We stan a legendhttps://t.co/jReeINRq0C
— Sauna Insider (@NickHannula) November 13, 2021
… Despite her advancing years and tiny stature, the Warsaw Uprising veteran has lost none of her fighting spirit when it comes to defending Poland’s presence in the European Union and migrant rights.
Tens of thousands of people had turned out in October in support of Poland’s EU membership after the Constitutional Court contested the primacy of EU law, in what experts saw as a step towards a “Polexit” given the nationalist ruling party’s euroscepticism…
Traczyk-Stawska was a 12-year-old girl guide when the German army invaded Poland. She joined the resistance movement and went on to carry out acts of sabotage under the sweet pseudonym of “Doughnut”.
At the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on August 1, 1944, she was one of 50,000 fighters to revolt against the Nazis — as well as a rare girl with a machine gun, an assignment usually reserved for men at the time.
Over the course of 63 days of battle, nearly 200,000 civilians and fighters died and the city was reduced to a pile of rubble.
Traczyk-Stawska later passed through four German prisoner-of-war camps, before Polish forces operating in the Netherlands and Germany freed her from a camp in Oberlangen, northwest Germany, in 1945. Once back home, she worked as a teacher at a centre for handicapped children.
The last order she received, her life’s mission, has been to watch over the cemetery bearing the remains of nearly half of the wartime dead found in the ruins of the Polish capital.
Remaining in the EU “is a question of national security… Were we to quit the union, where would that leave us?” Traczyk-Stawska asked.
“We already know what 1939 was like,” when Poland found itself alone in the face of a two-front invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
“It’s our greatest danger… We’d end up like a fly up against an elephant,” she added, her robust voice contrasting with her fragile frame.
She said she was “furious” at the rally when she chose to call out the far right, who have received funding from the state and plan to go ahead with a march through Warsaw on Thursday, Poland’s Independence Day…
“I got up on stage to speak of the Poland of our dreams, us veterans of the uprising… a Poland that is kind and tolerant,” Traczyk-Stawska added.
She soon received death threats…
Compare & contrast:
i rarely revel in the professional failures of others but andrew sullivan running around trying to bother people for substack table scraps is just wonderful https://t.co/IolEbnmDRv
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) November 13, 2021
Omnes Omnibus
Just wanted to see that again.
randy khan
Sullivan’s list is . . . strange.
But he’s gotten less and less connected to reality since he stopped doing his blog. He always had some weird tics (the whole Palin wasn’t really pregnant thing), but the tics seem to have overtaken the rest.
MisterForkbeard
Sullivan is just a huge twat, isn’t he? Like, half the things on the list actually happened, and most of the rest came with big asterisks even at the time. Like the US bounties thing – it was rated as plausible but not guaranteed at the time and that was in the initial reports.
The real scandal was that the Trump Administration wasn’t interested in pursuing it or investigating it because it might make Russia (and therefore Trump) look bad.
eclare
That woman is amazing.
Aussie sheila
A small quibble with AS list. Russian ‘collusion’ was a bad word choice on the part of the media. A better and more accurate description of what occurred was cooperation between the trump campaign and the Russian intelligence services for the benefit of the campaign. He is now trying to jump on the Taibbi bandwagon and place himself among the cool kids who dishonestly portray the always suspect ‘Steele’ dossier as dispositive evidence against the proven fact that the campaign cooperated and collaborated with Russian state actors.
I can smell the rank stink of historical revisionism a mile away with this lot of ‘classical liberals’ . They are intellectual duds posing as fearless truth tellers after every body else has done the work. Nice work if you can get it.
phdesmond
i’d salute that woman on any reviewing platform!
NotMax
Andrew Sullivan?
Have we sunk to discussing this? Blech.
Ah, for the heady days of batting around tales of toenail fungus ads.
;)
mvr
“The MSM’s got every one of them wrong” is a grift for help.
