I started Democracy Docket to be fearlessly independent and unapologetically pro-democracy. It will always stand tall. It will not obey.
— Read on www.democracydocket.com/opinion/now-is-the-time-for-courage/
agree. Agree. Agree.
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apple.news/AJUIfQ_ZmRmmQCx8DrP2hWQ
Inside the zone, called the Netzarim corridor after a former Israeli settlement, there are two military bases made up of trailer-sized mobile bomb shelters with water, electrical poles, cellular towers and a synagogue. The road is now paved, and soldiers zip along in open-top vehicles through an area the size of Tel Aviv.
The Netzarim corridor is one of the growing signs that the Israeli military is planning for an indefinite stay in Gaza. Israel has created several other military roads in Gaza, and blocked out a roughly half-mile buffer zone snaking around the territory.
Taken together, they paint a picture of tight Israeli control that some Israelis and Palestinians worry presages a long-term Israeli occupation or even a rebuilding of Jewish settlements in Gaza—something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said won’t happen.
Nearly everything around the Netzarim corridor is destroyed—Palestinian neighborhoods, villages and farmland. Israel uses the corridor to maintain tight control over Gaza’s flow of people, goods and weapons
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apple.news/AIr8uuC70QgSPzD4xzcyXig
Under Thompson, UnitedHealthcare ramped up its use of tactics such as “prior authorization,” in which physicians must submit additional paperwork to justify their treatments and prescriptions, according to reports by congressional investigators and federal watchdogs. The company also increasingly relied on automated programs to immediately reject claims, lawmakers and watchdogs have said.
Industry analysts have said that denying claims has helped UnitedHealthcare and other insurers cut costs and boost profits. The tactics have been faulted by lawmakers, federal officials and advocacy groups who say the health insurance giant has wrongly denied care to customers.
UnitedHealthcare has defended its practices, saying that lawmakers’ scrutiny is misplaced and that it is working to prioritize patient care.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General investigated UnitedHealthcare and other health insurers that operated managed-care organizations, or MCOs. The probe focused on insurers’ Medicaid denials in 2019 — during part of which, Thompson ran UnitedHealthcare’s Medicaid business — and concluded that the program had high rates of prior authorization denials.
Stop using prior authorization to kill people,” Jennifer Coffey, a woman from Manchester, New Hampshire, said to Witty.
In a subsequent interview, Coffey and fellow protesters shared their stories of having their care requests rejected by UnitedHealthcare.
“Regulators shouldn’t have to be looking over insurers’ shoulders every time a senior citizen falls or suffers a stroke,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said in a video accompanying a Senate report released in October that faulted UnitedHealthcare and other insurers for repeatedly turning down Medicare Advantage patients’ requests. Blumenthal oversaw the investigation.
When asked for comment, a spokesman for UnitedHealthcare pointed to a company statement. “While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime took place,” the statement said. “Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice.”
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This week illuminates the festering sickness of corporate greed that has corrupted our health care, political, & media institutions that exist to profit the powerful at the expense of the majority.
— Read on thelefthook.substack.com/p/americas-pre-existing-condition-corporate -
It wasn’t just that Trump got more votes. It wasn’t just that Harris had lower turnout. A deep dive into the psychological, existential, and systemic reasons Harris and Democrats didn’t win in 2024.
— Read on eladnehorai.substack.com/p/the-deeper-reasons-democrats-lost -
In April, the New York Times published a nearly 8,000-word story about what James Comey was thinking last year while overseeing FBI investigations into…
Their relationships were laden with competition, as all were vying for commissions by powerful Florentine and Roman patrons. Michelangelo and Leonardo competed for the attention of the powerful Medici family, and after Raphael emerged on the scene he and Michelangelo fought for commissions from Pope Julius II. Michelangelo belittled the achievements of his younger rival after his early death, claiming, “everything he learned he learned from me.”
In “Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael,” the Royal Academy is showcasing some of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance drawing in the world. The exhibition has been organized in partnership with London’s National Gallery and the Royal Collection Trust, whose current exhibition “Drawing the Italian Renaissance” also features work by the three masters.
— Read on slate.com/culture/2017/07/em-the-chickenshit-club-em.html -
Total auction sales of the Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s work have more than doubled between 2020 and and 2023.
— Read on news.artnet.com/art-world/renaissance-rivals-michelangelo-leonardo-raphael-london-2569418Their relationships were laden with competition, as all were vying for commissions by powerful Florentine and Roman patrons. Michelangelo and Leonardo competed for the attention of the powerful Medici family, and after Raphael emerged on the scene he and Michelangelo fought for commissions from Pope Julius II. Michelangelo belittled the achievements of his younger rival after his early death, claiming, “everything he learned he learned from me.”
In “Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael,” the Royal Academy is showcasing some of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance drawing in the world. The exhibition has been organized in partnership with London’s National Gallery and the Royal Collection Trust, whose current exhibition “Drawing the Italian Renaissance” also features work by the three masters.
