The wheels have fallen off the Axis of Resistance! 😄

2024 was a bad year to be an Iranian stooge army. They started the year fighting their enemies to a standstill on the battlefield and ended the year fleeing the battlefield in disorder and pleading with the international courts to save them from their enemies

Couldn’t happen to a nice bunch of guys. 😂 Never bite off more than you can chew, ya muqawamata! 😆🤣😆🤣 Enjoy your new salafi overlords! 😂

"such as increasing misdemeanor arrests, instead of providing adequate shelter or housing"

Don't blame the mayor. Shelter and housing are of no interest while basking in a fentanyl duper. Only with misdemeanor arrests can these unfortunates hit rock bottom and final realize they need help.

"By prioritizing sweeping and cleaning up visible homelessness downtown, Harrell has pushed people on the street elsewhere."

transltion: by Demonizing the
Victims of Predatory Capitalism, we
can re-locate its Symptoms to Elsewhereville

don't wanna step in
Human Excrement?

when Billionaires
PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE
you won't Have to! til Then, then

@3: Macroeconomic retorts for everything and anything.

Bad Motorcycle cop?
not All of ‘em:

I once witnessed
in Liberty Park a motor-
cycled Po-po at about 10mph
who got up on his knees, took his
hands off his grips stood up & spread
his arms Wide for 10 or 12 seconds his 1000cc
Kawasaki (or maybe twas a Harley) stable as a table

we Onlookers had plenty of time
and space to flee but
had no Need.

@4
so our
Problems
are Unsolvable?

or
B. it's
Better to just
Bitch and Moan?

help me Out here Pheebs

@6: Ok, let's accept that unbridled capitalism is the blame on the macro level, but overwhelming addiction is on the micro level.

Take it from there.

@1: The Stranger spent no small amount of time this past year in criticizing Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah and Iran. From blubbering over those poor terrorist operatives, whose exploding pagers meant they’ll never harm anyone else ever again, to complaining the head of Hezbollah had indeed used human shields in numbers sufficient to preclude attack, the Stranger did not ever lack sympathy for jihadis. Now Israel’s actions have helped to free an entire country from dictatorship, and the Stranger complains about that, too. Tough crowd.

And tough, crowd. ;-)

https://youtu.be/YaLaz1flg7E?si=k16mBM7b7Jb4hJqg

@8: Assad has killed more Arabs in the last decade than Israel has killed in its entire history. I had kind of hoped Assad would get Qadaffi'ed or Saddam'ed, but he made it out just in time, more's the pity. Still, life in Russia is a kind of living death, so I guess I am satisfied. 😊

Sounds as though Syria is another place we could be dumping billions and billions of dollars into.

Sweeps may not be the total solution, but it's a start. It's not the mayor's fault that the courts keep cycling the criminals back out on the streets (and you know that most of the violent crime in seattle is caused by the same prople over and over again). Throw a few dozen repeat offenders in prison and problem solved! And BTW if you involontary commited some druggies so they could dry out it would help too...

WOW!! Amazing Monday coverage, and song I had not heard before. Love those blues.

Why am I not surprised at The Stranger's dutiful empire-washing of the Syrian government's overthrow? We see you using U.S. State Dept-approved propaganda terms like "regime."

Uncle Joe all but announced that the U.S./Israel coalition were the actors behind the scenes, pulling the levers. And Blue MAGA dutifully bow their heads and compartmentalize the soon-to-be Iraq/Libya-like future as "at least the Russia ally is out of there."

It's going to be absolutely HILARIOUS to watch you empire-simps discover your collective voices once the next administration gets in there. Then all of a sudden, there will be daily, if not hourly, concern-trolling for the exact same empire enabling behaviors by the Red Team. Pathetic.

When you're cheering on the CIA-funded Al-Qaeda, it's time to look in the mirror...

@12: You know the Stranger’s really desperate, when they’re pretending to care about crime in the CID.

TBF, the Stranger did believe the proper way to inflict even more crime on residents and businesses in the CID was by building a Homeless Megaplex on a corner of it, not by actually improving another section of the city.

Tanya Woo’s near-defeat of CM Morales emerged from that fiasco. Luckily, the Stranger never learns anything, but instead relies on personal attacks (“perennial election loser”) to keep their disfavored powerless.

