Medical Insurance Executives Now Hiding Their Faces In Fear

Brian Thompson reportedly had a salary of $10 million per year, and $20 million in United Health Care stock. His net worth was $43 million.

He was CEO during the COVID-19 crisis, at a time when UHC was denying 1/3rd of claims.

Not celebrating his murder, just making a point. pic.twitter.com/3zNDxtjB6P

— Dr. Andrew Saturn (@badspaceguy) December 4, 2024

newsmax  |  Health insurance companies removed executive leadership names from their websites after the assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

Brian Thompson. 50, was murdered Wednesday morning in New York City in a shooting that police called a "brazen, targeted attack."

As of Friday morning, UnitedHealthcare's "About Us" page that listed leadership, including Thompson, redirected to a more general page.

A Google search for the UHC leadership team sends users to the company home page. A search-result link to "Our Leaders" page that lists several names, including Thompson's, sends people to a "Page Not Found." Clicking on Thompson's name also results in that.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, which Thursday announced it will walk back changes that would charge patients for anesthesia during procedures that went longer than estimated, redirects its own leadership page to its "About Us" page, 404 Media reported.

Blue Cross Blue Shield, separate from Anthem BCBS, now redirects its own leadership page to its "About Us" page. Originally, that BCBS page showed leadership, including President and CEO Kim Keck, Executive Vice President and CFO Christina Fisher, and 23 more executives as of earlier this year according to archives of the page.

On social media platform X, user @GASLIGHTER_ spotted that other major insurers including CareSource, Medica, CVS, and Molina also removed info of their leadership teams.

"Nonprofit health insurance organization Caresource took down the individual pages for all of its executive leadership, including President and CEO Erhardt Preitauer, Executive Vice President David Williams, Executive Vice President for Markets and Products Scott Markovich, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Business Sanjoy Musunuri, CFO Larry Smart and COO Fred Schulz. Snippets from each of these pages are still visible on Google search, but the pages themselves return an error that says 'the requested URL was not found on this server,'" 404 Media reported.

"Another nonprofit health plan, Medica, did the same: Medica's executive leadership page redirects to its homepage, and its foundation leadership staff page now returns an error: 'Oops. That page doesn't exist.'

"Elevance Health took down its leadership page, too, replacing it with a message that says 'Sorry, that page is no longer here.' The most recent archive for that page is from last week."

Delay, Deny, Depose...,

cbsnews  |   Bullets that an unidentified gunman used to shoot and kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning had words written on them, CBS News has confirmed.

The words "delay," "deny" and possibly "depose" appeared on shell casings and bullets recovered from the scene of the shooting in New York City, according to New York City Police Department officials. Law enforcement officials said they are examining whether the words relate to a possible motive involving insurance companies and their responses to claims. ABC News first reported this information.

A source briefed on the investigation said each word was meticulously written, not etched, onto the casings in Sharpie. Officials are examining the casings to determine whether the words could be related to a possible motive involving insurance companies and their responses to claims. Investigators believe they could reference "the three D's of insurance" coined by the industry's critics, which are "delay," "deny" and "defend." The alliteration is a comment on the tactics that opponents say insurance companies use to delay or deny policyholders' claims.

Thompson, 50, was shot multiple times before 7 a.m. ET Wednesday, by a masked gunman who fled the area before police arrived. The shooting happened in a busy section of Manhattan outside of the Hilton Midtown hotel, where the executive was set to attend a conference for UnitedHealthcare investors. Thompson had been staying at the Marriott across the street, authorities said.

The NYPD released the first unmasked images Thursday of an individual wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting, asking the public for help identifying that individual. The images were taken from a hostel in the Manhattan Valley area of the Upper West Side. A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told CBS News the man used a fake ID with a fake name to check into the hostel. A person briefed on the investigation said it was a fake New Jersey identification card. The hostel said in a statement to CBS News it was cooperating with the NYPD.

When Big Heads Collide....,

thinkingman  |  Have you ever heard of the Olmecs? They’re the earliest known civilization in Mesoamerica. Not much is known about them, but they have left behind one big thing—a few, actually. Their heads.

