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When is Trump going to do an unscripted press conference for an hour or two with members of mainstream media to answer their questions and show he understands issues and isn’t cognitively impaired? That hasn’t happened in four years.
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 9, 2024
J6 fugitive Charles Bausman wants Mike Flynn and Ivan Raiklin’s plan to do extrajudicial raids and executions on Flynn’s enemies to be implemented — so he can “come home!” https://t.co/Sa67GoiVNJ pic.twitter.com/AqjK5SWFlA
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) July 9, 2024
The Lincoln Project reposted
You might not have time to read PROJECT 2025-the 900+ page document tRUMP claimed "I know nothing about" while adding "I wish them luck". But surely you have 4 minutes to watch a preview of the apocalyptic horrors to come if he gets a 2nd term.
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) July 9, 2024
WATCH THIS & SPREAD THE WORD!!! https://t.co/YzYnzov5rL
The News Literacy Project reposted
A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election. New investigation with @mwendling @Shayan86 @PaulMyersBBC https://t.co/jAgBozdzJC
— Olga Robinson (@O_Rob1nson) July 3, 2024
If there's one thing to understand with Russia, unless there's true consequences to their terrible actions, you can be sure they'll do it again and again, and get worse and worse.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) July 8, 2024
Updated and broader.
— Michelle Kosinski (@MichLKosinski) July 8, 2024
Countries that have rejected the far right in their last elections affecting leadership (it's growing):
France
UK
Finland
Spain
Portugal
Poland
Estonia
Czechia
Brazil
Colombia
Austria
Chile
Slovenia
Australia
US
Iceland
Canada
Performative is what I thought about it too.
Stop with this performative bullshit. This will never become law and even if passed would be tossed by the courts. We aren’t Republicans, don’t try and distract us from things that matter with fake shiny objects. https://t.co/LUgYp8iazF
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 9, 2024
I would fully suspect recovering from an overdosing of dementia and other drugs for his lie night. Criminal demented trump will never be able to cognitively "debate" ever. All he can do is what he did, and he's having a harder and harder time to even do that. We know that everything criminal trump says is nothing but projection and lies and the way trump and his party screaming about President Biden taking enhancement drugs that the facts would definite be that trump would be the one who was taking more medication for the event. Trump is the one who is suffering from advancing dementia, it is why a small army of medical professionals have made that point about trump, and why criminal trump and his party are trying really hard to project trumps problems upon President Biden.
Yes, old age has its issues, and both men are about the same age (three years difference when about 80 is the same age) and old. The severity of all the mental, physical, and emotional problems of trump and how far trump is in his stage of dementia is overwhelmingly 100 times greater than that of simple old age moments of President Biden who is working overtime for America and it's place in the world. President Biden came from that full time work before the debate and immediately went back to full time work for the people, meeting with people, and running the country. Criminal trump slithered away to nurse his hangover, burnt out, and degraded further into his dementia while other republicans lied for him and continue to work against the health and welfare of American people in everything they do and say.
Overdosing medications just at the right time for a one off event has its issues and consequences on top of trump will be having and already has had his medication increased as his dementia gets further and further along. But none of the medications are a cure, and the deterioration of his dementia will exponentially get worse, and it will be harder and harder to hide it no matter how much the criminal trump and his republicans lie or project or how much dementia drugs trump takes.
If trump is speaking, he is projecting and/or lying, ALWAYS. The more they hide him away, the more they will have to hide him. Untruth posts and tweets can be faked, personal appearances not so much. The more projection the magas do, the worse he is getting. Count on it.
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Profits in the 10 of billions minus expenses from fines and political contributions is still profit in the billions.
"Medicare Advantage" Insurers Pocketed $50 Billion From Medicare for Diseases No Doctor Treated
Questionable diagnoses of HIV and other maladies "which are anatomically impossible" triggered extra fraudulent Medicare Advantage payments supported by Republican politicians trying to break Medicare
https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d
Gloria Lee was perplexed when the phone calls started coming in from a representative of her Medicare insurer. Could a nurse stop by her Boston home to give her a quick checkup? It was a helpful perk. No cost. In fact, she’d get a $50 gift card.
After several such calls in 2022, Lee agreed. A nurse showed up, checked her over, asked her questions, then diagnosed her with diabetic cataracts.
The finding was good news for Lee’s insurer, a unit of UnitedHealth Group.
Medicare pays insurers more for sicker patients. In the case of someone like Lee with diabetic cataracts, up to about $2,700 more a year at that time.
But the retired accountant doesn’t have diabetes, her own doctor later said, let alone the cloudy vision sometimes caused by the disease.
