Okay, But…Who Exactly Was Luigi Mangione Terrorizing?

Alleged CEO killer accused of terrorism in first-degree murder charge

Dec. 18: Indictment accuses Mangione of terrorism … Woman charged in separate insurer-terrorizing … House to vote on stopgap spending … Dems tell Biden to stop breaking laws arming Israel …

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Luigi Mangione is a terrorist, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said yesterday, announcing Mangione’s indictment on charges including first-degree murder.

This likely would have come as a surprise to Osama bin Laden and others who absolutely wanted to terrorize not just New Yorkers but Americans and pretty much anyone with access to a TV in 2001.

Unlike bin Laden, Mangione took steps to not kill civilians, rejecting the use of a bomb, according to writings of his that police reportedly found.

So, uh, who exactly was Mangione trying to terrorize? Cuz, like, your admittedly calm TFN felt remarkably little terror. Like, none-ish.

Last week, prosecutors said Mangione would be charged with second-degree murder. In New York, even a premeditated murder needs special circumstances to elevate it to first-degree.

So, apparently at some point in the past week, prosecutors discovered that we had all, like, been terrorized. Remember how you were terrorized? So prosecutors yesterday charged Mangione with both degrees, along with weapons charges. But let’s look at them thar law books, shall we, source-poring Newsfuckers?

Here’s state law on first-degree murdering. And sure enough, terrorisming makes the list.

But wait! Turns out this is the one law that has a confusing reference to other law things. So what does paragraph (b) of subdivision one of section 490.05 of that chapter tell us?

Well, obviously it refers to yet more law thingies, but also it helpfully lists the requirements to make criminal badnesses qualify as terrorism. Namely that the act was intended to:

In the indictment, Bragg swapped out the “or” for an “and” and accused Mangione of all three.

In short, New York State is accusing Mangione of trying to use fear to move the people and the government. But was Mangione really, or even allegedly, trying to influence a unit of government? Because UnitedHealth isn’t a unit of government. If anything, government is a unit of UnitedHealth. (Socialist zing!)

And terrorizing the civilian population? First of all, just cuz you’re terrified doesn’t make him a terrorist. I mean, UnitedHealth terrorizes a lot more people than Mangione ever will, and it’s not like a company can be a terrorist, because, uh, reasons and shit?

"The intent," Bragg said, “was to sow terror.” But whose terror?

The civilian population was themifestly not terrorized. Seventeen percent of the population were so un-terrorized that they say the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was “acceptable,” new polling finds.

Bragg himself seems to understand that the civilian population was un-terrorized. In yesterday’s same news conference, Bragg reportedly “lambasted the public for praising Mr. Mangione.”

And America generally doesn’t seem to be on UnitedHealth’s side. Since Thompson’s murder, Americans have been selling off the company’s stock. It’s now down 18% since the shooting.

Since executive compensation is often tied to stock performance, that stock slide must be truly terrifying…but mostly to UnitedHealth executives and shareholders.

As your anti-corporate TFN has discussed more than once, the folks who definitely were terrorized by Mangione were health insurance CEOs and other insurance CEOs and other CEOs. But that’s not the civilian population. Or is it?

Treating the CEO population as the civilian population would constitute the grave offense of politicizing the office, weaponizing it to serve the agenda of a corporation that pays millions annually to lobby the government and elect friendly politicians.

Luckily for Mangione’s defense team, it turns out that both the current and incoming president are on record declaring our justice system politically compromised. Which means Mangione can now argue the terrorism charge is political.

Obviously, no one should commit grave crimes like murdering an insurance CEO or, uh, releasing a bad poll of Iowa voters. But calling Mangione a terrorist is crazier than denying health care to people whose doctors have recommended it.

What this prosecution really is, is the inevitable turning-against us of the weapons that the civilian population was, um, intimidated and coerced — by both bin Laden and our own politicians — into giving the government. That’s the true purpose of terrorism: To terrify populations into giving government power that will inevitably be turned against the people.