The overwhelming majority of addicts use again after they leave jail, and homeless people will continue to be unhoused until they are placed in housing. Addiction is a medical issue and homelessness is the result of structural/economic choices we have made as a society, specifically we do nothing to guarantee housing or make it affordable.

The criminal justice system is for punishing criminal behavior, not solving various medical and social issues. This has been our default response to these problems for decades and clearly it’s not working.

the people shot in and around caravel were not homeless, or people dealing with sweeps. they were housed people roughly around the ages of 19-24 that go to clubs/lounges carrying guns. half looking to fight/shoot.

@14: A progressive turns his keen political mind to Syria. 😂🤣😂🤣

@12, "It's not the mayor's fault that the courts keep cycling the criminals back out on the streets."

It's not the courts fault either. They sentence within the strict limits established by the Legislature that the voters elect. https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9.94A.510

So don't blame the courts.

"The criminal justice system is for punishing criminal behavior, not solving various medical and social issues. This has been our default response to these problems for decades and clearly it’s not working."
--@barth

just because it isn't
Working doesn't mean
we need to Change anything

be-
sides:
people
Love having
someone to point
to: 'It ain't US!" nope. not Yet.

cuz
you're
Immune.

@16: Seattle has wasted approximately a decade by pretending a public-health crisis of addiction and mental illness was actually a housing-affordability crisis. Attempts to house persons who actually needed involuntary commitment and treatment led to fiascos like the former Red Lion hotel in Renton. Meanwhile, huge numbers of homeless persons have been dying of overdoses. It should be clear this is not working, but the Stranger simply ignores the overdose deaths, and demands more money for Seattle’s failed Homeless-Industrial complex.

@21

meanwhile
Private Equity
AirBnBs & Foreign
Investment price the
Citizenry onto our Streets;
diseases of despair run rampant

we're gonna Need
Bigger brooms.

oh!
& speaking of
Medical Bankruptcies:

they Caught the
UnitedHealthcare
Vigilante! we're Saved!

no
Copy-
catting
Allowed!

@2:

If living on the streets while addicted to Fentanyl ISN'T ALREADY "hitting rock bottom", pray tell, what would be in your opinion? Seems to me like spending a night or two in a warm, dry cell and probably getting a couple of decent meals at the taxpayers' expense (a topic you-all are always whinging about) is actually a step up for someone in that situation.

@7: What you're failing to acknowledge here is how these two issues are directly related; it's very easy to connect the dots: Rapaciously greedy pharmaceutical companies create synthetic opioids; they flood the market with them by enlisting the support of unscrupulous physicians more than willing to overprescribe these meds in exchange for so-called "promotional fees" (read: kickbacks); this generates tens of billions of dollars in profit AND ends up getting hundreds of thousands of people addicted. The end result is that many of these people are subsequently forced to turn to the black market in order to maintain their habits once their doctors, seeing the "promotional" gravy train nearing its stop and anticipating the inevitable regulatory intercession (not to mention the lawsuits), cut off their 'scripts.

tldr: it's all related, and trying to create some sort of ersatz "macro/micro" separation between the two, as if the former had no direct impact on the latter, reveals either that you are woefully misinformed on the subject or simply arguing in bad-faith.

@10
At least one news source suggests that Russia will ‘trade’ Assad for continued Russian presence in Syria. Russia does like human trade bait, after all.
@21 -yes, it’s a public health crisis

@22: “meanwhile
Private Equity
AirBnBs & Foreign
Investment price the
Citizenry onto our Streets;
diseases of despair run rampant”

Yeah, years ago Sawant’s lie had Amazon doing this to Seattle, so she demonized Amazon, and wrote the EHT to punish them. How’d that work out, again?

Meanwhile, surveys of the homeless themselves showed most of them had arrived in Seattle already unemployed, homeless, and using drugs. But that served no agendas, and so was ignored. Just as the Stranger now ignores overdose deaths among the homeless. Feel the compassion!

Five people shot and nobody died. 4 of the 5 were well enough to get themselves to the E.R.

It's a good thing the assailant didn't get up close and personal with a knife. That is a bigger and more serious wound channel.

@16 no one is being jailed for using drugs. They are being jailed for issues related to their drug use such as theft or assault. Using addiction as an excuse to victimize innocent people is never going to be supported in the greater community so until progressives can come up with a solution where there are some consequences to anti social behavior jail is going to be used as a substitute.

