
||
Most bizarre sex scandal<strong> </strong>
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HvbVqe">
|
||
An ISIS bride falling for a backbench member of Congress wouldn’t make a good romantic comedy. It did, however, make an interesting political story this year.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UxOXhoyBlbrXKpQYKP8UZcbYuhI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24308178/GettyImages_1244878257a.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Texas Rep. Van Taylor leaves the US Capitol after the last votes of the week on November 17.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xiYCa5">
|
||
Van Taylor was a two-term Republican from the Dallas suburbs with a pedigree that was seemingly perfect for an establishment Republican: two degrees from Harvard and one tour in Iraq as an officer in the Marines. However, despite a strong conservative voting record, Taylor faced a primary challenge for heresies such as voting to uphold the 2020 election and to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hr5ttN">
|
||
Taylor looked like he was going to edge through the primary — where a candidate needed 50 percent to avoid a runoff — until only two days before, when a fringe far-right website published allegations that Taylor had had an extramarital affair with Tania Joya, a woman who was previously known for being the widow of a prominent member of ISIS and received ample coverage in British tabloids as an “ISIS Bride.” She eventually fled the Islamic State and moved to Texas, where she met Taylor and an affair ensued.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5jL30J">
|
||
As a result of the allegations, which had been stoked by one of his opponents, Taylor finished just shy of the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a runoff and two days later <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/03/02/last-minute-infidelity-allegation-helped-force-two-term-plano-rep-van-taylor-into-runoff/">dropped out of the race</a> after publicly confessing to the affair. The result essentially handed his congressional seat to Keith Self, who finished a distant second place in the primary.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="BhE1q4">
|
||
Most bizarre food scandal
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IJbVu0">
|
||
New York Mayor Eric Adams has long touted a vegan diet, which he claimed has had innumerable health benefits for him, including <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/06/01/mayoral-candidate-eric-adams-wants-nyc-to-go-vegan/">reversing blindness</a> in one eye brought on by diabetes. It was something he repeatedly talked up during his 2021 mayoral campaign and even wrote a book about.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8FBz9U">
|
||
It turned out Adams wasn’t actually a vegan — he was eating fish quite frequently. Although a spokesperson for the New York mayor <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/05/eric-adams-restaurant-00005935">originally lied</a> and claimed that Adams never touched seafood, eventually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/nyregion/eric-adams-fish-vegan.html">Adams confessed</a> and admitted his private pescetarianism.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="zISZ2f">
|
||
Best work-life balance
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K3z0fI">
|
||
Democratic Congress member Kai Kahele had a very long commute from his home in Hawaii to the Capitol in Washington, DC, but he made it much easier by simply not showing up.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VxHB8y">
|
||
The first-term Hawaii Democrat stopped showing up for work in late 2021 and used proxy voting instead of going to the Capitol. As Civil Beat<em> </em><a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/04/has-us-rep-kai-kahele-given-up-on-washington/">reported at the time</a>, in the first few months of 2022, he only cast five in-person votes as he explored a gubernatorial bid. Kahele eventually decided to run and <a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/08/what-comes-next-for-us-rep-kai-kahele/">lost in a blowout</a>. In the meantime, his concentration on his gubernatorial campaign <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/11/28/ethics-report-rep-kai-kahele-may-have-misused-official-resources/">prompted a House Ethics Committee investigation</a> into whether he misused official resources for his campaign.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="pPYccI">
|
||
Most bizarre corruption scandal
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kqEjdu">
|
||
The late Baltimore businessman Russell “Stringer” Bell once <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGo5bxWy21g">famously expressed shock</a> that a colleague was “taking notes on a criminal conspiracy.” Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) didn’t just take notes on a criminal conspiracy. She entered into a formal contract to do so.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Marie Newman smiles." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IJLKoamMRxjtnx8GLkqxWZE0mHU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24308217/AP22176795558854a.jpg"/> <cite>Charles Rex Arbogast/AP</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Illinois Rep. Marie Newman campaigns in Chicago in March 2020.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lcMpnT">
|
||
Newman promised a job to a political rival during her 2020 primary campaign against incumbent Democrat Dan Lipinski so that he would not run against her and split the anti-Lipinski vote. She <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/dem-rep-wrote-contract-promising-job-to-rival-watchdog-says">entered into a contract</a> with Iymen Chehade in which she promised to hire him and pay him a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rep-newman-hired-rival-shes-accused-of-bribing-daily-beast-2022-2">six-figure salary</a> to be a “foreign policy advisor” in exchange for him not running against her. During the negotiations, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-twist-in-dem-rep-marie-newmans-bribery-scandal-negotiating-anti-israel-positions">she also agreed to take anti-Israel positions</a> at Chehade’s behest, although that language was not written into the final contract. After she beat Lipinski, she didn’t hire Chehade, so he sued her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="53Pj6M">