Private insurers involved in the government’s Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer-funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including outright wrong ones like Lee’s, a Wall Street Journal analysis of billions of Medicare records found.
The questionable diagnoses included some for potentially deadly illnesses, such as AIDS, for which patients received no subsequent care, and for conditions people couldn’t possibly have, the analysis showed. Often, neither the patients nor their doctors had any idea.
Medicare Advantage, the $450-billion-a-year system in which private insurers oversee Medicare benefits, grew out of the idea that the private sector could provide healthcare more economically. It has swelled over the last two decades to cover more than half of the 67 million seniors and disabled people on Medicare.
Instead of saving taxpayers money, Medicare Advantage has added tens of billions of dollars in costs, researchers and some government officials have said. One reason is that Medicare Advantage insurers can add diagnoses to ones that patients’ own doctors submit. Medicare gave insurers that option so they could catch conditions that doctors neglected to record. The Journal’s analysis, however, found many diagnoses were added for which patients received no treatment, or that contradicted their doctors’ views.
The insurers make new diagnoses after reviewing medical charts, sometimes using artificial intelligence, and sending nurses to visit patients in their homes. They pay doctors for access to patient records, and reward patients who agree to home visits with gift cards and other financial benefits.
Insurers added diabetic cataract diagnoses to 148 patients treated by Dr. Howard Chen, an ophthalmologist in Goodyear, Ariz. He said he saw at most one or two such cases a year.
He said he charges insurers $40 per patient to cover his costs for providing them with medical charts.
“If they are just making stuff up, then why do they even need or want my charts?” said Chen.
In all, Medicare paid insurers about $50 billion for diagnoses added just by insurers in the three years ending in 2021, the Journal’s analysis showed.
The government pays insurers a base rate for each Medicare Advantage member. The insurers are entitled to extra money when their patients are diagnosed with certain conditions that are costly to treat.
Like morbid obesity.
That gives insurers an incentive to search for additional diagnoses. The result is that many of their patients seem sicker, at least on paper.
Medicare pays nothing for some diagnoses. But insurers can add ones that do pay, even if a patient's treating doctor doesn't agree.
Diabetic cataracts are a complication of diabetes that occur when uncontrolled blood sugar damages the lens of the eye, clouding a person’s vision.
UnitedHealth members were about 15 times as likely to have that diagnosis as the average patient in traditional Medicare, the Journal analysis found. Eye doctors interviewed by the Journal said it was implausible that such a large share of UnitedHealth’s patients could have the relatively rare disease.
The government paid all Medicare Advantage insurers more than $700 million from 2019 to 2021 for diabetic cataracts. Most of the diagnoses were added by insurers.
Medicare Advantage insurers diagnosed all sorts of diseases at high rates.
UnitedHealth and other insurers say they use the home visits and chart reviews to help coordinate patients’ care and ensure accurate diagnoses.
UnitedHealth spokesman Matthew Wiggin said the Journal’s analysis is “inaccurate and biased,” and that Medicare Advantage “provides better health outcomes and more affordable healthcare for millions of seniors” than traditional Medicare.
He said Medicare Advantage plans record diagnoses more completely than doctors treating traditional Medicare patients, and that insurers “identify disease states earlier.” He declined to comment about Lee, citing a healthcare privacy law.
The Journal consulted more than a dozen experts, including academics, actuaries and policy analysts, about its analysis of the Medicare data, who said the methodology was sound.
A spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Medicare, said the agency was making changes that would continue to ensure “taxpayer dollars are appropriately spent.” Medicare Advantage “offers robust and stable options” for beneficiaries, the spokeswoman said.
The Journal reviewed the Medicare data under a research agreement with the federal government. The data doesn’t include patients’ names, but covers details of doctor visits, hospital stays, prescriptions and other care. The Journal identified the patients named in this article through their doctors.
Some diagnoses claimed by insurers were demonstrably false, the Journal found, because the conditions already had been cured. More than 66,000 Medicare Advantage patients were diagnosed with diabetic cataracts even though they already had gotten cataract surgery, which replaces the damaged lens of an eye with a plastic insert.
“It’s anatomically impossible,” said Dr. Hogan Knox, an eye specialist at University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Once a lens is removed, the cataract never comes back.”
Another 36,000 diabetic cataract patients didn’t receive any medical services or prescription drugs related to diabetes.
No treatment
About 18,000 Medicare Advantage recipients had insurer-driven diagnoses of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but weren’t receiving treatment for the virus from doctors, between 2018 and 2021, the data showed. Each HIV diagnosis generates about $3,000 a year in added payments to insurers.
Everyone with HIV should be on antiretroviral drugs, the only effective treatment, and nearly all Medicare patients whose doctors diagnosed the virus took the drugs. Less than 17% of patients with insurer-driven HIV diagnoses were on them, the Journal found.