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THURSDAY 29 NOVEMER 2024
I just got up and I think I remember this from last year. Four, or maybe five, hours of heavy eating and talking in our dear aunt M’s dining room chairs and I’m crippled. If last year is any indication, I’ll be cripped for days. This year, even my hands hurt. Jesus. We are all starting to look old and worn around the Thanksgiving table. Aunt’M is the oldest by ten years and she looks better and has more energy than the rest of us.
Then there was the younger crew, outside, sitting in a circle smoking God knows what. That is what Thanksgiving has become.
On to my MSNBC family, I have a morbid curiosity about watching the demise of Morning Joe. This morning, they are trying to gain viewers with celebrity interviews. And, talk about looking old, Al Pacino is a wreck. The very fact that MSNBC gave Scarborough four hours every weekday morning and then a show at the weekend demonstrates the true train wreck that legacy media is. If you are at all interesting in this, tune in and have a listen to Keith Olbermann. Olbermann is one of the few people who hates Joe Scarborough and the dreadful Mika more than I do. And, Olbermann remembers (as I do) that Joe and the dreadful Mika were so far up Trump’s ass in 2015, 2016, they couldn’t even see. I think the only reason the abandoned him was because he outed their adulterous affair. I also believe that should the program get cancelled, Joe Scarborough will divorce the dreadful (know your worth) Mike within five minutes.
Nobody, nobody but me notes the irony of the dreadful Mika pimping a scam operation called “Know your Worth,” for women when she slept her way to a permanent position on Morning Joe and now has kissed Donald Trump’s ass. That’s really knowing your worth.
The widespread argument that Joe and the dreadful Mika had to take their sorry asses to Mara-Lago and kiss Donald Trump’s ass because they were “afraid.” Right. Would either of them like to talk to one person, one single person living in Ukraine, putting up with being bombed every night. Afraid? Trash them. They are trash. They are afraid they won’t be making millions, afraid that they won’t be able to rant for hours every morning about how they have been right for thirty years. Afraid. They disgust me.
And, on the subject of disgusting people, in his typical gift to America on Thanksgiving Day, Putin is threatening to bomb Ukrainian “decision making centers.” On 12 November, Newsweek reported that Nikolai Patrushev, part of Putin’s inner circle (and supposedly the person who coordinated bombings in Moscow that helped get Putin in office), told a Russian newspaper: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations…he will be obliged to fulfill them.” [1]
They are not even pretending anymore that Trump is anything but a Russian puppet, and still, NOBODY DOES ANYTHING. Merrick Garland is sending out leaks that he intends to release a report by Smith. I will believe it when I see it. Merrick Garland is complicit in the situation we now find ourselves in. Complicit up to his eyeballs. He is like Brian Kemp and Liz Cheney, and Raspensberger. They have worked and turned their backs and ignored and allowed the country to go down the drain and now they want some kind of respect. Not from me. Not for Cheney, not for Brian Kemp, not for Merrick Garland.
Book: Jacob Soboroff (2024) Separated. Also a film.
- UN has deemed as “torture” family separation.
- This was done to scare people from coming to this country. These were people who were, by and large, leaving the country they lived in because of fear.
- Tom Homan intellectual father of the policy and was pushing for it during the Obama administration.
- Many agencies had a hand in this policy.
- Mass deportation is family separation by another name.
- Lee Gelernt, ACLU Attorney: When people see what this means, they tend to say, no, that’s not what we wanted. As others have said, they can force the decision for parents to leave or take their citizen children to another country. The country is going to have to “push back.” “There is more anti-immigrant sentiment” now than in 2016. These are human stories. Children who have experienced this spend years worrying about whether they will be taken away again.
- Jacob Soboroff: Security contractors were supervising some of these kids. People all around the world were against this. The Pope spoke out about this.
- Human Rights Watch: Family Separation https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/11/us-family-separation-harming-children-families
- MSNBC: According to DHS 1,360 children remain without confirmed reunion.
- “state created orphans.” “as a tool of immigration policy.” Quotes from Separated.
- Gelernt: The Trump administration didn’t keep track of who these children and babies belonged to. We said after WWII we would not send people back into danger without properly screening them. “You know you have to keep fighting.”
Notes:
- I do not feel sorry for RFK in any way, for any reason.
- I read that Steve (just out of prison) Bannon was no longer in the Trump inner circle. But evidently this is not true. He is long time friends with Boris Epshteyn and Epshteyn is recommending cabinet members who have appeared on Bannon’s “War Room.”
[1] “Patrushev is considered one of the key drivers of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine…” (Newsweek, 11/12/24).
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Boris Epshteyn, Susie Wiles and JD Vance hold outsized influence in the president-elect’s administration selections
— Read on www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/29/trump-administration-influence-cabinet -
Letter: With regard to gun trafficking, if we want Mexico to be a better neighbor, we need to be a better neighbor to Mexico.