HumboldtBlue
A musical interlude: Alien Ant Farm gets heavy
Winston
Anybody pissed about Medicare Part B premiums going up 14%? I mean how is inflation supposed to negatively impact entitlement savings that were paid into decades ago? If anything inflation costs because of the pandemic, which seniors have more than shared the cost of, in terms of who died, should be paid into by current wage earners via fica withholdings and they should be protected for future inflation. One may think $22/mo is not all that much, but it should have been factored in prior to the cola, IMO.
oldster
I used to read Sullivan back during the Bush years.
Such a fraud, and it took me a few years to see through him.
I regret every hour that I wasted on him. He owes me a lot of money.
Winston
@Winston: 61,000,000 Medicare beneficiaries X $22.14/mo X 12 months =16.2 billion per year. Why aren’t republicans screaming bloody murder about this tax increase on seniors only? Why aren’t democratics?
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: Guess we all know the answers:
Sigh.
eddie blake
they weren’t trying to prove collusion. they were trying to prove a criminal conspiracy existed, but iirc, they couldn’t because of the many well documented incidents of obstruction.
the thing was, the fuckers were DEFINITELY colluding with the russians. “secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.”
i mean, i don’t know how secret it was, since tang the conqueror requested the russian assistance on national fucking tv, but it was definitely illegal cooperation and conspiracy.
Winston
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah. No richies were harmed. This is not going to play out well for democratics in 22 and 24.
eta: talk about taking your eye off the ball when you strike out! 61 million seniors are pissed.
Winston
@Winston: Of course, seniors don’t vote. It’s just millennials and suburban moms. We are doomed.
Eolirin
@Winston: Weren’t there things to reduce Medicare costs for seniors in the BBB bill? I’m not sure what the current version’s details look like, but maybe there are some fixes there? Of course we still have to pass the damn thing.
columbusqueen
I rally want Wanda as my honorary grandma. She is sublime.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin: The “feds shall negotiate lower drug prices” bit got stripped-out, didn’t it? That was supposed to be a big cost-savings.
@Winston: Do you ever get the feeling that Cinemansion are demanding that the Dems make a Sophie’s Choice ? Sigh.
Maybe we’re not doomed. Maybe. Idunno. I’m just grimlly determined, at this point. Doesn’t matter whether we’re doomed or not, I guess.
Winston
@Eolirin: I don’t know. There are some good things coming in my 2022 Medicare Advantage. For instance, my plan pays last years Medicare part B but not 2022 increase. It pays Dentures, Glasses and Hearing. But not the increase in Part B for next year. I don’t get to choose my doctor, but get to see theirs 4 times a year and I choose to spend that time arguing with him/her (it changes often)
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: Sinema released some press copy about backing something, maybe it was the drug negotiation stuff maybe it was something else, so I thought there was a good chance it was still in or something similar was. It’s probably impossible to know what’s going to actually end up in until (unless) something gets passed I guess.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin: Your last sentence. I’ve stopped paying attention, and assume that the BBBA will be DOA. If it isn’t, that’ll be nice. But I no longer expect anything.
Also: I treat Cinemansion as a single two-headed monster. Sure, each has their particularites. But given that we need both to vote “yes”, when one of them opposed provision X, and the other supports it, that’s the same as “they oppose X”.
It’s all pretty disappointing. Ah, well. The Party should have dissolved the people and elected a different one, a better one, in their place. Ah, well.
Winston
The problem I see about this issue is that democratics are doing nothing about it. Republicans will point this out, even though they are doing nothing about it and will oppose any thing the democratics attempt to do about it. And 61 million voters will blame democratics when the fake news starts to regurgitate.
And I’m off.
JoyceH
@Chetan Murthy:
Yes, you need them both, but it seems to me that if you get one of the two onboard with a bill, you’ll get the other one, because the other one doesn’t want to be the ONE person that torpedoes the bill.