@25

right ON
Wormtongue! keep
that Corporate Narrative going:

they're Counting on YOU!*

and then
there's This:

@22b

“UnitedHealthcare . . . was the subject of a scathing report released by a Senate panel that documented insurers’ refusal to pay for the care of older people recovering from falls or strokes.

The report was part of Senate investigations into denial rates of private Medicare Advantage plans.

Mr. Thompson’s company, in particular, was cited for a surge in denials of post-acute care, which increased to 22.7 percent in 2022 from 10.9 percent in 2020.

He received total compensation of $10.2 million last year, with $1 million in base pay augmented by substantial cash and stock grants. The company’s profits rose on his watch, jumping to more than $16 billion last year from $12 billion in 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/nyregion/unitedhealthcare-brian-thompson-shooting.html

"diseases of Despair"?
it's their Lack of
Morality!

It's s good thing that the Dutch regulate guns. It forces people who insist on being violent to use explosives.

So with the Dutch five die, with perhaps more coming.

https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-several-killed-in-explosion-in-the-hague/a-70993126

In the International District shooting nobody died. So why is the Dutch regulation of which weapons can be used better? Why do Progressives think regulating objects, rather than behavior, is better?

@23 "spending a night or two in a warm, dry cell and probably getting a couple of decent meals at the taxpayers' expense" is a hugely wasteful and needlessly expensive way to run a shelter?

Happy the prisoners of the Assad regime are freed. That's a good thing.

Beyond that, I don't think the Syrian Civil War is over. The Alawites (Assad's people) still control their mountainous coastal region N of Lebanon, the Druze still have their militia S of Damascus, and the Kurds are still N of the Euphrates.

Might be a disintegration into micro-states in the offing, or just more war. Can't see the Turks letting the Kurds set up their own state.

Hope that wasn't "Empire-washing".

Give them a $100 debit card and put them on a one-way, non-stop bus to Midland-Odessa, Texas.

Since the unwellness began in earnest in Seattle, I went full medieval in securing both my person and work van. Current kit; Ukranian nagaika, Hungarian dueling Sabre, Italian off hand dagger. I'm considering a Norman morning star mace for 2025, and perhaps a few throwing axes.

@1 & 8: why aren't you guys angry about an Islamic terrorist group attacking cities and overthrowing a government in the Levant? Doesn't Syria have a right to exist? Where are the convoluted, pedantic arguments excusing Assad's alleged human rights violations? Can it really be as simple as governments allied with the US can do whatever they want but governments the US doesn't like get what they get?

@27 "no one is being jailed for using drugs"

Except Seattle recently enacted an ordinance criminalizing public drug use, which you supported. Why lie about it now?

@21, Homelessness and addiction are national problems requiring a national solution. City budgets are often inadequate, and it’s unfair to leave the cost and solution up to individual cities when they are often absorbing the homeless problem from places with fewer resources or opportunities for homeless people to survive. We should be subsidizing housing development for people of all socioeconomic levels and nationalizing healthcare so everyone has access to the care they need.

@27, I understand that people are not being jailed for drug use, but I have no idea what “Using addiction as an excuse to victimize innocent people” is supposed to mean.

There are multiple people in this thread suggesting jail is a place where people can recover from addiction (see @12 and @2). This is a persistent belief in this country but it is not supported by results. People are even offering this as an effective strategy on an article showing that this approach has been a failure for Seattle’s mayor.

Houston has found success with housing first, cutting it’s homeless population by nearly 2/3 in just over a decade. They stabilize people with housing first then address health and addiction problems later on.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/how-houston-successfully-reduced-homelessness/

So the problem isn't the shooting, it's the commuting?

@33. Don't worry, sir. I'm from the Internet.

Why would someone who lives in Newport go to Yakima for an abortion, when they could go to Spokane?

@34 public consumption of drugs was made a criminal offense again but no one is going to jail for possession/use. At best they are cited and released or if they are a habitual offender being referred to diversion programs.

@35 Activists like to pretend people are being thrown in jail for use/possession when in reality they only time jail is a possibility is if there are other circumstances like assault/theft. There are many people on this thread that would tell you we as a society have to accept that behavior until we can "fix" the underlying causes (e.g. poverty, addiction you name it). I counter that those things should not be an excuse for anti social behavior. There are many people in the same circumstances who either seek help or manage to live their life without negatively impacting others. I would agree with you that jail is not going to help addicts recover however I would also say if addicts continually impact the community with their behavior then jail is somewhere they can be placed not to help them but to protect the rest of us.

