By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
I had started this post with a quest for a nickname: I couldn’t, after all, keep writing “the alleged assassin of Unitedhealth CEO Brian Thompson” over and over, and “CEO assassin” seemed too generic for the case. The internet, amusingly, settled on “The Claims Adjuster,” or “The Adjuster.” The earliest example I could find:
is anyone calling the assassin the claims adjuster? we should call him the claims adjuster.
— ally (@missmayn) December 7, 2024
Memed immediately:
"claims adjuster" seems to be the popular favorite https://t.co/EsvuRViKtt pic.twitter.com/TgWTM6ohgV
— nobody from nowhere (@ctizzie) December 7, 2024
Memed again:
I hope this turns into a thing like Batman where we get all kinds of awesome supervillains with names like "The Claims Adjuster" and all of us are just cheering them on against that fucking billionaire vigilante. pic.twitter.com/WN3EbAumRm
— Darren Mckeeman 🟥⬛️🟦⬜️🟦⬛️ (@tjcrowley) December 7, 2024
UPDATE Plot twist: Now we have a name. From the New York Post: “Suspect in fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson ID’d as Luigi Mangione, an ex-Ivy League student“:
Mangione was valedictorian of his 2016 high school graduating class at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he played soccer, according to online sites. High school tuition at the all-boys school is nearly $40,000 a year.
He said at the time of graduation that he planned to seek a degree in artificial intelligence, focused on the areas of computer science and cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania, according to an interview with the Baltimore Fishbowl.
The tech hotshot graduated cum laude from the private Ivy League institution in Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE), Computer and Information Science in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He also completed a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE), Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, his profile states.
So it goes. (Since Mangione hasn’t been convicted, I’m going to continue to use “The Adjuster.”) From a Yahoo News live blog:
Mangione was detained by Altoona, Pa., police at a McDonald’s restaurant roughly 300 miles west of New York City at approximately 9:15 a.m. An employee at the fast food chain recognized Mangione from photos released by New York police and contacted local law enforcement, Tisch said. [NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny] added later that Mangione “was sitting there eating” when police approached. They found several items that they believe link him with the fatal shooting in Manhattan, including a ghost gun consistent with the weapon seen in video footage of the crime, a silencer, a fake New Jersey ID that matched the one used when the suspect checked in to a Manhattan hostel, a U.S. passport with his real name, a handwritten document or manifesto that police say speaks to Mangione’s motivation and mindset, and clothing, including a mask, that match those worn by the suspect. Kelly said that, based on the document found in Mangione’s possession, it appeared that he “has some ill will toward corporate America.”
(The Times live blog says a customer called 911, not an employee. Also, “a mask” is wrong; the Adjuster wore two: One black, one a baggy blue. Inconsistencies abound.) Labor reporter Kim Kelly comments:
grappling with the implications of The Adjuster turning out to be a hot Italian tech bro gym rat who went to Penn, seems to have had a pretty gnarly back injury, retweets anti-woke nonsense, and has read not one but two books by Steve-O
— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) December 9, 2024
The Adjuster also had a Twitter account:
The alleged assassin of the UnitedHealthcare CEO argued online that the oppression generated by contemporary institutions wasn't intentional but was instead the emergent product of complex systems responding to incentives
"The idea that phenomenon are the results of amorphous… pic.twitter.com/PkkPFaPUYF
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) December 9, 2024
I must ask you to click through; but Yang is correct: An X account by the name “Luigi Mangione” did in fact write “the idea that phenomenon are the results of amorphous systems outside of our control is scary.” OK, but if that idea is true, then why hold a CEO accountable, very personally[1], for the results of an “amorphous system outside our control”, in this case, the health insurance industry? Again, inconsistencies abound. And speaking of inconsistencies, why did the Adjuster hang onto all that stuff? Why not ditch it? Is the plan jury nullification?