Hoppie
@randy khan: Sullivan sounds way too much like “we didn’t start the fire” for a universe I do not live in. Scary.
something fabulous
Stop trying to make “democratics” happen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pubd-spHN-0
satby
@Winston: Well, I’m a senior and I’m not all that pissed off about it. I would prefer it not to go up that much, but I’d prefer to be 50 lbs lighter too. There’s been hellacious costs of coverage due to the pandemic. Actuaries recalculate insurance deductibles every year, think some guy named Mayhew used to write about that here.
JR
@randy khan: in retrospect, he was fucked since forever, but he was insane about the Palin thing and never recovered.
Winston
@satby: Personally I can budget around it by buying less groceries. Just pisses me off that this underhanded tax on SS is not offset by fica or a tax on Bill Gates, who could easily pay for all of it. Or split it up between Bezos, Buffet and Musk. I can stand to lose a few pounds too.
RedDirtGirl
Since the latest threads aren’t open ones I’ll put this here for now.
DOG ADOPTION QUESTION!!!
I’m meeting a very good dog candidate today at lunchtime. Four years old, mellow, and well-behaved, the rescue group vol and the foster both agree she’s perfect for a first-timer like me, but she is heartworm positive. She has gone through the main treatment, and is on semi-rest for three more weeks, but exhibits no signs of lethargy, no coughing. They believe she has a mild case.
I’d love to hear feedback from people who have had experience with the disease.
Thanks jackals!?
Winston
@RedDirtGirl: Ivermectin for the cure.
Kay
@Winston:
Most of the increase is due to the anticipated cost of covering this drug (if they decide to cover it). It costs 56k a year per patient:
Here’s another story (from June) about it.
Betty
@Winston: I have been saying more people benefit from eliminating that premium than would benefit from Bernie’s add-ons. You are supposed to pay that premium and buy supplemental insurance. Contrary to the belief of many Medicare coverage is not free.
Winston
@Kay: I read that too. My thoughts were negotiate the costs as it was a rip off unproven scam or increase fica to cover it. Why should we at the end of our lives have to cover a recent rip off? Are we daft?
Kay
@Winston:
Well, I agree about negotiating drug prices but once the FDA approved a drug that performed so poorly in trials they stopped the trials we were off to the races. All health insurance premiums will go up, not just Medicare, so you would be socking non-Medicare people twice, once with an payroll tax increase and again when their private health insurance premiums go up.
It’s a perfect storm- a hugely expensive treatment that treats a disease that tens of millions of people have. 7 million people. 14 million if you treat earlier. 56k annually each. It’s a massive cost.
Winston
@Betty: Yeah. it’s not like we have been paying for it for 60 years.
Kay
@Winston:
Or, they could have refused coverage until the treatment was shown to be effective. There would be a market for the drug- wealthier people would pay for it out of pocket and be the test population. When it proves effective in the wealthier out of pocket group then perhaps extend coverage. But Medicare is already covering it on a case by case basis so the costs are real, just not enormous yet, so it’s probably too late for that.
Betty
@Kay: I may have missed the latest news, but my impression was there were serious questions about that drug which made insurers wary of covering it. Medicare doesn’t normally lead on more experimental treatments.
Winston
@Kay: Alzheimers isn’t even a disease. The disease is dementia. It’s been around since forever.
Anne Laurie
@RedDirtGirl: Since, IIRC, you live in an apartment… make sure she’s small enough that you can carry her up & down stairs. Heartworm is *very* survivable these days, but your prospective roommate will be in recuperative mode for some weeks yet.
That’s why live meet-ups are so great! You can literally ‘size each other up’, make sure that you can lift her, and also that she’s confident with being picked up & carried if necessary.
(We worried about our rescue girl Gloria as she aged — she was small enough to pick up, but she was *also* extremely averse to being picked up, even by the Spousal Unit, who she mostly adored. In the end, as her heart failed, she had a massive stroke and ‘solved’ our mutual problem… )
Kay
@Betty:
I agree! But Medicare is leading on it. They’re approving coverage locally on a case by case basis. They’re now performing the process to determine if it will be covered nationally.