‘Olmec’ heads. Screenshot from grahamhancock.com, all photos by Santha Faiia

You may have seen one of the heads as the host of Legends of the Hidden Temple on Nickelodeon as a kid. Hancock and several others have mentioned the similarities between the features on the Olmec colossal heads and people from modern day Polynesia and Africa. The theory on this is that maybe the Olmecs, or the civilization which predated them, was started by seafaring Africans or Polynesians who crossed the ocean and settled in the area well before the other civilizations in Mesoamerica.

When Joe Rogan asked Dibble if he could at least agree that the Olmec heads had features similar to African or Polynesian people, Dibble still denied it. To me this showed us that he was not going to budge or get anywhere close to agreeing on a single thing Hancock had ever claimed.

Listen. I’m not saying that Hancock is 100% correct. Most of the evidence he had to show were megaliths which he claims look manmade. But I agree with his argument that it is possible for an ancient civilization to have existed, especially when he brings up how these megalithic structures seem to be built by a people with astounding knowledge of astronomy—we’ll get to that later.

The fact that Dibble could not even admit there being a possibility that there was a civilization predating anything we know is a testament to what is wrong with the experts today. He did bring some interesting evidence to the debate. His breakdown of how seeds have developed since the Ice Age was something I didn’t know, but I still didn’t think it ruled out Hancock’s theory. He explained that we can trace back exactly when agriculture first started by the evidence of seed development that suggests that humans didn’t start planting until after the Ice Age—which would rule out anything ever coming before then.

Another one of Flint Dibble’s arguments was the insistence of the evidence of hunter gatherers during the ice age. Since there is a bunch of evidence of hunter gatherers from the time period but none of Hancock’s civilization, it was enough for him to say that Hancock’s theory couldn’t possibly be true. But Hancock never said his civilization and hunter-gatherers couldn’t have both occupied the planet—there are hunter gatherer tribes alive today. But why the evidence of hunter gatherers and not Hancock’s civilization? Who knows—maybe they figured out a way to survive with a way of feeding themselves that was lost to time along with the rest of their culture. It’s possible.

The most fascinating thing about the civilization that Hancock discusses is their connection to astronomy. The sites he has discussed seem to have been built in orientations that line up with the solstices and equinoxes (like Serpent Mound in Ohio). Dive deeper and you’ll find theories on the orientation of the pyramids reflecting Orion’s Belt and the sphinx (which is possibly 12,000 years old).

Big Head Update In The News

studyfinds  |  Could another group of ancient humans have lived alongside Homo sapiens? A new study suggests that they did, and scientists are starting to piece together the clues of their forgotten past. A researcher from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa is revealing new insights into a group called the Julurens — meaning the “big head” people.

The new research is revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution, particularly in eastern Asia, where scientists have uncovered a far more intricate picture of our ancient past than previously thought.

For decades, researchers believed human evolution followed a relatively straightforward path. The dominant theories suggested either that humans gradually evolved in place across different regions or that a single group from Africa replaced all other human populations. However, the groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature Communications is turning those simplistic models on their head.

Paleoanthropologists Christopher Bae and Xiujie Wu introduce a potentially revolutionary concept: a new human species called Homo juluensis. This group, which may include the mysterious Denisovans — ancient human relatives known primarily through fragmentary DNA evidence — lived approximately 300,000 years ago, hunting and surviving in small groups across eastern Asia before disappearing around 50,000 years ago.

Moreover, they found that eastern Asia was home to multiple distinct human species during the Late Quaternary period, roughly 50,000 to 300,000 years ago. Instead of a linear progression, the human story looks more like a complex, branching network of different populations (including the Julurens) interacting, mixing, and coexisting.

The team identified four human species that existed during this time: Homo floresiensis, a diminutive human found on the Indonesian island of Flores; Homo luzonensis from the Philippines; Homo longi, discovered in China; and the recently named Homo juluensis, which includes fossils from various sites across eastern Asia.

“We did not expect being able to propose a new hominin (human ancestor) species and then to be able to organize the hominin fossils from Asia into different groups. Ultimately, this should help with science communication,” Bae says in a university release.

 

those big heads though..., (REDUX 4/1/14)

Fast forward to 25 minutes

wikipedia |  Judaism - In ancient Israel, the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) wore a headdress called the Mitznefet (Hebrew: מצנפת, often translated into English as "mitre"), which was wound around the head so as to form a broad, flat-topped turban. Attached to it was the Tzitz (Hebrew: ציץ), a plate of solid gold bearing the inscription "Holiness to YHWH"^[1] (Exodus 39:14, 39:30). Lesser priests wore a smaller, conical turban.