|
||
Newman defended herself by citing an opinion from the House general counsel that the contract was unenforceable because it was “contrary to public policy.” Eventually a settlement was reached, and Chehade appeared on her campaign payroll with the title of “foreign policy advisor.” The effort was nonetheless referred to the Office of Congressional Ethics, which <a href="https://ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/documents/OCE%20Reports%20and%20Findings.pdf">found</a> in its investigation “substantial reason to believe that Rep. Newman may have promised federal employment to a primary opponent for the purpose of procuring political support.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cS6KMs">
|
||
The entire imbroglio has sparked an ongoing investigation by the House Ethics Committee. However, the investigation won’t continue into 2023. After all that, Newman suffered a blowout defeat to Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) after the two were redistricted together.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="wQmcEy">
|
||
Best alliterative fish advocacy
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6K0EIn">
|
||
In both her win in Alaska’s September special election for Congress and in the November election that followed, Mary Peltola had a lot of luck winning as a Democrat in the Last Frontier.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qqhdwj">
|
||
Peltola benefited from <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/30/americas-weirdest-voters-test-its-newest-voting-system-00059376">the state’s ranked choice voting system</a> as well as a divided Republican field with both former reality television star Sarah Palin and businessman Nick Begich running against her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cwt3sv">
|
||
But she also had one key advantage: fish. Peltola ran on a three-pronged platform of “Fish, Family, and Freedom” and made her advocacy for Alaska’s salmon fisheries one of the bases of her campaign. It worked, and Peltola will represent the most pro-Trump district (according to the 2020 election results) of any Democrat in the next Congress.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>2022 was the worst for many US hospitals. The aftershocks will last for years.</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oUT8xvSWGa_gDcMtVWQcDz5V5jM=/137x0:3554x2563/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71802432/GettyImages_1384409846a.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A lab technician cares for a patient in the emergency department at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, in March. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Constant health crises have made it impossible for some hospitals to plan for the future. Patients will pay the price.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pg0dgH">
|
||
Terry Scoggin, CEO of Titus Regional Medical Center in Mount Pleasant, Texas, saw his first <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19</a> surge in May 2020, when <a href="https://www.dmagazine.com/healthcare-business/2020/06/the-pandemic-missed-mount-pleasant-until-it-didnt/">an outbreak at a meat processing plant</a> filled almost all of his small hospital’s ICU beds.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IvQtQ1">
|
||
But the worst of the pandemic didn’t come until 2022. By January, the hospital, the last independent rural hospital in northeast Texas, had lived through four separate surges in 18 months. They had reopened their building’s third floor, closed eight years ago, and relied on traveling nurses to staff their beds. Then, at the end of 2021, the government funding that had paid for that extra help ran out.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VwC8gn">
|
||
For the first two months of 2022, as patients lined the building’s hallways and his staff struggled to find anywhere else to send them, Scoggin said his hospital experienced its most traumatic trial yet.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qMXWHc">
|
||
“We didn’t have the staff,” Scoggin told me. “People were dying and you couldn’t get them out.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E4XfH7">
|
||
But Scoggin isn’t just worried about the strain his hospital is under right now. He worries about how three years without a real break — five Covid surges, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23292430/monkeypox-outbreak-us-gay-men">monkeypox</a> case that forced his facility to prepare for a wider outbreak, and now <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/10/27/23421344/covid-19-flu-rsv-symptoms-vaccines-2022">a nasty wave of RSV and flu</a> — is compromising his ability to plan and prepare for the future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bCHatN">
|
||
The pandemic <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/28/23424682/us-health-care-rural-hospital-closures-mergers">pummeled hospitals like his</a>. Titus serves its hometown of Mount Pleasant, population 15,000, as well as 70,000 other residents in Titus County and four surrounding counties. Four hospitals within 35 miles of his facility have closed in the last eight years. TRMC is a medical oasis in northeast Texas; sometimes they will even see patients from just over the border in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Oklahoma.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="APnYpv">
|
||
TRMC has a 70-year-old building in desperate need of updates, including a $500,000 repair to the building’s elevators, and the kitchen should be remodeled, Scoggin said. But the impact of the last three years extends well beyond the hospital’s walls. Three years of constant crisis means the hospital hasn’t been able to invest in outpatient care proven to avert bigger problems for patients later on.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f6caSH">
|
||