With that, I want to return to the original, extremely simple plan for this post, which I can put in the form of a question: If I were in the employ of one of the organs of state security, what would I regard as the salient features of the case? And where would I seek more control than I already have? ABC’s summarizes The Adjuster’s stay in Manhattan. I have underlined the relevant topics:
The gunman used a fake ID and paid cash during the 10 days he was in the city, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters Friday. He also kept his face covered except while checking in at a hostel. He was captured on some of the thousands of surveillance cameras blanketing Manhattan, allowing police to build a timeline of his movements.
Now I’ll present aggregations of these three topics — Cash, Masking, Fake IDs — showing that the discourse is already primed to regard them as problems to be solved, if future copy cat Adjusters are to be avoided.
Cash
From ABC:
The 10-day period has been the focus of investigative efforts. Police have collected a lot of video of the suspect all over the city — in the subway, in cabs, in a McDonald’s, according to sources. Each place he paid with cash and he made sure to keep his mask on, according to sources.
From the Washington Post:
Images released by police also seemed to show that person had used cash to buy something at a Starbucks before the shooting.
From The Times:
Police have searched the hostel, where it has been reported he presented fake identity documents and paid in cash, staying in a room with two men he did not know.
From FOX:
The suspect is said to have paid in cash at the Starbucks.
From the New York Times:
The police said they have a passenger list for the Greyhound bus, but the suspect did not need identification or a credit card to board.
So, if you want to look at it this way, cash makes it easier for assassins to get around, and so should be deprecated.
Masking
From AP:
The gunman made sure to conceal his identity with a mask during almost all of his time in the city, including during the attack and while he ate, yet left a trail of evidence in view of the nation’s biggest city and its network of security cameras. “From every indication we have from witnesses, from the Starbucks, from the hostel, he kept his mask on at all times except for the one instance where we have him photographed with the mask off,” Kenny said.
From the New York Times:
After that, he went to the hostel on the Upper West Side. The suspect kept his mask on the entire time, even at meals, and used cash. Kenny said that the only time he lowered his mask was to talk to a clerk at the hostel and smile at her.
From Slate:
A gunman dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask over his lower face ambushed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning in midtown Manhattan, where Thompson’s company was hosting a conference.
From WaPo:
The shooter, wearing a hood and a mask, fired multiple rounds at Thompson before fleeing the area on a bicycle and disappearing into Central Park.
From the Boston Globe:
Late Saturday, police released two additional photos of the suspected shooter that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi. The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue, medical-style mask.
From CNBC:
[Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch] said the assailant was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive early this morning. Kenny said the gunman wore a black face mask, black and white sneakers, and a “very distinctive” gray backpack. The video of the shooting showed the shooter wearing a hooded jacket.
So, if you want to look at it that way, masks make it easier for assassins to conceal their identities, and so should be deprecated.
Fake ID
From AP:
Investigators believe the suspect used a fake identification card and paid cash, Kenny said, when he checked in at the hostel, which has a café along with shared and private rooms and is blocks from Columbia University.
From FOX:
The suspect wanted for the brutal slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson used a fake ID to check into a New York City hostel before the brazen execution-style killing, police sources tell Fox News.
From the New York Post:
The suspect had used the ID to book a space at the HI New York City Hostel at 891 Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan back on Nov. 30, according to sources. A subsequent probe, however, revealed the ID was fake, the sources said.
From the New York Times:
[A] senior law enforcement official said he used a fake New Jersey identification to book a room at a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where he stayed before the killing.
Once again, if you want to look at it that way, fake IDs make it easier for assassins to conceal their identities, and so should be deprecated.
Conclusion
Obviously, corporate security reacted to The Adjuster’s claims adjustment immediately. From the New York Times:
Dozens of chief security officers from Fortune 500 corporations around the world joined a video call on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan, to discuss additional protective measures for executives moving around the area, according to a security expert who participated in the conversation.