Byzantine empire - The camelaucum (Greek: καμιλαύκιον, kamilaukion), the headdress both the mitre and the Papal tiara stem from, was originally a cap used by officials of the Imperial Byzantine court. "The tiara [from which the mitre originates] probably developed from the Phrygian cap, or frigium, a conical cap worn in the Graeco-Roman world. In the 10th century the tiara was pictured on papal coins."^[2] Other sources claim the tiara developed the other way around, from the mitre. In the late Empire it developed into the closed type of Imperial crown used by Byzantine Emperors (see illustration of Michael III, 842-867).

Worn by a bishop, the mitre is depicted for the first time in two miniatures of the beginning of the eleventh century. The first written mention of it is found in a Bull of Pope Leo IX in the year 1049. By 1150 the use had spread to bishops throughout the West; by the 14th century the tiara was decorated with three crowns.

 

Fuck Robert Kagan And Would He Please Now Just Go Quietly Burn In Hell?

politico | The Washington Post on Friday announced it will no longer endorse presidential candidates, breaking decades of tradition in a move that immediately garnered fierce backlash from both employees and outside critics.

At least one editor has already resigned, and the paper’s legendary former top editor Marty Baron publicly rebuked the move as an act of “cowardice.”

The Post is the second major newspaper this week to punt on a presidential endorsement, following a similar decision by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday at the instruction of its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, that led to the resignation of the editorials editor and multiple staffers.

In a note published to the paper’s website announcing the move, Washington Post publisher Will Lewis called it a “statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds,” writing that it would help the publication focus on “nonpartisan news for all Americans” from the newsroom and “thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.”

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis added. “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way.”

The Post’s newsroom and editorial team erupted in outrage. Robert Kagan, a neoconservative columnist and editor at large at the Post, resigned in response, he confirmed in a statement to POLITICO. A spokesperson for the Post declined to comment on Kagan’s resignation.

David Maraniss, a 46-year veteran reporter at the paper, publicly called the move “contemptible,” writing in a social media post: “Today is the bleakest day of my journalism career.”

And on Friday evening, nine of the paper’s opinion columnists published a scathing dissent of the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake” that “represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 228 years.”

“There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs,” the columnists wrote. “That has never been more true than in the current campaign.”

"Welp, that's certainly a new type of October Surprise,” Ashley Parker, a senior national political correspondent for the Post, wrote on X.

In a statement, the newspaper's union attributed the decision to billionaire owner Jeff Bezos and said the move "undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it."

"The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial," the union wrote. "According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos."

A person close to the decision granted anonymity to discuss it told POLITICO that the decision was made within the Post and did not come from Bezos.

But others were quick to point the finger at Bezos.

Baron, who was executive editor from 2012 until his retirement in 2021, called the move “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” writing on X that Donald Trump “will see this as an invitation to further intimidate” Bezos and others.

“Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage,” Baron wrote.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an X post that the move “is what Oligarchy is about.”

“Jeff Bezos, the 2nd wealthiest person in the world and the owner of the Washington Post, overrides his editorial board and refuses to endorse Kamala,” Sanders wrote. “Clearly, he is afraid of antagonizing Trump and losing Amazon’s federal contracts. Pathetic.”

Lewis’ announcement comes months after the publisher made headlines over bombshell reports alleging that he played a role in a phone hacking scandal while he was an editor at the Sunday Times, an accusation he denies. Lewis had clashed over the scandal with the Post’s then-top editor, Sally Buzbee, who reportedly wanted to cover it.

Facts...

 

One Ring To Rule Them All (My Column from 8/9/24)

 

Why The Techbros Back Trump And Vance Is Their Man In The White House

thebulletin  |  Since the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, scholars have speculated about the technology’s implications for the character, if not nature, of war. The promise of AI on battlefields and in war rooms has beguiled scholars. They characterize AI as “game-changing,” “revolutionary,” and “perilous,” especially given the potential of great power war involving the United States and China or Russia. In the context of great power war, where adversaries have parity of military capabilities, scholars claim that AI is the sine qua non, absolutely required for victory. This assessment is predicated on the presumed implications of AI for the “sensor-to-shooter” timeline, which refers to the interval of time between acquiring and prosecuting a target. By adopting AI, or so the argument goes, militaries can reduce the sensor-to-shooter timeline and maintain lethal overmatch against peer adversaries.

