Replies

Well, unions are all about violence or the threat of violence and intimidation. I have no idea if they represent V.A. Nurses, but If not I imagine that they would like to.

Another irony is that Nurse Pretti, an Emergency Room Nurse, was packing a gun.

Maybe the Minneapolis VA is in a bad part of town? (I think Hines in Chicago is in a pretty good area, unless it changed since I lived there in the 1980s.)

Prettiboy packing a gun? That gets a bit funnier. Many handgun makers are now making the Lady’s models. Bright colors, buttons and bows, etc. The Sig Prettyboy was supposedly carrying is one of Sig’s girly models. After he poked the ICE guy a bit too much and got hisself bear sprayed it was two women who first tried to help him. The first one got buttflung and the whole thing went downhill from there. To avoid getting shot all the dummy had to do was——nothing. Seems like an active case of TDS.

Thanx.
(I think Hines in Chicago is in a pretty good area, unless it changed since I lived there in the 1980s.)
ah...I have been a regular at hines. I've got small break...no visits in Feb.
hines has it's own zip code and is it 's own "town"...Hines, Illinois 60141
It is about 2 miles away from the ICE facilities in Broadview.
The areas west and east of Hines are in, my opinion, a gentrification period. So yeah, the area is pretty good...in the daytime.

as a sidebar...the toughest man I ever knew about was my grandfather...yet he wasn't even the toughest man in his house hold.
That would be his older brother, whose nickname was "juice". He pretty much was a bone breaker for the unions back in the day. One story was he threw blocks of ice in the printing machinery equipment at RR Donnelly.

Nurses are all in some kind of union, though take a look at the last paragraph
From GROK
The union representation at Edward Hines Jr. VA Medical Center (Hines VA) primarily covers registered nurses (RNs), not all types of nurses uniformly.
Here's a breakdown based on available information from union statements, VA-related reports, and joint actions:

Registered Nurses (RNs): Yes, they are represented by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU). This is the main union for RNs at Hines VA, covering over 1,100 RNs. NNOC/NNU has a national master agreement with the VA (Veterans Health Administration) specifically for registered nurses, and they've been vocal in rallies and negotiations about staffing, patient safety, and workplace issues at Hines.

Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), including Nurse Practitioners (NPs), Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs), etc.: These are typically grouped with RNs under the NNOC/NNU umbrella in VA settings. The national NNU-VA agreement explicitly includes APRNs (like NPs) as part of the bargaining unit for registered nurses, recognizing their advanced roles while maintaining union representation through NNU. They fall under the same Title 38 hybrid category as RNs for bargaining purposes.

Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) / Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs): No, they are not represented by NNOC/NNU. LPNs at Hines VA (and many VA facilities) are typically in a different bargaining unit, most often represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) or sometimes SEIU (Service Employees International Union). Joint actions and press conferences at Hines have included NNOC/NNU (for RNs), AFGE (often for professionals like doctors, LPNs, and others), and SEIU (for support staff and some nursing roles like LPNs or technicians). LPNs are not part of the NNOC/NNU RN-focused contract.

Note that union representation in the VA can vary somewhat by facility and role, and there have been significant changes recently. As of August 2025, the VA terminated most collective bargaining agreements (including NNOC/NNU's national agreement) for a large portion of employees due to executive orders, affecting union rights and contracts across many facilities, including Hines. However, prior to that (and in historical/ongoing contexts), the distinctions above held.

***Another irony is that Nurse Pretti, an Emergency Room Nurse, was packing a gun***

They couldn't manage to turn Renee Good into a George Floyd so now they are working hard to turn Pretti into GF-2. Some real hurdles stand in the way. First is the fact that Pretti was in a physical confrontation with ICE just one week prior to his fatal meeting this week; that portrays him as an activist!

Second, Pretti was carrying a gun - PLUS two extra full magazines. The extra bullets puts us into the mind that, like these school shooters, he expected to need a lot of deadly shots. Since he expected to confront armed LE officers, a question arises as to his intentions.

Third and perhaps most perplexing, he was suffering from a broken rib, obtained the week prior in a physical confrontation with ICE - confirmed by CNN Network. A broken rib is painful and one expects the torso to be well wrapped with intent to minimize movement and even mild physical contact. It would seem likely that the subject was on a fairly heavy regimen of pain medication.

Perhaps fairly heavy opioid dosing for pain explains much of this puzzling episode. Even with that, it seems odd that when Pretti was seized by officers in order to establish control, he did not cry out with pain. Any sudden physical contact by LE officers would raise expectation of a pain reaction to override the sedative effect of the opioid medication. No pain reaction has been mentioned by any one present, including the videos.

Heavy dosing by opioids could lead to poor judgment on Pretti's part. His involvement in this incident, especially being armed and possessing extra rounds, exhibits truly poor judgment on his part at the time!