The discussion included best practices and reviews of executive protection programs, according to the expert, Dave Komendat, a retired chief security officer at Boeing and president of DSKomendat Risk Management Services, a consultancy based in the Seattle area. He said that all of the security officers on the video call were facing upper-echelon requests for presentations on the current state of their security programs and scrutinizing their own practices.
And the “upper-echelon” wasn’t only in fear of their lives. From Yahoo Finance:
Shares of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) fell for the second session in a row today as investors seem to be reckoning with the backlash against the company following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning.
However, cash, masking, and fake IDs are not in corporate security’s purview; they are matters for the State. And fortunately, efforts are in train to allow the organs of state security to police all of them.
• Cash. NC’s Nick Corbishley has written often of “The Dystopian Dream of Global Central Bank Digital Currencies” (and the preference of dull normals for coins and paper). The discourse, as I show above, is primed for the “War on Cash” to be intensified; the public relations spadework has already been done.
• Masking. NC has written up mask bans already. The discourse is also primed for more bans. Here’s a little over-the-top rhetoric from New York’s Mayor Adams:
‘Let him continue to believe he can hide behind the mask. We revealed his face. We’re going to reveal who he is….
• Fake IDs. For that, we have the long-delayed Read ID Act: “Americans will need Real ID to travel in 2025: Here are the requirements.” Here again, the discourse is primed.
Of course, we as a society could avoid these draconian measures with a health care system that doesn’t produce rage in those subjected to its ministrations. But who wants that?
If this case goes to trial it will be OJ scale spectacle. Not easy imagining a voir dire process that will suit a prosecutor. I keep wondering if/when Jury Nullification will be allowed to be discussed in the MSM or will be carefully censored ala C-19, Gaza etc. Speculation abounds!
Also difficult to imagine a plea deal given the publicly available evidence. Manslaughter? Reckless endangerment? One wonders.
I can’t see this going to trial. This guy is way too popular and oligarchs won’t want to give him a soapbox.
He may mysteriously die in prison where for some mysterious reason all the cameras weren’t working just at the time, and the guards were mysteriously asleep.
Though the “oligarchs” might see the healthcare companies as useful distraction. Not like it’s the MIC or DC.
Killing him would just make him a martyr and add to the legend. That would be a big mistake.
meh. who still remembers Aaron Bushnell? I make it a point to remember him but few do.
Nobody remembers Christopher Dorner either. Or Joseph Stack. I had to look up Stack’s name myself – all I could remember was a guy flew his plane deliberately into a building in TX.
Those who had a point to make tend to get memory holed quickly.
>>>Those who had a point to make tend to get memory holed quickly.
Not by accident, I think.
How are they ever going to get a jury through voix dire?
QUESTION TO POTENTIAL JUROR – Have you, your family or friends ever had any issues with a medical claim from an insurance company? That would eliminate the entire country.
> That would eliminate the entire country.
Can’t wait to see a jury composed of healthcare and pharma VC’s …
It would be a murder trial – a person kills another in a premeditated way- Voir dire of jurors would probably avoid those questions and keep questions of potential motivation, irrelevant.
But I don’t know.
Well may yet prove to be true, largely depending on the case and where he is placed on trial. Not a lawyer so I’m gonna presume this cat is facing an extended stay in a cozy NYC adjacent prison cell.
Instead of the OJ Simpson trial, which at that time set or just completely reset all manner of both broadcast TV and cable TV precedents for the coverage, the build up to and including the aftermath that followed his acquittal, what about a different and 2025 sort of televised court procedure? The trial at the time ( 1995 to 1996 ) featured a lot of everything for everyone, including the crucial cross sections for both race and class ( a retired professional athlete can build a nice life for himself, especially a former Heisman winner tied into his elite alumni base ). The Simpson murder trial for the double homicide was truly a once a generation occurrence. I am nearly 52 today, while I don’t remember the daily trial events well but wow the lengthy police chase scene in the white Bronco is a legendary recall.
