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Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare. Apparently there had been threats, and those threats were related to denial of care. Even the Feds thought he was denying too much care (which takes some work, since denying care is the industry profit model.)

He had been chief executive since 2021, during a time in which the parent company and his division were rattled by federal investigations, even as it enjoyed profitable growth. The division has been criticized by congressional lawmakers and federal regulators who accused it of systematically denying authorization for health care procedures and treatments.

How much longer can the Australian Government hide from the horrific atrocities that continue in Gaza? Dr. Al Bursh, Director of the Ministry of Health has reported new weapons ‘that cause people to vaporise’ are being used by the IDF in Northern Gaza. He said residential blocks were targeted by the IDF killing entire families. Continue reading »

Israeli leaders insist that all the people of Gaza are Hamas. In the same breath, Prime Minister Netanyahu boasts that victory in his war depends on the complete annihilation of Hamas, by which he presumably means a whole people? Finance Minister Smotrich claims to halve Gaza’s population within two years, calls for permanent military occupation Continue reading »

In a series of baby but not blindfolded steps, our Government is making Australia ready for war. The latest of these appeared in the small print of a memorandum on 27 November. Most Australians weren’t watching when a long-awaited inquiry into how our armed forces are sent to war reported in March 2023. It had Continue reading »

New research shows just how deeply private equity firms have infiltrated our immigration detention system.

A more robust analysis by the commission might have yielded different priorities or recommendations for childcare. The Productivity Commission’s report, A Path to Universal Early Childhood Education and Care, presents detailed information and a range of studies supporting universal early childhood education and care (ECEC). However, there are significant issues with its analytical framework and recommendations, Continue reading »

Having befriended and worked closely with many Asylum Seekers for the pasts 14 years I have no hesitation in highlighting a key problem with the recent Migration Bill changes. It is the uncritical assumption that the refugee status determination process is professional and fair and sensitive to changing realities. That assumption is simply not true. Continue reading »

Come the election (whenever) the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will unite in warning voters against the perils of a hung parliament. Only Labor or the Coalition can form government, we will be told. We should choose one or the other.  It is a message at least a third of Australia’s voters Continue reading »

The dramatic ‘rebel’ advance into Aleppo dominates the headlines. In history rather than headlines, however, the importance of current events shrinks into relativity, as the ‘West’ and its regional allies have been tearing apart, or trying to tear apart, Syria for more than a century. This is what the journalist and historian Patrick Seale called Continue reading »

“No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend’s were. Each Continue reading »

Hannah Byrne joined Facebook to combat far-right extremism. She’s now convinced the tech giant can’t be trusted with such power.

The post She Joined Facebook to Fight Terror. Now She’s Convinced We Need to Fight Facebook. appeared first on The Intercept.

Compared to whom? Gen Zers have grown up amidst endless economic and political crises — fallout from September 11, the financial collapse of 2008, the Great Recession, the Covid-9 pandemic, January 6, etc. — that led to a grimmer view of their futures. Axios reports that their struggles have pushed them right while setting impossibly high expectations for financial security: Catch up quick: Financial services company Empower surveyed more than 2,200 Americans in September and the Gen Z respondents — born between 1997 and 2012 — said they would need to make more than $587,000 a year to be “financially successful.” That’s three to six times the amount reported by other age groups surveyed, and almost nine times the average U.S. salary tracked by the Social Security Administration. So what’s going on here? Costs are certainly up, especially housing costs. People living with their parents into their late 20s or needing rommates just to get by certainly influences one’s sense of economic stability. But the statement above about “influencers” stands out.

The recent fall of Aleppo to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham highlights a troubling truth: Washington and Tel Aviv’s shadowy support for extremist groups continues.

The post How the US and Israel Quietly Revived Al-Qaeda Allies in Syria’s Idlib Offensive appeared first on MintPress News.

Guardian Media Group journalists are right to resist plans to sell the Observer newspaper to James Harding's Tortoise Media, argues Mic Wright

A Trumpist feature, not a bug It is no secret by now that patriarchy will not go quietly, as Digby noted on Tuesday, calling it “the oldest organizing principle in human history.” There are some very deep forces at work in our changing world, many of which refuse to change. Vigorously. People I’ve called rump royalists never bought into the Declaration’s flowery prose about people being “created equal.” It’s surprising that more don’t do spit-takes at its very mention. They would just as soon see the return of feudalism if they could craft a more consumer-friendly version consistent with global consumer capitalism. (They’re working on it.) Misogyny, promimently on display in Trump 2.0 cabinet picks, is one facet of that patriarchal organizing principle. Consistent with both is the elevation to the cabinet of what Greg Sargent dubs “a Murderer’s Row of Billionaires.” By one count, there are eight among Trump’s picks so far. Sargent discusses the takeover of the White House by the ultra-wealthy with Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Steven Moffat teases new and rarely seen sides of the Doctor in the BBC and Disney+'s Doctor Who Christmas Special, "Joy to the World."

The Prime Minister is blocking reform after the House of Commons voted in favour of a more representative voting system