#top 10 health insurance companies

[machine-saint]

i think a big reason that I get frustrated with the "liberals have never made anybody's lives better" is that in the US it used to be legal for insurance companies to charge you more if you were sick or even just straight up deny you the ability to sign up for them if you already had a "pre-existing condition", and this was only stopped by the passage of the ACA during Obama's term. but a lot of people who talk about politics on here are too young to really be affected by that since they would have been on their parents insurance (which the ACA required insurers extend until you're 26). and this was all done via politicking and not blowing up insurance CEOs mansions or whatever.

I'm not saying that the ACA fixed insurance forever, god no. but "you can't deny someone insurance for being sick" is a massive change and people don't realize it!

Most adults want the law’s prohibition on insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions to stay. Two thirds (67%) of the public say that it is “very important” that this provision remain in place, including most Republicans (54%) However, only about 4 in 10 people (39%) are aware that that provision is part of the ACA.

[thecountiesinfo]

Top 20 Best Insurance Companies In Uganda 2023

Below is the list of the top best life and non-life insurance companies operating in Uganda today. Uganda is one of those African countries with quite a large number of insurance companies. But not all the insurance companies in UG are accredited and offer the best services. In this article, we have listed Uganda’s top LICENSED insurance companies as of this year. Below the name of the…

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #35

Sep 20-27 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced new actions to curb gun violence at the one year anniversary of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The Office is the first ever White House office to deal with the issue of guns and has been overseen by the Vice-President. President Biden signed a new Executive Order aimed at combatting the emerging threat of machinegun conversion devices. These devices allow the conversion of semi-automatic firearms to a rate of fire that can match military machineguns, up to 20 bullets in one second. The EO also targets the threat of 3-D printed guns. The EO also addresses active schooler drills at schools. While almost every school conducts them there is little uniformity in how they are carried out, and no consensus on the most effective version of a drill. President Biden's EO directions the development of a research based active shooter drills, which maximize both student physical and mental safety.

President Biden celebrated the one year anniversary of the American Climate Corps and announced new Climate Corp programs. The Climate Corps has seen 15,000 young people connected to well paid jobs in clean energy and climate resilience jobs across America. The EPA and AmeriCorps announced a new Environmental Justice Climate Corps program which will connect 250 American Climate Corps members with local communities and over the next 3 help them achieve environmental justice projects. In addition HUD announced it will be the 8th federal agency to partner with the Climate Corp, opening the door to its involvement in Housing. Since its launch the American Climate Corp has inspired 14 states to launch their own state level version of the program, most recently just this week the New Jersey Climate Corps.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced that 4.2 million small business owners and self-employed people get their health insurance through the ACA marketplace. Up from 1.4 million ten years ago when President Obama and then Vice-President Biden rolled out the marketplaces. The self-employed are 3 times as likely as other Americans to use the marketplaces for their insurance, one out of every 5 getting coverage there. The ACA passed by President Obama, defended and expanded by President Biden, has freed millions of Americans to start their own businesses without fear of losing health coverage for them and their families.

The Departments of Transportation and Labor pressed freight railroad companies to close the gap and offer paid sick time to all their employees. Since 2022 under President Biden's leadership the number of Class I freight railroad employees who have access to paid sick days increased from 5% to 90%. Now the Biden-Harris Administration is pushing to finish the job and get coverage to the last 10%.

The EPA announced $965 million to help school districts buy clean energy buses. This comes on top of the 3 billion the EPA has already spent to bring clean energy buses to America's schools. So far the EPA has helped replace 8,700 school buses, across 1,300 school districts in all 50 states, DC, tribal nations, and US Territories. 95% of these buses are zero-emission, battery-electric. The clean bus program is responsible for over 2/3rds of the electric school buses on the road today.

The Biden-Harris Administration took another step forward in its historic efforts to protect the Colorado River System by signing 5 water conservation agreements with local water authorities in California and Arizona. The two short term agreements will conserve over 717,000 acre-feet of water by 2026. Collectively adding 10 feet to Lake Mead’s elevation by 2026. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven U.S. states.

The Department of The Interior announced $254 million to help support local parks, the largest such investment in history. The money will go to 54 projects across 24 states hoping to redevelopment or create new parks.

HHS announced $1.5 billion to help combat opioid addiction and prevent opioid overdose deaths. The money will support state and tribal governments and help pay for mobile clinics, naloxone kits, and treatment centers. This comes as nationwide overdose rates drop for the first time since 2020, thanks to strong investment in harm reduction efforts by the Biden-Harris team.

The Department of Agriculture announced it'll spend $466.5 million in food assistance and development worldwide this year. Through its McGovern-Dole Program, the United States is the largest donor to global school feeding programs. The USDA will help feed 1.2 million children in Angola, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Malawi and Rwanda. Through its Food for Progress the USDA will help support 200,000 farmers in Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Tunisia shift to climate-smart agriculture boosting food security in those nations and the wider region.

At a meeting at the UN First Lady Jill Biden announced a partnership between USAID and UNICEF to end childhood exposer to lead worldwide. Lead exposure kills 1.5 million people each year, mostly in the developing world.

The Senate approved the appointment of Byron Conway to a federal judgeship in Wisconsin. This makes the 213th federal judge that President Biden has appointed.

[venus-haze]

Working for the Knife (Mickey Altieri x Reader)

Summary: It’s been over 15 years since the Windsor College murders, not that they had ever been on your radar. That changes when you get hired at a New York marketing firm where you work closely with Mickey Altieri, alleged Ghostface killer whose charges were dropped after a controversial mistrial. Working so closely together piques your interest in each other, soon spiraling out of control. [This is an AU.]

Note: Female reader implied to be mid-20s or older, but no other descriptors are used. This is based on an anonymous request and also Timothy Olyphant being such a DILF, I had to write something like this (I had Justified era Olyphant in mind while writing this, specifically these gifsets, but you can picture whatever hehe). Creative liberties have obviously been taken. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 6.8k

Warnings: True crime elements (the reader engages with a lot of true crime content), but obviously this is a fictional serial killer. Mutual stalking/obsession. Sexually explicit content that includes dubious consent fantasy that involves knifeplay; spanking, daddy kink, oral sex (f. receiving). Do not interact if you’re under 18.

For once, you felt like things were going your way. After a little over three years of scraping by at your old job where you were woefully overworked and underpaid, your months-long job search finally came to an end when a mid-sized marketing firm gave you an offer you couldn’t refuse. Sure, you’d taken a huge pay raise and shifted to a hybrid schedule with your new job, but the highlight was undoubtedly Mickey, the only other person on your small team and the type of sexy older man you sure as hell didn’t mind spending your days in the office with.

With the whole company working hybrid or completely remote, people only came in sporadically, as did you and Mickey, only going in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the occasional Friday if needed. As a result, you didn’t get much of a chance to meet anyone else who worked there. 

Your first week was fully in person, since some of the programs you’d be using for the job were easier to learn if he were there to show you. You certainly weren’t complaining, having plenty of time to get a feel for your new coworker, silently observing and testing the waters with light flirting, which he seemed to return. Maybe you were just a little too hopeful.

“Big plans for the weekend?” you asked when five o’clock rolled around on Friday.

“Got a hot date with Netflix,” he said. “How about you?”

“My friend and I are getting drinks later, but that’s about it.”

“What’s your poison?”

“Anything under $10, if I can help it.”

He grinned. “A woman after my own heart. Don’t have too much fun.”

“I’ll try,” you said, smiling as you began packing your laptop into your bag. “Have a good weekend, Mickey.”

“You too.”

With your first week at your new gig down, you headed to a small bar in Flatbush to celebrate with your best friend and dish the highly anticipated dirt on your hot coworker. Lee was already at the bar when you’d arrived, sitting at a small table and sipping a beer she went ahead and bought herself.

“Drinks are on me,” you said. “I fucking owe you.”

Lee grinned. “Always glad to help.”

You wouldn’t have gotten the job without Lee. She helped you fudge your resume to match the experience on the job listing, gently scamming your way into the position you now held. All week you’d been texting her about how great things were going, and fawning over Mickey, of course.

After joking about ordering top-shelf liquor on your dime, Lee settled on a margarita, undoubtedly the first of many for the night. You returned from the bar with your drinks, more than ready to gush about how much better your new job was compared to the hell of your old one. Nothing could bring down your mood.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, they pay you out the ass and you don’t have to worry about health insurance anymore. Great,” Lee said over her margarita. “I wanna hear about your hot DILF coworker. No detail is too small.”

“Lee, oh my god, it’s not even fair how hot he is. Our desks are right next to each other in an L shape, and I feel like such a weirdo for staring at him all the time. He’s been so nice helping me all week, too. Maybe I’m looking too much into it, but sometimes I feel like he’s being a little flirty?”

“Is he married?”

“No ring, and no mention of any family or long-term relationship. I don’t get it, how could Mickey be single?”

“You don’t hear many people going by Mickey anymore,” she said. “Either he’s a mouse or incredibly Irish.”

“I think he’s Italian,” you mused. “Altieri sounds Italian to me.”

Lee’s eyes widened. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Wait, was that offensive?”

“No, just that you’re working with an alleged serial killer.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” you asked, but she was already busy typing away at her phone.

Suddenly, Lee’s phone was shoved in your face, a your hot coworker’s mugshot front and center in an archived New York Times article from October 1998.

SUSPECT ARRESTED IN WINDSOR COLLEGE KILLINGS

Michael ‘Mickey’ Altieri, 21, was arrested early Thursday morning in Windsor, Ohio, as the primary suspect in the Windsor College killings. Among the charges are first degree murder, attempted first degree murder and aggravated assault. Altieri has maintained his innocence and is being held on $1,000,000 bail in Windsor County Jail as he awaits trial. 