“We’re sick” is the way Scoggin summarizes the health challenges of the community his hospital serves.<strong> </strong>Nearly one-third of people in Titus County are uninsured. It is a <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/tituscountytexas">majority-minority area</a>, 45 percent Hispanic and almost 10 percent Black.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i1Awnx">
|
||
Building the infrastructure and hiring the staff to help people better manage their health — and, eventually, start to prevent chronic health conditions in the first place — requires years of work and planning. Those plans have been set back years, in a community that was already struggling.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/55ou8cGf0TvGBftCjk5C3k0ZZds=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24309858/1245585610a.jpg"/> <cite>Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Justin Precourt, chief nursing officer at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, stands in the hospital’s busy ambulance bay on December 12. The hospital is operating at above its normal capacity, and Precourt is in charge of figuring out how many patients the hospital can admit and where they go.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M8CkUJ">
|
||
He’s not alone. Hospitals across the country have experienced near-constant crisis. In addition to the persistent threat of Covid-19, there were unexpectedly brutal waves of RSV last summer and again this fall. Monkeypox put hospitals on high alert for a very different kind of infectious disease. Then there were the one-off disasters, like the hurricane that struck St. James Parish Hospital in the Louisiana Delta and cut them off from the world for two weeks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="54gsFR">
|
||
Hospitals postponing plans to install a new medical records system or build a new primary care clinic might not sound like the most urgent problem, given the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/12/6/23494948/flu-influenza-rsv-covid-vaccine-chart-tripledemic-tridemic">current wave of respiratory illness</a> straining the US health care system once again. But in small communities like these, the local hospital may be the only entity in a position to make those investments — investments that are critical for the long-term health of their patients. <a href="https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/access-primary-care">Research shows</a> time and again that better access to preventive and primary care leads to better outcomes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EsJc3E">
|
||
The fragility of the US health care system was laid bare by the pandemic. And heading into 2023, there is little sign of relief for overworked and overwhelmed health care providers. Think of it as a cumulative health care debt: for every clinic that can’t be built or every health program that can’t be planned, Americans could be worse off in the years to come.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OG2aqe">
|
||
“The future is not next year. The future is 10 years from now that you’re working on right now,” Scoggin told me. “It’s hard to get people to think about 10 years from now when they haven’t gotten over what happened 10 months ago.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="FUpJRb">
|
||
The pandemic set back long-term plans at America’s rural hospitals
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qQS2U4">
|
||
Small community hospitals were struggling before Covid-19. and the pandemic has only made their predicament more precarious. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/28/23424682/us-health-care-rural-hospital-closures-mergers">More than 130</a> rural US hospitals have closed in the past 10 years, and hundreds more are projected to be in danger of closing. According to <a href="https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/product/health-system-challenges-for-critical-access-hospitals-findings-from-a-national-survey-of-cah-executives/">one report from the University of North Carolina’s rural health research program</a>, about 30 percent of all US hospitals were operating in the red as of 2018. A majority of them are located in rural communities.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="llHG3R">
|
||
Scoggin has felt <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/22763417/us-covid-19-hospitals-nurses-shortage">the same staffing challenges</a> as other hospitals around the United States. He hired 75 nurses from traveling agencies over the course of the pandemic to keep his emergency, ICU, and labor and delivery departments adequately staffed. The hospital’s labor costs have risen upward of 20 percent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bIKqOI">
|
||
But there are also subtler ways in which the constant crisis of Covid-19 compromised hospitals’ ability to best serve their patients, by altering some operations permanently and postponing many other projects and plans.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pYMyjWr8kSDZPIbC2qurVhH41Yc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24309893/1230539256a.jpg"/> <cite>Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Health care workers in the emergency department at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, in January 2021. As the coronavirus tore through Southern California, small hospitals in rural towns like Apple Valley were overwhelmed, with Covid-19 patients crammed into hallways, makeshift ICU beds, and even the pediatric ward.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U0U5ue">
|
||
In Lutcher, Louisiana, home to St. James Parish Hospital, CEO Mary Ellen Pratt still has to repair her building after Hurricane Ida, which hit the hospital in late August 2021 — amid its fourth surge of Covid-19, driven by the delta variant. The hospital was supposed to launch a new electronic health record system that week, something they had put off in the spring of 2020, and instead lost internet connectivity for 14 days.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bux2Iy">
|
||
It’s an executive’s job to create “a vision and direction for the future,” Pratt said. But the pandemic made that impossible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RG9GRc">