“It seems like almost all of those people don’t have HIV,” said Jennifer Kates, HIV policy director at KFF, a health-research nonprofit. “If they did, that would be substandard care at a pretty severe level,” she said.
Treatment Gap
Patients diagnosed with various conditions by Medicare Advantage insurers received typical treatments for their conditions at lower rates than those diagnosed by doctors.
A spokesman for Humana, the second biggest Medicare Advantage insurer, provided a written statement that said the Journal’s analysis of treatment rates for people with insurer-driven diagnoses “is flawed and misleading.”
The company said that internal data showed its HIV patients who got diagnosed in one way, through home visits, were on antiretroviral treatment at a far higher rate than the Journal found. The Medicare data show about one-third of those Humana patients were on the drugs.
Wiggin, the UnitedHealth spokesman, called the Journal’s analysis flawed because it correlates insurer-driven diagnoses with subsequent medical care.
He said internal company data for 2022 showed a treatment rate for patients UnitedHealth diagnosed with HIV of more than triple what the Journal found. He said the pandemic disrupted care, lowering treatment rates during the period analyzed by the Journal, and that the analysis failed to account for patients who started treatments in future years.
The Medicare data, however, show UnitedHealth’s patients with insurer-driven HIV diagnoses were on the antiretrovirals at low rates even before the pandemic, and hardly any started the drugs in the years after UnitedHealth diagnosed them.
UnitedHealth’s HIV Treatment Rate
The insurer diagnosed 1,285 patients with HIV in 2018. Most stayed in Medicare Advantage through 2021, but few received recommended HIV treatments.
2018 patients still in Medicare Advantage
1,285
1,285
1,233
1,167
2018 patients on antiretroviral drugs
168
139
129
129
2018
2019
2020
2021
Some of the insurer-driven diagnoses startled patients. Harriet Siskin, a retired customer-service worker, was diagnosed last year with obstructed arteries in her legs by a doctor who visited her house on behalf of her insurer, Humana, which stood to make an extra roughly $2,300 a year from the diagnosis.
“He told me that I may have some sort of artery blockage,” said Siskin, who tested negative a few months later after her regular doctor ordered a full work-up. “He did scare me.”
Humana’s written statement said Siskin’s primary-care doctor also submitted the diagnosis when he treated her following the home visit. It said Humana learned from the Journal that Siskin had later tested negative for the disease, and was working to correct the diagnosis.
“[W]e strive for complete and accurate clinical information about our members, and to help them get the care they need,” Humana said.
Many patients may never know they have been misdiagnosed by their insurers, and doctors often don’t know when insurers have added diagnoses of their patients.
Insurer-driven diagnoses by UnitedHealth for diseases that no doctor treated generated $8.7 billion in 2021 payments to the company, the Journal’s analysis showed. UnitedHealth’s net income that year was about $17 billion.
Sick Pay
Number of members (millions)
Average insurer-driven diagnosis payments per member varied widely among the five biggest Medicare Advantage insurers in 2021.
2.5
1.0
0
500
1,000
$1,500
0.1
Each dot is an insurer
Elevance
Health
$527
CVS/Aetna
UnitedHealth
$941
$1,434
Humana
$573
Kaiser
Permanente
UnitedHealth added diagnoses at a far higher rate than other major insurers.
$131
Average Payment per Medicare Advantage member
Note: Limited to insurers with 10,000 or more members.
UnitedHealth’s Wiggin said the Journal’s calculations appear accurate. He said the added payments are “not simply earnings for the company,” but help pay for medical care, lower premiums and provide other benefits for Medicare Advantage members.
Humana disputed the Journal’s calculation that the company had received $2.2 billion in 2021 payments from insurer-driven diagnoses, saying that total didn’t reflect chart reviews that lowered payments by removing diagnoses.
Sometimes, insurers didn’t remove potentially outdated diagnoses. The Journal’s analysis found that between 2018 and 2021, nearly 50,000 Medicare Advantage patients completed a course of high-cost drugs that almost always cures hepatitis C, a virus that can cause serious liver damage.
Insurers subsequently told Medicare that more than half of the patients who had received the drug treatment still had hepatitis C in a future year, leading to millions of dollars in extra payments. The diagnoses came from the insurers’ chart reviews and assessments, and from physician claims that insurers didn’t correct.
“They’re totally wrong,” said Douglas Dieterich, director of the Institute for Liver Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “Real world evidence is a 99% cure rate.”
Cost concerns
When Congress conceived of the Medicare Advantage program decades ago, the hope was that insurers would make Medicare more efficient. In traditional Medicare, doctors and hospitals get paid for each service they provide, an incentive to provide more. The idea behind Medicare Advantage was to pay private insurers a lump sum to cover all services, giving them an incentive to keep patients healthier.