The brutal killings that made national headlines were directly inspired by the ‘Ghostface’ murders in Woodsboro, California, two years prior and coincided with the release of STAB, a film based on Woodsboro survivor and reporter Gale Weathers’ book on the murders. Survivor Sidney Prescott was a student at Windsor College and targeted yet again in the latest string of murders. Allegedly, Altieri’s accomplice was Debbie Loomis, mother of one of the two original Ghostface killers, Billy Loomis. Mrs. Loomis was killed in an altercation prior to Altieri’s apprehension by police.

You looked away from her phone screen, feeling like your head was spinning though you weren’t even finished with your first drink. “Well, if he did all that stuff, why isn’t he on death row or something?”

“There was a mistrial. It was a huge thing,” Lee said. “You’ve seriously never heard of it?”

“No. Can you send that to me?” you asked.

“Yeah, I’ll send some podcast episodes and Youtube videos on it, too. You know I’m on that true crime shit.”

It took a few more drinks for you to be able to shake off the thought of your hot older coworker potentially being a serial killer, but the rest of your night with Lee was a lot of fun. She’d been one of your closest friends in college, and the two of you lived together when you first moved to New York. You knew she meant well, but damn, did that news put a damper on things.

You returned to your apartment a little after midnight, kicking off your heels at the door and collapsing on your couch, not bothering to make the short walk to your bedroom. 17 missed texts from Lee, all links to videos and podcasts about Mickey that she recommended.

Among the links Lee had sent you was a nearly hour long Youtube video titled: ‘What Happened at the Windsor College Ghostface Trial? A Deep Dive’. The woman in the thumbnail had a scared expression on her face, her eyes focused on that same mugshot of Mickey you saw in the old New York Times article. 

Pressing on the link in your messages, you had the video come up on your TV instead, slouching back in your seat as it began to play.

‘I know most stuff about the Windsor College murders focus on just that, the murders, but I thought it’d be interesting to go into the trial that followed because it was almost like something out of a movie, but it doesn’t get as much attention as the killings, especially since there have been like two more Ghostface murder sprees since this happened. I’m just presenting facts and my own observations here for educational purposes, and it’s not my intention to imply guilt on anyone who hasn’t been convicted in a court of law. Before we get into it though, I wanna give a huge thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring today’s video—‘

You rolled your eyes, skipping through the three-minute long sponsorship spiel.

‘So my sources for this video are Gale Weathers’ books Wrongly Accused: The Maureen Prescott Murder, The Woodsboro Murders, and College Terror. I also used James Chase’s book Ghostface on Trial, articles from newspapers and a few like lawyer journals that I was able to find online, and whatever stuff from the trial itself that’s public information. I have it all linked in the description—“

Pausing the video, you pulled up the New York Public Library website and searched for College Terror and Ghostface on Trial. Copies of both were available at the branch near your office, and you wasted no time in putting a hold on the books. 

The next few minutes of the video gave an overview of the murders at Windsor College, which you half-paid attention to. You’d watched Stab 2 in high school, so you felt you were familiar enough with the killings. Thinking back on the movie, though, all of the characters had the same names as their real-life counterparts except for Mickey. Legal reasons, you assumed.

You turned up the volume on your TV as the video finally got into the details of the trial.

‘As soon as Mickey was arrested, theories were all over the news about what had happened and there was a ton of speculation about his guilt. James Chase, a controversial defense attorney from Chicago, took on the case pro-bono, stating in his book Ghostface on Trial that he knew he stood to make more money on a book deal, interviews, and speaking engagements by winning the case than whatever fees he’d get for representing Mickey. The defense focused on discrediting both of the prosecution’s star witnesses early on in the trial, planting seeds of doubt in the jury.

Chase and his team leaned heavily on the fact that three years prior, Sidney Prescott had incorrectly identified Cotton Weary as her mother’s killer when in fact it was Sidney’s former boyfriend Billy Loomis and their mutual friend Stu Macher who had committed that initial murder that led up to the original Woodsboro Ghostface murders. 

Gale Weathers’ testimony was also discounted by the defense on the fact that she was a sensationalistic tabloid journalist who’d admittedly fabricated elements of her best-selling book on the Woodsboro killings. She claimed this was a result of editing and to achieve a better narrative flow. 

The defense also said the deceased Debbie Loomis had more of a reason to go after Sidney and recreate her son’s Ghostface murders as revenge for his death. They pushed the idea that she acted with Sidney’s boyfriend, Derek, and that Mickey ended up getting caught in the crosshairs of what was a gruesome and unfortunate situation. Sidney maintained Derek’s innocence, but the fact that both he and Debbie were killed by gunshot wounds made it likely they were the Ghostface duo this time around.

Former Woodsboro Deputy Dewey Riley, another survivor of both Ghostface killings, was unable to testify because he was in a coma. He later said that because he was incapacitated before Sidney and Gale allegedly confronted Debbie and Mickey, he couldn’t say for sure who the killer or killers were, but he trusted their judgment and stood behind their testimonies. 

It didn’t help either that Sidney was visibly distraught while on the stand and mixed up details of the original Woodsboro murders and the Windsor College ones. Gale was initially confident while being questioned by the defense, but later became combative when the inaccuracies in her books came up. In contrast, Mickey appeared calm and earnest, and seemed to have his story straight every time he took the stand.

There’s actually some footage of the trial that I was able to find, so I’m gonna play that now.’

The video was grainy, camera focused on an agitated-looking Sidney Prescott sitting in the witness stand. On the other side of the stand, a blond man in a gray suit read off from a stack of papers in his hand. 

“Ms. Prescott, in your statement to police, you claimed that Mr. Altieri admitted to both you and Ms. Weathers that he had committed the murders with Debbie Loomis and wanted to get caught. Could you perhaps explain to myself and the jury, why exactly an alleged killer would want to get caught?”

“Because he’s fucking sick in the head!” Sidney exclaimed.

“Language, Ms. Prescott,” Judge Matthews said.

“He said he did it on purpose,” Sidney continued, her voice breaking. “He told us he wanted to get caught so he could blame it on the movies! He had everything planned out, the lawyers he wanted, the angle the media would take, he even quoted that line from Psycho, ‘We all go a little mad sometimes.’”

Chase furrowed his brow as he looked over the papers in his hands. “When did he say this? I’m not seeing that in your statement.”

“He said it right after he shot Randy,“ Sidney said.

“Randy wasn’t shot, he was stabbed.” 

Sidney’s eyes widened. “I know. I meant—“

“Ms. Prescott, is there something you didn’t include in your police statement that you’re telling us now?”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Billy quoted Psycho, after he shot Randy at Stu Macher’s house, not Mickey. I got mixed up.”

You gasped, bringing your hand to cover your mouth. The courtroom on your screen devolved into nothing short of pandemonium. The video then faded into Gale Weathers in the middle of being questioned by the defense. She, in contrast to Sidney, looked confident and well-put together under Chase’s grilling.

“Ms. Weathers, you wrote in your book that your camera man Kenny was gutted, when in actuality his throat was slashed, is that correct?”

Gale nodded. “It is.”

“Why the inconsistency?” 

“All books, fiction or nonfiction go through an editing process. That was a decision made by my editor to establish a better narrative flow. It isn’t uncommon in the true crime genre by any means.”

“Better narrative flow isn’t the truth, though, is it?” Chase asked.

“Look, a book is a book. I’ll say right now under oath that Kenny was killed when one of those guys in the Ghostface costume slit his throat. I’ll also say under oath that Mickey Altieri did commit those murders with Debbie Loomis, and he confessed it to me and Sidney Prescott.”

“Your honor, this isn’t the only major inconsistency we’ve found in Ms. Weathers’ book on the Woodsboro murders. Yesterday we distributed to the prosecution and now present to the jury at least seventeen of these major inconsistencies.”

“What do you want me to say? I’m the cheesy tabloid journalist everyone thinks I am?”

The corners of Chase’s lips twitched. “Not quite my words.”

“You’re a real piece of work,” Gale scoffed.

The jury murmured among themselves at her shift in attitude. You found yourself chewing on your nail, enraptured by the trial. For the last time, the video faded out and then back in to show Mickey, your coworker, sitting on the witness stand. This time, the prosecutor was in front of him, his annoyed expression a contrast to Mickey’s calm demeanor.

“Mr. Altieri, we have signed affidavits from several of your former classmates that in your film theory class, you claimed in a heated argument with Randy Meeks and CiCi Cooper, both of whom were killed by this ‘Ghostface’ persona of yours—“

“Objection!” Chase shouted. “Claiming the Ghostface persona belongs to Mr. Altieri is an undue presumption of guilt.”

“Sustained,” Judge Matthews said. “I advise you to reconsider your wording going forward, counselor.”

The prosecutor huffed. “You claimed in a heated argument with Randy Meeks and Casey Cooper, both of whom were killed by the ‘Ghostface’ persona, that violent movies were responsible for influencing people to commit acts of violence, is that correct?”

“It was a classroom discussion. Our professor had brought it up because two fellow students were brutally killed at the premier of a slasher movie the night before, by someone dressed as the killer from that same slasher movie. I just thought it wasn’t a coincidence, and neither did half the other students in that class. Are you going to make them testify too?”

“Don’t deflect, Mr. Altieri.”

“I don’t understand how I’m deflecting. You asked me about a conversation I had with my classmates, and I answered.”

The video went back to the commentator, but you had goosebumps raised across your skin. You rewound back to the clip of Mickey’s testimony, staring at his face. Could he be a killer? Only a few days ago, you wouldn’t have even considered it. Now, you were down a rabbit hole that sent your mind reeling.

‘A lot of the prosecution’s evidence was dismissed as circumstantial by the defense. Mickey had alibis for all of the murders, even for the one Sidney claimed to witness him commit, allegedly shooting her boyfriend Derek. The chat room records and emails allegedly linked to Debbie and Mickey didn’t do much to convince the jury of Mickey’s alleged involvement in the murders. The records did positively identify Debbie based on the account’s password hints and her IP address. The other user was more tech savvy, changing IP addresses to make it more difficult to confirm an identity.

