Healther Skelter

America has a new outlaw folk hero because he's not just fighting insurance bullshit

Dec. 9: NY mayor claims, probably bullshittingly, to know killer’s ID … Syria’s dictatorship falls — so now what? … Trump vows to deport 14th Amendment … Trump admits his tariffs might make grocery prices go up but what’re ya gonna do …

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Some cheeky bastards held a CEO killer lookalike contest in New York this weekend. (Screengrab / FreedomNews.TV video.)

Frankly, I’m amazed that the coverage of a CEO’s assassination less than a week ago is already fading from the news. It suggests TFN’s fixation on it may be a tad unhealthy.

But your media-criticizing TFN also feels that the world of punditry and Big Brain thinkers hasn’t yet given this moment its full due.

As we wrote in a weekend Bonus Story, some big-name amateur sleuths — who typically jump on high-profile cases — are sitting this one out.

As everyone has rightly noted, it’s a rebellion against our oppressive health-”care” system. And I think we’d be having a different conversation if the shooter were Black, in which case outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch would be calling him an animal or thug.

But there’s more to this than just health care. What we know about the killer and his actions has implications for other systemic elements of modern America.

He’s making legions of cops and other law-enforcement look ineffective¹ — subverting all the reasons we were given for the creation of our police state. He’s making political leaders look foolish.

Mayor Eric Adams took a break from his own legal troubles to hint this weekend that they have the killer’s identity. But Adams wouldn’t release it to avoid tipping off the killer.

My mayoral dude, you just did that by saying you know his identity.

Which, by the way, your suspicious TFN suspects is total bullshit. If you know his identity, you blast it out immediately; to make the next leg of his escape impossible.

You do not alert him that you know — while keeping everyone around him (the people who can help the cops!) in the dark.

And if Adams were right, it’s likely someone would have gotten independent confirmation from the cops that they know the suspect’s identity. That hasn’t happened. Which suggests to me Adams was blustering his face off and didn’t wanna back down by admitting they don’t have the identity.

That led some credulous media to report — unquestioned! — that police know who it is. Which you’d think would be a bigger story. If true. (Stay tuned!)

He’s also shown how easily our surveillance state can be thwarted. And, in a super-meta twist, he did so at times with a mask that itself has become political — a medical face mask.

We don’t even know yet whether he’s used subtler techniques to foil facial recognition. Bigger nose? Fake eyebrows? Colored contact lenses? Who knows.

But his so-far successful flight represents a blow against both our surveillance state and the advocates who promised it would bring safety.

Which brings me to what’s ubiquitously been described as his “flirtatious” moment with the hostel clerk. If the clerk gave that detail to police, it appears to be the only one. If the cops heard it on video, again, that’s the only detail we have from that conversation.

Which suggests to me that maybejustmaybe the flirting theory is speculation. Because there is another reason for pulling down the mask, and I haven’t seen it discussed.

Maybe the clerk said she had to see his face to confirm his ID was legit. Which it wasn’t.

Our dude had a fake ID. Yet another blow against yet another system that combines both privacy-invasion by government and aspects of the surveillance state.

Then there’s money. Our killer appears to have paid cash for everything, rejecting every form of payment that compromises one’s identity and privacy. It’s paper, the government vouches for its value, so you don’t get my name or bank info from me when I pay you with it, creating no digital trail of my physical presence.

And what did he (apparently) leave in the backpack? Monopoly money. Fake money. Which is all money! Money is just made-up money we’ve decided has value. That Monopoly money hints at a broader ideological motive driving this person.

Even his choices of transportation have class implications. The high-priced transportation of economic elites requires personal compromise. All kinds of vetting to get on a plane. An on-file profile to get an Uber. Even a Citi Bike requires a credit card.

And they’re all trackable. One online sleuth — acting on early reports a Citi Bike was used — caught tons of heat for trying to track the killer using Citi Bike data.

Nice try, but it wasn’t a Citi Bike.

Plus, the dude (apparently) took buses. Rich people don’t take buses. So the biggest splurge in his big escape was a short cab ride. He went about as low-tech as you can get in an age that worships high tech.

And that doesn’t seem to be for lack of money. He was outfitted in high-end stuff: The hoodie and backpack both appear to be pricey items.

It’s hard to imagine someone impoverished by medical bills indulging in hawt couture.

Which again implies maybe this is more than just personal. It’s another clue suggesting a broader ideological motive.

Maybe it’s a rejection not just of the health-insurance industry, but the economic infrastructure supporting it. And the overpoliced surveillance state that enables it all.

On some subconscious level I think people are responding to all of that in ways that are firing the collective imagination. There was a lookalike contest in New York this weekend, for instance.

So TFN isn’t the only one!