— Read on www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2024/11/24/letter-with-regard-gun-trafficking/ -
Guns
Guns transported to amexico
Between 70% and 90% of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico have been traced to the U.S. by the ATF, mostly from Arizona and Texas. Guns sold in Houston and Tucson were the largest sources of weapons supplied to the cartels. Gun trafficking even has a catchy name…the “iron river.”
Mike Johnson recently withdrew the National Security And Border Act on former President Trump’s behalf. This bill had overwhelming support by both sides in Congress. It would have increased funding combating drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
Congress didn’t address the weapons trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico. Congress didn’t address weapon purchases by straw buyers to be resold to the cartels. Congress didn’t address China being the primary source of chemicals needed for fentanyl production.
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The cartels are expanding their physical presence in our country’s drug trade. Our country is destabilizing Mexico at every political and policing level with the exportation of military grade weapons with our citizens acting as straw buyers.
Cartoonist Walt Kelly said it best: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” If we want Mexico to be a better neighbor, we need to be a better neighbor to Mexico. Tell your representatives to address gun trafficking. Neither country can do this alone. -
If you have sufficiently deep pockets and very little shame, you can snow a case under procedural motions, appeals, and long shots, enough to slow the case to a crawl. And in Trump’s case, delay was a victory—not because he could put it off indefinitely, but because he will soon be president again, with the Department of Justice under his authority.
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The 21st century’s most desirable currency is impunity,” I wrote. “Impunity, the sadist’s conception of freedom, mainstreamed and marketed as the new American Dream.”
Victims positioned as oppressors, the powerful playacting as the powerless, lies told with the smirk of people who love to get caught because they know they will not be punished. The Trump administration was the culmination of America’s worst tendencies, a consequence of institutions so rotted they needed to be gutted and reborn.
People used to admit this when Trump was still in office. They have stopped now that Biden is president and the rot has only festered. The Biden administration has continued Trump policies while refusing to hold Trump and his backers accountable, to the point that Trump can run for president again like Mafia Grover Cleveland.
That Biden was a placeholder president – a stop gap to streamline an aspiring American autocracy into an entrenched one – was obvious by mid-2021. The first, rather large clue was the lack of urgency toward sedition.
Under Biden, the United States became the first country to face an attempted coup and not only fail to punish the coup plotters but allow them to hold office and make laws. There is no parallel in world history. Even Hitler had a prison interlude between his putsch and his presidency. The only thing approaching an equivalent lies in the American past: the refusal to punish confederates and instead let them regroup under new names, leading to the decimation of Reconstruction and the birth of Jim Crow.They sanctioned Russian oligarchs while letting their proxies fund campaigns in both parties. The most egregious offender is the DOJ. Under Merrick Garland, the best friend of Jared Kushner’s ethics lawyer Jamie Gorelick, the DOJ refused to prosecute Trump administration crimes even after the criminals confessed. They let the statute of limitations run out on the Mueller probe, ignored the repercussions of Trump’s network of mafiosos gaining classified intelligence, disregarded blatant criminality on the Supreme Court, and slow-walked a response to the theft of stolen documents containing nuclear secrets.
This is not a serious country, but a country in serious crisis. This is not a sovereign country, but a country under the tyranny of the minority regardless of who is in charge. We have elections, but we do not have choice.
Biden promised democracy on the campaign trail and embraced dictatorship in office. He fist-bumped MBS, bear-hugged Netanyahu, and announced the appointment of Iran-Contra war criminal Elliot Abrams. Biden was in the middle of waiving 26 federal regulations to build Trump’s Wall when he was interrupted by Israel’s genocide, to which he pledged material support. We don’t know how far the complicity goes, because in an unprecedented move, the Biden administration has decided to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy.
The most notable foreign policy difference between Trump and Biden has been Ukraine. Biden generated global goodwill for supporting a struggling country being invaded in sharp contrast to Kremlin lackey Trump. But that goodwill is vanishing and Ukraine – now gutted – may end up abandoned.
People will complain I am “making Biden look bad”. I am not “making” anything: these are bad actions, and I am noting that they happened. They were bad under Trump, and they continue to be bad under Biden, and it is necessary to point that out. What matters is who gets hurt, and the victim list is long. Like most Americans, I cannot make policy but only try to survive it. That powerlessness – the knowledge that the worst things stay the same no matter who is elected – is the consequence of elite criminal impunity.
In late September, Biden rolled out an ad bragging about his ability to work across the aisle. Across the aisle sit Republican seditionists, aspiring autocrats, and stooges propped up by dark money plutocrat networks. A person cannot rightly claim democracy is under attack and then brag that they are working with the people trying to destroy it.
Unless, of course, they are partners in destruction. Unless Biden’s proclaimed willingness to work with an authoritarian party is one of the honest things he said.
Law, Power, and Justice 