In move that was described as ‘sloppy’ and ‘desperate’ by the media following the trial’s conclusion, the prosecution also tried to claim that Mickey being the only other survivor among Sidney’s friends was suspicious and indicated his involvement, but the defense pointed out that Randy Meeks had also been the only other survivor of Sidney’s friend group in the original Woodsboro killings despite a gunshot wound like Mickey had, and later on at Windsor he was a victim. 

Randy Meeks’ murder actually played a huge role in the defense’s strategy. Several Windsor College students saw Mickey elsewhere on campus during Randy’s murder. The final nail in the coffin was when Windsor County police confirmed that DNA in the news van where Randy was murdered was a match for Debbie Loomis. The police retested other evidence, but couldn’t find anything conclusive.

After weeks of questioning and evidence, the jury deliberated for a little over five days before returning to the judge in a deadlock. Judge Matthews declared a mistrial, and less than a year later, a district court dismissed the case on lack of substantial evidence and all charges against Mickey Altieri were dropped. Despite media speculation that he would, Mickey chose not to sue Sidney and Gale for defamation and hasn’t been in the public eye since the controversial trial.’

You stared blankly at your TV screen when the video ended, another one auto-playing a few seconds later. Even after your drinks with Lee, you felt way too sober to even process any of it. For the next few hours, you devoured videos, bookmarked dozens of articles, and sifted through podcast episodes to listen to during work.

The odd case had made its home in the recesses of your mind. You dreamed about him when you finally fell asleep, just before sunrise. Sitting in the downtown Manhattan office, the open floor layout was unusually bright, fluorescent lighting washing the place in an eerie white glow. Mickey walked over to his desk, blood dripping from his fingers, splattering on the carpet in a trail leading right to him. He looked at you, a smile on his face as he brought his upright, bloody index finger to his lips. 

As the weekend flew by, you tried to keep yourself otherwise occupied. It wasn’t good for you to stay fixated on it, and certainly not fair to Mickey. 

Working from home on Monday helped, as you focused on finishing the last of the onboarding process. 

Tuesday was where things became tricky again. You sat on the forty-minute long subway ride to the office equipped with a podcast episode about your new coworker. The hosts didn’t seem to have much new information from what you took in the night before, except for the last few minutes of the episode where they’d gone off-script.

‘Last I saw online, he was living in Manhattan.’

‘Oh my god, that’s so Patrick Bateman-core.’

‘So you think he did it?’

‘It’s tough to say, like I totally get why the jury couldn’t come to a consensus.’

‘Yeah same, messy as hell. I tend to think that he didn’t do it. Innocent until proven guilty, ya know?’

‘I get that. We did try to get in touch with him for some kind of statement or even an interview—‘

‘Wishful thinking.’

‘Yeah, we looked for his email address, but I guess it wasn’t the right one because our message got bounced back, so that was a big fat bust.’

‘He’s like notorious for denying interview requests, anyway. I think he turned down book deals and stuff.’

Enraptured by the conversation, you nearly missed your stop. On the three block walk to your office, you hurriedly opened one of your playlists and put it on shuffle. The last thing you needed was for Mickey to somehow see on your home screen you’d just been listening to a podcast episode about him.

Your head was spinning by the time you got to your desk. He hadn’t arrived yet, and you felt a bit relieved that you had a little more time to psych yourself up. You shouldn’t have even had to do that in the first place, just be normal about your coworker, but if you learned anything over the weekend, even if he wasn’t guilty, he sure as hell wasn’t normal.

The elevator doors opened, and you looked up to see him walk out, waving at you.

“Morning, Y/N, have a good weekend?”

“Pretty good. I’m more broke than when it started, though. How about you?”

“Like I told you, hot date with Netflix,” he said, sitting down. “Thought you were sticking with shitty liquor?”

“I was, but my friend wasn’t. I got the tab, and she got plenty of margaritas.”

“Shit, I oughta get drinks with you sometime if you get all your friends’ tabs.”

You grinned. “Don’t count your luck.”

He chuckled to himself. The two of you worked in near silence for the next three hours, though you found yourself glancing over at him every so often, out of curiosity and also admiration. His graying hair suited him, and you could see the muscles in his arms from his casually rolled up shirt sleeves. 

Soon, though, you found it hard to stay awake, the light from your computer screen adding onto your fatigue. To your horror, you yawned loudly, catching Mickey’s attention.

“You alright? I’m not too boring, am I?”

“No, I just kept waking up last night. I feel like I barely slept.”

“Why don’t we take an early lunch and go get coffee?”

“That sounds great,” you said, grabbing your purse.

There was a deli right up the block, and when you looked at the small pastry case, you decided to order something with your coffee. Mickey placed his order, a hot coffee and a bear claw. With plenty of tables to choose from, you and Mickey sat near the window. 

Your coffee definitely hit the spot, and the sugar from your pastry helped wake you up too.

“How long’s your commute?” Mickey asked.

“About 40 minutes. I live in Brooklyn, kinda between Bushwick and Bed-Stuy.”

“Damn, that’s long. I live on the Upper West Side.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Wow. Before this job, I was barely able to afford to rent on my own.”

“It’s a rent-controlled building. I’m not making a ton after alimony and child support.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, though he looked out the window as he continued speaking. “It was a long time ago. Deanna and me just didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff when our son was born. I knew before he even got to kindergarten it was over.”

Unsure of how to respond, you slowly reached across the table, putting your hand over his. “I’m sorry, Mickey, really.”

“You’re a sweet girl,” he said, giving your hand a slight squeeze before releasing it. “They live upstate, so I don’t see them much. I have more time for going to the movies and Mets games.”

“I only go when they’re bad because tickets are cheaper.”

He snickered. “I should take a page outta your book. How about you? Any sports? Or reading? Isn’t true crime pretty popular with young women now?”

Your heart pounded at his question. Innocuous enough. True crime was extremely popular. The paranoid part of you couldn’t help but feel like it was an accusation. Then again, he couldn’t possibly know you’d spent the weekend immersing yourself in it, particularly stuff about him.

“I’m not really interested in that,” you said. “Sometimes my friends and I go to trivia nights at bars. I’m not that good, but it’s fun to just hang out. I have a membership at the MOMA, so I go there a lot. They show movies sometimes, too.”

To your relief, the conversation shifted to just that, and Mickey seemed surprised by some of your opinions on different movies. He told you he’d originally gone to college for film studies, which you already knew, of course. The odd thing was, while you certainly didn’t want him aware of just how much you knew about him, you didn’t feel guilty for it, just that he would be weirded out by it, obviously.

You and Mickey ended up talking about movies for nearly an hour and a half, well over your allotted hour lunch break, but he assured you no one would care that much. Still, the two of you half-ran back to the office, and something bubbled in your chest when he sat down and smiled at you, the wrinkles by his eyes becoming more prominent. 

The rest of the workday went by quickly, and you headed to the library where you’d reserved the two books about the Windsor College murders and trial. By the time you got home, you’d already devoured the first two chapters of Gale Weathers’ book. Glad to be working remotely the following day, you let yourself stay up later than usual to read, getting to the halfway point before you could hardly keep your eyes open.

Weeks turned into months, and you absolutely loved your job, and the pay, but most of all, how the content you consumed and your proximity to Mickey seemed to feed into each other in a vicious cycle that increasingly drowned out the rational part of you that knew what you were doing was weird. 

Still, it wasn’t like you were invading his personal privacy or treating him any different than you did before. All of the information you’d read, listened to, or watched was all public as your running list of books, podcasts, and documentaries on the matter grew. You’d even rewatched the Stab movies and started scrolling through threads and tags related to Mickey and what happened at Windsor College. After all of the personal research you did and how much you’d gotten to know Mickey at work, you couldn’t conclusively say whether or not he did it. 

You tried keeping your obsession lowkey, but your friends seemed to notice how you’d shoehorn it into conversations. Lee had even told you she was afraid she’d created a monster by bringing up Mickey’s past in the first place. If she’d never made her comment or showed you that first article, you probably never would’ve known about it, remaining blissfully unaware and going about your business at your typical office job with your hot older coworker.

For how much time you spent at home between work and researching, it seemed like whenever you’d go out, you’d come home to something missing or moved. Articles of clothing gone, coffee mugs out of place, books not quite in the order you’d left them. At first, you chalked it up to your consuming too much true crime content, feeding into your paranoia, but when you asked your landlord to install another lock on your door, it all seemed to stop. That didn’t bode well with you.

Your fantasies blended with reality in your dreams, as you were having increasing occurrences of Ghostface or Mickey, or both, in them. Whenever you woke up, you didn’t remember much except for a warm feeling in your core. One dream remained vivid even after you awoke, though.

You were in your apartment alone, late at night, when you got a call from an unknown number. Normally, you didn’t pick up calls unless you were expecting them, but for some reason you picked up. The details of the phone call itself were jumbled, but you were frightened, running into your bedroom and locking the door behind you. 

To your horror, you’d locked yourself in with Ghostface, the looming predator who looked at you emotionlessly, stalking toward you with his knife. When you turned around, the door knob was gone, and a black gloved hand grabbed your shoulder, moving you to face him as he pushed you against the door. He sliced through your slinky pajama top, exposing your breasts to him. Roughly groping each of them, he let out a low moan in appreciation before bringing the knife to your collarbone, dragging the blade to the valley between your breasts. Your breath hitched as he pressed it a bit deeper, but instead, you felt it in your pussy, like he was penetrating you.

“Give me a kiss, sweetheart,” your masked assailant ordered in a distorted voice.

Slowly, you leaned in, pressing your lips against the cold, hard plastic mask. You gasped as he dug the knife into your skin with one hand, his other slipping under your panties, pushing his fingers between your folds.

