Tag Archives: news

ICE Seeking Disenchanted Cops.

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Kierkegaard’s Ghost

(News that’s fake, but credible)

State troopers, county sheriffs and municipal police, are you fed up with your job? Are you tired of running to a judge with a lot of paperwork just to kick in a door and search a private home? Are you sick of filling out forms, sitting on administrative leave and answering idiotic questions from some woke civilian review board every time you shoot your gun? Do you find it tedious reading that silly Miranda card every time you make an arrest? Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to look over your shoulder whenever you need to beat a confession out of a perp to make sure there is not some geek with a cell phone camera around?

Well there is a place for you at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Here at ICE, we know what real policing means. We understand that your badge and gun deserve more respect than some ancient document locked away in a vault in Washington, D.C. When you work for us, you won’t need a warrant to bust into any home, hospital, business, school or church. You won’t have to rattle off a bunch of rights to the perps you arrest because they don’t have any rights. You don’t have to fear the cameras because your face will be masked. You don’t have to handle perps with kid gloves because where they are going, there will be no nosy journalists or oily defense attorneys to listen to their whining. And here is the best part: racial profiling is perfectly fine with us and approved by the Supreme Court. So you don’t have to worry about bothersome civil rights actions when you arrest some dark skinned funny talking dude who has “illegal” written all over him. In addition to a $50,000 sign on bonus, you will get salary and federal benefits far above what any state or municipality can pay you.

So what are you waiting for? Ditch that suffocating burden of civilian control, judicial oversight and stifling regulation. Join our team at ICE and become the cop you always wanted to be!

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FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen.  “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

MAGA-It’s not Complicated-They’re Bullies Plain and Simple

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There is a cottage industry dedicated to discerning the just grievances that gave rise to the MAGA  movement, the justified anger its proponents feel toward a government that failed them and why we “liberal elitist” snobs are to blame for their outrage because we are “out of touch” with their suffering. We need to stop our judging, criticizing and ridiculing. MAGA folk are just simple, sincere and patriotic Americans for whom the elusive American Dream has evaporated.

At the risk of being crude, I say bovine excrement. The MAGA folk are not simply misunderstood, and they are not all that hard to read. Everything you need to know about them was on display a decade ago when Donald Trump mocked and mimicked a disabled New York Times reporter at a rally in South Carolina-and the crowd howled with laughter. MAGA folk are bullies. They are stimulated, entertained and gratified by cruelty toward those weaker, smaller and more vulnerable than them. That’s it. There is nothing else to understand.

I have known these folks all my life. I met them when I was in school. They are the guys who got their jollies by dunking the head of a mentally impaired boy in the toilet. They are the mean girls who stuck the “wide load” sticker on the back of their plump school mate and giggled as she walked down the hall with no clue as to why everyone was laughing and pointing at her. I have always known there were people like these who are altogether lacking in empathy and gain their self esteem and sense of power by hurting and humiliating others weaker than themselves. The only thing that surprised me in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory was the sheer number of them. I honestly believed that sociopathic bullies were an abhorrent, but small “basket of deplorables.”[1] I was wrong.

Donald Trump’s antics in South Carolina, which many of us thought would surely tank his campaign, proved to be its principal draw and a harbinger of all that has transpired over the last decade. Most recently Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy to rename the ship that honors Harvey Milk, a former sailor who later became the first openly gay man elected to office in California. Such a move cannot be explained in terms of national security or any other military objective. The only explanation is Hegseth’s hatred for LGBTQ+ people and his desire to outrage and humiliate gay men. To let them know that their sacrifices for their country are not worth recognizing and that they have no place in our country’s history. The guys I remember from high school, whose biggest entertainment was beating up boys merely suspected of being gay, must be getting a hoot out of that. Then there is Senator Joni Ernst who, when her constituents voiced their fears about losing life sustaining treatment for themselves and their loved ones, replied with typical mean girl snark, “well, everybody dies.” She subsequently doubled down on her remarks blithely suggesting that if sick people are worried about dying, just accept Jesus as savior. Problem solved.