Harriet Siskin was diagnosed with obstructed arteries in her legs by a doctor who visited her house on behalf of her insurer. Photo: Rebecca Noble for The Wall Street Journal
To protect insurers from the risk of winding up with sicker-than-average patients, the government allowed bigger payments for certain serious health conditions.
Partly because of that, Medicare Advantage has cost the government an extra $591 billion over the past 18 years, compared with what Medicare would have cost without the help of the private plans, according to a March report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, or MedPAC, a nonpartisan agency that advises Congress. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to $4,300 per U.S. tax filer.
Academic researchers and government investigators have raised questions about high rates of insurer-driven diagnoses in Medicare Advantage. In a 2021 report, the inspector general that oversees Medicare found the agency spent billions of dollars based on insurer-driven diagnoses for which patients received no care from doctors.
A 2019 whistleblower lawsuit by a Florida doctor alleged that an insurer submitted inaccurate diagnoses, including that a Medicare Advantage patient’s foot had been amputated when it wasn’t. The insurer, Freedom Health, denied the allegations, and a spokeswoman for Elevance Health, which now owns Freedom, declined to comment.
In September, insurer Cigna Group agreed to pay $172 million to settle civil-fraud allegations by the Justice Department over its Medicare Advantage practices. Cigna admitted to adding diagnoses that weren’t supported by patients’ medical records. Cigna declined to comment.
Government contractors audit Medicare Advantage plans and eventually can recoup payouts for inaccurate diagnoses. An insurance industry trade group, AHIP, said in a written statement that such audits have found Medicare Advantage insurers to be highly accurate.
Medicare administrators are overhauling the list of diseases for which insurers earn higher payments. Some of the most heavily used diagnoses, including diabetic cataracts, will pay less or nothing extra after the changes take full effect in 2026. But new diagnoses, including asthma, were added to the list of conditions warranting extra payments.
CMS said its changes showed it is a “good steward of taxpayer dollars.”
John Gorman, a former Medicare official and founder of two companies that review records and conduct home visits on behalf of Medicare insurers, doesn’t think the changes will solve the problem. “Any time you base a system like this on diagnosis codes, there’s going to be rampant abuse of the system,” he said. Insurers “will find something else to make up the revenue.”
In 2019, Medicare added dementia to the list of diseases that pay more. That same year, the reported rate of the disease among Medicare Advantage members jumped 7.8% after holding flat for years before that, University of Southern California researchers found.
Vision problems
Cataracts are extremely common in the elderly—pretty much everyone gets them. Diabetes also is common, so it isn’t unusual for old people to have both. But eye doctors say they rarely diagnose cataracts caused by diabetes in old people. It usually isn’t possible to pinpoint the cause, and in any case, the treatment is the same.
For Medicare Advantage insurers, a big difference between the two forms of cataracts is that the government only pays extra for the diabetic ones.
Siskin pointing to results of test ordered by a specialist who concluded that she didn’t have peripheral artery disease. Photo: Rebecca Noble for The Wall Street Journal
Some insurers interpreted U.S. guidelines for recording diagnoses in the broadest possible way, labeling patients with diabetes and any kind of cataract with the more lucrative diagnosis. They did it even when doctors said the patients only had the old-age form of the disease or had no diabetic complications at all, the data show.
“If you suspected that it could be connected, they felt they would be justified in connecting it,” said Shannon Decker, a former UnitedHealth employee. “It’s an easy capture.”
UnitedHealth didn’t respond to written questions about its practices for recording diabetic cataract cases.
Over four years, insurers added diabetic-cataract diagnoses to 112 patients of Dr. Stephen McConnell, an ophthalmologist in Brunswick, Ga., the data show. “That’s unbelievable,” said McConnell, who said he had no idea what was happening until informed by the Journal.
Dr. Javier Pérez, an Orlando, Fla.-based eye surgeon, treated hundreds of patients who insurers claimed have diabetic cataracts, the Medicare data show. On average, they were the same age as his old-age cataract patients, about 72.
“Just because you’re diabetic doesn’t mean you have a diabetic cataract,” he said, adding that most almost certainly have old-age cataracts, not ones caused by diabetes. “You can be diabetic and be old,” he said.
Lee, the 70-year-old retired accountant from Boston, recalled that her visit with the nurse practitioner sent by UnitedHealth lasted about 20 minutes. The nurse worked for HouseCalls, a unit of UnitedHealth.