“I own you,” he said, clearly in Mickey’s voice this time.

You threw your head back in ecstasy as he pushed his fingers into your tight cunt, and then your alarm blared, jolting you awake. Turning over, you groaned into your pillow in frustration. At least it ended up being great masturbation material later on.

Another Thursday at work, seemingly uneventful as usual. You and Mickey had gotten into the habit of getting lunch together whenever you both were in the office. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but as time went on, they felt more like dates than just a casual lunch with a coworker. Not that you were complaining.

“Got any plans for the weekend?” he asked in the nearby deli the two of you had begun to frequent.

“No, not really.”

“Do you wanna come over after work tomorrow? Watch a movie or something?” he asked.

“That’d be great!” you said, almost a bit too enthusiastically. “Should I bring anything?”

He shook his head, smiling a bit. “I can order a pizza.”

For some reason, you trusted yourself to be normal at his place, telling yourself throughout Friday that everything would work out fine. Being a weirdo about his alleged murders certainly wouldn’t help you get a real date with him, but your infatuation with him was only growing. You liked the slightest hint of danger about him, going to his apartment alone, wondering in the back of your mind what his true intentions were and feeling a bit of a thrill at the prospect that they could be anything less than innocent.

You showed up at his apartment that evening with a bottle of wine in hand, even though he’d told you not to bring anything. As expected, he thanked you for the wine, though he gave you an exasperated look as he let you into his apartment. Nicer than yours, but it still looked lived-in.

“Pizza will be here in a couple of minutes,” he said. “I’m thinking Mean Streets for the movie.”

“It’s a classic,” you agreed. “I love Harvey Keitel in it.”

“You know, that was De Niro and Scorsese’s first time working together.”

“Wait, why did I think Taxi Driver was first?”

“Came out in ‘76, just after he was in Godfather Part II in ‘74. Busy decade for him.”

“You’re telling me.”

The doorbell rang, the pizza arriving sooner than expected. You waited in the kitchen while Mickey dealt with the delivery.

“We can eat in the living room while we watch,” he said, carrying the pizza box inside. “I don’t have many people over, so it’s still a little messy.”

“That’s okay,” you assured him.

He put on the movie, and you balanced the paper plate on your lap, nodding along to “Be My Baby” as it played during the opening scene. Testing the waters, you scooted closer to him a few minutes into the movie. He glanced over at you, and you could’ve sworn you saw the faintest hint of a smile on his face. 

You were especially pleased when he put his arm around you, not bothering with the pretense of a “move,” but rather taking what he wanted. Settling comfortably next to him, you tried to focus on the movie.

Despite his arm around your shoulders, closer physically to him than you ever had been, you felt restless. You knew when the halfway point of the movie was, and so you excused yourself to use the bathroom, telling him he didn’t need to pause it until you returned.

The tips of your fingers itched as you passed closed doors to the bathroom, which he told you was at the end of the hall. Biting your lip, you considered your options, and in a moment of impulse and weakness, you reached for one of the door handles. A mostly empty extra bedroom, maybe his son’s old room. 

You weren’t deterred, opening another door. Jackpot. Slightly messy, with clothes strewn about the floor and on the dark sheets of his bed. Glancing behind you, you stepped into his room and looked around for anything that stood out. 

Most people hid things under their beds, and so you got down on your hands and knees, wondering where exactly he might hide his—

“Don’t think this is the bathroom,” he said, startling you.

You yelped, frantically turning around as your brain short circuited for an explanation. “I—I was just—“

“Looking for trophies? All serial killers keep them, right?” he asked, towering over you from your spot on the floor. “Mementos of their victims or the kills.”

You shook your head frantically. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been snooping.”

“No, you shouldn’t have, but you’re looking in the wrong place anyway,” he said, pulling the knife from behind his back.

“Serial killers also don’t—don’t kill people th-they know,” you stammered.

“Typically,” he agreed, “but I’m not typical, am I? I’m sure you’ve listened to plenty of those cute little podcasts where some dumbasses read the Wikipedia page about the Windsor College murders in between hawking security systems to their listeners that they’ve just scared shitless. I admitted I did it, went to fucking trial, and the jury couldn’t even find me guilty.”

“Point taken.”

“So, what trophy would I keep from you?”

You were silent for a moment before answering, looking him in the eye. “My panties.”

“Which pair? Figure I have at least five of them now. Unless you wanna make that six, sweetheart.”

“You’ve been breaking into my place all this time.”

“You made it way too easy. It’s like you were asking for it.”

Maybe you were. Regardless, you didn’t show any resistance when he lightly kicked at your leg, a silent command to stand up. You got to your feet, though your gaze was fixed on the knife in his hand. His eyes followed yours, and he smirked a bit before putting the knife aside.

He turned you around, pushing you back onto his bed. Your breath caught in your throat as he pushed your skirt up, his hand caressing your ass, fingers brushing the thin fabric of your panties.

“Were you asking for it, sweetheart? Have you wanted this all along? Been a bad girl to get my attention?”

“Yes,” you whimpered weakly, your pussy clenching around nothing.

“Y’know, I’ve heard of serial killers having groupies, but you,” he said, slapping your ass for emphasis, eliciting a moan from you, “are something else.”

“Fuck, daddy,” you whispered, fidgeting against his mattress.

“I’m disappointed in you.” Another smack on your ass. “I could’ve been having fun with you months ago.” Smack! You hissed this time, though your pussy was pulsing between your legs. “Bent you over my desk in the office, have my way with you while no one else is around—or maybe a little slut like you would wanna get caught with daddy’s dick buried inside her.”

He spanked you harder this time, holding you down when your body instinctively recoiled at the impact. A pained moan escaped your lips as he pressed his body weight against you, his clothed cock rubbing against your tender skin. Tears welled up in your eyes as the sensation, and you resisted the urge to slip your hand between your legs.

“Or maybe,” he said, reaching around you to wrap his hand around your neck, “you just want me to fuck you before I kill you. Probably cum the minute I put that old Ghostface mask on, huh, baby?”

You let out a strangled moan at his words. “Yes, daddy.”

He released his grip on your throat, standing up to give you one more slap across your ass. “Turn over. If you’re good for me, maybe I’ll give you what you want.”

The friction from his sheets stung against your sore ass as you rolled over to look at him, though he grabbed you, pushing you onto your back himself. His grip on you was tight, fingers digging into your arms as he held you down beneath him, completely at his mercy.

He pulled off your skirt and panties, leaving your pussy exposed for him. He dragged his index finger between your folds, and you whimpered when he brushed your clit.

“God, you’re soaked,” he murmured against your lips. “Was it the spanking, or is it the serial killer thing?”

“Both.”

“Good answer,” he said, lazily circling your clit with his finger. 

He ducked his head down, wasting no time in devouring your wet cunt. His tongue relentlessly flicked at your clit while he slid two fingers inside you, pumping them in and out of your hole. You took them easily, but wondered if it’d be the same for his cock when he’d undoubtedly fuck you. 

Your hands gripped his sheets as he worked his tongue, your feet curling at the tension you felt building up inside of you. He moaned against you, loud enough that it felt like his voice rocked through your body. 

“Don’t stop,” you pleaded breathlessly.

A pained and outraged whine pulled from your throat when he did just that. You looked down at him between your legs, betrayed.

“Why should I let you cum?” he teased, rubbing light circles in your clit with his soaked fingers. “You’ve been a bad girl.”

“Oh fuck,” you moaned. “Please, daddy.”

“You can do better than that, sweetheart.”

“Please let me cum, daddy. I’ll be so good. I—I’ll do anything, just—please,” you cried out in frustration of being so close yet not quite there.

“Only since you asked so nicely,” he relented, dipping his head back down between your legs, his hands holding your hips in place as your lower half began to quiver at his touch.

You could feel his lips move slightly against your sensitive pussy, nothing short of a smug expression on his face at making you fall apart so easily. It didn’t matter, your head was swimming, muscles strained as he brought you closer to climax. Grabbing his hair, you pressed his face closer against your pussy, grinding against it in desperation. 

“Mickey—Fuck—“ you choked out as your orgasm wracked through you, fireworks in between your legs as your body shook. 

He ate you out through your orgasm, and another tidal wave of pleasure hit you all at once, almost painful and overwhelming, your brain on fire at the sensation. You could hardly catch your breath when you released your grip from his hair and he lifted his head, your wetness glistening on his lips.

When he kissed you, you hardly had the strength to kiss him back, though tasting yourself on his mouth sent a rush through you. He pressed sloppy kisses to your face, trailing down to your neck. His hard length rubbed against your slick-coated thigh, a low growl coming from deep in his throat.

“W-Wait, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” he mumbled against your skin.

“Did you really wanna get caught?”

He stopped, lifting his head from your neck to look at you a few moments before answering, “Yeah, blame the movies, make a real circus of the trial, but my attorney said he didn’t think I could pull off an insanity plea because I was too put together. Obviously pleading guilty and confessing everything wouldn’t get nearly as much attention as actually going on trial. I was pissed at first, but it worked out, I mean I had every reporter eating out of the palm of my hand by day three.”

“Why don’t you do interviews now? Or write a book?”

“What’s there to say? Not the truth.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you muttered. “Are you gonna kill me?”

“Probably should,” he said, the slightest smirk ghosting his lips as his eyes raked over you, “I might need more convincing not to.”

[mariacallous]

Abortion is a top issue in the 2024 election, with a “growing share of voters in swing states now say[ing] abortion is central to their decision this fall,” according to Times/Siena College polls published in August. It is the “single most important issue” for women under 45.

On September 3, Vice President Kamala Harris began a “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour in Florida, a state the Democratic Party has lost in the last two presidential elections, but which has abortion on the ballot this year. On November 5, citizens of Florida will be able to vote on an amendment that would restore legal access to abortion “before viability or when necessary to protect a patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” Florida currently has a six-week abortion ban, a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in the wake of Dobbs.