So all of this got your mildly obsessive TFN thinking over the weekend how weird it is that the media haven’t given the killer a nickname yet. The only one out there I’ve seen with any traction is “The Claims Adjustor.” It’s bleak enough that TFN approves, but it also lacks that 1970s New York Post pizzazz that you want in a killer nickname.

So the wife and I put our heads to it. The premise was to modify an existing nickname for a previous killer or outlaw.

Of course, the stupidest ones make me giggle the most, so we’ll start with those and save the best one (hers, dammit) for last.

• The Cisco-pay Kid

• Dependent of Sam

• Out-of-plannibal Lecter

• Buffaloed Bill

• Buffalo Billed

• Billee the Kid

• Deductibilly the Kid

• Robin Hoodie

• And the undisputed champion: Jesse Claims.

It goes without saying that TFN expects you depraved Newsfuckers out there to share your own suggestions. You can also vote for one of TFN’s favorites:

What fuels the public obsession — for now — is his success. Not in shooting an unarmed man in the back and continuing to shoot him as he fell and lay dying. Those are, leave us not forget, extraordinarily bad things.

But he’s also fucking the system and likely will continue to even if he’s caught.

If he is captured or killed, there’s a chance the motive and the killer will turn out to be disappointing batshit. But there’s also a chance for a significant message to get a megaphone here.

In the meantime, evading capture shows us day after day it’s still possible to defeat the sprawling security-uber-alles system that Osama bin Laden would’ve been proud of. That maybe standing armies of police and militarized equipment not only aren’t the way to create the world we’d like to leave behind, they don’t even live up to the promises of total security that were used to sell them.

NO CORPORATE LECTURES ON CALLOUSNESS, THANKS On the day Thompson died, UnitedHealthcare’s stock price rose 0.9%, reportedly, “as investors reacted favorably to the company's new earnings outlook.”

That same day, Morningstar reported that:

...investors should know that UnitedHealth’s management bench is typically quite deep. We expect the company to smoothly transition Thompson’s role to an internal candidate…

While the body was still warm-ish, investors wanted reassurance another capitalist tool was ready to pick up the banner from their fallen champion in the name of money. So, y’know, spare us the lectures about lack of regard for human life, eh?

Assad and Russia and Iran all Lose … So Who Wins?

For now, there are lots of winners in Syria — and in capitals around the world. The people of Syria are free. Literal political prisoners are being freed.

There is, as the kids say, rejoicing in the streets.

Ukraine apparently deserves some of the credit for keeping Russia too occupied to give Bashar al-Assad all the up-propping he needed. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin only has to give Assad a comfy apartment-in-exile.

But Moscow and Tehran have lost an important piece on the Middle East chessboard where everyone but the people play geopolitical chess.

And before we overglorify “the people,” it’s far from clear what kind of government they’re going to establish — or have established over them. Here’s the indispensable Juan Cole:

The tip of the spear of the revolution was the fighters of the Levant Liberation Council (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS), a hard line fundamentalist organization that had run the province of Idlib in an authoritarian manner in recent years. It is not ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), though that is one path the victors could take if they were so inclined. So far, their behavior in Aleppo has presented a mixed picture, with some killing of Kurds but less turmoil, including for Christians, than some had feared.

In other words, much like UnitedHealthcare, despotism has a deep bench and the Syrian people may end up meeting the new boss, same as the old boss.

WHY SHOULD SYRIANS HAVE ALL THE FUN? Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday that they had captured Syrian border territory, what with everyone focused on the whole Assad stuff. The area’s a buffer zone created by treaty and Israel reportedly told the U.S. it only plans to hold the territory a few weeks. Y’know, until roughly Jan. 20 or so.

Not that President-elect Donald Trump would ever approve of an unauthorized border crossing.

And the United States launched more than 75 airstrikes against targets in Syria, with the stated aim of debilitating ISIS forces so they’re not in a position to take over the country in Assad’s absence. The attacks were carried out after Congress authorized a declaration of war.

Luckily, such airstrikes are always effective and never have unintended consequences.

The U.S. also threatened everyone in Syria not to include ISIS in any new political coalitions. “[W]e will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria," General Michael Erik Kurilla said. "All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way."

Fair. I mean, they might have WMDs!

Trump Vows to Violate Constitution He Will Vow to Uphold

President-elect Donald Trump in an interview that aired yesterday said he’ll do whatever it takes to change or get around the 14th Amendment, or maybe just violate it fuckit who’s got time for this legal shit.

Among other things, the 14th Amendment codified birthright citizenship. Born here? You’re American.

Here’s his exchange with NBC’s Kristen Welker:

WELKER: You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one.

TRUMP: Correct.

WELKER: Is that still your plan?

TRUMP: Yeah. Absolutely.

WELKER: The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, “All persons born in the United States are citizens.”

TRUMP: Yeah.

WELKER: Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?

TRUMP: Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it. We’re the only country that has it, you know.

