And another day of focusing, takeaways, seeking pardons, the Proud Boys developing plans, mental health deserts in TX, oppressive medical debt in US, abusing people with disabilities, and “thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege” comes to a close:
"Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American Democracy." — Judge Michael Luttig
“As we continue to watch videos of the violence on January 6th, we cannot forget that Republicans in Congress have called the insurrectionists "peaceful patriots" and claimed it was a "normal tourist visit."” — Robert Reich
Deaths
US: 1,037,928 (+264)
World: 6,338,021 (+1429)
Cases
US: 87,861,132 (+101,952)
World: 543,091,611 (+588,008)
Panel sharpens focus on Trump’s ‘crazy’ Jan. 6 plan. Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat came into ever-clearer focus Thursday, with testimony describing his pressuring Vice President Mike Pence in vulgar private taunts and public entreaties to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the run-up to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
8 takeaways from the January 6 hearings day 3. There were many revelations, but the perhaps most important one: Trump was told repeatedly that his plan for Pence to overturn the election on January 6 was illegal, but he tried to do it anyway.
“What's really heartbreaking is that even after all of this evidence and all we now know to be true. The MAGA sycophants and Congressional sycophants still defend this monstrous man and his big lie.” -- Sophia A. Nelson
Jan. 6 committee plans to ask Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Thomas, to testify. The leaders of the House Jan. 6 committee say they plan to invite Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to speak to the committee in the wake of reporting by the Washington Post that the committee has evidence of Thomas communicating with lawyer John Eastman…It's unclear if the committee will first ask for a voluntary appearance or a closed door deposition, or send a subpoena.
Key Trump lawyer sought presidential pardon after effort to overturn election failed. Days after he mounted a failed attempt to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, attorney John Eastman asked Rudy Giuliani to help him get on Donald Trump’s list for a presidential pardon, according to an email revealed by the Jan. 6 select committee on Thursday. “I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works,” Eastman wrote to Giuliani in the email...In court filings, the select committee disclosed emails between Jacob and Eastman amid the violence, with Eastman continuing to urge him to disregard the Electoral Count Act’s limitations and postpone the session. Jacob repeatedly rebuffed him, adding, “Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.”
Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC. The document, titled “1776 Returns”, laid out the plans for which buildings to target, the number of members required for each building, and tactics, including instructions to use the pandemic as an excuse for wearing masks and face shields without raising suspicion.
Trump called his vice president a “wimp” for failing to do his coup. The committee detailed how Trump adviser John Eastman, a conservative lawyer, convinced the president that vice presidents have the power to adjudicate the legitimacy of electoral votes and to control the counting process. This is false, and Pence and his advisers consistently told Trump so, the committee found.
Florida is the only state that hasn’t ordered Covid vaccines for kids under 5. The federal government started taking orders from states two weeks ago for 10 million doses. The Florida Department of Health said the state was choosing not to order vaccines from the federal government and instead leaving it to individual doctors to request vaccines directly.
Uvalde was a mental health desert before a school shooting prompted Texas to respond with resources. Residents in Uvalde and other rural Texas towns “might as well be living on the other side of the moon” when it comes to mental health access, said Steve Bain, interim dean of the College of Education and Human Performance at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and a counseling professor. Wait times for services can be months, even for suicidal patients, said Bain, whose research focuses on rural mental health…Experts fear a powder keg in rural Texas, where residents are lucky to have more than one stoplight, let alone an army of therapists and intervention specialists waiting to intervene in a crisis. Where the state’s gun restrictions for people with legal indicators of severe mental illness ring hollow without ways to identify those people to begin with.