The Harris bus tour began about a twenty-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago, the home of the former president who has declared responsibility for the fall of Roe under the Dobbs decision. The decision spawned multiple state abortion bans with severe repercussions upon a woman’s ability in ban states to receive critical or life-saving health care that may necessarily involve an abortion. At the September 10 presidential debate, Harris directly spoke to the post-Roe experiences of women suffering miscarriages and bleeding out in hospital parking lots because they couldn’t get treatment from doctors who were afraid of being prosecuted.

The other presidential candidate, former president Donald Trump, has bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade as a personal achievement of consummate importance. Public opinion polling shows, however, that the majority of Americans support legalized abortion. Moreover, the pro-reproductive rights position has won on abortion-related ballot measures following the Dobbs decision in conservative states like Ohio, Kansas, and Kentucky, and abortion measures are on the ballot this November in key states like Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. Trump is now trying to downplay his involvement because the issue of abortion has become an albatross around the neck of the Trump campaign and the Republican Party itself. No wonder, then, in recent comments Trump has stated that abortion policy should be left to the states, and he has been publicly unwilling to endorse a nationwide abortion ban. At the debate, however, he repeatedly refused to answer whether he would veto legislation containing such a ban if it were presented to him as president, rejecting the question as an unlikely hypothetical while claiming he did the country “a great service” by helping overturn Roe.

In the wake of threats to in vitro fertilization (IVF) spurred by the Alabama Supreme Court decision that frozen embryos are children and the corresponding religious view held by some in the anti-abortion movement that a fertilized egg is a full-fledged person, Trump said both that he would mandate insurance companies cover IVF and the federal government would cover it for all Americans in need.

Attempting to persuade women who want their reproductive rights back, he suggested that Florida’s six-week abortion ban is “too short,” stating that he will be “voting that we need more than six weeks.” Later, however, his campaign walked this statement back, indicating that he “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.” Trump attempted to rehabilitate his position on abortion further for his far right, evangelical base by spreading the disinformation that some states allow the legal execution of babies after birth. At the debate, he repeated this false statement, and one of the debate moderators fact-checked him on that. These are just a few examples of the ducking, bobbing, and weaving on abortion that Trump has been doing over the past few weeks. 

But Trump’s attempts to obfuscate the abortion policy of his party and his future administration are laid bare by what is stated in the 2024 Republican Party platform and in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project (also known as Project 2025), a detailed blueprint for overhauling the executive branch, published by the Heritage Foundation, which involves at least 140 people who worked in the last Trump administration.

The word “abortion” only appears once in the 28-page Republican Party platform with the statement “[w]e will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF.” But that statement must be understood in the context of the sentence that immediately precedes it: “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.” By invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in the context of abortion, the platform projects consistency with a religious belief that fertilized eggs, or so-called “unborn children” are full-fledged people deserving all of the rights and protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. Neither abortion nor IVF, where some embryos may be discarded, is consistent with this “personhood” view. The limited and coded treatment of abortion in the platform is, however, consistent with Trump’s stated belief that the issue is harming the Republican Party and his candidacy with women.

But the Republican Party platform’s concise treatment of abortion should not be separated from Project 2025—a 922-page document replete with instances of the word abortion, along with detailed plans for how a Republican administration should promote “pro-life” policies and, in doing so, further curtail reproductive rights and access to reproductive healthcare.

Project 2025’s explicit anti-abortion positions and goals are summarized in the forward section of the document, which proclaims that “conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children. But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning.”

A national abortion ban emerges as a prominent goal, as the document instructs that “[c]onservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America. In particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support . . . .”

Some of the most noteworthy ideas and policies construed to achieve these outcomes presented in the rest of the document include:

A series of actions focused on preventing access to medication abortion nationwide. It is important to recognize that medication abortion accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023—and that number does not account for pills that were mailed to people in states with an abortion ban, so the overall percentage is likely higher. It can be a particularly useful way to circumvent abortion bans. From the perspective of Project 2025, “[a]bortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world.” Accordingly, Project 2025 recommends, among other things, that the FDA “reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs,” and “stop promoting or approving mail-order abortions.” It also recommends that the DOJ “enforce the Comstock Act,” a law passed in 1873 that would, if read literally, make the mailing of any kind of abortifacient unlawful, effectively resulting in a nationwide ban on medication abortion.

Preventing both HHS and the CDC from treating or promoting abortion as health care. Consistent with this goal, and in furtherance of a “Life Agenda,” Project 2025 states that HHS should be known as the “Department of Life” through “explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.” Accordingly, Project 2025 recommends that the next Secretary of HHS eliminate the current HHS Reproductive Access Task Force and replace it with “a pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children.” With respect to the CDC, Project 2025 recommends that it “should eliminate programs and projects that do not respect human life and conscious rights and that undermine family formation.” This would include the types of research it chooses to fund.

Preventing any kind of federal funding from supporting abortion care, including helping women travel out of state to receive an abortion. Project 2025 would also prohibit Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider from receiving Medicaid funds. Two steps recommended in furtherance of this goal are having HHS “[i]ssue guidance reemphasizing that states are free to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans” and “[p]ropose rulemaking to interpret the Medicaid statute to disqualify providers of elective abortion from the Medicaid program.”

In stark contrast, the Democratic Party platform, written when President Biden was still the Democratic candidate for president, has its own section on “Reproductive Freedom” that embraces the idea that abortion is health care. It begins by acknowledging that since the fall of Roe, “more than 20 states have imposed extreme and dangerous abortion bans—many of which include no exception even for rape or incest—that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide.”

The platform looks to the range of actions taken during the Biden-Harris administration as a foundation for continuing efforts to protect reproductive rights and health care. Some of the most notable actions mentioned, which are opposite of the policies promoted by Project 2025, include enabling pharmacies to dispense medication abortion and defending FDA approval of medication abortion in court, expanding reproductive health care for service members and veterans, defending access to emergency abortion care, challenging threats by a Republican attorney general to prosecute those who assist women traveling out of state for abortion care, and assisting states in expanding access under Medicaid for people who travel from states where they are denied access to abortion care.

Going forward, the platform states that Democrats will, among other things, work to restore abortion rights through legislation (assuming a Congress with sufficient Democratic control), protect the right to access IVF, strengthen access to contraception, and continue to support access to medication abortion. The platform also indicates that Democrats will work to repeal the Hyde amendment, which “restricts federally funded abortions under major federal health care programs.”

The contrast between the parties’ platforms and policies is clear. Simply put, the Democratic Party platform explicitly states that “President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are committed to restoring the reproductive rights Trump ripped away.” As the presidential candidate who has proudly claimed responsibility for the fall of Roe, Trump’s rhetoric resembles the defensive moves of a boxer ducking, bobbing, and weaving to slip an opponent’s punches: he has tried to disavow Project 2025, tried to obfuscate Republican Party positions and plans, and backtracked on some of his positions in an attempt to portray his future administration as “great for women and their reproductive rights.”

[strangebiology]

How Funding Affected my Journalism Jobs

The different places I’ve worked as a journalist, and in related fields, have all had different funding. Here are my experiences at different places–and it seems to me that grant-funded stuff is the best. 

Internship at Nat Geo

Grants sponsored both of the other interns, but not me. Nat Geo makes a lot of its money through things like books at TV.

Mine was low-paid, but probably normal for an internship in 2016? LOVED the experience. Freelance at Nat Geo afterward was MUCH better paid. $14/hour part-time. IDK how much the grant-funded interns made. 2016.

Fellowship at PBS Newshour

A grant from the National Science Foundation funded me, but PBS is state-sponsored media. Interestingly, that’s a huge red flag in China and Russia, but I found the US-funded Public Broadcasting Service very fair to its subjects. Good experience, but even worse pay, at $13/hour full-time. 2016-2017

Job at Newsweek 

Their funding is from clicks. This place was crazy bad and paid garbage. Everyone hated it and almost everyone quit, unless they were being fired for making a living wage. Some people even got fired for accurately reporting on the company itself on assignment from their editors–there was no obscuring it, that was cited as their reason for termitation. Newsweek is Hellfire and damnation. I suspect the nonsense demand for 5 stories/day/person and silly demand that we make them go viral stemmed from the following: the fact that the company primarily made its money from clicks and higher-ups didn’t appear to care about the long-term reputation of the company or its reporters, and perhaps an ego-fueled refusal to try to understand what actually got clicks. $39k/year. 2017-2018

Freelance at VOX 

Funded by clicks/ads and grants at the time, but halfway through they started a contribution campaign. The difference I noticed between VOX and Newsweek was that VOX practices were smarter and they actually paid attention to analytics and sane business practices. Also, it's much easier to qualify for and get grants if you're actually doing good journalism, so I don't believe that Newsweek's policy of "lots of garbage" was actually business-savvy in any way.

Vox was a good experience, even though I wasn’t working as a journalist, but doing SEO/social media for journalists. $35/hour, then $50/hour part-time. Then I was laid off due to the pandemic. 2019-2020

Freelance at Alzheimer's Association 

Remote, not really journalism, but I liked it anyway. Nonprofit, so, funded by donations and grants. $65/hour part-time. 2021

Job at Bay Nature

My job was entirely funded by a grant. Odd situation–I got the grant and I could bring it to any legit journalism employer. Bay Nature was supposed to contribute 40% of my salary but flexibility happened and they just paid health insurance and such. They got basically no money at all from clicks, like, pennies a year. Not much from subscriptions. They have fundraisers, and at the time, there were 3 writers/editors and 2 fundraisers on staff. Later they hired another writer whose entire salary was paid by a philanthropist, and then I’m told they got another salary funded by a UC Berkeley journalism grant program. So, like half of their editorial staff was grant-funded.

Great experience, but low pay for the Bay Area. $50k/year, all from Poynter-Koch, 2021-2022.