In this case today…that is not applicable. Instead I suggest a recent example, the Patriot Day bombing at the Boston marathon; I just don’t really remember closely what followed after the extended chase and ensuing manhunt. Obviously that was recapped in film a few years back.
https://www.history.com/news/boston-marathon-bombing-timeline
I don’t remember the year or date of White Bronco Chase Day. But I remember the day. I was watching CSPAN and sometime during the CSPAN programming I remember Brian Lamb telling us the audience that CSPAN was not covering the Bronco Chase and WOULD NOT COVER the LEAST SINGLE LITTLE BIT of it.
I kept right on watching CSPAN. To this day I am proud of myself for not having watched any of the White Bronco Chase “Live!” as it was happening.
Thus we get to see what part of society is actually planning a “revolution.”
All of the above thug caste wet dream rendered a moot point if the perp could care less whether he/she is caught. Why would anyone even care if they’re caught avenging the murder by spreadsheet of a loved one by taking out the entire board of directors?
What more would there be to lose? That’s the problem with a situation when many people are backed into a corner. The cost of doing business as usual is going to go up.
If that teleconference of corporate security chiefs didn’t cover giving the help and their families good health insurance, they made a big mistake.
Well, full-time nurses working at the major hospitals in my area have crappy insurance through their employers.
I mean, the help that carry the guns.
Nurses in the family in five states. All of these are “in your area,” Carla, economically if not on a map. It’s so bad.
You could add to your list “ghost gun” which we are told “could have been made with a 3D printer”.
Perhaps the sale of 3D printers and bullets should also be banned.
And add:
taxis make it easier to get around and should be deprecated
same for e-bikes
Starbucks make it easier to wait for your victim without being noticed and should be deprecated
It appears the gunman made too many mistakes (Showing your face in a retail establishment right before the shooting is a mistake if you are going to run), or wanted to be caught. Being found in a public place days after the shooting screams that he didn’t have a long term plan after he got out of NYC. If he did he wouldn’t have been near anything public for a long time.
As one friend put it: “Couldn’t resist a pitstop for some nuggies.”
presumably, he needed to show his face at the hostel counter to check out and get his ID back. He could have maybe booked another day and fled but he would have left behind his fake ID with his real photo. A bit of a lose/lose.
If he could get one fake ID, why not two or three? I was really hoping he would get away and be the next DB Cooper, but after being apprehended in a public place wearing the same or similar clothes as in the ubiquitous photo, with the murder weapon and a manifesto on him, it seems like he might have wanted to get caught.
“He said at the time of graduation that he planned to seek a degree in artificial intelligence, focused on the areas of computer science and cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania, according to an interview with the Baltimore Fishbowl.
The tech hotshot graduated cum laude from the private Ivy League institution in Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE), Computer and Information Science in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He also completed a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE), Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, his profile states.
Seems like he was working more on a electronic security thesis than doing any “claims adjusting.”
Wasn’t Thomas Crooks — the first Trump gunman —, also an honors engineering student?
In high school, IIRC. But yes. So was Mohamed Atta….
Clearly we should ban engineering along with cash and masks!
So was Ted Kozynski, the Unabomber. He is said to have also been a subject, while in college, of personality control experiments by CIA affiliated professors.
Ye Bomber was a maths prodigy.
One thing that connects this group is their intellectual ability to see through the Social Narrative. Thus, I assume, (with proper caveats,) that NC adjacent persons are automatically entered upon the Organs of State Security list of “Probable Non-compliant Persona” (PNP.)
Stay safe. Go Grey Man.
which raises the question of why has the thomas crooks story been so thoroughly memory-holed. seen almost nothing about him, his peers, his motivation, &c. he’s just a cypher. or (to indulge in some tinfoil hat thinking) a setup from some larger, more nebulous organisation. our lovely three letter spooks, perhaps?
Ivy League graduate. Sounds like the cops need to be keeping a closer eye on those. Maybe pull a few over for questioning? They should be pretty easy to spot, since they put those stickers in the car windows.
