#us #healthInsurance #corporations #healthsystem
LUIGI MANGIONE
Illustration: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design
A polarized US is united in contempt for health system.
#corporations
#us #prisons #corporations
Crime pays for prison management corporations.
THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PRISONS
Turning the management of prisons over to For Profit Corporations.
This is already in practice in many states.
- For-profit prison management, also known as private prison management, is when a third party is contracted by a government agency to imprison people. Private prison companies are paid by the government to manage correctional facilities, and they profit by charging more than the cost of running the facility.
- The Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General found in 2016, privately operated criminal detention facilities do not maintain the same levels of safety and security for people in the Federal criminal justice system or for correctional staff.
- Who owns most of the corporate prisons in America CoreCivic Inc. The world's largest private prison company. It owns and operates prisons and jails, including immigration jails and “community corrections” centers, and uses forced prison labor. It also provides e-carceration technologies, transportation, and other services as part of the criminal punishment system.
- CoreCivic manages more than 65 state and federal correctional and detention facilities with a capacity of more than 90,000 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The company's revenue in 2012 exceeded $1.7 billion. By 2015, its contracts with federal correctional and detention authorities generated up to 51% of its revenues. It operated 22 federal facilities with the capacity for 25,851 prisoners By 2016, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) along with GEO Group were running "more than 170 prisons and detention centers". CCA's revenues in 2015 were $1.79bn.
robots=corporations...
#threelawsofrobotics #isaacasimov #robots #corporations #corporatemotherfuckers
https://x.com/ResisttheMS/status/1826988171164577959
my commentary on the fake indian Pocahantas #Warren's comments.
during the #covid #plannedemic shutdowns (which YOU supported, Lizzy),
big #corporations (which donate to YOUR re-election)
with no #competition (due to YOUR heavy #taxes and #regulations which cut out the little guy from competition)
raised prices because they could (because YOU've been asleep at the antitrust wheel), as well as raising prices because you shut down all the supply lines, moved our manufacturing overseas, and now America can't even make a pair of socks, let alone bacon.
How'd we end up with these #megacorps besides through YOU turning a blind eye to their excesses because they donated to your campaign? yes: some of us can still #followthemoney. #Google, #Facebook, #Amazon, #UofC are YOUR donors - not Jim's Grocery or a small gas station. YOU say you're against #BigCorp - but you really just want to pick the winning BigCorp.
Now you want to swoop in with your government power and tell the BigCorp donors that didn't donate to your campaign how much they can charge ALL the time, instead of just in a freak plannedemic that you caused?
no.
MORE government is NEVER the answer. LESS government is ALWAYS the answer.
#LessGovernment #LessLizWarren #LessDemocrats #LessTaxes #Less
‘Massive #disinformation campaign’ is slowing global #transition to #green #energy
UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies
Fossil fuel companies are running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they “transition away” from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said.
Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.
“There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.”
He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas.
Elon #Musk declares “it is #war” on ad #industry as #X sues over “illegal #boycott”
#ElonMusk's X Corp. today sued the World Federation of #Advertisers and several large #corporations, claiming they "conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in #advertising revenue" from the #social #network formerly known as #Twitter.
Elon is a brilliant #mastermind because he can stop advertising without an #AdBlocker. :D
#justice #usa #economy #conspiracy #problem #advertisement #law #news #finance
Not-Vaxx Never Mandatory
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that #California’s attempt to #mandate the #Covid-19 shots was #illegal and that Jacobson v. Massachusetts did not apply because the #not-vaxx is not a #vaccine and the state could not claim a legitimate state interest in #forcing #medical #treatments that do not provide immunity.
#HealthFreedomDefenseFund et. al have won a significant #victory in the #NinthCircuit, which reversed dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (“LAUSD”) #mandatory #vaccination policy for all employees.
Reversing the decision of the Central District of California in #LosAngeles, the Ninth Circuit majority held that, first, the case was not mooted by #LAUSD’s rescission of the mandate after oral argument last September, 2023. The majority called out LAUSD’s gamesmanship for what it was – a bald-faced attempt at avoiding an adverse ruling by trying to create an issue of mootness. On the merits, the majority ruled that the district court had misapplied the #SupremeCourt’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts when it dismissed LAUSD’s lawsuit on grounds that the mandate was rationally related to a legitimate state interest. In Jacobson, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a smallpox vaccination mandate because it related to “preventing the spread” of smallpox.
The majority, however, noted that #HFDF had alleged in the lawsuit that the #COVID #jabs are not “traditional” vaccines because they do not prevent the spread of COVID-19 but only purport to mitigate COVID symptoms in the recipient. This, HFDF had alleged in its complaint, makes the COVID jab a medical treatment, not a vaccine.
The court recognized that mitigating symptoms rather than preventing the spread of disease “distinguishes Jacobson, thus presenting a different government interest.” Based on this reasoning, the majority disapproved the trial court’s contention that, even if the jabs do not prevent the spread, “Jacobson still dictates that the vaccine mandate is subject to, and survives, the rational basis test.”