To wit, meet your other brand-new terrorist, America!

Prosecutors Charge One-Woman Terrorist Ring with Using Telephone for Terrorisming

Investigators in Florida have uncovered a one-woman terrorism ring that was apparently radicalized by Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Forty-two-year old Briana Boston was arrested last week on felony terrorism charges including making a “written threat to kill or injure — conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.”

That written threat consisted of a Dec. 10 phone call in which Boston tried to fight two claim denials and told a Blue Cross Blue Shield worker/hostage: “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.”

A couple legal notes from your non-lawyer Fucking News. Written threats are rarely issued over the phone. Also, “you people are next” is what laypeople call a prediction. Not a threat.

But none of that matters because terrorism.

And how seriously did the FBI take this threat when they got the call that Blue Cross Blue Shield heard something/said something? So seriously that the FBI referred the case to those terrorism-fighting experts at … the Lakeland, Florida, Police Department.

Boston told the Lakeland cops that she didn’t own a gun and, according to the police affidavit, she said, “health care companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”

Had the counterterror experts at the Lakeland, FL, PD owned a dictionary, they might have looked up what “karma” means. Instead, they apparently assumed “karma” was the name of Boston’s terror cell. Because the responding officer or detective or whatever concluded:

“Based on the aforementioned statements made by Boston and based off of current events, I believe these statements were meant to threaten the insurance company by using the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s homicide to her advantage.”

Dude can’t even decide between “based on” (correct) and “based off” (not) but he definitely knows it was a threat. Weird that the cops didn’t arrest the co-conspirators who gave Boston aid and comfort, namely her husband and their three kids.

And how effective was Boston’s terrorisming of the civilian population?

Americans are so terrified they backed her legal-defense GoFundMe well above its goal and flooded the comments with support for her. Out of terror.

The point is, Newsfuckers, if you complain about private corporations enfucking you from here on out, the military wing of those corporations, the United States government, has all kinds of weapons to deal with terror. And you’re next.

AOC Loses a Battle But It’s Maybe Not the End of the World?

As TFN wrote yesterday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) just lost her battle to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. I know, I know. There are worse things.

But the contest was the most high-profile in a wave of generational conflicts over committee leadership in the next Congress and Ocasio-Cortez reportedly had predicted victory. Then, Monday, the party’s Steering Committee recommended Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) for the leadership position, known as ranking member, instead.

It was a secret ballot from the party that stands for democracy. Connolly is 74 years old and has cancer.

In fairness, though, old age ≠ incapacity. And unlike other apparently feeble-ish Democrats who lost out on leadership slots, Connolly is said to still have some zip in his Buster Browns.

“We all get old at different rates. But Gerry’s a young 74, cancer notwithstanding,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), who is, um, 74. And, y’know, okay, that’s fair!

But it also means we’re entitled to vigorous leadership from Connolly — on a committee with jurisdiction over pretty much anything it wants — across what will surely be RePresident Donald Trump’s massive tsunami of unbridled, ego-fueled, impulsive, callous, unconstitutional, Gary Busey-level, dimwitted, man-child, he-man-women-hating, tiger-blood, Elmer’s Glue-eating upfuckery.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the youngest member of Congress, voted for Ocasio-Cortez.

“I was hoping the caucus would see what’s happened this last election and kind of learn from it,” he told NOTUS. “We’ll see where we go from here.”

Speaker Johnson Declares War on Christmas

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is a far-right, extremist Christian who’s warred against separation of church and state, even bringing the privately run National Prayer Breakfast into the Capitol building. Yesterday, he was asked about the new stopgap spending bill he unveiled, festooned with so much extra legislation that legislators call those kinds of bills Christmas tree bills.

