Comey - Corrupt or Stupid?

The FBI director, Comey, released a document to Congressional leaders, hoping it would be leaked to the press. It was.

Either Comey is stupid beyond belief, or he is corrupt.

He can't be stupid, because he is the director of the FBI, and one doesn't get to that position being stupid.

However, one CAN get to that position and be corrupt. If he is corrupt, how far does the corruption spread? Is it ideology or financial? If it's just money, then Comey is an idiot, whether he's smart or not. He's an idiot to throw his career away to support a candidate- whichever candidate or official paid him.

If this is ideological, then he needs to run for office himself. Enough covert maneuvering. He needs to be in the light, not the shadows.

This election is weird, to say the least. It's very nasty, more so than in past elections.

No matter what, Comey needs to lose his job. An investigation should be made into his motives for this action. It's pretty clear that his action was meant to hurt the Clinton campaign, while he sat on - and continues to disregard or ignore - even worse allegations about Trump.

GRIEF

I realized on Saturday (yesterday) that I've been dealing with grief for almost 2 years. Let me enumerate the causes:

December 17, 2014                   Bugsie was put down. She had a huge bony mass on her jaw and was starving herself to death.

December 27, 2014                   My house reverted to Habitat for Humanity. I had been paying both rent and mortgage since September, and could no longer keep it up. I had 5 more months of school before I graduated. It was a decision – I could have finished online, but there was a class I particularly wanted that was twice a week on campus only. The rest of my classes were online. If I'd known giving up my house would hurt me financially like it did, I would have taken another class, instead, and moved back to Knoxville.

February 7, 2015                       Beasley got out and was run over by a car and died the next morning. Shortly afterwards, I got sick for the first time in several years, and during a blizzard. I took to my bed with the flu. I lost 19 pounds in 5 days, running a high fever for several days. I was very weak when I finally got out of bed.

Spring Semester 2015                My job at GCOP was a courtesy only. There was no work to do, and the position had been eliminated.

May 1-2 every year                   The anniversary of my parent's deaths. Dad in 1995 on the 1^st, and mom in 2008 on the 2^nd. My sister always calls me every year. I generally have little emotional response.

May 2015                                 I graduated from ETSU with my BA. I'd been accepted to both ETSU and SLC grad schools.

July, 2015                                  I dropped out of ETSU grad school so that there would not be two schools fighting over my student aid. Around this time, I also found out that my GRAD-Plus loan was denied. They cited my "deed in lieu" – turning my house over to Habitat – as the reason. Habitat never advised me that that was what I was doing. They held it out that I could always return the house to them with no consequences. During that 4-5 days between not having funding and being reassured by SLC, the stress of the move relieved. Then, SLC said that they would make sure I had a campus position to make ends meet. For most of the summer I was terribly stressed over the whole thing, moving, leaving Tennessee and cutting my possessions down.

August 17, 2015                        I packed up an 18' truck with help, eliminating furniture and belongings to fit, and left for Yonkers, NY. I had to wait until August 31 to arrive on the SLC campus, so I headed to Vienna VA and spent that time with my family.

August 31, 2015                        I arrived at SLC to be told I didn't have enough money and they were worried about my success because of financial stressors. They gave me an advance on my student loans and put me in a hotel.

Sept 1-4, 2015                           I sat in the hotel, thinking about my future direction.  After conversations with several people, I chose to return to Johnson City, TN over Knoxville, TN; Fallon, NV, or Los Angeles, CA. I have friends and family in all these locations, so any location would suit. All my belongings and my cats were with me. I had enough money to go anywhere in the country.

Sept 5, 2015,                             I arrived in JC, staying in a hotel. Was offered a rooming situation with Michelle J. for up to 10 weeks. 

November, 2015                        Took an apartment with Vic V. on Westwood St., off Barton. I got a job a Food City.

March, 2016                              Moved to a Senior Apartment complex. March 22, the car went down and I was on the bus until Sept 3.

April or May 2016                     My cousin Curtis Cullen Marshall, died suddenly. He was a year older than myself. I know his wife (widow) and son.

May 2016                                 I quit Food City. I was so disgusted by things that I couldn’t drive myself to go in anymore. I resigned myself to retirement.

May 17, 2016                            Published my book "Cat Urine Odor Solutions" – my second title.

May or June, 2016                     Curtis' mother, Martha Marshall, died suddenly.

July 23, 2016                             My cousin Greg and his long-term girlfriend, Kathy, finally married. It was a wedding we'd all looked forward to seeing.

Late August, 2016                     Greg's father Joseph Paton Marshall, passed. He was 94. He was the last remaining sibling of my father.