So per Fox, the shooting is a brutal slaying. Wonder what the description would be for a hacking attack with an axe?
I would very much like to call Fox – and discuss with them anonymously 2 patients that I have had that were covered by United Healthcare that died because of a severe delay in care because of their claims posturing. I would be happy to fill in the patients’ families as to what I was doing – and if they would like to discuss their feelings, their grief, their altered lives with Fox.
I have 2 patient disasters resulting in death. Several others resulting in permanent life status changes.
All of which may very well have been prevented. There are generally about 65K practicing General Internists across the land. We all have stories. We share them all the time with one another. It is likely tens of thousands of patient deaths when added all together. Maybe many more. Certainly many more than died on 9-11. And we really made a big deal about that.
I wonder if Fox would consider those patient deaths “a brutal slaying”? And I wonder how they would handle the grief of those family members. And in one case, look into the eyes of little kids who have been forever robbed of a dad?
At some point, my soul is just tired of all of this. No one listens. No one cares. What this young man allegedly did was heinous. But you have to consider what these companies are unleashing upon our landscape as well – and it is as evil as anything I have ever confronted in my life. And I feel powerless.
You are okay. What you are witnessing is humans being human. It’s a feature.
What you are witnessing is social murder, a core feature of late-stage catabolic capitalism.
>a core feature of late-stage catabolic capitalism.
Engels would disagree.
Engels didn’t make it this far.
Engels didn’t live long enough to see global warming or read Overshoot by Bruce Catton.
I remember once reading a set of articles called Exterminism by someone named Stan Goff whose nom d’blog was The Feral Scholar. The articles and ” The Feral Scholar” itself have been deeply memory-holed by the Search Prevention Engines. At least Stan Goff himself has a wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Goff
“Overshoot” is be William R. Catton. Bruce Catton is a popular Civil War historian.
Thank you. While I am embarrassed by the memory failure, it shows that an informed fellow body of commenters can catch and correct mistakes.
I will claim that I knew who I meant to mean.
WELCOME TO THUNDERDOME, DOC!
Does UnitedHealthcare advertise on Fox? That may have something to do with the tone of the reporting.
I know you and those working hard in good faith are not to blame for any of this. Your professional associations, however, are a cruel joke and in years past contributed mightily to create this horrid system we have.
Maybe it’s long past time for an actual doctor’s union, or twelve, that would make actual demands for a humane system.
We have no leadership in this fight and sick patients going into bankruptcy can’t fight the fight. It’s sad when an unbalanced gunman is the closest we have to a courageous leader.
It could be argued that the oligarchy through its ecology has immunity and impunity all tucked up already.
But just about everything is never enough.
Why not go for everything?
They really are a scab over a festering wound and the more brittle and disconnected the top gets, the more the feedback turns negative.
An interesting analogy. A scab implies an itch needing scratched.
The photograph offered in this post is a photograph of Starbucks Guy. The photograph of Shooter Guy that we are not being shown very much of at all anymore showed Shooter Guy wearing a coat which sure looks different to me than the coat on Starbucks Guy. Here is an article with a side-by-side image in the Newsweek article. https://www.newsweek.com/brian-thompson-killer-shooter-possible-accomplice-professional-1996812
The two coats look different to me. And not just because of muddier quality of Shooter Guy’s photo.
Even with the image being muddier, I see a ” textured cloth fabric” type cuff on Shooter Guy’s photo which I do not see on Starbucks Guy’s coat.
I hope someone preserves these images beyond the reach of the professional Spook Photoshoppers before all the images within digital reach are given the same identical coat, one way or the other.
” So which one is The Adjuster? Starbucks Guy or Shooter Guy? “
The coat on the right has a flap over the zipper and chest pockets with flaps, neither in evidence (to me) on the other coat. And they’re not the same color.
And, the eyebrows look different. Luigi has an impressive set of brows that nearly meet in the middle. Shooter Guy does not. Is it a trick of the camera resolution?
The different coats and backpack colors are really weird.