UnitedHealth said that in 2023 three million “gaps in care” were identified during such home visits, which typically last 45 to 60 minutes. It said HouseCalls workers called ambulances 624 times that year after identifying emergencies, and that the visits had a 99% customer-satisfaction rate.
Former employees said UnitedHealth also uses the visits to add diagnoses. A HouseCalls home-visit training manual, which was reviewed by the Journal, describes software used on the laptops that workers carry on home visits. According to the manual, the software offers suggestions about what illness a patient might have—and even adds some automatically to a “diagnosis cart.”
The nurse visiting Lee concluded that her minor cataracts were caused by diabetes that was severe enough to have triggered nerve damage, according to a letter from HouseCalls to her primary care doctor that was reviewed by the Journal. A diabetes test done during the visit was negative, according to the letter.
Lee’s doctor, Nancy Keating, also a professor at Harvard Medical School, said her patient has never had diabetes, let alone complications like diabetic cataracts or nerve damage—a conclusion confirmed by subsequent blood tests.
“It’s all just so wrong,” Keating said.
Lee agrees. “If they’re going to come out and diagnose people with things they don’t have, they shouldn’t get any more money,” she said.
Lee switched to another health plan this year.
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After Russian intelligence launched one of the most devastating cyber attacks in history against U.S. government agencies, the Biden administration set up a new board to figure out what happened – and tell the public.
— ProPublica (@propublica) July 8, 2024
But the board never did. 🧵
3/ 3/ A full, public accounting of the attack would have revealed what ProPublica recently discovered: that Microsoft had long known about – but refused to address – a flaw used in the hack, experts and officials said.https://t.co/AhJrKAYCgg
— ProPublica (@propublica) July 8, 2024
5/ Read the full story from @CraigSilverman here:https://t.co/lGIk7Xfj0G
— ProPublica (@propublica) July 8, 2024
Another criminal traitor trump appointed judge scandal coming.
A Fed'l judge in Alaska who was appointed by Trump has resigned in a 2 sentence letter to President Biden, effective Monday, amid unconfirmed rumors of some type of scandal. The speed/method of resignation is unusual, though. https://t.co/tm839Qwa1B
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 5, 2024
1) Regardless of whether it's a family law Court, or the Supreme Court, the judicial system repeatedly demonstrates that it is ill-equipped to deal with Cluster B Personality-Disordered people.
...and....
2) The majority and dissenting opinions/positions seem to boil down to whether they are afraid of what a Trump-like (Cluster B) person will do AS PRESIDENT without any guardrails on his behavior (Dissenting justices' opinion).....
....or whether they're afraid of what a Trump-like person will do TO FUTURE FORMER PRESIDENTS.... ("I am your retribution").
The former is the position of the minority/dissent, and the latter is the position of the majority.
The former/dissent is essentially protecting the country from Trump.
The latter is essentially protecting the presidency (those who previously held the office) from Trump.
Obviously, the motivations of some of the Justices are questionable, at best, and may not fit neatly or nobly into this analysis, but the result of either judicial position creates vulnerability.
The bottom line is that once again it is evident that the constitution is not capable of protecting the country from someone as pathological as Trump.
As I wrap my head around the Supreme Court's immunity decision.....a couple of things seem to stand out.https://t.co/boe9v6DByK
— Nick Carmody JD, MS Psych (@Nick_Carmody) July 4, 2024
1) Regardless of whether it's a family law Court, or the Supreme Court, the judicial system repeatedly demonstrates that it is ill-equipped to deal… pic.twitter.com/AhjWmIeZJP
Michelle Obama only Democrat to beat Trump in new poll
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753294-michelle-obama-donald-trump-joe-biden-democrat-2024-hypothetical-matchup-survey/
by Lauren Sforza - 07/03/24 8:15 AM ET
Former first lady Michelle Obama is the only Democrat to beat former President Trump in a new poll Tuesday.
The survey, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found Obama was the only Democrat with a lead on Trump in a hypothetical match-up, garnering 50 percent support to his 39 percent. Only 4 percent of respondents said they would not vote at all.
Meanwhile, the poll found, President Biden and Trump are neck and neck in a head-to-head match-up. They each received 40 percent of the vote, while 8 percent said they would vote for someone else, and another 8 percent said they would not vote.
Obama was the top choice among Democrats to replace Biden on the 2024 ticket, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released in February. Despite her popularity, the former first lady has repeatedly said she will not be pursuing a bid for the White House. ................................................