|
||
“During Covid, almost all CEOs were focused on operations, dealing with what was right smack in front of their face,” she said. “It wasn’t until January 2022 that I was seeing down the road again.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DsFkpa">
|
||
By then, a plot of land purchased by the hospital had been sitting unused for two years. Pratt is planning to build a modernized primary care health clinic with other community services, such as an exercise center and a kitchen for healthy cooking classes. That work is finally getting started after the long delay.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lS6BAN">
|
||
But any progress can feel fleeting. These hospitals now operate in a state of permanent crisis. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/01/us/politics/covid-aid-hospitals-uninsured.html">Federal and state relief is drying up</a>, but the situation on the ground hasn’t actually improved much.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EAsM96">
|
||
“I think we’re just living in the chaos,” said Julie Bieber, vice president at the Bellin Health Oconto Hospital, about 40 minutes north of Green Bay. “We know we’re going to have a lot of sick patients.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EGjSYn">
|
||
At Oconto Hospital, patient beds were moved into rooms previously used for infusion treatments, to seclude non-Covid patients from people with the new virus — and they are still doing that, almost three years later. With RSV surging, their emergency and urgent care units are often operating at 100 percent capacity and patients have to wait up to six hours to be seen. When I spoke with Bieber, her hospital had 30 staff members and five doctors out with their own respiratory illness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lOQ4Du">
|
||
But they must keep the doors open. Short of a long drive to Green Bay, they are the only place where local residents can get hospital-level care. “In rural health, you don’t have back-ups to back-ups,” Bieber said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BE1GmL">
|
||
She has her own list of put-off plans. The hospital had intended to start construction on a new clinic in Marinette, another 25 miles north along the bay, that would provide services of particular importance to cancer patients, such as ultrasounds and radiation therapy, so they would not need to travel as far to manage their illness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vLijMd">
|
||
But they postponed. “We didn’t have the energy,” Bieber said, and they didn’t know what the future would look like.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f1BxXJ">
|
||
Bellin is preparing to start that project soon. But first, they may have to wait almost six months for door frames, an example of how the pandemic’s disruption of the global supply chain can put hospitals even further behind in unexpected ways.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-zsGEDAjPbd3wmGQLOzerPAMsxI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24309853/1241877506a.jpg"/> <cite>Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A nurse requests more supplies while helping to put in a dialysis line for a patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, in December 2021.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rtgrNr">
|
||
Across Wisconsin, there was a decline in health care facilities investing in new capital projects during Covid. According to statistics shared by the Wisconsin Health and Educational Facilities Authority, which funds such projects through bonds, there were 21 bonds issued for health care construction in fiscal year 2020 (which mostly comprised the pre-pandemic period). That number fell to three in fiscal year 2021 before rebounding partly to eight in the fiscal year 2022.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rXSWKy">
|
||
That kind of partial recovery was reflected in my conversations with Scoggin, Pratt, and Bieber, all of whom were preparing to get back to work on their long-term plans. But more delays could be in their future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DwWgM0">
|
||
The winter viral season is already off to a rough start. Tim Size, who leads the Rural Health Wisconsin Cooperative, said the current trends could put hospitals “right back to where we were last winter.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YUAl3R">
|
||
“That would be devastating for patients and the morale of our hospitals,” he said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="cj3B3Z">
|
||
Long-term investments are vital for population health
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C297R0">
|
||
On the list of pandemic health consequences, both direct and indirect, hospitals’ delays in making capital improvements might not rank highly compared to, for example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23057643/long-covid-symptoms-treatment-definition-test-diagnosis-research-common">long Covid</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/22841229/covid-19-us-cancer-screenings">the delays in cancer diagnoses</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2021/9/14/22650733/us-covid-19-hospitals-full-texas-alabama">the risks posed to the quality of care</a> when a hospital’s staff is burnt out and overmatched. Not every hospital has been so adversely affected; as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/billions-in-covid-aid-went-to-hospitals-that-didnt-need-it-11670164570">the Wall Street Journal recently reported</a>, hospitals that serve wealthier communities took advantage of the government funding made available during Covid-19, to the detriment of needier facilities.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z9sxyZ">
|
||
But in the communities that these critical access hospitals serve, the stakes are high, even existential. Scoggin has watched most of his peers in northeast Texas either close or end up bought out by a bigger hospital system. That brings its own problems. Titus prides itself on continuing to operate a labor and delivery department for its rural community. But, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22923432/maternity-wards-hospitals-covid-19-pandemic">as I’ve reported this year</a>, maternity care is often a target for cuts when a small hospital is eaten up by a bigger system.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y3JdrG">