Passport and passport card are Real ID. No need for get your drivers license updated if you have a passport.
> passport = Real ID
Yes.
All the more reason to get one! Sooner rather than later, because you never know
A couple of points… to get your first ever aUS passport, have to get a USPS interview, which can get booked up. If you lose either passport or passport card, or forget to renew for I think 6 months, interview again. But the nice thing about the passport card is that you have evidence of citizenship that you can keep easily in your wallet.
It occurs to me that, going forward, when encountering anti-woke messaging, there’s a new brand of woke in town. As you mention, real id already a done deal. Cash is populist, so is the Adjuster, those battle lines might stay firm. As for masks I’m having a chuckle at the prospect of upcoming rethinks on public position, in both directions. Masks are soooo not populist, but methinks a new emphasis as a toll to protect one’s identity may cause some indigestion.
I saw Dr Jha comment today that the executives at UH might not realize that their AI was rejecting claims, which struck me as either grossly insulting the public’s intelligence or, offering a diplomatic path for healthcare executives to correct their ways without admitting fault. A better comment, IMO, was that claim rejection rates should be published and reviewed by regulators.
That comment is just like everything else Dr. Jha says – it is coming from someone who has either no idea what he is talking about – OR someone who is a compete liar. Indeed, pretty much everything he says is a complete joke – coming from someone who does not really take care of patients but gets to tell the rest of us how to do it. That is how I would take anything coming from his mouth.
UnitedHealthcare denies the most claims of any major health insurer, data show
Boston Globe via archive.ph
The article cites Value Penguin as it’s source, which in turn gets data from in-network claims data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Humans have known how to keep accurate business records since at least the time of ancient Sumer. If the biggest insurance corporations today can’t keep them, that’s not a mistake, it is a business plan.
From working at a major life insurer and attending regulatory meetings (mainly the National Association of Insurance Commissioners) I can attest that insurers are intensely data obsessive. I’d be shocked if health insurance executives are not reviewing reports of claims made, paid, and rejected vs. projections, at least monthly. Probably broken out by region, zip code, and other factors. It’s what drives their bottom line.
Agreed. The mass deaths are not a mistake, though they are presented as a tragic oversight of a flawed system, they are one of the products.
I remember speaking with someone whose father was a life insurance actuary.
He said the industry knew about the dangers of smoking for asbestos miners as it showed up in their claims data.
This was well before computer data bases.
I’d assume insurance companies are extremely competent in gathering and using data now, with well paid staffers that “run the numbers”.
But senior executives may prefer to have some “plausible deniability” and claim ignorance.
AI may as well stand for artificial incompetence, as far as its managerial uses are concerned.
These executives direct human beings to deny claims all the time. I’ve talked with claims adjusters who confirmed this – they really hated their jobs. If they made people do it in the past, I’m positive they’ve made sure their algorithms do the same thing. This Dr.’s pants are on fire.
I guess I’m the only one who watched the Dr. Phibes movies and got the plot/motive.
There will never be another Vincent Price –
“Somewhere…over the rainbow …”
True! Dr. Phibes was an early ‘Claims Adjuster.’
Price had the ability to make fun of himself, not a common trait in Hollywood.
Another essential element of the police state is citizens dutifully reporting on each other.
$50k reward.
> citizens dutifully reporting on each other
The J6 aftermath did provide the unfortunate spectacle of citizens hunting each other down. Good training!
Amusingly, all the Yelp reviews of that McDonald’s are now complaining about the rats….
Welcome to the United Snitches of America. But it is funny about that Altoona McDonalds-
https://xcancel.com/mcsquared34/status/1866252292648743210#m
Those would be the “internet sleuths” mentioned in this article: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/internet-sleuths-say-wont-help-find-unitedhealthcare-ceo-suspect-rcna183228 ? Well, not just them, I suppose. (Being a popular sort of transgressor, with a widely socially approved transgression, might provide some limited protection. May just not have been enough in this case.)
United Stasi of America.
