DL Open Thread: Saturday, March 13, 2021

Right. Because racist cops are reasonable and prudent persons.

Nursing Homes Have Always Gamed The System.  The Feds have been (perhaps) unwitting co-conspirators:

Despite years of warnings, the system provided a badly distorted picture of the quality of care at the nation’s nursing homes. Many relied on sleight-of-hand maneuvers to improve their ratings and hide shortcomings that contributed to the damage when the pandemic struck.

Among The Times’s findings:

• Much of the information submitted to C.M.S. is wrong. Almost always, that incorrect information makes the homes seem cleaner and safer than they are.

• Some nursing homes inflate their staffing levels by, for example, including employees who are on vacation. The number of patients on dangerous antipsychotic medications is frequently understated. Residents’ accidents and health problems often go unreported.

• In one sign of the problems with the self-reported data, nursing homes that earn five stars for their quality of care are nearly as likely to flunk in-person inspections as to ace them. But the government rarely audits the nursing homes’ data.

• Data suggest that at least some nursing homes know in advance about what are supposed to be surprise inspections. Health inspectors still routinely found problems with abuse and neglect at five-star facilities, yet they rarely deemed the infractions serious enough to merit lower ratings.

To place this in context, companies that run nursing homes are criminal conspiracies very much in the same spirit as the Republican Party.

‘Avocado’. Rethugs’ ‘safe word’ when playing submissives to Trump’s dom:

Maddow noted how Trump this week urged GOP donors to send their cash directly to him, causing momentary tensions with the Republican Party until its leaders ended up bowing down once again to their one-term and twice-impeached president.

“I mean this is some masochistic stuff right here. Do you guys have a safe word? You might want to employ it at some point,” joked Maddow. “At some point, we’re going to hear the Republican Party in the corner going ‘avocado.’”

“What does he have to do to get you to not give him more of what he wants?” she added. “To stop praising him, to not actually giving him more of your money? What does he have to do? The meaner he gets, the bigger the swings and the more insulting he gets toward you, the more you praise and thank him.”