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US elections 2024
Biden and Harris vow to ‘keep fighting’ in surprise appearance on campaign call – live
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris reiterate to Democratic National Committee staffers that they are in the 2024 race together, the Associated Press reports
White House denies Biden is weighing his candidacy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/jul/03/biden-debate-democrats-kamala-harris-election-updates
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Israel turbocharges West Bank settlement expansion with largest land grab in decades
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-07-03-2024-033deab379a16efdf9989de8d6eaf0f8?taid=6685324f30fb670001894c1a
By JULIA FRANKEL
Updated 9:32 AM MDT, July 3, 2024
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, a settlement tracking group said Wednesday, a move that is likely to worsen already soaring tensions linked to the war in Gaza.
Israel’s aggressive expansion in the West Bank reflects the settler community’s strong influence in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most religious and nationalist in the country’s history. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, has turbocharged the policy of expansion, seizing new authorities over settlement development and saying he aims to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state...................
The Shallow State
@OurShallowState
Good morning. Many who follow this account know that a frequent mantra is that a certain amount of anxiety and impatience is unavoidable as human nature, but we should try not to get addicted to it, try not to have it impede our enjoyment of life, and above all, try not to let it overcome focus and perspective.
This very moment in time is awkward for the Left. But here's what I see that I find encouraging: Everybody is agreed that the #1 priority is Trump not getting near the WH again. Everybody is primed. Everybody is eager to move past the pending political awkwardness of the moment. I would surmise- that for the first time since I've tweeted about anxiety and impatience (I always keep them together), at this very moment, impatience is more prevalent than anxiety. Because we're ready to go.
Things will play quickly - this is the time to realize that "the now" is unusually awkward, but "the soon" is coming. Buckle up. Stay together. Keep the focus and perspective. We will do this.
7:47 AM · Jul 3, 2024
·
5,652 Views
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Might as well just get out the old Ouija board while waiting for the 200 day and week to catch up to NVDA so it can drop below it, or not. lol
Corrections don't start until stocks, like $NVDA, or indexes, like $SPY or $QQQ, break their 200-day SMA. $NVDA is currently 70% ABOVE its 200-day SMA. It would take a 41% drop from today's close just to TOUCH the 200-day SMA, which would just be a pullback.
— David Settle, CMT (@davidsettle42) July 2, 2024
Bear Markets don't… https://t.co/dCoYs1MyKx pic.twitter.com/OmOaoSHj8w
OMG! Bette Midler just released this video about the Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/8HQcuQs5yU
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 2, 2024
I’ll tell you something else the no condom thing. Stormy made that same point https://t.co/2lmFHytv0D
— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆🌴🥥🇺🇸 (@RachelBitecofer) July 2, 2024
Breaking News!
— Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) July 2, 2024
Code UFB!!!
June, 2024, marked the 13th consecutive month with record breaking global surface temperatures and the 12th consecutive month at or above 1.5°C.
The 365-day running mean remains at a record 1.64°C. pic.twitter.com/lF1NknIguz
Happening Now: President Biden delivers remarks on protecting workers and communities from extreme weather. https://t.co/NdzokLYroE
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 2, 2024
Jack Hopkins
@thejackhopkins
Just since 1980 over 61,000 United States servicemen and women have died while serving their country and defending the U.S. Constitution.
117,000 plus died during WWI. Over 400,000 lost their lives during WWII. Over 58,000 during Vietnam. In the Korean War we lost over 36,000.
Families from coast to coast…for over a hundred years (in the mentioned wars alone) have had their lives shattered and their world turned upside down, when their loved one was cut down or blown to pieces in the prime of their lives.
6 members of the United States Supreme Court, vigorously coughed, dredging up the most vile, sticky, green tinged crud from their lungs they could muster, and then, with a smug look of contempt and superiority….blasted it past their teeth and through pursed lips…and into the face of every living and past Gold Star family member…and any human being who has ever been fortunate enough to call themselves a citizen of the United States of America.
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Here are additional cuts Republicans are proposing under The 2025 Project produced by The Heritage Foundation:
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) July 2, 2024
-Ending disability compensation for veterans
-Ending enrollment in VA medical care for some veterans
-Placing a 10 year limit on disability claims for veterans pic.twitter.com/quXhf8cfDA
Kentucky evangelical pastor, Zachary King, has been arrested for the rape of a child who attended his church. pic.twitter.com/5yjeWF42zp
— 𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 (@antifaoperative) July 2, 2024
2/ “Rod Martin … is a co-founder … of the Conservative Baptist Network, two-term member of the executive committee of the Florida Baptist Convention State Board of Missions, and a former officer of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest… pic.twitter.com/iwH93x8nFB
— jennycohn@toad.social ✍🏻 📢 (@jennycohn1) June 29, 2024
— jennycohn@toad.social ✍🏻 📢 (@jennycohn1) June 29, 2024
6/ Rod Martin is also close with Trump/Heritage alum William Wolfe who says the SBC has no sex abuse crisis… https://t.co/vJIX9UIRnP
— jennycohn@toad.social ✍🏻 📢 (@jennycohn1) June 29, 2024
Florida sheriff’s office detention deputy, Trevor Willis, has been arrested for watching & sharing videos of children being sexually abused while on duty & bestiality. pic.twitter.com/WAip9ID1Jb
— 𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 (@antifaoperative) July 1, 2024
Welcome to Idaho, where 13 year olds are forced to deliver their rapists baby, but not allowed to go to the library.
— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻 (@LongTimeHistory) July 2, 2024
Many libraries announced they will be an "adults-only" library because of the new law. Children are only allowed to enter the library if their parents or… pic.twitter.com/KzShH6Smrw
I wrote *three* whole ass books warning folks about this!https://t.co/fFKGlbBBdm https://t.co/TT3LIZefe5
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 2, 2024
March 1933 The Enabling Act becomes law in Germany, giving the chief executive power enforce his own laws without checks and balances. The passing of the Act marked the formal transition from democratic republic to totalitarian dictatorship. 6 months later, it was a 1 party state pic.twitter.com/bkB3HplZrT
— Vince Mpls (@vincempls) July 1, 2024
Biden: "This nation is founded on the principle that there are no kings in America .. no one is above the law, not even the President of the US ... [but] for all practical purposes, today's decision almost certainly means that there are almost no limits on what POTUS can do" pic.twitter.com/E87H9OXln1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2024
Ketanji Brown Jackson pens fiery dissent in abortion ruling: ‘Facilitating suffering of people’
‘We cannot simply wind back the clock’, the supreme court justice said of her colleagues’ 6-3 decision to dismiss suit
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/27/ketanji-brown-jackson-dissent-idaho-abortion-ban
Carter Sherman
Thu 27 Jun 2024 16.59 EDT
Last modified on Thu 27 Jun 2024 17.57 EDT
In a searing dissent Thursday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson slammed her fellow justices’ decision to dismiss the case over whether a state can ban abortions to protect women’s health, pointing out that the dismissal will drag out the case – and potentially endanger Americans.
“Will this court just have a do-over, rehearing and rehashing the same arguments we are considering now, just at a comparatively more convenient point in time?” Jackson asked in a dissent read from the bench, a move justices tend to only make when they feel particularly fired up.
“Or maybe we will keep punting on this issue altogether, allowing chaos to reign wherever lower courts enable states to flagrantly undercut federal law, facilitating the suffering of people in need of urgent medical treatment.”.........................................
................“We cannot simply wind back the clock to how things were before the court injected itself into this matter. Our intervention has already distorted this litigation process,” Jackson said in her dissent. “We permitted Idaho’s law to go into effect by staying the district court’s injunction in the first place, then allowed this matter to sit on our merits docket for five months while we considered the question presented.”.........
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The @NYTimesOpEd desk has still not answered my inquiry about the particular timing of their #lableak op-ed on the day of Dr. Fauci's hearing.
— Philipp Markolin, PhD (@PhilippMarkolin) June 27, 2024
In it, they platform an activist pushing pseudoscience (with flashy NYT graphics support) to legitimize outlandish GOP attacks on him. https://t.co/KKrVkQVZn2
Legitimizing the bad faith actions & agenda's of the right by laundering them through purportedly left-leaning sources and outlets has long been a game for activists who reject an evidence-based worldview in the name of power
— Philipp Markolin, PhD (@PhilippMarkolin) June 27, 2024
NYT op-ed pages have been one of their biggest allies
Hey @RonFilipkowski please get your organization to publicize. There is so much background info on David Stringer here you'll have trouble condensing it.
— TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) June 25, 2024
Trump has the dementia, wears the diapers, is also old, has major mental, emotional, and physical problems, and total lack of any cognitive abilities or leadership qualities. Trump is a criminal, crime lord, rapist, traitor, insurrectionist, money launderer, and seller of our national secrets and friend to our foreign adversaries. Increased the debt twice as much as Biden, robs from the poor and gives to the rich, and will cause massive inflation that we haven't experienced in current times if he gets re-elected and controls the most do nothing congress in American history. Not to mention his mass murdering spree with viruses and climate crisis war.
But President Biden gets the blame.
Massive journalism malpractice⤵️ https://t.co/NIeKrFxopN pic.twitter.com/KUlijod5uq
— Jennifer Schulze (@NewsJennifer) June 24, 2024
Trump ran up national debt twice as much as Biden: new analysis
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/24/trump-biden-debt-deficits-election
Former President Trump ran up the national debt by about twice as much as President Biden, according to a new analysis of their fiscal track records.