Sick and struggling to pay, 100 million people in the U.S. live with medical debt. The investigation reveals a problem that, despite new attention from the White House and Congress, is far more pervasive than previously reported. That is because much of the debt that patients accrue is hidden as credit card balances, loans from family, or payment plans to hospitals and other medical providers…The picture is bleak. In the past five years, more than half of U.S. adults report they've gone into debt because of medical or dental bills, the KFF poll found. A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000. And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don't expect to ever pay it off. "Debt is no longer just a bug in our system. It is one of the main products.”…"We have a health care system almost perfectly designed to create debt." The burden is forcing families to cut spending on food and other essentials. Millions are being driven from their homes or into bankruptcy, the poll found…The debt is also deepening racial disparities. And it is preventing Americans from saving for retirement, investing in their children's educations, or laying the traditional building blocks for a secure future, such as borrowing for college or buying a home…Perhaps most perversely, medical debt is blocking patients from care. About 1 in 7 people with debt said they've been denied access to a hospital, doctor, or other provider because of unpaid bills, according to the poll. An even greater share ― about two-thirds ― have put off care they or a family member need because of cost…Patient debt is piling up despite the landmark 2010 Affordable Care Act. The law expanded insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans. Yet it also ushered in years of robust profits for the medical industry, which has steadily raised prices over the past decade…Now, a highly lucrative industry is capitalizing on patients' inability to pay. Hospitals and other medical providers are pushing millions into credit cards and other loans. These stick patients with high interest rates while generating profits for the lenders that top 29%, according to research firm IBISWorld…America's debt crisis is driven by a simple reality: Half of U.S. adults don't have the cash to cover an unexpected $500 health care bill, according to the KFF poll. As a result, many simply don't pay. The flood of unpaid bills has made medical debt the most common form of debt on consumer credit records. — Such bullshit. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.
The Private Equity Giant KKR Bought Hundreds Of Homes For People With Disabilities. Some Vulnerable Residents Suffered Abuse And Neglect. Over five decades, the private equity giant KKR became famous — or infamous, depending on the observer — for a particular playbook. It acquired iconic companies such as RJR Nabisco, Duracell, and Toys R Us, loaded them up with debt, and sold them off. In 2019, KKR took on a responsibility that was very different from selling cookies or batteries: caring for thousands of people with severe intellectual or developmental disabilities, some of whom cannot speak, wash, or feed themselves. With its $1.3 billion purchase of BrightSpring Health Services, one of the nation’s largest group home operators, KKR became the owner of more than 600 residential facilities serving people from California to West Virginia. Many residents have no family to look out for them. Almost all need round-the-clock care. They all depend on the company to keep them safe…Reporters combed through hundreds of state inspection reports, internal company records, photographs, and videos, and conducted more than 170 interviews with regulators, clients’ families, and current and former workers. Again and again, they found residents consigned to live in squalor, denied basic medical care, or all but abandoned…Internal company emails show that managers had been repeatedly warned that nurses in Orange County, California, were quitting because they feared that working amid such conditions might cost them their licenses…Residents were sitting in soiled clothes for hours on end, nurses were stretched too thin to keep them safe, and staff didn’t know how to properly care for them, according to the nurses’ accounts described in the emails. A nurse said clients could die…Five times, inspectors showed up at homes in Texas and found no staff at all…After KKR took over BrightSpring, the state of West Virginia, where the company dominated the market, issued more than a dozen dire warnings of severe neglect and egregious abuse. Two of them concerned a particular resident in the Chafin Group Home in Huntington named Lisa Smith. The story of what happened to her — and how the company handled the warnings about her care — encompasses almost all the ways that residents have suffered in the company’s troubled homes…Now, after owning BrightSpring for just three years, KKR is carrying out the next step in its playbook. Last October, the company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its intention to go public. The documents paint a rosy picture of BrightSpring’s financial status and its “essential” role in American healthcare. The company called its public offering a chance to tap into a “$1.5 trillion market opportunity” and said that, as the pandemic raged and businesses suffered in 2020, BrightSpring managed to increase revenue by nearly 25%. As part of its pitch to investors, the company boasted that it now operates in all 50 states and serves 330,000 people every day. BrightSpring promised that it was able to “deliver optimal patient outcomes in lower-cost settings and help people live their best lives.” — Viewing vulnerable people as disposable to make money. Fucking assholes.
The West just experienced an aspect of the climate crisis that scientists have warned of for years. In the middle of a prolonged, water shortage-inducing megadrought, one area, Yellowstone, was overwhelmed by drenching rainfall and rapid snowmelt that -- instead of replenishing the ground over a matter of weeks or months -- created a torrent of flash flooding that ripped out roads and bridges and caused severe damage to one of the country's most cherished national parks. In the meantime, drought conditions persisted in the Southwest, where water is desperately needed to replenish the country's largest reservoirs, and provide relief to regions tormented by record-setting wildfires.
Four summers from now, 48 countries will vie for the 2026 World Cup as the tournament is staged in cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico. FIFA, soccer's international governing body, announced these will be the host cities for 2026:
RIP Everett Peck. He was 71.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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