Freelance at Politifact

A nonprofit and they probably get lots of grants. My particular position was also funded by a grant entirely. Loved it. $250/article fact check. 2022. 

Book

REALLY love it. $50k is from MIT Press, which is a not-for-profit, and it gets some grants and endowments. Then I got $56k from a grant from the Sloan Foundation on top. 

Future? 

I also got $500 (plus gas and hotels) to attend a day of learning with a program called Investing in Wyoming’s Creative Economy, and that means I’m one of 100 people eligible to apply for 10 $25k grants for future projects. The idea is to support creatives to stay in Wyoming and have sustainable businesses here. Maybe do some art that will bring in tourists. 

_____________________

Note that a grant sort of does, and sort of doesn’t, mean free money. It means money to support a project that usually has to have a mission and a public good, like educating the public. You don’t pay these back, and the org giving the grants doesn’t require a percentage of the profits or anything. But, for instance, the $50k grant from Poynter-Koch was more like a gift to Bay Nature, so they could pay me, and I worked for a year to actually have the funds. 

However, I’m not yet convinced that there is any objectively good funding model to ensure the most fair and accurate journalism. In theory, the capitalistic ones would be the best, but the public desire to read inflammatory stories about how their political enemies are evil, or a different generation is full of idiots, adversely affected the accuracy of headlines at Newsweek IMO.

You might think that the worst funding source would be Poynter-Koch, which is a program run by Poynter and funded by the Charles Koch Institute. But neither Poynter nor Koch even asked me to tell them what I was writing, let alone try to stop me from writing it. (Poynter hosted mentor-led auxiliary groups to talk about our careers/lives and such, so the topics of our articles came up sometimes if we chose to share that.) 

Anyway, I’m thinking of writing an article on how funding models affect journalism, for better and worse. There are some high-profile examples of grant funding causing harm. But for now, the above is my experience–pretty much all good, except not enough funding sometimes. 

[darkskywishes]

Being disabled/chronically ill is expensive!

I don't know if people realize how freaking expensive it is to be disabled. I have a complex medical history, which includes two rare genetic illnesses, comorbidities associated with those two illnesses, and several mental health conditions. Just to give an idea of how expensive it is (USA-centric):

I'm forced into living in a specific city, since that's where the medical specialists for my illnesses are located in. On top of that, sometimes the specific specialists I need aren’t covered by my insurance, so I have to pay out-of-pocket. Each medical specialist (when covered by insurance) costs me $40/visit. I average 2-3 visits per month.

Wheelchairs and everything related to wheelchairs are ridiculously priced! If you’re a regular manual wheelchair user, for example, you likely need what’s referred to as a “custom ultra-lightweight wheelchair”. The main companies known for making these wheelchairs are TiLite, Quickie, RGK, Kuschall, and Ki Mobility. If you go on the websites for these manufacturers, you’ll see that just the frame will start you at $2,000+. Need titanium instead of aluminum to make the chair lighter? Extra $1,000. Need to add a seat cushion? More $$. Need to add a power assist device like a SmartDrive? Extra $6-7,000

Seriously, wheelchair parts are expensive. Manual wheelchair wheels will run you about $500 to $800 each (take a look at websites like Spinergy to see what I mean). Wheelchair tires will run at about $300 for the pair.

Mental healthcare! Competent psychiatric care is difficult to come by, at least where I live. Most psychiatrists are not contracted with any insurance companies. My own psychiatrist is $200 per visit, and that’s considered cheap in my area. Then, add on the cost of weekly therapy. My therapist is $150/session. Again, typical price for the area. Need residential treatment? As an example, my insurance quoted me $750 per day until the out-of-pocket max of $6,500 was met.

The monthly cost of medications! I take 7 medications. Even if each medication was “only” $10/month, that would total to $70/month.

The cost of specialized diets. Many chronic illnesses require special foods, supplements, and overall diets. A lot of these diets require extra time and expenses beyond what the average non-disabled person spends.

I wanted to spread some awareness on this issue because, even among my friend group, I regularly get surprised reactions on this topic. Disabled people are often low-income due to being unable to work consistently or at all, while also having some of the highest expenses—with many of those expenses having to be paid for completely out-of-pocket. While a lot of the examples I used above were specific to the US healthcare system, I’m aware that it’s still similarly expensive to be disabled in other countries as well.

A lot of this wasn’t even taking into consideration the cost of more expensive medical equipment, like power chairs, as well as irregular medical costs that occur more frequently among disabled people—like surgeries, hospitalizations, and the cost of diagnostic testing (MRIs, X-Rays, bloodwork, etc.).

Disabled people are taken advantage of when it comes to the price of medical equipment and medications because we don’t have a choice if we want to live and/or have any quality of life. We pay it, or we suffer.

[squeakadeeks]

Your real good at making costumes, 10 outta 10 stuff, ever want to do it professionally or are you in it for the love of the game? Hope your day is well and that your stress demons perish in unknown circumstances

thank you!!! ;-;

and honestly im happy you asked because I have a lot to say on this matter. In 2020, I really wanted to be a professional cosplayer. I had just graduated from my undergrad and was turbo burned out on physics, and thought I had the chops to go pro.

And I had Medium success, but very quickly I learned that holy schmaou making a full income from cosplay was not for me. If nothing else, it was very stressful to jump from contract to contract to maintain a steady income (also like.....Health Insurance).

However what broke that aspiration fully was the mental health aspect. I got exposed to a monumental amount of harassment since you need your work to be seen by people to make money, but not all of those people will be kind. Any post you show to 3 million people is going to get vile commentary regardless of the content. Also cosplay social media is a very image-based game, and relying on my appearance for my income made my anorexia go completely off the rails, on top of other complexes around feeling more like a consumable 2D digital jester than a person. The stress of keeping 120K people's attention perpetually such that they'll keep giving you money to buy groceries was Not Awesome. (Also I couldn't go more than a few months without having an alarming stalker experience.)

Trying to be a professional cosplayer was incredibly hard. And although there are other means in which I could accomplish this (commissions, competing, streaming, etc) I have utterly no interest in it anymore. My perspective on cosplay has totally changed after that experience, going through my icarus moment of attempting cosplay professionalism and getting burned made me go through enough of an Ego Death that I have tried my best to decouple the concept of """success""" from cosplay. Sure, I'm happy and delighted when people like the things I make and I love when companies show interest and faith in my work, but its not like...the be all end all for me anymore. or rather i view success as more "i had fun with this" as opposed to "this got a ton of views and lead to a sponsorship that made money"

so for the most part i do it just for fun and as a way to keep myself from going insane in grad school...that being said im not claiming to be an Enlightened Guru or anything who Cares Not For Worldly Desires Or The Opinions Of Others, because it still makes me happy when people like my work or I get an endorsement, and I still feel sad when a costume ""flops"" so to speak. but its just not....my whole life anymore.

[obsolescent]

O’s 100 Followers Celebration

I am blown away by the support ya’ll have shown me and as thanks I’m offering you this:

Choose which work you would like to see next!

I’ll be posting the summaries for stories I have and you’ll get to pick the one you would like to see the most first!

I currently have 10 works that you’ll get a sneak preview for and they’ll be a poll posted where you can vote!

Two of these are continuations of current works I have done but have not finished.

Poll Closed!

Thank y’all again,

O ♡

Call of Duty

To Mend

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x GN!Reader

Summary: Working on base as a cobbler/tailor repairing items for the soldiers, one lieutenant visits you for a minor fix and can’t keep his eyes off you. Your nimble fingers, as they mend his belongings and maybe one day, himself. 

—

The Countenance Of A Friend

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x GN!Reader

Summary: Simon is urged by his doctor to attend group therapy, seeing if it’ll be more beneficial than one-on-one sessions. He signs up for one and that’s where he meets you. It turns out that having a friend who can understand and relate to something so personal makes him realize he isn’t alone.

Resident Evil

All Around Me

Pairing: Vampire!Jill Valentine x GN!Reader

Summary: Working nights at a gas station has its perks, little foot traffic and relatively quiet. Not to mention one of your favorite regulars frequents during this time. There’s something about her that’s so alluring, you can’t look at her for long. A feeling burning like fire, coursing through you whenever she’s around. During this time of year the days are getting shorter, becoming chillier, leaves starting to fall. Something is in the air, stirring within you. You never feel alone nowadays, once a comforting feeling has now put you on constant edge. A presence is always lurking around the corner, right out of reach. Even if you wanted to fight it, could you? Or were you destined for its pages, years in the making, the story needing you to reach its conclusion.

—

Looking For That Blessed Hope

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x GN!Reader

Summary: Meeting in college through your choir classes, Leon’s at college and the academy part time. He graduates at the top of his class and is offered a job in Raccoon City. You two had become good friends and left off on a tear-filled goodbye. You don’t see him again until years later during another outbreak. Having heard of the incident in RC, you thought he had died. He comes to your aid and you both have to make your way out of the infected streets and to safety. 

—

Breaking The Ice

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x AFAB!GN!Reader

Summary: Working at a bookstore, a kind stranger comes in and asks for your help each time, eventually working up the courage to ask you on a date. Agreeing, you two have dinner where you find out exactly what he does for work, with an offered demonstration.

—

The Affliction of Our Peace

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x AFAB!GN!Reader

Summary: Leon and you are neighbors, you two helping each other out when you can. Him retrieving your mail when he’s home and you cook him dinner when he gets back from missions. He notices your deteriorating health and things come to a head when he overhears a conversation with your insurance company, refusing to no longer pay for one of your medications. Leon offers a solution, one that would be convenient for the both of you.

—

Southern Charm

Pairing: Ethan Winters x GN!Reader

Summary: You begin working at a new company, meeting the coworker you’ll work with the most. He’s attracted to your southern charm and can’t help the feelings that rise. From the accent to the way you move, it captivates him. How much longer can he stay quiet about the blossoming infatuation he has for you?