Why it matters: The winner of November's election faces a gloomy fiscal outlook, with rapidly rising debt levels at a time when interest rates are already high and demographic pressure on retirement programs is rising.
Both candidates bear a share of the responsibility, as each added trillions to that tally while in office.
But Trump's contribution was significantly higher, according to the fiscal watchdogs at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, thanks to both tax cuts and spending deals struck in his four years in the White House.........................................................
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You put Red Ants and Black Ants in a jar nothing happens. But, shake the jar, they start killing each other.
— jonathan Slater (@slater_paul) June 21, 2024
Let’s make sure we pay attention to who is shaking the jar. That’s the enemy pic.twitter.com/xhRGliS5bq
Another great analysis from Dr. Jack Brown;
Thread
1 of 21/ Body Language and Behavior Analysis No. 4752: Jim Jordan responds to Jamie Raskin re Jordan's ignoring his Subpoena from January 6th Committee – Nonverbal and #EmotionalIntelligence #BodyLanguageExpert #BodyLanguage #NonverbalCommunication #BehaviorAnalysis pic.twitter.com/jrpyXM1JHr
— DrJackBrown 🌊 (@DrGJackBrown) June 19, 2024
Republicans, with control of congress, plans for upcoming election.
New pod: @Mike_Podhorzer makes a highly persuasive case that SCOTUS's delay of Trump's 1/6 trial has *already* pushed the country into a crisis of sorts. His description of the court's corruption/what it has wrought is brutal, essential realism.
— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) June 20, 2024
Listen:https://t.co/FI7xvb1ZtE
Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative who served as an adviser to Donald Trump, was secretly recorded at Mar-a-Lago spilling the beans on the former president’s strategy to challenge the results of the 2024 election should he lose again. https://t.co/PGWfQ6QEX5
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 19, 2024
I should point out the event Roger was speaking at was hosted by Mike Flynn’s christofascist “Catholics for Catholics” club which did a different event that portrayed Flynn as “Archangel Michael.”
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) June 19, 2024
In Flynn’s speech he said: “Separation of church and state. Total nonsense.” https://t.co/Y9G2tIkIDO pic.twitter.com/Oj6tcKx6Kp
On January 6th, when a normal Constitutional process to mark the peaceful transition of power is supposed to happen, instead we will have: #tEhStorm
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) December 31, 2020
This will be @GenFlynn, a pile of Proud Boys, neo-nazis, Q cultists and assorted fascists parked outside the Capitol.
2/
Trump will be tweeting his diapers off the entire time validating every batshit wingnut that Flynn drags out.
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) December 31, 2020
MyFascist (tm) @realMikeLindell will be there to sell shitty overpriced hotel pillows and hallucinate his own political future.
4/
Tucker and Chanel and the rest of them will call for the INSURRECTION ACT to “quash the Antifa violence”.
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) December 31, 2020
Trump will try it. McConnell might even close the Senate down to prevent the vote.
6/
At some point, I’m afraid, people will die. All of the Nashville types will be in DC ready to plow *right* into the dead end at the drop of a tweet.
— Jim Stewartson, Counterinsurgent 🇺🇸🇺🇦💙🎈 (@jimstewartson) December 31, 2020
Here’s what they will say “WE ARE #tEhStorm” 😩
I really hope I’m wrong about this, but they are already on the way.
Suit up.
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As long as criminal trump denies or ignores that he's a loser, he's a "winner" in his mind. Good thread by Dr Carmody as always.
1&2 of 7;
At the 45:00 minute mark, they begin to talk about shame....and how that shapes Trump's binary orientation around winning and losing. This was the result of Trump's early childhood experiences from his pathological father:
— Nick Carmody JD, MS Psych (@Nick_Carmody) June 18, 2024
2/https://t.co/NES976e5xT pic.twitter.com/Mw0WHrWEKq
Trump arrives in WI today, and again waves to nobody. pic.twitter.com/Bv4dDt7xCS
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 18, 2024
MAGA: Stop the cartels from bringing drugs into America!
— TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) June 18, 2024
Ronny Jackson:
pic.twitter.com/4eUrCyFNcG
MAGA: Stop the cartels from bringing drugs into America!
— TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) June 18, 2024
Matt Gaetz:
pic.twitter.com/iQ3WjaurGY
Great new search tool for 527's.
Incredible new tool just released! Easily Search the Finances of 527 Political Organizations With ProPublica’s New Database https://t.co/e1bCBv4GtU
— Charles Ornstein (@charlesornstein) June 18, 2024
Great new search tool for 527's.
Incredible new tool just released! Easily Search the Finances of 527 Political Organizations With ProPublica’s New Database https://t.co/e1bCBv4GtU
— Charles Ornstein (@charlesornstein) June 18, 2024