|
||
Scoggin takes these risks personally, he said. “I don’t want to be the one who cost us having an independent hospital.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="48Z7y3">
|
||
There are clinical risks when patients have to travel farther to give birth. There are also risks when patients can’t easily see a doctor and get ahead of emerging health problems. Delays in diagnosing and treating chronic conditions like diabetes or other diseases like cancer lead to worse patient outcomes, according to <a href="https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/access-primary-care">the available research</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Xrz_bRTb13SqXzYFqQyjalnY7bU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24309870/GettyImages_1241090233a.jpg"/> <cite>Nick Otto for the Washington Post via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Dayton General Hospital in Dayton, Washington, in October 2021. Rural hospitals were particularly overwhelmed by the pandemic.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YVhuPS">
|
||
It is especially challenging for patients living in smaller communities, like the people in Mount Pleasant and Lutcher and Oconto, to receive medical care. In these places, the local hospital is often the one making new investments to expand health care access. But for the past three years, cascading from one crisis to another, they haven’t been able to do that.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8myEw2">
|
||
“Without the ability to invest in our strategy, it is concerning for our future,” Scoggin said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dHuyif">
|
||
The consequences of those delays or aborted plans may not be obvious, but, based on what we know about the struggles of patients in these communities to access health care, any missed opportunities will leave people worse off.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lx1lta">
|
||
Pratt described her vision for a new community health center in Lutcher as a place where not only could residents see a doctor, but they could take exercise and cooking classes. Where kids can attend after-school programs and stay out of trouble and seniors could play bingo — the kinds of engagement that can materially improve a person’s well-being. “That is wellness,” she said. “That’s health.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="quMkpG">
|
||
Maybe in 2023, after these unforeseen and unpredictable delays, the vision can finally become a reality.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Liverpool confirms signing of World Cup star Cody Gakpo</strong> - PSV announced that it had agreed to the transfer of Cody Gakpo to Liverpool for an undisclosed fee, describing it as a “record” for the Dutch club</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mukesh Ambani sets goals for children, cites Lionel Messi to explain leadership</strong> - On Reliance Family Day, Ambani said winning in business takes leadership and teamwork, citing Messi and Argentina’s victory at the FIFA world cup 2022</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Haaland sets PL scoring record in Man City's 3-1 win over Leeds</strong> - Manchester City’s Erling Haaland scored twice against Leeds United to become the fastest player to 20 goals in the Premier League</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>South Africa faces uphill task after Carey’s maiden hundred</strong> - Wicketkeeper Alex Carey scored his maiden test century for Australia, hitting 13 boundaries in his tally of 111</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Will do everything possible to be fit for Test series against India: Green</strong> - Green does not want to miss the opportunity to be part of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour as it is crucial for both India and Australia</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CPI(M) set to lead Pala municipality for the first time</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Telangana reiterates request for transfer of Defence land for taking up road projects</strong> - CS Somesh Kumar meets Defence Secretary A. Giridhar</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apollo Hospital orgnises ‘hygiene parliament’ in Chittoor</strong> - Event was aimed at driving behavioural change in students to adopt high hygiene standards</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Congress, BJP trade barbs over cough syrup-related deaths of children in Uzbekistan and Gambia</strong> - The Opposition party asked the Narendra Modi government to stop boasting about India being ‘a pharmacy to the world’ and take strict action</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Guruvayur temple possesses over ₹1,737 crore in bank deposits, 271 acres land: RTI reply</strong> - RTI reply shows temple has an immense collection of gold, silver and precious stones received as offerings from devotees</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russia fires dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities</strong> - Ukrainian officials say cities across the country are targeted in several waves of strikes.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine fighting is deadlocked, spy chief Kyrylo Budanov tells BBC</strong> - Kyrylo Budanov says neither side can make significant advances, and eyes advanced Western weapons.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pope Francis appeals for prayers for ‘very ill’ predecessor Benedict</strong> - The Vatican says the ex-Pope’s condition has worsened and Pope Francis asks pilgrims to pray.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine was sea-change for openness – GCHQ head</strong> - Sir Jeremy Fleming interviews head of US intelligence agency as guest editor of Radio 4’s Today programme.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Energy giant ExxonMobil sues EU to block energy windfall tax</strong> - The US company says the levy on its profits will discourage future investment in Europe.