—

Through Patience and Comfort

Pairing: Alexander Kozachenko x GN!Reader

Summary: Recently graduated with a Masters degree in Education, you have already been teaching for a couple years when you decide to branch out, applying for a chance to teach abroad. Applying to teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), your application is accepted by the Eastern Slav Republic, where you’ll be a teacher’s assistant for the time being until learning the ropes and the language at your new school, under Alexander Kozachenko.

—

All Are of The Dust Part Two | Ending One

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x GN!Reader

Summary: What if your answer was no?

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY, saith the Lord. –Romans 12:19

—

Tongue Tied Part 2

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x AFAB!GN!Reader

Summary: The events that happen after your date with Leon.

[vidreview]

VIDREV: "Marvel's Defenders of The Status Quo" by Pop Culture Detective

[originally posted december 1st 2022]

this is a good video. it makes a lot of really great points about the mcu and i think you should watch it. but i want to nitpick about one thing.

at around 11:10, the channel's titular detective says of the mcu's villains that

"When we take a look through the pantheon of marvel's supervillains and evil masterminds, we immediately notice that nearly all of them strive to destroy or disrupt the status quo in some way. In short, they seek structural change. Now, granted, it's mostly bad, authoritarian change, but…"

i want to zero in on the use of the word "authoritarian" here. the argument of this video is that marvel superheroes exist only as reactionary forces who defend the status quo rather than try to transform the world as it exists, while the villains are the ones who DO want to change things but in such a violent way that their entire argument is conveniently nullified. i agree with this argument and i think the video does a good job justifying it.

but there's a missed opportunity here in this subtle deployment of "bad, authoritarian," what feels to me like a little slipup of ideology.

why is it that the villains seeking to impose a new order are "authoritarian," but the heroes seeking to maintain the current order aren't? "authoritarian" is a slippery word, we like to use it when talking about dictators saying "kill the minorities" or just, generally, to describe when politicians work against the will of the people. except when it's in america for some reason! american politicians aren't authoritarian because they are, erm, "elected." sure they do things against the will of the people, but they can't just get away with it, there's a whole series of checks and balances and democracy and and and

and yet they get away with it anyway. every single time. no one in san francisco wants the cops to have killer robots, but the city council gave them killer robots anyway. is that not authoritarian? oppressed people in cities across the nation begged for police to be defunded if not abolished, and now they're getting more money than ever. is that not authoritarian? rail workers are currently being forced by the government to accept a contract they don't want in order to avert a strike that could grind the US economy to a halt. is that not authoritarian? is that not the textbook definition of a politician enforcing strict obedience to authority?

this postulated nature of mcu villains to want "bad, authoritarian change" feels of a distant piece with liberals who desperately pearlclutch at the simple verbal utterance of the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat." but dictatorships are bad! that's when the authoritarians dictate their will and the people just have to do it!

unlike in america where we have to work despite being in the midst of a lethal pandemic. unlike in america where housing is unaffordable, health insurance is tied to employment, and public transportation basically doesn't exist. just because there isn't a single guy standing behind a podium explicitly saying "the cost of entry into american society is a car, a mortgage, and a job at lockheed martin" doesn't mean it's not an authoritarian order. just because no one in charge is out and out saying you have no other choice doesn't magically give you other choices. "freedom of choice" is moloch's favorite song because it sounds so sweet. but everyone i know who had to get off medicaid when they were forced economically incentivized to get a job they didn't want says their employer-provided insurance is worse. a friend who had top surgery scheduled has to start the process all over now!

we live in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. the ruling class owns the media, owns the means of media production, owns the insurance companies, owns the tech corporations, owns the politicians. our psychosphere is shaped by the messages they allow to spread. isn't it funny how after the george floyd uprisings of 2020 were crushed, mainstream news media all but stopped talking about them and then stopped covering protest at all? isn't it conspicuous that now it seems like all that energy we had has just vanished into thin air? it's almost like the ruling class circled the wagons and refused to acknowledge the widely popular demand for massive systemic change.

but to just cut this down to the final quick, i'm gonna go ahead and suggest that "authoritarian" is a functionally useless term. anyone in a position of power is an "authoritarian" whether they're a federal judge or a postal worker. to pose democracy as the opposite of "authoritarianism" is like saying that rain is the opposite of water. this attitude comes from a deeply entrenched liberal misconception that democracy is what happens when The People choose to make things happen. as opposed to communism, uh, where The People, um

you see what i mean? it's all just uninformed moralizing gobbledygook meant to deliberately obscure the material reality of oppressive systems. there is no conceivable human system which can ever hope to avoid the presence of individuals making choices on behalf of the masses. there will always be people wielding authority, and there will always be malcontents, always be victims, always be the dissatisfied.

this does not negate the simple fact that if we had a dictatorship of the proletariat in america, over a million human beings would be alive today who died of covid in the last two years. and that's to say nothing of the endless swathes of human beings who've been slaughtered on the altar of capitalism through the process of organized abandonment.

we must understand that the status quo is COERCIVELY ENFORCED. the villains of the mcu often come from a working class background, know many who were in the same position, who share common cause with oppressed people. the avengers are rich corporate gods who never even attempt to use their powers proactively to help people. why is it then that the villain's plot is more "authoritarian" than the hero's? this in itself reveals how useless "authoritarian" is as a word, because it dilutes all political conflict to just two guys wielding authority. it treats the entire spectrum of human political reality as if it is a duel between two gentlemen, one of whom is an honorless scoundrel destined to lose for his duplicity. funny how that works!

anyway the video does a good job of explaining why the mcu has no regard for mass movements and its use of "bad, authoritarian change" just happened to jump out at me because i've been reflecting a lot on "authoritarianism" recently and felt like this was a good vehicle for talking about it. anyway go watch that video it's good

[tewz]

I think it's such a shame that no one can get mental help in Upper Michigan, USA. I had to take "getting help" into my own hands and read into psychiatry/different therapies and teach myself how to be less depressed/anxious on my own because my survival instinct kicked in and I can't just go without help. I literally had to help myself as a last resort. It was really difficult but I somehow pulled through. I'm still not able to function like a proper adult (can't work or drive), but I'm no longer s**c*dal and planning my own death like I did between the ages of 14-28. My 30's have actually been great so far. I have a lot less episodes and they are shorter and less intense. I haven't self-harmed in about 5 years or so too. Some people can't conquer such a thing though, and I am really concerned for several of my friends. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who live in my area who come to me crying about how they can't take it anymore. A couple of them jumped through hoops to get online therapy (tele-health, but it's very pricey and inconvenient). It's pretty much all of my friends at this point. Like my advice and compassion can only do so much and it doesn't ever seem to help them. It's become a little tiring in a way.

Same with getting a dentist with cheap insurance. The greedy conservatives (which is 2/3 of the population here) won't allow it. We all have to travel downstate or to Wisconsin to get basic work done (it takes 3.5 hours of driving to get downstate and 2.5 hours to get anywhere good in Wisconsin + no one drives or can afford cars anymore so we're all doomed). I'm gonna have to start getting to the abscess stage again to have to energy/drive to seek another dentist willing to help and that is not fair. I shouldn't have to look like I do hard drugs just because no one will fix my teeth + depression never helped with that equation either.

Everyone's life up here is a disaster. I live in a corner of the world that is sickeningly resource-less. The nearest psychiatric hospital is 1.5 hours away and doesn't usually accept people unless they've committed a crime or something drastic. The 2nd closest one is a double drive down to Wisconsin, unless you have Michigan-only insurance, then you're driving 6 hours downstate.

Another thing that drives me up the wall is the lack of basic ANYTHING. My friend from New York wants to come visit, but there's little to no AirBnB's up here unless you find a cabin in the woods with no phone/internet service, T-Mobile doesn't reach up here, no Uber drivers of any kind (2 expensive taxi companies that are overbooked all the time is the only way to get anywhere), no basic stores to find anything you're looking for so we all have to order stuff off the internet, no records stores in the entire U.P. except for a couple run-down multi-media stores that have maybe a bin or two of 60's country and Christmas music on vinyl, etc, etc. Also, my town has always been living about 10-15 years in the past. You can't find online reviews or even websites for most stores because the boomers and bootlicking assholes around here don't know what the fuck computers are. And if there's a fashion trend that I find on the internet (like crop tops of example), they won't hit our stores until 5 years later when the trend slows down. The end. Rant over. I don't wanna upset myself but like... lol...

[davidaugust]

From Writer Nick Pappas:

Hi, all. I write jokes for TV, but not long ago I was a financial analyst. I had my Series 7.

For those who say Fran Drescher or any SAG-AFTRA member should stop whining and appreciate what they have, let me give you a lesson in capitalism.

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA are dealing mainly with publicly traded companies, companies that have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. Netflix, for example, has 88.21% of their shares held by institutional investors - banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, etc.

This morning, Netflix stock hit a 52-week high. They made institutional investors alone $106+ billion dollars this year.

$106 BILLION.

Fran Drescher, for her entire life, is worth $25 million.

It's easy to get mad at Ted Sarandos or David Zaslav or Bob Iger, but they get paid so much because their only job is to make rich people richer.

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA aren't fighting against rich CEOs. They're fighting against an entire system incentivized to exploit workers.

A-list actors get paid so much because they're worth it. Someone has done the math. You don't have a poster of Bob Iger hanging up in your room. You don't binge watch a show with David Zaslav. You don't go to Comic Con to meet faceless billionaires.

You pay to see stars.

Not to mention that, in reality, 87% of SAG-AFTRA union members don't qualify for health insurance.

How much do they have to make to qualify? $26,000 a year.

These are working class people, just like you.

The wealthiest 1% hold 53% of ALL stocks. The top 10% hold 88.6% of ALL stocks. Every dollar these media companies don't give to a writer or actor, they hand to millionaires and billionaires.

