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Remembering the Victims
The media is about to go into full lionization mode for a cold-blooded killer. Let’s take a moment to remember the victim:
Brian Thompson went from Jewell, Iowa (population 1,200) to leading 140,000 employees and overseeing $280B of revenue at one of the world’s most important companies. His mom worked as a beautician, his dad at a grain elevator—they were probably really proud when he graduated… pic.twitter.com/vX6JT2N30j
— Robert Sterling (@RobertMSterling) December 11, 2024
Couldn’t agree more. By all accounts, Brian Thompson was a blessing to everyone around him. But sadly, as the trial for his murder comes up, his name will only be mentioned in passing—and only to be cursed or slandered.
Or consider the lesser-known case of Dr. Young Kun Kim, an 87-year-old man killed at an NYC ATM in 2018. Kim survived the Japanese occupation of his homeland and became a professor at Lehman College, only to be killed for $300 in 2018. This case merited little or no national media attention at the time. The limp prosecutor, Dafna Yoran, saw the opportunity to perform an act of “transformative justice” and charged the lifelong felon Mathew Lee with manslaughter instead of felony homicide. Lee is currently in prison but will be eligible for parole in 2026.
This tragic case only became national news recently because the felon-sympathizing prosecutor, Dafna Yoran, prosecuted the case against subway hero Daniel Penny.
Let’s take an extra moment in our thoughts and prayers for the victims.
Published in General
Hear, hear.
Sadly the apparently widespread sympathy for this assassin feels like an inflection point. The left is taking a marked turn for the worse. I saw the horrifyingly survey results below on Powerline.com.
An entirely craptaculous “poll.” For one thing, 357 stayed silent by staying silent!
Do better, Penn.
I am so saddened and sickened by the reactions that I have seen. The ones from Jimmy Kimmel, laughing about his staffs sick attraction to the perpetrator on national TV and Taylor Lorenz’ deranged interview on Piers Morgan, were the worst. I know that we get the worst of the worst highlighted on right-leaning media, but these were not those weird sick Tik Tok users sharing their fantasies, these were the host of a national TV show and a Washington Post columnist (who had just quit). I still can’t believe I live in an America where it is both socially acceptable to express these views and that a segment of the people applaud them.
But then, this is why we have Trump. I hope this strain of nihilism is stamped out over the next 4 years.
Wow – thank you for sharing this info about him – now I am sadder but wiser to his good life. What a terrible loss.
It’s gonna take more than four years, but yeah.
I don’t think that this is true at all. I think that you are using this event to whitewash the severe defects in our health care system generally, and in the particular company over which Thompson presided.
I have seen some reports of objectionable practices at UnitedHealthcare. A few examples:
I’m not going to track down more details, but I recall prior reports that generally speaking, the US spends far more on health care than most peer countries, yet we have a lower life expectancy.
I think that there is a great deal of public dissatisfaction on this issue. Our political system does not make it easy to raise such grievances.
As to UnitedHealthcare in particular, I think that the information above gives a solid basis to hold a negative opinion about the company. A person who heads such a company will, understandably and justifiably, be subject to criticism and will be disliked by some.
This does not justify murder.
However, murder does not justify greedy business practices, either.
I’ve said elsewhere that this is demonic. I mean that literally: demons have been influencing these people.
All that you say about insurance or whatever may be true, but irrelevant. These are two completely separate issues. Well, there is a third issue, I guess, the conflating of these two. Which is my point.
One is a cold blooded murder because you are mad about something.
The other is one of many problems with goods and services and how they are delivered in our system.
This man is not the source of the killer’s problem, and his murder will not solve the problem. It was completely destructive.
It was a temper tantrum, exactly like rioting and destroying American cities because you are mad about some police incident.
You were caught drinking and you were grounded and couldn’t go to the movies with your friends, so you burn the house down. Jimmy Kimmel and co., and perhaps you, might respond “Well you have to admit, it was going to be a good movie, I sort of understand”.
Agreed. Don’t forget the insider trading.
Be shouldn’t have been shot. But he ought to be in jail.
If it doesn’t justify the murder, why bring it up at this time? If you were murdered, Jerry, I would consider it to be a classless act if someone responded by compiling statistics showing that many Americans are unhappy with the legal profession.
I think the real problem here. is that there is a class of ‘elitists’ who think that political violence is justified.
Luigi had no idea if Mr Thompson was involved in any criminal activity. He was upset about the healthcare system so he shot someone he presumed to be in a leadership position in that system, hoping that violence would shock the system into change.
So no, sadly the real reforms will have to shelved until Luigi can’t take credit for them. It maybe already too late, if its shown that political violence is not only justified, but effective the flood gates will be opened…
Having been a guest of the British National Health Service and experiencing the private American system…I’ll take the American system. Often there are very reasonable criteria for denying services and under nationalized healthcare systems are the denial rates (or delay rates) better or worse.
I think the murderer will be shown to have had a serious psychotic breakdown several months ago. My fellow Americans who applaud this murder (it is getting more difficult to call them fellow Americans) are likely celebrating the result of a young man who is suffering from a mental illness. Then a few of my fellow Americans who go on to talk about what a hot looking guy he is…well I am at a new level of disgust. We are not a serious country.
Watching the celebration of a young father being murdered in cold blood disgusts me and makes me question whether I am culturally close to tens of millions of my fellow citizens.