Altoona McD’s 1-star reviews take a turn:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDX1D3vPKm6/?igsh=eXhtaDhneWU4NWh1
“I can usually get people to delete them by offering up a few McFlurry coupons, but this is different.” Lol
McDonald’s has cameras everywhere and I would not be surprised if there’s one in the order kiosk they force you to use now. Perhaps it wasn’t a fellow diner that turned him in, but rather facial recognition technology that we’re not being told about. I can open my iPhone wearing a mask, after all.
These two things do not track:
*Eating in public
*Keeping all that incriminating evidence..
But if it really is him…
Is it possible they used facial ID tech and some other technical means they don’t want the public or the eventual judge to know about and then McD’s was a cover story?
Yes, it’s possible.
I’ve heard parallel construction mentioned…
I’m torn between demanding an account of all the incongruities (the various jacket colors; none of the photos look alike to me) and an acceptance that “real life” is messy and incongruous…
More incongruities–
The handwritten manifesto…. Kids these days don’t write. Was he scribbling it down on the bus?
Also: He had a laptop in the McDonalds. Surely not in his backpack? Did he have s pied a terre in Altoona? Why?
The mug shot has a unibrow. The hostel photo does not. It is impossible to grow a unibrow in 5 days. Among other irregularities as you point out above.
If he checked into the hostel on the first day of his 10-day stay, and then it’s been how many days since? More to the point: would the unibrow have shown up on the Starbucks cam?
For sure. Going through his last few months of google searches would have probably revealed a bit of an obsession with Thompson.
Also, you’re required to have a backup email whenever you sign up a new account which will eventually lead to your real ID.
Really hard to commit the perfect crime these days.
Recommended reading on the state of facial recognition (spoiler: it’s either very good or very bad, depending on your point of view – most here will probably think the latter):
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691288/your-face-belongs-to-us-by-kashmir-hill/
(Carefully crafted and gonzo) satire alert: Condemning The UnitedHealth CEO Assassination. YouTube, 10 minutes.
As an aside, amazingly his X account is still active, and commenters having a grand time.
https://x.com/PepMangione/status/1600875886727016449?t=H88J2XU9sJVQuTzD2rQ_-w&s=19
Mangione’s manifesto, allegedly..
#TYVM
Not badly written, seems plausible and fits the facts so far?
Ideologically. I have a lot of problems with it, but yes, it’s well written.
This tweet allegedly quotes from a second manifesto:
https://x.com/millionpickles/status/1866210938946502806?s=61
The words “strife” and “parasite” do not appear in the alleged manifesto linked to above.
In any case, surely nobody has transcribed the handwritten manifesto that Mangione is said to have possessed at the time of his arrest?
I’m wrong. A transcription has been made. From the Times live blog:
And:
This one has a completely different tone than the first alleged manifesto.
And:
He makes it sound like he was hired by other members of the C-suite.
The first one contains the key to the neoliberal credo: “I am my own chief executive.”
I wonder what he feels about The Matrix movie. Earlier this year I spoke several times with an unhinged computer engineer who took its gnosticism as the way, the truth, and the light – in the gospel sense.
I can’t tell if he is referencing to be “His own chief executive” sarcastically or as a way to show that he and his shooting victim are both responsible for their crimes Also imagine seeing your mother going through all of that, and then knowing you are doomed to the same fate.
Thanks … seems that in a Wild-West, frontier justice kind of way, Mangione killed Thompson over a breach of contract.
Mangione’s arrest record, allegedly.
https://x.com/ms_harmony58/status/1866295280636772797?s=61
I can’t get the tweet to embed, but the arrest record (not “criminal complaint”) is top left. The inventory doesn’t mention a document (i.e., the manifesto), or the laptop. I’m not sure whether that’s normal procedure or not.
At bottom is a chunk of prose, presumably from Mangione, that does not occur in the manifesto linked immediately above.
You rock, as usual.