@35: From your link: "In Houston, step one was convincing dozens of unconnected agencies, all trying to do everything, to join forces under a single umbrella organization: The Way Home, run by the Houston Coalition for the Homeless."

Over the past decade, independent consultants have been telling Seattle to do exactly this:

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HomelessInvestmentAnalysis.pdf

https://govlab.hks.harvard.edu/files/govlabs/files/seattle_homelessness_project_feature.pdf?m=1548707682

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53206c76e4b0da7cd7fb97f6/t/57f39220cd0f68202b3705ba/1475580452747/Seattle+BPA+Final+Report+8.15.16.pdf

https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/future-lab-report.pdf

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Meeting%20societys%20expectations/Booming%20cities%20unintended%20consequences/Booming-cities-unintended-consequences.pdf

Nothing has come of any of it.

@39 sorry if I don't trust the unsupported assertion of an internet rando that nobody is going to jail for the conduct made punishable by jail

@34: lol, sour grapes, ha ha ha!

It’s no surprise a progressive would struggle to understand what was so bad about Assad! 😁

@42 I understand full well what was bad about Assad and his regime like I understand full what what's bad about Netanyahu and his. It's not me who's either confused or hypocritical here

@43: snicker

@35, The problem is we pit jail and treatment against each other as if they are a zero-sum-game where more of one means less of the other.

How about jail AND treatment, rather than jail OR treatment?

By that I don't mean incarceration and forced treatment. I mean that they get a relatively long sentence to be served behind bars or under supervision in the community. They are also offered treatment, perhaps even housing, mental health services, and case management while serving their sentence in the community, and being participatory in that treatment is the condition for them doing their sentence in the community, rather than behind bars. They are also free to choose to do the full time behind bars, if participating in their own restoration is too high of a personal price to pay.

It also needs to not be a zero tolerance, one-screw-up-and-done, conditionality. Fail a drug test, not make mental health appointments, substance abuse support groups, etc. doesn't mean back to prison for good, but it could mean that your probation officers makes you visit the jail on the weekend, between work shifts until you show a pattern of complying with your treatment again.

Keep repeatedly screwing up, and it might get to the point the rest of their sentence is behind bars.

The rationale is simple. If you are in treatment and working on your issues, you are lower risk of victimizing the rest of us. If you can't do that, and you are behind bars, then you can't hurt the rest of us, for as long as the confinement lasts.

Heck there should even be things they can do behind bars to earn their way back to serving in the community.

Beyond that, make it possible for them to have their record cleared if they complete enough "merit badges" in their treatment while in DOC custody. Incarcerated, or on the outside while they work on their issues, they are still in DOC custody for the full-length of their sentencing.

@36, Full background checks for anyone using mass transit. That would have prevented the NYC murder.

@45 what you described is basically the Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative which has existed since the 90s. What we need are dramatically expanded substance use and mental health treatment options to intervene in the community BEFORE people commit harm

@45: lol, we have that. It’s called King County Drug Court, and it doesn’t work all that well. It turns out getting high on fentanyl is more appealing than graduating drug court, even if failing drug court means you get mainstreamed with nearly a 100 percent conviction rate. You just white-knuckle the mainstream sentence and then you’re back on the streets where the fentanyl is at. 😃 DOSA’s got the same problem, only worse cause there’s less of a hookup on jobs with DOSA.

@43 back at ya that the jails are somehow full of people there on drug use/possession. Kinda think if that was actually happening there would have been some guest rants about it in these pages.

@47, I have no problem expanding those things; however, its not an either or. Those things should be expanded, with the clear understanding of the addicted, that if they don't use those resources to deal with their addiction, and they are subsequently involved in a crime, their will be consequences, up to, and including conviction.

The problem with DOSA is that the sentences for the crimes committed is too short, so the period of accountability is not long enough. Door #1 is deal with your issues, with help paid for by society, with a long period of accountability while you do. Door #2 is a long time behind bars if you don't want to play ball. If Door #2 is catch and release, why do Door #1. You already had that opportunity before you did something that gave probable cause to arrest.

