nv-alexander

[nv-alexander]

Oh come the fuck on

[nv-alexander]

"I’m very concerned about my client’s right to a fair trial in this case.  He’s being prejudiced by some statements that are being made by government officials. Like every other defendant, he’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. But unfortunately the way this has been handled so far his rights are being violated. And as you know your honor there’s a wealth of case law guaranteeing his rights to a fair trial, but none of the safeguards have been put in place yet here — in fact it’s just the opposite of what’s been happening. 

He’s a young man, and he is being treated like a human pingpong ball between two warring jurisdictions here.

These federal and state prosecutors are coordinating with one another at the expense of him. They have conflicting theories in their indictment, and they are literally treating him like he is some sort of political fodder, like some sort of spectacle. 

He was on display for everyone to see in the biggest staged perp walk I’ve ever seen in my career. It was absolutely unnecessary. He’s been cooperative with law enforcement. He’d been in custody for over a week. He waived extradition. He was cooperative at all accounts. There was no reason for the NYPD and everybody to have these big assault rifles — that frankly I had no idea it was in their arsenal — and to have all the press there the media there. It was perfectly choreographed. 

And what was the New York City Mayor doing at this press conference, Your Honor? That just made it utterly political. And as your honor knows under Loro v. Charles, the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has held it to be clearly established that these staged perp walks to the media unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective is unconstitutional. And I submit that there was zero law enforcement objective to do that sort of perp walk. There’s absolutely no need for that whatsoever. 

And frankly, Your Honor, the mayor should know more than anyone about the presumption of innocence that he, too, is afforded dealing with his own issues. And, frankly, I submit that he was just trying to detract from those issues by making a spectacle of Mr. Mangione. 

And there are consequences to this. 

He has a right to a fair trial. And I just want to put on the record statements that the mayor made publicly about my client. Nothing saying “alleged” for example. And he said “I wanted to send a strong message with the police commissioner that we’re leading from the front. I’m not just going to allow him to come into our city. I wanted to look him in the eye and state ‘You carried out this terrorist act in my city, the city of New York that I love.’” And he wanted to show symbolism. 

Your Honor, he’s not a symbol. He’s somebody who is afforded the right to a fair trial. He’s innocent until proven guilty. And the mayor was talking to jurors — future potential jurors that elected him. Those are the people that elected him that he is talking to and calling this man a terrorist.

So, Your Honor, I just want to make a record of this and put everyone on notice that this has to stop, and my client is entitled to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence."

[nv-alexander]

We have moved into a new house! It is so quiet here...and lovely. Furniture isn't quite set up yet but we're getting there.

We live in a motherfucking house now!

[nv-alexander]

Optum--an insurance company owned by uhc that holds the medicaid contract for maryland--has been audited TWICE in Maryland for fraud.

“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.

Ya’ll. United Health just got accused of $17 billion in medicare fraud.

Basically they made up diagnosis which are improbable or impossible, “forgot” to remove ones which had been cured, and overall allegedly stole billions from taxpayers.

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.

… 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.

… 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.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d

I bet United Health really wishes it was a different week right now.

UPDATE/EDIT: Article is from July. I didn’t notice myself since it came up in my news feed. Don’t always trust the internet to be time accurate. 😎My guess is it is getting promoted due to current events. However, there are some updates concerning actions taken based on the report which you can look into by checking the authors’ other articles.

[nv-alexander]

[nv-alexander]

I think we should make luigi ride a bicycle around the courthouse for 10 minutes.

Because if he had a spinal surgery that resulted in 4 screws and plates in his lower back in 2023, I am really skeptical about his ability to run across the street and hop on a bicycle to ride through central park.

[nv-alexander]

Got to show my fiancee two of my all time favorite movies the other day: The Birdcage and To Wong Fu

He loved them, in stitches through all of bird cage and absolutely touched by to Wong fu.

These movies are such important pieces of media for me, being maybe the first (and some of the only in the more main stream) joyously queer films that I've seen. I remember watching them regularly on AMC back when they did movies.

To Wong fu was so crucial to me and it took me til 28 years old to really see why I was so impacted by such a trans story.

And the experience of the characters in birdcage hits so much harder now than when I was a kid

It was the 90s and these movies celebrated being visibly queer in a way I havent seen much of since. No tragedy porn, just a lot of joy and love and celebration without ignoring the realities of being queer.