When you say actors and writers are spoiled, you're on the wrong side of history.

[intlstudents]

Office Receptionist

Location

Brampton, ON

 

BenefitsPulled from the full job description

Designated paid holidays

RRSP match

Tuition reimbursement

Full job description

_

Dawn Foods is a global leader in bakery manufacturing and ingredients distribution. As the partner of choice for inspiring bakery success, we help customers grow their business through meaningful partnerships, research-driven insights and innovations, and products and expertise they can depend on. As a family-owned company, our commitments to our people, products, customers, and corporate values, are all part of our recipe for success.

_

Why work for Dawn Foods?

PEOPLE. PRODUCTS. CUSTOMERS.

Why should you apply? We invest in you!

Industry-leading health insurance after 30 days

Competitive Pay

Generous company retirement benefit contributions

10 Paid Company Holidays

3 weeks of vacation each year

Professional training

Family-owned business over 100 years in service

An opportunity for career advancement, working as part of an empowering workforce

What will you do as an Office Receptionistat Dawn Foods?

Answer all incoming telephone calls, direct appropriately and/or take messages

Meet and greet all visitors and provide assistance as required

Oversee and control all office courier services in accordance with standard operating procedures

Manage incoming and outgoing mail and upkeep of postage equipment

Manage invoices in AP system related to Brampton location

Maintain adequate stock of all office and building supplies and control the supply room.

Assist Customer Service team members when needed.

What Does It Take to be an Office Receptionist at Dawn Foods?

Below are the minimum qualifications to be a fit for this job.

Minimum 1 year of experience in an administrative role

Detail oriented and have the ability to work independently and complete objectives.

High School Diploma or GED.

Ability to multi-task

Maintain confidentiality

Proficient in Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.

SAP experience preferred but not required.

Physical Demands & Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a Team Member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Ability to work in a professional office environment. Will be expected to work onsite.

Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to focus

Note: The level of physical effort may vary from site to site and in some cases be greater or lesser than documented here.

If this sounds like the opportunity that you have been looking for, please click "Apply.”

About Our Benefits

Dawn is proud to employ the top talent in the baking industry, and we reward our people with competitive compensation packages and award-winning benefit offerings. We also help protect our Team Members’ future financial health with a generous RRSP matching program that provide additional retirement funds and many tools and resources on financial wellness. The contributions start from your first pay. Dawn also encourages professional growth through tuition assistance and educational programs, and we are always searching for ways to improve our industry-leading services and benefits.

Compensation: $41,430 - $62,150 Annual Salary

_

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity/gender expression, citizenship status, military or veteran status, genetic information or any other status or condition that is protected by applicable law.

[beardedmrbean]

Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Ten U.S. drug manufacturers have agreed to participate in the initial round of the first-ever pricing negotiations between Medicare and the nation's pharmaceutical giants, the Biden administration announced Tuesday.

The highly anticipated Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program was set to enter its next phase after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services invited the drugmakers to voluntarily join the program in August.

The move comes as President Joe Biden seeks to fulfill a campaign promise to make prescription medicines more affordable for millions of aging Americans.

The drugs on the list are among the most commonly used to treat everything from heart failure, blood clots, diabetes, arthritis, and Crohn's disease, however, average Americans often cannot afford to buy the drugs, Biden said in August when the drug cost reform effort kicked off.

Previously, the White House said the drugs are among the top 50 prescription medications that seniors fill the most at retail pharmacies under Medicare Part D.

The companies electing to participate include Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Merck Sharp Dohme, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Immunex, Pharmacyclics LLC, Jannsen Biotech and Novo Nordisk.

Collectively, the companies' drugs brought in $50.5 billion from prescriptions covered under Part D between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, with consumers paying $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs, according to a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Drug companies that manufacture these drugs have indicated that they will participate in negotiations with Medicare during the remainder of 2023 and in 2024, and any agreed-upon negotiated prices will become effective beginning in 2026," the statement said.

The pricing program is being funded through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which expanded Medicare's authority to negotiate out-of-pocket drug costs, including a $2 monthly cap on certain generic drugs used to treat chronic conditions, as well as a $35 price cap on insulin.

The pandemic-era legislation contains a broad range of actions to mitigate high drug prices, including a plan that adds commercial health insurers to a requirement that forces drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare whenever medicine prices rise faster than inflation.

Merck and Johnson & Johnson have filed multiple lawsuits in an effort to declare Biden's plan unconstitutional.

Biden has vowed to continue to pursue lower drug costs, arguing his pricing plan was working to help struggling Americans while the pharmaceutical industry raked in billions in record profits.

"There is no reason why Americans should be forced to pay more than any developed nation for life-saving prescriptions just to pad Big Pharma's pockets," Biden said at the time.

When the pricing negotiations conclude, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will announce the prices of the selected drugs on or before September 2024, however, the new drug prices won't go into effect until 2026.

From there, the government will select up to 15 more drugs covered under Part D for 2027, and up to 15 more drugs for 2028, including drugs covered under Part B and Part D.

The program will add up to 20 more drugs each year after that, as required by the Inflation Reduction Act.

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

Private health firms have donated more than £800,000 to the Conservative Party over the past ten years, openDemocracy can reveal.

This includes companies run by wealthy tycoons who have wined and dined former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May and other senior ministers.

The finding comes as the government hands out more NHS contracts to the private sector in a bid to tackle the backlog in the health service.

The British Medical Association has warned that relying on the private sector threatens the "sustainability of the NHS”, which has suffered from “a decade of underinvestment”.

Health profits

The Conservative Friends of the NHS is a group of Tory-voting doctors and health professionals who claim to support the NHS. The group’s president is health minister Maria Caufield and it has hosted stalls at the Conservative Party’s annual conference.

But the organisation’s chairman and founder, Dr Ashraf Chohan, has not worked for the NHS for 23 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, and himself has a private GP and private health insurance.

Chohan is a private health tycoon who set up a portfolio of medical and nursing businesses in London. One of his firms, West End Medical Practice Limited, has donated more than £198,000 to the Tories since 2019 – making it one of the sector’s biggest political donors.

As chair of the Conservative Friends of the NHS, Chohan has met with senior politicians, including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi. Before Christmas, in the midst of the ongoing NHS crisis, he also attended a “meaningful” meeting at Number 10.

Despite the group’s claim to support the NHS, it has repeatedly championed a two-tier health system on Twitter, saying the private sector “should be applauded for reducing demand for the NHS”. In other tweets it has advocated health insurance and argued that “all high taxpayers must have [private health] insurance by 2025”.

Experts say reliance on private health firms is creating a system in which poorer people who cannot afford to go private are “left to put up or shut up”.

NHS outsourcing to the private sector has also been linked to higher mortality rates. And hospitals that use private cleaning companies have been linked with higher rates of the MRSA superbug.

During the pandemic, Chohan – who previously donated to Labour before switching – came under scrutiny over two private firms he ran with his son that sold Covid tests. Reports said customers were charged between £80-£200 for the PCR tests, but many complained about lost samples and refused refunds.

Another Conservative Party donor is Genix Healthcare Ltd, which is part of a group of private dental clinics that makes the “majority” of its £6.6m income from NHS contracts.

The company was set up in response to the “severe shortage of NHS dentists” and says it aims to become the “dental corporate of choice for the NHS”.

Genix Healthcare has bankrolled the Tories with donations worth more than £158,000 since 2015, including cash and sponsorships.

Its owner, Mustafa Mohammed, who has posed for photos with Johnson and May and boasted about owning a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes S-Class, has also given almost £225,000 of his own money to the party.

This includes a £20,000 donation to Jeremy Hunt in 2019, the year after he resigned as health secretary.

As one of the party’s top donors, Mohammed has been part of an elite Tory dining club called the Leader’s Group, which enjoys regular access to the prime minister and senior government figures.

Care homes and GPs

The majority of Tory donations from the private health sector have come since the pandemic began in 2020.

One such donor, Doctor Care Anywhere Group PLC, has given the party more than £37,000 in the past two years – and reportedly spent £1,000 on a ticket for government minister Paul Scully to watch a cricket match at Lord’s.....

[mbrainspaz]

Fuck Cigna. I mean I know they're an insurance company so obviously they're assholes, but Fuck them.

Sometimes I miss not having insurance at all. Could I get medical care I needed? Ya know, sometimes. Only from wacko libertarian doctors who like doing under-the-table deals to live out their sad little wild west fantasies.

There's just no way to express how much it sucks to have Cigna there as this barrier to accessing healthcare that I have to go through, all while they insist on LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY deadnaming me at every opportunity. And for what??

The condition that I'd have to pay over $5000 out of pocket before my insurance really even kicks in makes it so utterly worthless to me. If had to spend all my housing savings on medical care I might as well just skip a few steps and move directly to the streets to die.

I'm supposed to get an assessment for ADHD tomorrow and they've made up this arbitrary rule that I have to pay 20% of the fee myself ON TOP of my normal copay. Why? Because they just decided I should have to do that to get assessed for ADHD apparently. What the hell gives them the right?!

It pisses me off so much. On the phone with some smug-sounding Cigna rep just now I was like, "okay that's my legal name but I go by '____'"— and the son of a bitch just totally fucking ignored me. I even corrected him again and he was like, "oh I'm so sowwy. Okay DEADNAME, —"

Fuck cigna and fuck that nasally asshat in particular.

I'm honestly considering looking for a way to opt out of company health insurance to see if there's a way I could get that extra $200 ish a month they're already just draining off my account. That'd be $1800 already—and with that I could've paid out of pocket for two ADHD assessments at the better clinic I can't afford now.

I mainly wanted insurance so I could get surgery on my arms/hands for nerve damage and I got denied for that because the nerve damage wasn't bad enough. So like... I guess I'm good for another 10 years or so until my hands are completely useless. That's also when another doctor said my knees would probably be done-for. My only hope is by then I'll have fled the country.