@47, People with substance abuse conditions and/or mental health issues that are not being treated so they are under control. They have misdemeanor records as long as my arm with lots of catch and release, release after two weeks of time served, release after months served, etc. Rinse, wash, repeat. I'll suffer withdrawal for days or weeks and then be out to go right back at it. How is that merciful or good for them and their welfare?

@35: "Houston has found success with housing first, cutting it’s homeless population by nearly 2/3 in just over a decade."

Again, from your link: "It helps that this city, unlike many, has a supply of relatively affordable apartments,"

Yeah, that would sure help, wouldn't it? Sadly, Seattle does NOT have that. And if Seattle's taxpayers actually foot the bill to build so much housing the city again "has a supply of relatively affordable apartments," then who will tell those same taxpayers that some of those apartments will go to the same homeless addicts who've been making daily life miserable for the very same taxpayers? Do you really think that will work politically? (Note that ~$1B in public housing levy funds are required to build just 3,000 affordable apartments.)

Political leadership in Seattle, 'led' during the Homeless Crisis by virtue-signaling "progressives," has never faced the reality of just how expensive their 'solution' for homelessness would become. Meanwhile, some number of homeless persons have died from the drug use the Stranger refuses to admit is even happening. None of this has produced anything except failure and death, and there's little to suggest the voters of Seattle want more.

@34: Hezbollah occupies southern Lebanon in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (passed in 2006). They recently spent a year attacking Israel from southern Lebanon. So, the IDF started clearing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, doing what 18 years of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 could not. (And none of the commenters here, who can always find opinions at the UN which accuse Israel of this, that, or the other thing, can't ever seem to find an actual UN-condemned illegal occupation of Lebanon with both hands.)

My point @8 stands. The Stranger (and supportive commenters, thanks for demonstrating that) simply can't stop criticizing Israel, even when Israel is removing illegal occupiers from Lebanon, or enabling the population of Syria to rid itself of a long-standing parasitic dictatorship.

@48 "It turns out getting high on fentanyl is more appealing than graduating drug court, even if failing drug court means you get mainstreamed with nearly a 100 percent conviction rate. You just white-knuckle the mainstream sentence and then you’re back on the streets where the fentanyl is at. 😃"

You're saying prison is not an effective deterrent?

@49 "back at ya that the jails are somehow full of people there on drug use/possession."

I never said they were "full of" drug users I disagreed with your assertion that "no one" was being jailed for that.

@53: In addition to widespread anti-semitism, I think a lot of them just genuinely struggle to tell the difference between right and wrong. Ironically, they all think they are quite gifted at knowing the difference, but they are not. Like, the one dude you’re responding to once called Hamas’s videotaped beheading of a wounded hostage an act of Palestinian self-defense. Like, no, dude! Yikes! It’s not! 😂😂😂 In their confusion, when something like the Assad government falls, they’re like, oh shit, isn’t this bad news, isn’t this “empire-washing!” 🤣🤣🤣

@52, Are you trying to ask me question? Someone asked what a progressive housing solution would look like and I showed them what Houston has achieved. As I told you previously, housing and health care are national problems requiring a federal solution and not anything we should be leaving to cities to fix for themselves and I have no illusion that this would ever happen in this shithole country. It’s just my opinion, the same one I had the first time you asked. Are you going to be ok?

@56: "Are you trying to ask me question?"

Yes, I already did. That's what the specific punctuation mark at the ends of these sentences signified: "...who will tell those same taxpayers that some of those apartments will go to the same homeless addicts who've been making daily life miserable for the very same taxpayers? Do you really think that will work politically?"

"Someone asked what a progressive housing solution would look like and I showed them what Houston has achieved."

Sure. My question remains, how is Houston's example relevant to Seattle? Houston has a key resource, affordable apartments, which Seattle has lacked for many years now, and may not have again for a very long time, if ever. How Seattle should proceed in the absence of that resource was the basis of the questions I clearly asked.

nyt;
Suspect
in C.E.O. Killing
Withdrew From a Life
of Privilege and Promise

… on Monday, Mr. Mangione was charged in Manhattan with murder, along with additional counts of forgery and illegal weapons possession. And in the hours after his apprehension, his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect began to come into focus.

Through a series of posts, Mr. Mangione’s trail on the internet hinted at pain both physical and philosophical.