Although understandable, this line of reasoning may be misleading for military modernization, readiness, and operations. While experts caution that militaries are confronting a “eureka” or “Oppenheimer” moment, harkening back to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, this characterization distorts the merits and limits of AI for warfighting. It encourages policymakers and defense officials to follow what can be called a “primrose path of AI-enabled warfare,” which is codified in the US military’s “third offset” strategy. This vision of AI-enabled warfare is fueled by gross prognostications and over-determination of emerging capabilities enhanced with some form of AI, rather than rigorous empirical analysis of its implications across all (tactical, operational, and strategic) levels of war.

The current debate on military AI is largely driven by “tech bros” and other entrepreneurs who stand to profit immensely from militaries’ uptake of AI-enabled capabilities. Despite their influence on the conversation, these tech industry figures have little to no operational experience, meaning they cannot draw from first-hand accounts of combat to further justify arguments that AI is changing the character, if not nature, of war. Rather, they capitalize on their impressive business successes to influence a new model of capability development through opinion pieces in high-profile journals, public addresses at acclaimed security conferences, and presentations at top-tier universities.

To the extent analysts do explore the implications of AI for warfighting, such as during the conflicts in Gaza, Libya, and Ukraine, they highlight limited—and debatable—examples of its use, embellish its impacts, conflate technology with organizational improvements provided by AI, and draw generalizations about future warfare. It is possible that AI-enabled technologies, such as lethal autonomous weapon systems or “killer robots,” will someday dramatically alter war. Yet the current debate for the implications of AI on warfighting discounts critical political, operational, and normative considerations that imply AI may not have the revolutionary impacts that its proponents claim, at least not now. As suggested by Israel and the United States’ use of AI-enabled decision-support systems in Gaza and Ukraine, there is a more reasonable alternative. In addition to enabling cognitive warfare, it is likely that AI will allow militaries to optimize workflows across warfighting functions, particularly intelligence and maneuver. This will enhance situational awareness; provide efficiencies, especially in terms of human resources; and shorten the course-of-action development timeline.

Militaries across the globe are at a moment or strategic inflection point in terms of preparing for future conflict. But this is not for the reasons scholars typically assume. Our research suggests that three related considerations have combined to shape the hype surrounding military AI, informing the primrose path of AI-enabled warfare. First, that primrose path is paved by the emergence of a new military industrial complex that is dependent on commercial service providers. Second, this new defense acquisition process is the cause and effect of a narrative suggesting a global AI arms race, which has encouraged scholars to discount the normative implications of AI-enabled warfare. Finally, while analysts assume that soldiers will trust AI, which is integral to human-machine teaming that facilitates AI-enabled warfare, trust is not guaranteed.

What AI is and isn’t. Automation, autonomy, and AI are often used interchangeably but erroneously. Automation refers to the routinization of tasks performed by machines, such as auto-order of depleted classes of military supplies, but with overall human oversight. Autonomy moderates the degree of human oversight of tasks performed by machines such that humans are on, in, or off the loop. When humans are on the loop, they exercise ultimate control of machines, as is the case for the current class of “conventional” drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper. When humans are in the loop, they pre-delegate certain decisions to machines, which scholars debate in terms of nuclear command and control. When humans are off the loop, they outsource control to machines leading to a new class of “killer robots” that can identify, track, and engage targets on their own. Thus, automation and autonomy are protocol-based functions that largely retain a degree of human oversight, which is often high given humans’ inherent skepticism of machines.

Wonder If Any If These Imbecilic Demon Worshippers Have Second Thoughts...,

 

Adams Didn't Give The Big Guy His 10%

 

Sean Epstein Combs In Big Trubble

nbcnewyork  |   An unsealed federal indictment revealed criminal charges against Sean "Diddy" Combs on Tuesday, a day after the hip-hop mogul was arrested in New York City.

The U.S. Attorney's Office accused Combs of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, among other counts. Read the full indictment below.