These two recent examples, like many more I could cite, sufficiently illustrate my point. MAGA is not about patriotism, reducing government spending, stopping the flow of fentanyl into our communities, bringing jobs back to the United States or any coherent political policy agenda. It is about the need of insecure men to put assertive and intelligent women who threaten their illusion of dominance back in their place so they can feel like real men again. It is about cutting down to size all those PhD’s, highbrow Ivy League professors and medical experts who think they are so damn smart. It’s about beating the crap out of fags, dykes and guys who wear dresses to show what real manhood looks like. It’s about changing Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley to remind those redskins that this is a white man’s country and that is how it is going to stay. It’s about reminding Black men and women of their second class status in this country by restoring the names of confederate leaders to American military installations and restoring confederate monuments. MAGA is all about sick and twisted souls who desperately need to bring people down to build themselves up. Don’t waste your time looking for more. There are no pearls at the bottom of this cesspool.

Bullies are dangerous. Yesterday morning Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed and Minnesota Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were wounded by a politically motivated shooter. Both lawmakers are members of the Democratic Party. Dozens of Minnesota Democrats were on a target list recovered by police. The list included Governor Tim Walz, United States Representative Ilhan Omar, United States Senator Tina Smith and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. As horrifying as this crime surely is, it is hardly surprising. As soon as he took office, President Trump issued a blanket pardon for thousands of insurrectionists who stormed the United States Capital injuring several police officers and threatening violence against then vice president Pence and members of the United States Congress. Pardons are evidently being considered for a group of men who planned the failed kidnapping and murder of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The message is clear. There will be no accountability for violent MAGA rage. The Minnesota assassin got that message and acted on it. It is now open season on anyone the MAGA lynch mob deems an enemy, starting with the most vulnerable among us.

“But you can’t paint all Trump supporters with such a broad brush…” Yes, I can. Because I am feeling particularly generous today, I will grant a mulligan to folks who voted for Trump in 2016 thinking that, however flawed he might be, he will at least shake up an ineffective and unresponsive government in a good way. But for 2024 Trump voters, nothing doing. They saw how he instigated a riot in which our Capital was vandalized, our police officers were injured and the lives of our legislators were threatened. They saw Donald Trump turn federal forces on peaceful protesters in our capital with tear gas and batons. They heard him regularly use racist and vulgar insults against his political opponents throughout his 2020 campaign. They saw that he was criminally convicted for falsifying business records to save his campaign from scandal. They knew that a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. They knew that he promised to (and did) pardon the insurrectionists he incited to attack our Capital. They heard him characterize his opponents as “vermin” and “scum.” They heard him threaten violent retribution against everyone he regards his enemy. Their vote for him tells me that, at the very least, they were OK with all of that. I strongly suspect they were more than just OK with it. Is there anybody out there who can show me another way to look at this? Please, bring it on! I’ve been waiting to hear from you for over a decade.

Trump, his administration and the people who put him in power and continue to support him are bullies. But here is the thing you need to keep in mind when dealing with bullies. Bullies are cowards. All of those January 6th insurrectionists who were so loud, so proud and so brave as part of the mob were, with very few exceptions, quite different people when brought before a court of law. There, without the support of their herd, they sobbed, made excuses and pleaded for mercy. Bullies always back down when they find themselves alone and among people unafraid to stand up to them.

Yesterday, millions of people all over the country took to the streets to stand up to Trump and his gang of thugs. That is a good start, but only a start. We need to keep the pressure on. We need to keep speaking out in whatever forum we have. We need to keep confronting the bullies wherever they appear, in our family gatherings, churches, barbershops, nail salons, locker rooms, book clubs and wherever else people come together. Our communities need to be relentless in exposing, opposing and publicly denouncing the brutal and lawless deportation of our neighbors. We need to condemn in the strongest terms the ruthless persecution of the LGBTQ+ community and especially its war against trans children. Neutrality is no longer an option. We either stand together with the most vulnerable members of our society resisting the MAGA bullies, or we keep our heads low, cower in fear and wait for our turn to experience their aggression. And make no mistake, if we wait for it, our turn will come.   

[1] Some commentators believe that this remark by Hillary Clinton cost her the election. I don’t know whether that is true or not. But politics aside, I think Ms. Clinton was being far too kind.