In January, Mr. Mangione left a review of a book containing the rambling manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, on GoodReads, a social media site for bookworms.

“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies,” Mr. Mangione wrote of the document. “But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”

One of Mr. Mangione’s favorite quotes, listed on GoodReads, was, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,” from Jiddu Krishnamurti, the religious philosopher and teacher.

One thing they were examining was the handwritten manifesto that he had in his possession when he was arrested, according to a senior law enforcement official.

The 262-word handwritten document begins with the writer appearing to take responsibility for the murder, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document.

It notes that as UnitedHealthcare’s market capitalization has grown, American life expectancy has not.

“To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the writer wrote. The note condemns companies that “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”

--by Corey Kilgannon, Mike Baker, Luke Broadwater and Shawn Hubler; Dec. 9, 2024

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione.html

the top three nyt readers’ comments
on the nyt article, directly above:

Of course, I do not condone this murder, but we need to confront the greed and exploitative nature of our healthcare system.

Senator Sanders is right:

"We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured.

Health care is a human right.

We need Medicare for All."
--Ali Jarrah; VA

Certainly is bewildering how someone went from a life of privilege and premier education to assassin.

Curious to know what health insurance he had at the time of the surgery, and how the claims were handled.

Like many others , I too have a “UHC” story, when , as a new mom I had to call over several months to get them to finally pay for childbirth and epidural.

One of the most stressful things I underwent , after the actual birth and recovery itself.

Spent my already limited maternity leave alternating between worry at the unpaid bill and seething anger at how many hoops I had to jump to just PAY for the care I needed after years of premiums
--Someone; Somewhere

The US healthcare industry is broken. We pay by far the most money in the world for our healthcare and have about the 44th best life expectancy, on par with Turkey, Poland, Croatia and Colombia.

UnitedHealth meanwhile made $371.6 billion in revenue last year. They operate every day to maximize profit and serve their shareholders, not their patients and customers.

Accordingly, their stock is up 96.4% in just the last five years alone.

Maybe this terrible occurrence will lead to some positive change and improvement of our healthcare. But, probably not.
--Arthur Morgan; New Orleans, LA

oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione.html#commentsContainer

Who will Win this War
over America? its Share-
holders or its Stakeholders?

@58b

whilst America's
Shareholders own/
control MOST of the $$$

it'd be Good to recall
America's Stakeholders
Outnumber the Fomer by
about 340 MILLION to 5-6M.

and with Spokespersonages
like Wormtongue & his siksockbot
cum Sidekick, saxman, mister magoo
et al it's Easy to see how this Can happen,

right fucking here.

Suspect in Health Care C.E.O.’s
Killing Saw Himself as ‘Hero of Sorts’

A suspect charged with murder in New York in the assassination of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to an internal police report that detailed parts of a three-page manifesto found with him at the time of his arrest.

The suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. The New York Police Department had released images of him after the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, 50, in Midtown Manhattan last week.

The internal police report, which was obtained by The New York Times, said Mr. Mangione’s manifesto also indicated that he saw the killing as a direct challenge to the health care industry’s “alleged corruption and ‘power games.’”

It added that “he likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices,” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to follow.”

---by Chelsia Rose Marcius, Andy Newman,
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Michael
Wilson; Dec. 10, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/10/nyregion/unitedhealthcare-luigi-mangione

I do NOT Condone this vigilante’s
Murdering of UnitedHealthcare’s
CEO Brian Thompson. It may,
in fact, spur eltrumpsfster's
declaring Martial Law on
Day One, when he Ap-
points Hisself as Our
First Dictator.

we seem to be
approaching a
tipping point.

buckle up and
stay f'g tuned.

one more
nyt reader's
Comment on
the Capture of
Unitedhealthcare’s
CEO Brian Thompson’s assassin:

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures ...

Luigi Mangione condemns companies that “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”

While nothing justifies murder, Luigi Mangione’s desperate act challenges us to face the growing desperation and hopelessness of fellow Americans whose lives are systematically, needlessly ruined and cut short by a predatory for-profit "healthcare industry" where greed and profit trump all else, while it offers no hope, no healing and no solutions whatsoever to millions of ailing, ill, disease-and-pain-afflicted and dying Americans...In other words: no recourse whatsoever!