WELKER: Through an executive action? You’re going to —

TRUMP: You know we’re the only country that has it. [Blah bullshit blah] … Yes, we’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.

WELKER: Through executive action?

TRUMP: Do you know — well, if we can, through executive action. I was going to do it through executive action but then we had to fix [sic] COVID first, to be honest [sic] with you. We have to end it. It’s ridiculous [sic].

The Military-Industrial-Fact-Checking Complex quickly jumped on Trump’s made-up bullshit that no other countries have birthright citizenship. But TFN wants to focus elsewhere, because diligent Newsfuckers won’t settle for less. To wit:

WELKER: Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?

Excuse the Jesus pogo-stick fuck out of me, but what the fucking Jesus pogo-stick Christ kind of question is that? National journalist who makes up fake presidential powers and bakes them into her question says what?

Why not ask Trump whether he can catch the Hogwarts Express on Platform 9¾?

When Trump says he’ll have to go back to the people to change the 14th Amendment, he’s presumably talking about amending the Constitution. Which, yeah, that’s how you do it.

In other words, it wasn’t Trump but NBC that put the absolutely most radical, illegal path on the table. Three times. It was Trump who demurred.

But all the outrage and focus was on Trump getting a fact wrong. And no one even mentioned that Trump declared immigration fixed just last month.

There was also little notice of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) fake-fact-checking the interview. He pointed out that Welker didn’t include the 14th Amendment’s requirement that they’re born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

And Lee asserted that “Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”

That’s the real danger here. Claiming the power to define what things mean is pretty much the whole ball of wax. And TFN has the power to define “ball of wax” as meaning “democracy.”

In fact, dictionaries have the power to define words. Courts can interpret laws, sure, but the amendment’s language on jurisdiction is both already-interpreted and also fucking clear.

If you’re born here as, for instance, the child of a diplomat, you are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Diplomatic immunity, right?

So Lee’s arguing that Republicans can shrink the concept of jurisdiction to exclude the children of undocumented workers … which will mean he’s effectively saying they can’t even be arrested. Because he just redefined them as outside our jurisdiction. That’s how smart these people are.

ALSO BUT The New York Times’s Jamelle Bouie has a great thread about how meaningless/stupid the denial of birthright citizenship is.

His point, basically, is that there is no Platform 9¾, so you can’t just wave a magic wand. For practical, not just legal, reasons. It’s states who issue birth certificates, the domino that leads to the Social Security Administration issuing a Social Security number. States can’t just instantly do things differently. There are state laws and processes at play. Anyway, the point is, this is amateur hour, which is good news for the rest of us.

OTOH Trump said he’s open to signing compromise legislation allowing so-called Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought here as children — to stay in the country and, presumably, attain citizenship. That’s a good thing!

OTOOH The New Republic rounds up reports of industries and even Republican officials quietly lobbying for exemptions to the promised mass deportations. That’s because entire industries and companies and even towns may desiccate and blow away if Trump really does deprive them of the immigrant workforce that has been the life preserver of the American economy.

Four Quickies

• Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) this weekend affirmed his public statement that Pres. Joe Biden should pardon President-elect Donald Trump for directing an ad hoc militia to chase the United States Congress out of the Capitol building in order to steal the presidency. Clyburn said he wants a “blank slate” for U.S. politics going forward, a rationale which is found precisely nowhere in federal pardon guidelines and would constitute the absolutely most cynical betrayal of the entire Democratic political messaging to party members for the past four years. In fact…

• …Democrats reportedly are pissed that party leaders, from Biden on down, are sitting out the transition, letting Trump begin global diplomacy as if he were president and not standing up against nominees clearly picked to execute the exact same anti-democratic mission that the Democratic Party yelled at us about non-stop when they were fundraising. “This is one of the lamest of lame ducks we’ve seen with a Democratic administration. A massive missed opportunity,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi told the Wall Street Journal. But y’know what? Good. Politics is Newtonian physics. And politics abhors a leadership vacuum. So now we can get real leaders in place fighting for something other than the team and tribalism.

• Of course, nothing’s more cynical than basing a presidential campaign on one specific promise and then after you win conceding that it may not work. America, meet Donald John Trump. Asked about the tariffs he’s going to slap on imported products, Trump admitted in NBC’s interview airing yesterday that “I can’t guarantee” they won’t make prices go up. Wharton must be so proud. MAGA, too. Miss Affordable Groceries, America?

• President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as the nation’s next surgeon general killed her dad. Calm down, Newsfuckers, it was an accident. She says. On the other hand, she’s never mentioned that she was the one, when she was 13, who knocked over the gun that shot her sleeping Dad. The New York Times, though, found a newspaper account from the time, and the police report. As a Trump nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat is, of course, unqualified — her resume including Fox but not public-health policy. Still, maybe her tragic past will motivate her to emulate her predecessors and make guns a public-health issue. ;)

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids.

1. For now.