In every economic system, there is a rationing of resources. In America, the duty of rationing healthcare is mostly put upon the health insurance industry. People don’t like rationing, but it is a necessary thing. If somebody doesn’t want to experience rationing, they should go make a lot of money and then they can spend all they care to on medical services.
I had that argument with a relative.
“He is expressing his truth.”
“The truth is that he murdered a man because he’s crazier than a crack rat in a coffee can.”
This murder was a kind of perfect storm. Mental illness and narcissism festering in the cognitive cesspool of elite US higher education: economic ignorance, socialist claptrap, dearth of analytic skills wrapped up in the pathetic false certainty of peak understanding of all things and the cultivated absence of a substantive moral compass.
This is off-topic, or maybe it isn’t, because it would affect the comments on any topic. Doesn’t anyone else wish for a ‘down vote’ button, besides me?
They set this all up wrong. Within eight years, the Senate Republicans and the Senate Democrats sent a letter to somebody saying Medicare was an actuarial disaster. My most recent amount that I’ve heard is it was off by 9X. They knew that in 1973. They put a gun to everybody’s head to participate and then they know it’s going to collapse.
Of course, Medicare shapes the whole private market to the bad.
Realistically, either the taxpayer or the person has to reserve a hell of a lot of money.
The system is set up to rip people off as well, because that’s what government does.
Everybody should have been on indemnity contracts and concierge medicine the whole time. That would’ve wiped out a lot of administrative stupidity and unfairness. They needed to be real about reserving for it, but politically… well… you can’t.
We are going to get death panels.
The other thing I heard is that company had a 5% profit margin. I thought insurance companies were lower than that, but I don’t really know.
So you can either give him more premiums or less more premiums, way upfront, like decades, or you can have this situation.
They put a gun to our heads and then they lie about it.
I’d prefer we not go down the road of an insanity defense. Pretty much every “anti-capitalist” leftist would qualify as mentally ill. Have we noticed practically all political violence in the US is perpetrated by the Left?
I don’t care why he murdered the man. Only that he did it in premeditated, cold blood and must be punished within the boundaries of the law. It’s New York, so they’ll probably let him off easy anyway.
That’s pretty low . . .
Yes Jerry – there is plenty to be negative about in the healthcare industry overall – starting with Obamacare. No it does not justify murder or even harassment. There is also a terrible hole with regards to mental health care. Hopefully, Kennedy will clean this industry up.
We may even skip the “death panel” step and go directly to an authorized “care giver” making the decision.
I have had Health Insurance since the late 1960s with an organization that used to be called Group Health and is now owned by Kaiser Permanente. My coverage has been excellent. I have noticed since the Covid nonsense that even this venerable organization has had a great deal of trouble maintaining a full staff of doctors and nurses. I got a call from their main office the other day telling me that the person I had been seeing for the last two or three years had left the organization and that I would have to find another. When I looked through the available people in my particular clinic none were accepting new patients. I am covered though by the supervising doc for my previous one. I will see how that goes.
Kaiser is a premium provider. They are doing all they can to provide the best service and care that they can. The problem is that a switch was turned off during Covid which may or may not have been due to the epidemic. I suspect that the very morons who are lauding the murder of Brian Thompson are responsible because of their absurd woke nonsense surrounding the trans issue and all of the other idiocies that they have pushed so hard the last four years. A lot of very good docs have simply quit or retired, nurses as well.
Modern medicine is amazing. There are so many procedures being done now that weren’t even dreamed of when I was young. These things come with a price tag, nothing is free, and those who are responsible for prescribing them and administering them have big responsibilities in doing so and should be compensated. I see the same thing in dentistry. They do things now that are amazing. Again, it isn’t cheap.
The desire to have a free ride which is pushed by the rhetoric of the left, particularly those fat cats for whom there is no charge, is total nonsense. The clear message has to be you get what you pay for. Resources are limited. If you want to invite half of the Third World to cross your border and take up residence the money spent on giving them room and board is coming out of a pot that is barely covering the basics for those of us legally here. That message needs to be made manifest. It isn’t the corporate leaders of health care insurance companies whose salaries are causing the problem. It is the politicians who buy votes with money that doesn’t exist, and then tries to point elsewhere for the blame.
Crazy-but legally culpable. We need to be careful how we phrase it.
“Not accepting new patients” is a fairly common problem that people encounter when dealing with medical insurance.
My father died of prostate cancer in 2002. Might have been avoidable, but we’ll never know because Kaiser didn’t have/cover PSA testing.
A lot of it isn’t cheap, that’s true, although PSA testing is supposedly on the cheap side. Way cheaper than prostate cancer, for sure.
How many PSA tests might be paid for, without any increase in premiums, if people like Brian Thompson were paid just $1 or 2 Million a year, instead of 10?
Legally culpable? Oh, yes. He knew he’d be arrested if he didn’t make himself scarce. That speaks to premeditation. The voices in one’s head are very rarely able to put together such a tight plan for getting out of town.
Mine only tell me to stay home and clean the guns.
5% profit margin.
They need more premiums.
Realistically, they should’ve been given more premiums decades ago to pay for today.
lol well done.
Brian, you’re the first person to state the obvious. Mr Mangione is a cold blooded killer. He’s also a paranoid schizophrenic. He’s as classic as Jared Loughner. I predict he will cop a plea of insanity.