I adore them so so much. I aspire to be a middle aged fag. And it's vital to see films about adult queer people who know who they are, who stick to it, who are sexual and varied in their experiences. They're movies that show there is a future for us and joy for us and a fucking life for us even in the face of a cruel world. There is kindness and acceptance where we least expect it.

We can live our lives fully and joyfully, despite it all. We don't have to live in pain and fear.

I think maybe a lot of queer folk would benefit from seeing these movies. I know they left a huge impact on me. They left a huge impact on my family who watched them with me. They left a space for me to exist in the world. They didn't make queer people the punchline.

I hadn't seen these movies in probably 5-10 years and they hold up very well I think.

There's a lot of beauty in a well-done comedy. I'm so glad I got to share these things that mean so much to me with someone who means so much to me.

[nv-alexander]

I think now is a good time for us all to review the principle of Jury Nullification.

Jury Nullification is when a jury finds a defendant Not Guilty even though they (perhaps secretly) believe them to be guilty.

In the United States, this has come up primarily in the case of 'escaped slave laws'. Good people are not willing to send formerly enslaved people back to their captors.

Governments hate this sort of behavior. But it's hard to stop. How have they tried?

1. They keep it secret. Jurors are not informed of this possibility. Activists who talk to jurors in front of courthouses have been arrested.

2. Jury Selection. Anyone who brings up nullification in jury selection gets removed. All jurors musts agree to "accept as correct the rulings and instructions of the law as provided by the judge." But they can't stop you from changing your mind.

3. Declare a Mistrial. If the defense or anyone else mentions nullification, they can scrub the whole thing and try again with a fresh jury. They will also find excuses to strike individual jurors if they need to.

4. They Flat Out Lie to You. Quoting Wikipedia here:

In 2017, a jury was instructed: "You cannot substitute your sense of justice, whatever that means, for your duty to follow the law, whether you agree with it or not. It is not for you to determine whether the law is just or whether the law is unjust. That cannot be your task. There is no such thing as valid jury nullification. You would violate your oath and the law if you willfully brought a verdict contrary to the law given to you in this case." The Ninth Circuit upheld the first three sentences of the jury's instruction and overruled the remainder but deemed that instruction a harmless error and affirmed the conviction.[67]

So expect scary people to tell you that you are breaking the law if don't give the verdict they want you to give.

But you don't have to do what they tell you to. If you find yourself on a jury you can come to whatever conclusions your conscience demands.

Maybe that bag of weed looks like oregano to you. Maybe that gun looks like a prop. Maybe the cop or the prosecutor seems shifty. Perhaps the defendant just has an honest face.

You can always find a reasonable doubt. Fuck you I won't do what you tell me to.

[nv-alexander]

hey for everyone talking about jury nullification etc etc: it only works if you lie and say you dont know what it is. if youre chosen for jury duty and they ask you if you know what it is, you say no. here's an article going more in depth, and here's the cgp grey video about it.

like. just so we're clear, it's good to know about, but if you go into a courtroom and start talking about nullification, you could very well have voided your place on that jury. be smart about it 👍

[nv-alexander]

there seems to be something weird going on with healthcare company webpages. i don't know if there's been a major cyberattack (China? Russia?) or something more nefarious (global computer virus? extraterrestrial interference?), but CVS Health just removed all the pictures from their leadership page: https://www.cvshealth.com/about/leadership.html

for posterity and archival purposes, how it looked on November 25, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241125095752/https://www.cvshealth.com/about/leadership.html

i am in the process of authoring a coffee table book featuring a comprehensive look at the most inspiring leaders in the healthcare industry and was disturbed to find that this was the case now for a third company. hopefully the root cause of this issue can be remedied soon and does not spread to other companies.

[nv-alexander]

[nv-alexander]

[nv-alexander]

Someone shot and killed the CEO of United Healthcare on the street in Manhattan. The company is one of the largest insurance providers in the country, one of the 10 most profitable corporations in the world, and is notable for its algorithmically-targeted denial of care, ruled illegal in three states.

[nv-alexander]

[nv-alexander]

[nv-alexander]

People who don't drink, smoke, or do drugs trying to talk about the effects of drugs is a deeply irritating thing to me.

I have done all of those things and I work in addictions. Don't tell me how drugs work