24/7 New York news stream: Watch NBC 4 free wherever you are

His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said earlier Monday that they were "disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution," calling the entertainment star "an imperfect person but is not criminal."

The former music executive has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) carried out the arrest in Manhattan on Monday, sources familiar with the matter told NBC New York. Combs was arrested in the lobby of a hotel, a representative told NBC News.

Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.

"To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts," the statement from Agnifilo read. "These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court."

Elites Will Regret Those Mandates For A Long Time To Come....,

BREAKING NEWS: COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics across Canada have been ordered to destroy all vials of Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines!

My urgent message to all who have access:

DO NOT RETURN OR DESTROY any Vaccine vials, they are priceless! Hide them@ABDanielleSmith#ableg pic.twitter.com/WQVt0AaAby

— William Makis MD (@MakisMD) September 6, 2024

 

 

 

Fist tap Dale.

Western Elites Doubling Down On Censorship

NC  |  The goal of the political leadership in the US, the EU, the UK, and other ostensibly liberal democracies is simple: to gain much greater, more granular control over the information being shared on the internet. As Matt Taibbi told Russell Brand in an interview last year, both the EUçs Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Biden Administration’s proposed RESTRICT Act  (which Yves dissected in April, 2023) are essentially a “wish list that has been passed around” by the transatlantic elite “for some time,” including at a 2021 gathering at the Aspen Institute.

The same goes for the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which Kier Starmer would like nothing better than to beef up. Likewise, Canada has introduced sweeping new internet regulation through its Online News Act, which includes, among other things, a link tax, and Online Streaming Act. So, too, has Australia through a censorship bill that is strikingly similar to the EU’s DSA and even includes a punitive fine of up to 2% of global profits for social media companies that do not comply.

It’s not hard to see why. With economic conditions deteriorating rapidly across the West, after decades of rampant financialisation, kakistocracy, and corporatisation, to the extent that even the United Nations is now one giant private-public partnership, the social contract is, to all intents and purposes, worthless. Even the WEF admits that corporations, its main constituency, have turbocharged inequality. Populism is on the rise just about everywhere and angry and fragmented protest movements have been growing since at least 2019.

Thanks largely to the countervailing information still available on the internet, governments are rapidly losing control of the narrative on key issues, including the war in Ukraine and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Their stock response has been to clamp down on the ability of citizens to use the internet to generate, consume and share important news, dissenting views and uncomfortable truths.

 

So This Is Why Kamala's Collard Greens Tasted Like Garnier Fructis And ASS!!!

 

What Happens When You Try To Be Someone That You're Not?

Kamala “code switching” again by using an accent to be more relatable to predominantly black audience

Seriously, how low will she go for votes? pic.twitter.com/4uVNmIVNff

— Myrna 💋💄🍺 𝕏 (@GigaBeers) September 3, 2024

 

Legal Weed Has Destroyed More Lives Than Mandated Jabs

theatlantic  |  strange thing has happened on the path to marijuana legalization. Users across all ages and experience levels are noticing that a drug they once turned to for fun and relaxation now triggers existential dread and paranoia. “The density of the nugs is crazy, they’re so sticky,” a friend from college texted me recently. “I solo’d a joint from the dispensary recently and was tweaking just walking around.” (Translation for the non-pot-savvy: This strain of marijuana is not for amateurs.)

In 2022, the federal government reported that, in samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, average levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC—the psychoactive compound in weed that makes you feel high—had more than tripled compared with 25 years earlier, from 5 to 16 percent. That may understate how strong weed has gotten. Walk into any dispensary in the country, legal or not, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single product advertising such a low THC level. Most strains claim to be at least 20 to 30 percent THC by weight; concentrated weed products designed for vaping can be labeled as up to 90 percent.

For the average weed smoker who wants to take a few hits without getting absolutely blitzed, this is frustrating. For some, it can be dangerous. In the past few years, reports have swelled of people, especially teens, experiencing short- and long-term “marijuana-induced psychosis,” with consequences including hospitalizations for chronic vomiting and auditory hallucinations of talking birds. Multiple studies have drawn a link between heavy use of high-potency marijuana, in particular, and the development of psychological disorders, including schizophrenia, although a causal connection hasn’t been proved.