October 17, 2016                       Queenie passed. She was Beasley's favorite kitty-girl. Cancer of the liver. She just began to suffer that morning.

I have relied on other people, incorrect or incomplete information, and been shafted as a result. That part is up to me. I take responsibility for not asking the right questions. I don't always know the right questions to ask.

There are, however, many items on this list that I had no control over.

When things are falling apart, they are most likely falling together. 

When God cleans house, he is making room for something even better. 

I have to hold on to these little truths, or I'll lose my mind.

What the Drug Abuse Epidemic Costs Other Patients

OK, I admit it, I'm in recovery. So, yeah, I fall in part of this category.

BUT - since I've been in recovery many years, I also don't fall into this category. I now fall into the "regular, old fashioned patient" category.

Regular patients can't get quality medical care anymore.
I have some conditions that I watch. I don't have the disease, but my conditions are well enough advanced that I expect certain blood tests at least every six months. I can't get my doctor to order the tests. Simple things like blood sugar, weight and balance tests....

Doctors aren't being taught medicine. They aren't being taught to think. Maybe it's the insurance industry that messed everything up. I don't know - maybe the pharmaceutical industry.... It's like there's a pill for every ill, and if you aren't sick - actually exhibiting a disease, doctors don't know what to do anymore.

Since I moved to Tennessee, this is particularly evident. I'm used to world-class medical care. California, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reno....

But in East Tennessee, there is an epidemic of doctor-caused drug addiction. Opiate addiction, in particular. There is also a healthy weight-loss clinic business, which is uppers, downers, painkillers, HCG, and more.

The doctors around here have resigned themselves to patients who are looking for drugs. When they find someone who is interested in changing their life, changing their health, they - the doctors - either don't know what to do, or they get excited by the prospect of someone in their care actually getting better. Unfortunately, we have many more doctors of the former type than the latter. 

So, people like me, who pretty much know what is going on in their bodies, have an idea of what the protocols are, and are working to avoid developing worse conditions, are lost in the system - or not treated at all. I would love to find one of the doctors who get excited about someone getting better.

I had a doc in Knoxville who wouldn't touch me. Not even to check my glands or see how my reflexes were doing in my legs - which work, but have "issues" from past injuries. Maybe he didn't want to be a doctor. It was really strange.

Here, I have a female who will check me, listen to my heart and stuff, but she won't run the blood tests that I need run. I've asked for the tests and they still don't make it onto the orders.

I don't understand this new medicine. There are more specialists than ever, but nobody is practicing medicine. They are all sticking their heads in the sand. 

I'm not trying to game the system or commit insurance fraud. I'm not looking for drugs. I just want certain conditions watched so that they don't get any worse.

There are several medical colleges around this area - Duke being the best, Vanderbilt being next in line. Then there are state colleges like UT and ETSU. I'm sure there are others that I don't know about, since I'm relatively new - even after 12 years - to this area. There are pharmacy colleges, medical colleges, private and public universities. Why is medicine like this?

Maybe 15 years ago, things changed. I had a family practitioner who did everything. She watched my heart, blood pressure, did my pap smears and sent me for mammograms. When it was time for surgery she sent me to a surgeon to be evaluated. Not for surgery - just to see if it was warranted. True, she missed the asthma, but I never said anything about it, so how could she know? She told me to quit smoking, and I finally did a couple years before it was diagnosed.  

But today, good luck! If you find a doctor who will take the insurance you have (if you have any - even with the ACA, it is expensive) and has openings, you may not get quality medical care. Just because a doctor has the papers, doesn't mean they are any good. I've had burned out shells, doctors who won't touch me, doctors who will refer instead of treat, doctors with staff that were rude, and doctors who you can't even get in to see.

Therapists aren't much better. Drug addiction has caused a booming business in the therapy trade. Only it isn't real therapy. It's teaching coping skills to the uninitiated, and doling out head-meds for depression and anxiety to keep the patient under control. That isn't recovery. No more than suboxone is an answer for opiate addiction. It's just state-sponsored drug addiction - whether suboxone/methadone or head-meds. Same thing.

Finding someone who isn't interested in making their patient a zombie on meds - to help the patient find real healing and mental health - that's a therapist worth his or her weight in gold.

Medicine is a business, true. But it isn't a healing business anymore. I miss the hands-on people we used to have who practiced medicine.

So, even a person who is not addicted will have difficulty finding quality medical care. It's all because the addiction costs are so high. Burn out of physicians who might otherwise be quality caregivers, therapists only interested in what drugs one is on... It's a racket! And the poor patient is the loser.