The court held that “[t]his misapplies Jacobson,” which “did not involve a claim in which the compelled vaccine was ‘designed to reduce symptoms in the infected vaccine recipient rather than to prevent transmission and infection.”’ Jacobson does not, the majority concluded, extend to “forced medical treatment” for the benefit of the recipient.
The court declined to give any deference to pronouncements by the #CDC that the “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.” As the court asked rhetorically, “safe and effective” for what? The majority pointed to HFDF’s allegation that CDC had changed the definition of “vaccine” in September 2021, striking the word “immunity” from that definition. The court also noted HFDF’s citations to CDC statements that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, and that natural immunity is superior to the vaccines.
In a separate concurrence, Judge Collins wrote that the district court “further erred by failing to realize that [HFDF’s] allegations directly implicate a distinct and more recent line of Supreme Court authority” for the proposition that “a competent person has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment[.]” Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Washington v. Glucksberg, Judge Collins noted that the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment is “entirely consistent with this Nation’s history and constitutional traditions,” and that HFDF’s allegations in this case “are sufficient to invoke that fundamental right.”
It’s important to note, since this will not be the last attempt to at #global #depopulation, that most of the pragmatic appeals to getting #vaxxed have turned out to have been based on #false assumptions and #illegal actions by #corporations and various levels of #government.
Many #American #Conservatives might like to critique the #UK as being too #Socialist, many of those critiques may be valid, however, the #USA is not a #Capitalist economic system any more than the UK is, with the #GDP of both nations being comprised of around 40% #government spending.
The USA has been for decades a mixed Capitalist/Socialist economic system. What's most sad about both the UK and #US is that the kind of #Socialism being deployed is actually #corporate Socialism, wherein #taxes are forcibly redistributed to #corporations and the most wealthy. The worst aspects of both systems.
#corporatesocialism #redistribution #angloamerican #economics
#World’s biggest economies pumping billions into fossil fuels in #PoorNations | #FossilFuels | The Guardian
#GreenhouseGases #Environment #Pollution #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange #Corporations
Just 57 #companies linked to 80% of #GreenhouseGas #emissions since #2016 | #GreenhouseGasEmissions | The Guardian
#Environment #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange #FossilFuels #Corporations
#Idiocracy - 02/03 is the date it takes place
The plot follows U.S. Army #librarian Joe Bauers, who wakes up five hundred years in the future after a botched government #hibernation experiment to find himself in a #dystopian #society run by #corporations, where #evolution has made #humanity #stupid because the benefits of #technology made it unnecessary for people to be #intelligent
and physically fit to survive
KPMG Corporate Anthem
The anthem that KPMG doesn't want you to hear
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/02/macedoine/#the-public-option
They first came on my radar in 2001 when they sent a legal threat to a blogger for linking to their website without permission
The actual link was to KPMG's corporate anthem, which remains, to this day, a banger
KPMG's Corporate Anthem
https://web.archive.org/web/20040428063826/http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/uknewsita/http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/kpmg.mp3
The time is now to lead the way,
We share the same the idea
That may win by the end of the day.
Our strength is here to stay.
Identity, one energy,
One strategy, with sympathy.
These are the words that will lead us into a new world.
Notice the link is to a page on the Wayback Machine.
more about KPMG from Cory's blog
They're the architects of Microsoft's tax-evasion plot:
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougherAnd they were behind Canada's dysfunctional covid contact-tracing app, which never worked, but generated tens of millions in billings to the government of Canada, who used KPMG to hire programmers at $1,500/day, plus KPMG's 30% commission:
KPMG's most bizarre scandal is literally stranger than fiction. The company bribed SEC personnel help its own accountants cheat on ethics exams. The corrupt officials were then given high-paid jobs at KPMG:
https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819But all of that is just scene-setting (and a gratuitous plug for my book) for the latest KPMG scandal, which is, possibly, the most KPMG scandal of all KPMG scandals. The Australian government hired KPMG to audit Paladin, a security contractor that oversees the asylum seekers the country locks up on one of its island gulags (yes, gulags, plural).\
\
Ever since, Paladin has been the subject of a string of ghastly human rights scandals – the worst stuff imaginable, rape and torture and murder of adults and children. Paladin made AU423 million on this contract.\
\
And here's the scandal: KPMG audited the wrong company. The Paladin that the Australia government paid KPMG to audit was based in Singapore. The Paladin that KPMG audited was a totally different company, based in Papua New Guinea, who already had a commercial relationship with KPMG. It was this colossal fuckup that led to the manifestly unfit Singaporean company getting nearly half a billion dollars in public funds:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/24/incredible-failure-kpmg-rejects-claims-it-assessed-the-wrong-company-before-423m-payment-to-paladin
#kpmg #cory #doctorow #cory-doctorow #corporate-anthem #corporation #corporations #scandal #paladin #canada #australia #singapore #bezzle #corruption #dishonesty #scum-bags #brunchlords #gulags #australian-gulags
Fun exercise...