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the 10 best new cars, trucks, and SUVs we drove in 2022</strong> - Eight EVs made the top 10 this year. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1906479">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ars Technica’s best video games of 2022</strong> - A dearth of big-budget blockbusters couldn’t hold back the year in games. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1906399">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Startup claims to offer stratospheric geoengineering as a service</strong> - Claims to sell geoengineering warming offsets but can’t currently validate anything. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1906897">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>iOS 16 exploit lets you set the system font to Comic Sans (and other things)</strong> - Irritate Apple’s UI designers with this one weird trick. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1906876">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is that shrunken head really human? Combining imaging methods yields clues</strong> - Combining CT scanning with micro-CT scanning improves the resolution of key details - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1870586">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What do you call an IQ of 160 in the marines?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A Platoon.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/redditg0nad"> /u/redditg0nad </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zxiet8/what_do_you_call_an_iq_of_160_in_the_marines/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zxiet8/what_do_you_call_an_iq_of_160_in_the_marines/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pull</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A guy drives into a ditch, but luckily, a farmer is there to help. He hitches his horse, Buddy, up to the car and yells, “Pull, Nellie, pull!” Buddy doesn’t move.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Pull, Buster, pull!” Buddy doesn’t budge.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Pull, Coco, pull!” Nothing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Then the farmer says, “Pull, Buddy, pull!” And the horse drags the car out of the ditch.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Curious, the motorist asks the farmer why he kept calling his horse by the wrong name. “Buddy’s blind,” said the farmer. “And if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn’t even try.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/gary6043"> /u/gary6043 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zx7554/pull/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zx7554/pull/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between Greta Thunberg and Andrew Tate</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Greta was nominated for the Nobel Prize, and awarded Tate the No-balls prize.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/james_s_docherty"> /u/james_s_docherty </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zx96b7/whats_the_difference_between_greta_thunberg_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zx96b7/whats_the_difference_between_greta_thunberg_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between an American girl and an Iranian girl?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The American girl gets stoned before sex.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vartha"> /u/vartha </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zxw6v5/whats_the_difference_between_an_american_girl_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zxw6v5/whats_the_difference_between_an_american_girl_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lady and the Farmer</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A farmer stopped by a hardware store and bought a bucket and a gallon of paint. Then he stopped by the feed store and picked up a couple of chickens and a goose.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
However, struggling outside the store, he wondered how to carry all his purchases home.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
While he was scratching his head, he was approached by a lady who told him she was lost.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
She asked, ‘Can you tell me how to get to this address please?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The farmer said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, my farm is very close to that house. I would walk you there, but I can’t carry this lot.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The lady suggested, ‘Why don’t you put the can of paint in the bucket, carry the bucket in one hand, put a chicken under each arm, and carry the goose in your other hand?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
‘Thank you very much,’ he said and proceeded to walk the lady home.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
On the way, he said, ‘Let’s take my short cut and go down this alley. We’ll be there in no time.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The lady looked him over cautiously and said, ‘I am a lonely widow without a husband to protect me. How do I know that when we get in the alley you won’t hold me up against the wall, pull up my skirt, and have your way with me?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The farmer said, ‘Holy smokes, lady! I’m carrying a bucket, a gallon of paint, two chickens, and a goose. How in the world could I possibly hold you up against the wall and do that?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The lady replied, ‘Set the goose down, cover him with the bucket, put the paint on top of the bucket, and I’ll hold the chickens.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/profusly"> /u/profusly </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zy2yx5/lady_and_the_farmer/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/zy2yx5/lady_and_the_farmer/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
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