Read: Marijuana’s health effects are about to get a whole lot clearer

“It’s entirely possible that this new kind of cannabis—very strong, used in these very intensive patterns—could do permanent brain damage to teenagers because that’s when the brain is developing a lot,” Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and a former drug-policy adviser to the Obama administration, told me. Humphreys stressed that the share of people who have isolated psychotic episodes on weed will be “much larger” than the number of people who end up permanently altered. But even a temporary bout of psychosis is pretty bad.

One of the basic premises of the legalization movement is that marijuana, if not harmless, is pretty close to it—arguably much less dangerous than alcohol. But much of the weed being sold today is not the same stuff that people were getting locked up for selling in the 1990s and 2000s. You don’t have to be a War on Drugs apologist to be worried about the consequences of unleashing so much super-high-potency weed into the world.

The high that most adult weed smokers remember from their teenage years is most likely one produced by “mids,” as in, middle-tier weed. In the pre-legalization era, unless you had a connection with access to top-shelf strains such as Purple Haze and Sour Diesel, you probably had to settle for mids (or, one step down, “reggie,” as in regular weed) most of the time. Today, mids are hard to come by.

The simplest explanation for this is that the casual smokers who pine for the mids and reggies of their youth aren’t the industry’s top customers. Serious stoners are. According to research by Jonathan P. Caulkins, a public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon, people who report smoking more than 25 times a month make up about a third of marijuana users but account for about two-thirds of all marijuana consumption. Such regular users tend to develop a high tolerance, and their tastes drive the industry’s cultivation decisions.

The industry is not shy about this fact. In May, I attended the National Cannabis Investment Summit in Washington D.C., where investors used the terms high-quality and potent almost interchangeably. They told me that high THC percentages do well with heavy users—the dedicated wake-and-bakers and the joint-before-bed crowd. “Thirty percent THC is the new 20 percent,” Ryan Cohen, a Michigan-based cultivator, told me. “Our target buyer is the guy who just worked 40 hours a week and wants to get high as fuck on a budget.”

Smaller producers might conceivably carve out a niche catering to those of us who prefer a milder high. But because of the way the legal weed market has developed, they’re struggling just to exist. As states have been left alone to determine what their legal weed markets will look like, limited licensing has emerged as the favored apparatus. That approach has led to legal weed markets becoming dominated by large, well-financed “multistate operators,” in industry jargon.

Across the country, MSOs are buying up licenses, acquiring smaller brands, and lobbying politicians to stick prohibitions on home-growing into their legalization bills. The result is an illusion of endless choice and a difficult climate for the little guy. Minnesota’s 15 medical dispensaries are owned by two MSOs. All 23 of Virginia’s are owned by three different MSOs. Some states have tried to lower barriers to entry, but the big chains still tend to overpower the market. (Notable exceptions are California and Colorado, which have a longer history with legal marijuana licensing, and where the markets are less dominated by mega-chains.) Despite the profusion of stores in some states and the apparent variety of strains on the shelf, most people who walk into a dispensary will choose from a limited number of suppliers that maximize for THC percentage.

The Democratic Party Is The Gold Digger's Ball

 LATimes  |  Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown’s frequent companion.

Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that pays $72,000 a year.

Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown’s girlfriend. In March, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called her “the Speaker’s new steady.” Harris declined to be interviewed Monday and Brown’s spokeswoman did not return phone calls.

Harris accepted the appointment last week after serving six months as Brown’s appointee to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $97,088 a year. After Harris resigned from the unemployment board last week, Brown replaced her with Philip S. Ryan, a lawyer and longtime friend and business associate.

Last week, Brown also appointed Janet Gotch, wife of retiring Assemblyman Mike Gotch of San Diego, to the $95,000-a-year Integrated Waste Management Board, which oversees garbage disposal in California.

“It’s politics as usual,” said Robert M. Stern, co-director of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. “Governors have done this in the past. This is a tradition the Speaker is carrying on. There are always outcries. People say it is wrong, and when they get in power they do the same thing.”

Brown is making the appointments at a time when his 14-year hold on the speakership is tenuous at best. The Assembly will reconvene Monday with Republicans holding 41 seats to the Democrats’ 39, making it likely the GOP will oust Democrat Brown as Speaker and replace him with a Republican.