The FDA approved an experimental treatment on a very slim evidence basis, leaving Medicare stuck with the decision on whether to cover it in a Medicare (older) population that really wants it and will demand coverage, oh, and we’ve also tied their hands and won’t allow them to negotiate, so the drug company announces “the price” and Medicare pays.
Something like that was bound to happen. If it had been a drug for a rare disease no one would have noticed, the cost would be huge but limited, but it’s not a rare disease.
To me it would have been an easy decision- don’t cover it. They can’t afford 56k a year X 14 million for an unproven treatment. They shouldn’t be in the business of covering all the downside risk for the drug company. Someone needs to say “no”.
evodevo
@RedDirtGirl:
Back in the Seventies we adopted an adult male Weimaraner who turned out to have heartworms (he was a stray in Alabama, back where there was no ivermectin). We didn’t get a diagnosis till probably 3 or 4 years later when we changed vets. He was treated, and part of that is that the adult worms live attached to the heart valves, and when they die and break up, a certain percentage of that ends up clogging blood vessels in the lungs, so he had heart valve damage (he died of congestive heart failure six years later) and lung scarring. Both types of damage can be detected nowadays by X-ray and ultrasound. Your vet can tell you more I’m sure, and maybe give you a better handle on longevity…
Kay
@Winston:
I’m not endorsing the treatment. I’m not an expert in dementia. I’m just saying that’s the risk/financial assessment they’re making.
If we want reasonable, predictable insurance costs they can’t cover everything. They have to make choices. They made a bad choice.
RedDirtGirl
@Winston: is that before or after the bleach? Or is this the one thing iveremet-whatever is actually prescribed for : )
RedDirtGirl
@Anne Laurie: thanks, and yes, you do RR. I live on the second floor. She’s not small, between 40-50 lbs, but according to her foster mom is quite willing to be picked up.
Winston
@RedDirtGirl: Yes it is.
RedDirtGirl
@evodevo: Nola is from down south. She’s about 4. I’m not sure how long she’s been infected/infested (shudder), but she has done the first treatment. If she tests positive again in 6 months the rescue group will cover the next course of treatment.
Any long term issues won’t be covered by any insurance, I’m sure, since the HWD is a pre-existing condition…
RedDirtGirl
@Anne Laurie: one thing of note, for at least two reasons, is that both the rescue vol and the foster were unaware of the heartworm diagnosis! It doesn’t reflect all that well on the rescue group/volunteer that it only came up because I thought to ask. And more importantly, since the foster hadn’t been told to keep her on semi-rest she’s actually taken her hiking and on several runs!
I’ve learned that she’s at greatest risk during exercise, and has been fine during these activities, so that may indicate that it is a less severe case.
Winston
@Kay: I worked in a nursing home for 9 months. Many of the residents were suffering from dementia. We had regular instruction and debriefings on it. Dementia can have many causes, from alcoholism, to just old age. Alzheimer wasn’t even a consideration since one had to die to be diagnosed. So the postmortem diagnosis was plaques in the brain, similar to plaques in arteries which causes diabetes II, Coronary Artery disease and other complications from consuming trans fats. An invention of Procter and Gamble back in the 1920s which was marketed as margarine, Crisco, and still is an additive to some foods. Check your ingredients people. Don’t do trans fats
eta: Cool whip, instant mashed potatoes. Beef.
Anne Laurie
Sounds promising! Hope your meeting goes smoothly, and that the poor thing won’t *need* to be carried up stairs…
PAM Dirac
@Kay:
So far it looks like a lot of physicians are waiting to see more convincing data on effectiveness. Initial sales were only about 2% of estimates. The Medicare decision will have a major impact, but without better efficacy data it might not have as big an impact as predicted. Of course one would hope that Medicare (and the FDA for that matter) would wait for the better efficacy data before approving but apparently we shouldn’t count on that.
The Pale Scot
Pieprzyć Nazistów!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Catholic school/church I attended in Bayonne NJ had a shrine in a side alcove dedicated to Warsaw uprising and all the Poles massacred by the Germans
Miss Bianca
@PAM Dirac: *waves*
that is all, thank you! : )