The next time you hear someone use the phrase "climate change", feel free to ask: "do you mean the ascertainable 'ecocide' perpetrated by a handful of money-grubbing, psychopathic corporate entities and state actors, who are preying on the planet's demise and the extinction of its inhabitants for purposes of power and profit while denying its very existence and shifting the burden and blame onto the end user / consumer / victims? That 'climate change?'"
Just wanna make sure we're operationally defining our terms here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecocide
#ecocide #climatechange #corporations #profit #ecology #nature
https://www.commondreams.org/news/social-security-fiscal-commission-2666942470
Protect #SocialSecurity by Dumping #GOP 'Death Panel,' Say 116 House Dems
BRETT WILKINS
Jan 12, 2024
..."While House #Republicans claim the purpose of the proposed #fiscal commission is to control the $34 trillion national debt, #Democrats have expressed skepticism regarding their true intentions, noting that GOP lawmakers have dramatically increased the debt via tax cuts for #corporations and rich #Americans in recent years.
In November, House Republicans proposed cuts to Internal Revenue Service funding that would slash federal revenue by $27 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A 2023 analysis by the Center for American Progress found that tax cuts approved during the George W. Bush and Trump administration have added $10 trillion to the national debt this century.
Social Security, meanwhile, does not add to the long-term federal deficit because the program is required by law to pay benefits from an internal trust fund and is prohibited from borrowing.
"Republicans are not serious about the deficit. They are not even serious about governing. They are serious about only one thing, and that is ripping away Social Security from seniors behind closed doors," said Schakowsky. "A so-called fiscal commission would fast-track cuts to vital benefits Americans rely on."
"Social Security benefits are already modest—only about $21,384 a year, yet Republicans want to put these hard-earned benefits at risk," she added. "We must expand Social Security benefits, not cut them."
...
"Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate should make it clear that a commission is a poison pill, something they will never accept under any circumstances," Altman continued. "Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits. They should never be negotiating chips."
"Instead of a closed door commission, the House should hold an up or down vote on the Social Security 2100 Act," she added. "This legislation increases Social Security's modest benefits and ensures the expanded benefits can be paid in full and on time for decades to come."...
Wealth over fairness: Shocking report unveils #tax favoritism for the #rich in 41 #US #states
According to the #report, in 41 out of 50 states, the wealthiest 1 percent are subjected to lower tax rates compared to other #income groups.
Ruth Milka -January 10, 2024
..."The report contextualizes the current tax systems against the backdrop of recent trends in various states. Notably, several states have embarked on tax-cutting sprees, significantly reducing rates for #corporations and the #wealthy. This trend comes at a time when reports indicate that ultra-rich #Americans hold an estimated $8.5 trillion in untaxed assets.
In contrast to the prevailing trend, six states – California, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont – along with the District of Columbia, have implemented progressive tax systems. For instance, Massachusetts’ introduction of a millionaires tax led to a substantial improvement in the state’s ranking on ITEP’s Tax Inequality Index. Similarly, Minnesota has enhanced its tax policies for high earners while providing benefits for lower-income families.
Florida stands out as having the most regressive tax code in the U.S., with the wealthiest 1% paying a tax rate of only 2.7 percent, in stark contrast to the 13.2 percent rate for the poorest 20 percent. The lack of personal income taxes in Florida and similar states leads to a heavier reliance on regressive consumption and property taxes.
Recent years have seen a trend towards more regressive tax systems in many states. Kentucky, for example, has moved toward a flat tax system, resulting in significant tax cuts for higher-income families, offset by increased sales and excise taxes on a range of services and goods.
Some states are showing that tax regressivity can be addressed. New Mexico and Massachusetts have made notable progress through reforms to refundable credits and increased taxation of top earners. These efforts demonstrate the potential for policy changes to create more equitable tax systems.
The ITEP report sheds light on the pervasive issue of tax inequality across the United States. With 41 states taxing their wealthiest citizens at lower rates than other income groups, the study calls into question the fairness and effectiveness of current state tax policies. As ITEP’s Aidan Davis puts it, “The regressive state tax laws we see today are a policy choice, and it’s clear there are better choices available to lawmakers.” This conclusion underscores the need for a reevaluation of tax systems in favor of a more equitable approach."...
Seems rather like the point I see being made quite a bit "here", there, and everywhere...
#Corporations #CorporateRule #Oligarchy vs #Democracy #Justice #SCOTUS #TheSystem #wealth
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GgJktO5mb_c
#WAR #CRIMES OF THE BIG BULLIES #CORPORATIONS
Max Blumenthal (TheGrayZone) : #How #dangerous is the Netanyahu government for #Israel?
The #Monsanto Tribunal took place in 2016-2017 in The Hague. Five judges delivered a legal opinion and concluded that Monsanto’s (now, #Bayer) activities have a negative impact on #basic human-rights. Better regulations are needed to protect the victims of multinational #corporations. International law should be improved for better protection of the #environment and include the crime of ecocide. The entire process is documented in a brochure and a documentary titled "The Monsanto International Tribunal, the Making of".
Monsanto Tribunal