“It’s safe to say that these are not appointments we would necessarily make,” said Phil Perry, spokesman for Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte, the front-runner to replace Brown as Speaker.

Assembly Republicans were muted in their criticism of Brown--perhaps because Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) acknowledged Monday that he hired Faye Hill, wife of imprisoned former state Sen. Frank Hill, as a $60,000-a-year aide.

Hill, a longtime lawmaker from Whittier, resigned from the Senate earlier this year after being convicted of taking a $2,500 payoff from an undercover FBI agent.

Morrow hired Faye Hill in October and said she will work in his San Juan Capistrano office as well as in his offices in Oceanside and Sacramento.

“We haven’t been keeping it a secret,” Morrow said, adding that he has received “nothing but complimentary” comments about her work. Morrow called her “amply qualified,” but also said he “can’t divorce the fact that” she gained much of her experience in politics as a result of her marriage to Hill.

The Brown appointments of Harris and Ryan fill vacant slots once held by other Brown appointees, whose terms have not expired.

Harris’ term on the medical board continues until Jan. 1, 1998.

Salary for the California Medical Assistance Commission is tied to legislators’ pay. A government commission earlier this year voted to grant legislators a 37% pay increase, from the current $52,500 a year, to $72,000, effective when the new Legislature takes office Monday.

Trump's New Allies On Bioweapons Research Outside The Reach Of U.S. Law?

Trump's newest allies have something very specific in common.

Tulsi and RFK Jr. are the two most prominent US politicians to discuss the US-funded biolabs in Ukraine.

They have been extremely vocal about this subject, and Trump just brought them both onto his team. 👀

Perhaps… pic.twitter.com/xAxNT62iDk

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) August 26, 2024

anti-spiegel  |  The Russian Defense Ministry has again released a statement on the US biological weapons programs, reporting on the US attempts to better conceal the programs and relocate them from Ukraine to Moldova and Romania.

I have been covering the Russian Defense Ministry's publications on the Pentagon's bioweapons programs in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian military operation, and translating all Russian statements on the subject. For the average reader, this may be very dry and uninteresting reading, but for experts, this is important information, which is why I take the trouble to translate it all.

Even if the German media ignore these Russian statements or try to ridicule them as crazy conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda, they are being followed very closely by international (mostly non-Western) experts.

Here I translate the new statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the slides are taken from the original. After the translation you will find a chronology of the publications.

Start of translation:

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation continues to analyze the activities of the United States and Ukraine in connection with violations of international treaties prohibiting chemical and biological weapons.

We have repeatedly noted that Washington has a significant interest in obtaining biomaterials from citizens of Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has already published information confirming the large-scale collection and transportation of biomaterials. Before the start of the military operation, the United States and its allies managed to remove at least 16,000 biosamples from Ukraine. Within the framework of the UP-8 project alone, blood samples were taken from 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Dangerous pathogens and their vectors were exported, more than 10,000 samples.

The biological material was transported directly, without the involvement of shell companies and intermediaries. Human blood and tissue samples were sent from the Ukrainian Public Health Center to Western research laboratories with links to the Pentagon. They were then used for military biological research, including the selection of biological agents dangerous to the population of a particular region.

According to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic populations.

According to available information, the United States has begun to actively involve Moldova and Romania in logistical plans for the transportation of biomaterials, using organizations under its control.

This tactic helps to obscure the ultimate recipient and divert suspicion from U.S. authorities and the U.S. biological warfare program.

Note the movement pattern of the biomaterial. It has been established that the export of dangerous goods to Moldova from the Ukrainian side is carried out through the company "Biopartners", which is a subsidiary of an American company of the same name.

The company Q2 Solution, a subsidiary of one of the Pentagon's largest suppliers, is also involved in the logistics processes. We have information confirming the implementation of contracts by this company under the US Department of Defense Threat Reduction (DITRA) programs worth more than $22 million.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the escort of biological cargoes coming from Ukraine is carried out by the logistics companies Gamma Logistics and AeroTransCargo, controlled by Moldovan President Maia Sandu, as well as by medical institutions in Chisinau and Western intermediary organizations.

In the period from August 2022 to May 2024, more than 2,000 transportations of biomaterial samples were officially carried out through the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

Get Up In The Morning Slaving For Breakfast, Ohhh..., Ohhh...,