Killing of Brian Thompson and Insurance Rage

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Let me start with the obvious. The murder of United Healthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson, on a sidewalk in New York City was a brutal, lawless and cowardly act.  It cannot be justified under any rationale and those on social media and other forums suggesting otherwise are just plain wrong. Furthermore, as a disciple of Jesus and a lifelong pacifist, I hold that taking the life of a human being can never be morally justified. God alone gives life and God alone is entitled to take it when and under whatever circumstances God will. Every human life is a work in progress. As long as life and breath remain with an individual, there is potential for that individual’s repentance, redemption and transformation. Murder deprives God of the opportunity to work the miracle of repentance, forgiveness and amendment of life. I am therefore saddened by the killing of Brian Thompson. My heart goes out to his family and all who loved him.[1]

That said, I believe we need to look beyond Brian Thompson’s murder and try to understand the explosive anger it has unleashed over the internet, in print and on the street. More attention needs to be paid to the plight of Thompson’s and his company’s victims. Take, for example, Christopher McNaughton, a young college student who suffered from a crippling case of ulcerative colitis — an ailment that caused him to develop severe arthritis, debilitating diarrhea, numbing fatigue and life-threatening blood clots. McNaughton was insured through a plan by United Healthcare for students at Penn State University. It was a great deal for United Healthcare. What could be more lucrative than a large pool of young, healthy students paying premiums, but who would not likely be incurring high medical bills? Of course, there are always exceptions. Even young students are subject to devastating illnesses requiring expensive medical treatment. That is precisely why one pays for insurance. You never know whether you will be that one unfortunate person like Mr. McNaughton.

But here is the thing. Private insurance companies are corporately owned by shareholders who want to see their stock go up. These shareholders elect a board of directors they expect to make that happen. The directors hire CEOs like Brian Thompson to ensure that the company maximizes profits for the benefit of its shareholders. You don’t need an MBA to understand the implications. Private insurers make money by charging as much in premium as they can get away with and paying as few claims as possible. This isn’t higher math. It is just simple addition and subtraction. Thus, as you might expect, when the cost of McNaughton’s care was nearing $2 million, United Healthcare flagged it as a “high dollar account” eating into its profit margin. The company began working aggressively on a strategy to deny coverage for the expensive cocktail of drugs crafted by a Mayo Clinic specialist, a treatment regimen that successfully brought McNaughton’s disease under control. It should come as no surprise, then, that the company’s staff doctors reviewed the case and found that his treatment was “not medically necessary.” Payment of his claim was thereafter terminated on that basis.

United Healthcare’s agents discouraged McNaughton from appealing the decision, telling him “we’re only going to say no.” This tactic usually works. One study found that only 0.1% of claims denied by private insurers are appealed.[2] McNaughton, however, was one of the few who refused to take no for an answer. He contested the denial and finally brought a lawsuit against United Healthcare. The wonderful thing about law suites is that they allow the parties to obtain “discovery” from each other in the form of witness testimony through depositions and by production of documents. McNaughton’s lawsuit uncovered a treasure trove of documentation for United Healthcare’s bad faith efforts to discredit his doctor’s diagnosis and treatment, misrepresent his medical condition to evaluators and intimidate him. In the end, United Healthcare settled with McNaughton, but only after a lengthy and costly battle that took a toll on his health and wellbeing.[3]   

United Healthcare attempted to justify its finding of no medical necessity for McNaughton’s treatment by appealing to the soaring cost of medical care generally and the need to be judicious in approving highly expensive treatments. To put this in context, the cost of McNaughton’s care at that point had reached $1.7 million. That same year United Healthcare reported more than $16 billion in operating profits and United Healthcare’s then-CEO David Wichmann was paid $17.9 million in salary and other compensation. The company’s priorities could not be any clearer. Shareholder profits matter. Compensation for CEOs who are successful in generating profits matter. The persons who finance these profits with their premium dollars and depend on the medical coverage they think they obtained from the company, not so much.

Christopher McNaughton is not the only victim of United Healthcare and the several other private insurers that demonstrate ruthless efficiency when it comes to collecting premiums but sluggishness in processing claims. Data from state and federal regulators shows that insurers reject about 1 in 7 claims for treatment. Insurers know that their claimants are sick people, often without assistance or advice. They understand that, by throwing in their way bureaucratic roadblocks, procedural hurdles and labor intensive appeal processes, they can likely wear down the resolve of their claimants. They know that bringing a lawsuit is costly, time consuming and beyond the physical and mental stamina of most of their claimants. Time, money and the law is on their side and they know it.