“It’s not a Christmas tree,” Johnson grumped because he hates the Baby Jesus. (Of course, it’s understandable for fundamentalist Christians to hate Christmas, since it used to be illegal in some states and Christianity only yoinked the holiday, and trees, and Dec. 25th from pagan traditions and none of them appear in the Bible, which God wrote, forgetting His son’s birthday like a classic absentee Father.)

ANYHOO, the bill will keep the government funded until March 14, by which point RePresident Donald Trump will have to decide whether to let the government shut down due to lack of funding authorized by Congress … or due to lack of funding authorized by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

The bill includes $100 billion in shit including disaster relief. Johnson again shat on the god that he loves, blaming his magical see-through wizard for Hurricanes Helene and Milton to avoid blaming the very-real but also transparent gods of Exxon, BP, and Shell. “We’ve had to add things to that were out of our control. These were not man-made disasters,” Johnson lied. “I wish it weren’t necessary. I wish we hadn’t had record hurricanes in the fall.”

Pray harder, my dude.

Because Johnson still has to deal with another man-made disaster: Far-right Republicans in his caucus. They won’t vote for the Christmas tree bill funding extension. Which means Johnson will need Democratic votes to avoid a government shutdown Friday at midnight. Just like he and Trump will need Democratic votes on March 14.

Some Democrats Request Upholding Law Against Arming Israel

Incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) drew a line on Israel yesterday, one that could provide a foundation for going up against RePresident Donald Trump.

In a letter signed by 20 Democrats, Casar calls on still-President Joe Biden to stop arming Israel, because it’s a crime and both Casar and Biden vowed to uphold the Constitution and are generally expected not to crime, even though the Supreme Court now says the latter can.

As Casar writes, “U.S. law is clear: if the Netanyahu government does not allow sufficient food & medicine to enter Gaza, then the U.S. cannot send weapons.”

As TFN noted Monday, the World Food Programme says Gaza today is more like the Israel Famine Programme. Which means it’s against the law to arm Israel. Which many more Democrats may be about to discover if Trump really opens up the arsenal. (OTOH, there is a non-crazy possibility that Trump, who dislikes headlines about bad things, may be able to pressure Israel in a way that Biden could not to end this shit.)

Four Quickies

• The union for Starbucks employees, Workers United, said yesterday it’s authorized striking at the 525 stores where its members are organized, but has not decided whether, when, or how to strike. Starbucks could decide simply to wait out a strike until Jan. 20, when strikes will be declared terrorist threats and known or suspected agitators/baristas will be taken out and shot. The union has hundreds of outstanding disputes with Starbucks and even without a strike could resort to subtle sabotage on the job, such as misspelling customers’ names on their cups.

• Israel’s expansion plans are proceeding nicely, thank you for asking. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will hold on to the Syrian territory it’s captured after the flight of former President Bashar Assad for the foreseeable future, or at least until the market picks up. Netanyahu said that before releasing the seized territory there must be a new agreement in place with Syria’s new leaders that “ensures Israel’s security,” which no agreement can actually do because there’s no such thing as absolute total safety from everything here in Grown-Up Land.

• Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution in an act of partisan retribution and/or total fucking karma for the path her Dad set us on. House Administration Committee Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) led a new report on the horrible attack of the committee that investigated the horrible attack of Jan. 6. His conclusion: Cheney tampered with the testimony of witness Cassidy Hutchinson by, like, getting her to tell the truth. Attorney General Merrick Garland could issue a decision now, and pass on prosecuting, but that’d mean acting quickly.

• Are even Wall Street bros figuring out that RePresident Donald Trump could be a disaster for Wall Street, as Republican presidents typically are? (See: Bush, George W., global financial meltdown of; and Trump, Donald, failed pandemic preparation of.) TFN only asks because CNN reports that the Dow is now in the middle of the longest losing streak it’s had since the days of Pres. Jimmy Carter almost 50 years ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone down nine days in a row, unbuoyed by all those tech stocks rocketing skyward on an Elon Musk ketamine high.

TCB

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