This murder is yet one more symptom of systemic failure within the American oligarchic capitalist infrastructure of wealth and tax avoidance that, for 40 years, has moved $50 trillion upward, out of the hands of the bottom 90% of Americans into corporate CEOs’ own, and into their supportive politicians’ and judges,’ insatiably greedy hands.
--@Karin Barnaby; Sea Cliff, NY

oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione.html?login=smartlock&auth=login-smartlock#commentsContainer

make it Two:

I remember very well, the fear of being in-between jobs, long before the ACA existed.

I remember my then 23-year-old daughter being denied individual health coverage because at age 16 she saw a therapist for a few weeks. Reason for denial: "history of depression." Good grief.

Cuurently I have Medicare with Kaiser and LOVE it. Medicare is probably the best thing this country ever did for its citizens.

It's time to join the rest of the civilized world. It's time for a healthcare moon shot.

Change the tax code on extreme wealth. (Remember that currently, only W2 income pays into Medicare). Pay off health insurance shareholders. Hire and train their employees to work for Medicare. Employers who currently cover their employee premiums will also contribute.

Do it all over a 5 to 10 year period.

Enough already.
--@Jules; California

fucking
Bravo, @Jules.

@58 #FreeLuigi is trending on social media for a reason. I have a feeling that the powers that be will be receptive to a mental illness defense, and him not being found competent for trial at this time. Finding a jury not biased against big health insurance companies will be hard.

@1: The Wall Street Journal summed it up rather nicely:

‘In more than a year of attacks, Israel has devastated Hamas, Iran’s main Palestinian ally. Since September, Israel has killed most of the leadership of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that is Iran’s most powerful ally, and sent its surviving top commanders into hiding. Assad’s toppling destroys the remaining front line of what Iran calls its “forward defense,” said Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project.

‘“The Islamic Republic thought that Hamas’s 7 Oct. attack was a turning point in history. That’s true, but in the entirely opposite direction to what it hoped for,” he said. “The dominoes for its western front have fallen one after the other.”’

(https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/syria-iran-assad-axis-of-resistance-6289667a?page=1)

Luigi Mangione = Evil
Daniel Penny = Good

Is that clear enough for the appallingly immoral leftist extremists we're seeing?

@64 killing a person for being loud and vaguely threatening on a subway train is good, killing a person for presiding over the use of an AI algorithm to deny necessary care to, and thereby sentence to death, hundreds of thousands of people is bad. And "leftist extremists" are the ones who are "appallingly immoral."

@65

obscenity's
in the juandiced
eyeball of its beholder
beholden to a belief in the
Infallibility of an extractive narrative

@64 Luigi Mangione, aka The Adjuster, is the hero modern America needs. Vigilantes who bring justice to the elites are good. Vigilantes who unnecessarily kill minorities are evil. Not that I'd expect someone with an avatar of an evil elite would understand.

'the
Adjuster.'

damn.
it's gonna
sell out Screens
from Here to Eternity.

the
Rich better
either hurry up and
Ban all Movies or Buy Up
all the pitchforks and torches

how much Time
do you Figure
they Have?

@68 Good one!

@65: “… killing a person for being loud and vaguely threatening on a subway train…”

Let’s check that one with the actual court case, shall we?

‘…Penny’s defense team said the chokehold was justified, pointing to other passengers on the train—including ones who testified for the government—who believed their lives were in danger.

‘Lawyers for Penny argued that Neely died not of a chokehold, but because of a combination of the struggle, drug use and a medical condition involving blocked blood vessels. They showed jurors video footage of subway passengers who said that they were afraid of Neely. “He was unbelievably off the charts,” said a passenger in a video. “He scared the living daylights out of me.” ‘

(https://www.wsj.com/us-news/daniel-penny-acquitted-jordan-neely-subway-trial-232d500f)

What a bunch of pussies. Anyone entering the NYC Subway should damned well EXPECT a crazy drug-addled guy to scream death threats into their faces. Anyone who can’t take a bullet just for stepping outside their front door in the morning doesn’t DESERVE to live in New York!

Glad to see the Slog commenter brain trust agrees.

@71: Do tell us all about how a cold-blooded killing on the streets of New York has improved your experience of the healthcare insurance system. Because the message you're sending here, so far at least, is not exactly, "my insurance helps me to obtain adequate mental health care."