You might think I am being overly harsh and judgmental here. But I know whereof I speak. When my wife began working as a nurse in a large New York hospital, she took out a disability insurance policy from a private insurer[4] through her employer to protect the income she had worked hard to achieve in the event she became unable to work due to accident or illness. After more than a decade of work, an autoimmune condition flared up, causing severe inflammation of her joints, dangerous anemia and extreme fatigue. She was deemed unable to work by Social Security and awarded disability benefits. These, however, hardly compensated for her lost salary. The disability policy, pursuant to the contract, made up the difference. That lasted for about a year before the company decided, on the basis of an “occupational review” and notwithstanding Social Security’s determination to the contrary, that she was now able to work. Accordingly, benefits were terminated.

The long and short of it is that, after a fruitless appeal to the company, we retained a lawyer. We were forced, at our own considerable expense, to fight the company for two years in order to obtain the benefits for which my wife had been paying premiums for over a decade. In the meantime, her condition continued to deteriorate. Throughout this time, the insurer hired investigators to videotape my wife surreptitiously, follow my children to school and monitor my home. I will never forget the day when I received a call from the insurer to inform me that our case had been referred to their “special investigation unit” to be reviewed for possible fraud. At this point, my wife was recovering from a week in the ICU following a seizure that put her into a coma. I asked the insurance rep whether he had contacted the state department of insurance, a requirement when an insurer suspects insurance fraud. After a lengthy silence on his end, I offered to get the attorney general for the department on the line for him. He hung up and not a minute later I received a conciliatory call from the company’s legal department apologizing for the apparent “misunderstanding” on my part. He assured me there was no fraud investigation, no criminal inquiry or anything of the kind going on. Summoning up all the self control I could muster, I graciously thanked him for the clarification and added that if anyone from his company ever uttered the “F” word to me again they had best be able to prove it in a court of law. Eventually, the company rolled over and honored its contractual obligations.[5]  

So although I do not condone them, I can well understand the anger, the rage, the uncivil social media comments and threats made in response to the shooting of Brian Thompson. If you leave your dog tied up out in the cold, starve him and kick him around from the time he is a pup, you can’t pretend to be shocked, horrified and morally outraged when finally one day he turns and bites you. Instead of whining about all the anger and threats, instead of putting up barriers to protect its headquarters, perhaps United Healthcare should consider honoring its contractual obligations to its claimants, dealing honestly and fairly with people who are sick and desperately in need of the care their premiums were supposed to buy. Maybe it’s time to consider whether perhaps medicine should no longer be practiced by corporate overlords and driven solely by profit motive. Maybe it’s time to think about junking the whole corrupt private insurance cartel and replacing it with a single payer system answerable to the voters rather than corporate shareholders.

In conclusion, let me say again that I wish Brian Thompson had not been ruthlessly gunned down. I wish, rather, that he was still alive. I wish that he could have lived long enough to face all the people who have been wronged by his company, like Christopher McNaughton. He should have had to face parents whose children died without treatment that might have been life saving. He should have had to look into the eyes of people who have lost siblings, spouses and partners due to his company’s willful efforts to avoid its contractual obligations. Brian Thompson should have lived long enough to see face to face the human cost of his handsome compensation package and his company’s profits. He should have lived long enough for his heart to be broken and his mind changed. He should have had the opportunity to use whatever time he had left on this earth to make amends to the victims of his company as far as possible. But now that he has been robbed of that opportunity, I can only pray God will have mercy on his soul.       

[1] I also feel compelled to add that Thompson’s death from what appears to have been the bullet of a “ghost gun” is one more sad reminder of our country’s sick and twisted gun fetish fed by an industry flooding our streets with lethal weapons. For more on that, see “Our Real Problem with Gun Violence-It’s as American as Apple Pie and as Addictive as Crack Cocaine”.

[2] See “Claims Denials and Appeals in ACA Marketplace Plans in 2021,” KFF

[3] For the full story of Christopher McNaughton’s struggle with United Healthcare and the company’s shameful bad faith efforts to avoid its contractual obligations, see ProPublica Article, February 2, 2023.

[4] I have not named the insurer as I believe the settlement agreement might have contained an NDA or something of the kind. But sadly, I do not think this matters much as they are all basically the same.

[5] I should add that we never recovered the attorney fees we were forced to incur. Moreover, the contract of insurance required us to deduct the amount of all social security payments we had received from the settlement amount, but left us with the tax liability for said payments.