From the master aggregators and headline-writers at -The Daily Mail: Luigi Mangione is heir to holiday resort fortune created by his grandparents and has sister who’s top doctor:
And at the arraignment:
The currency wasn’t listed on the arrest record either; I don’t know whether that’s procedurally correct or not. The argument has been made that the foreign currency shows Mangione intened to flee the country, but from Altoona?
Maybe he should have prepared by getting his Italian passport first (he got his citizenship in 2008)
The cash has probably already been handed off to the Feds as part of a Civil Assets Forfeiture filing.
I presume that Fake IDs are already illegal so more effort will be put into deprecating the first two.
Also, I’m surprised they caught him alive.
Can always introduce new measures to combat fake IDs, with various useful knock-on effects.
Considering how easy it is to get a fake (talk to any college aged person), I doubt that it is stoppable.
The “Adjuster” it is, great name. I live close to Altoona. I received a couple of text yesterday that he was apprehended at the McDonalds. I’m glad it was a “customer” and not an employee, that called him in. I’m still dubious about everything I’ve read, there are many restaurants much closer to the main highway, I99 that he could have stopped to eat.
If cash is to be deprecated because of its utility in concealment of identity, that would, at least superficially, not seem to augur well for the DJT pro-Bitcoin posture.
As long as Elon Stench and Vivek Ramaswindle support crypto currency and as long as Trump himself can understand and appreciate its scamulous possibilities, Trump’s pro-crypto stance won’t change, no matter how much crypto gets deprecated.
So the elite now have their 9-11. Can their Patriot Act be far behind?
Gun Control. More and better Gun Control.
Oh my! I may be reading more into the Altoona, PA location for the apprehension of The Adjuster than is warranted, but there are so so many luscious links and references here!
Of course, the unibrow/ Unabomber (Dr Theodore Kaczinski’ handwritten (?) manifesto is one of my most vivid memories of his 1996 apprehension. There must be a whole section of the FBI, dedicated to producing off-the-shelf ‘handwritten manifestos’ to be instantly available in times of need.
And, the choice of apprehension location: I have been writing and commenting about certain areas of Pennsylvania for years, living as I do in western New York, in a small town bordering that state. My husband’s extended family have lived in north-western Pennsylvania for generations. Plus, I drive through the eastern part of Pennsylvania when visiting family in New Jersey. This is the former coal mining, now economically depressed area around Scranton. The state, outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, is affectionately known as Pennsyltucky, home of Trump supporters par excellence, who painted Trump signs on their decaying barns and hung enormous Trump banners from their 1960 Allis-Chalmers tractors back in 2016 and never removed them.
Now, a bit of Altoona history: a big railroad town, until the Pennsylvania RR went bankrupt back in the mid-twentieth century. Fast food moved in, so the working class drifted from union railroad jobs with pensions, to 30 hours per week at McDonalds at minimum wage. And so began the slow drift downward of health and life expectancy outcomes in that area.
Sheetz (that’s pronounced with a long ‘e’, not a short ‘i.’) began here and became a local Pennsylvania chain of enormous gas stations with fast food attached (subs and pizza and an awesome selection of a Pennsylvania speciality, potato chips, with an ever increasing variety of flavors, my favorite being Mike’s Hot Honey.). The combo of maximum carbon emissions with unhealthy food is a profit center.
The largest employer in town is UPMC, the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, an entity that has bought up hospitals and doctors’ practices, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Western New York. It’s a growth industry, what with the availability and low cost of greasy, salty fast food and the prevalence of ultra-processed foods packed with high-fructose corn syrup. The closest Whole Foods is 80 miles away. Not that most Altoonans could afford to shop there.
But, as I mentioned, I am probably reading more into this location than warranted. OTOH … ?
If Mangione or one of his admirers starts a “Go Fund Me” legal defense fund, how long would it take to raise $1MM?
My guess is less than a week.
Also, will he be held in the same cell Epstein was at the MDC?
Asking for a friend…
If Mangione or his lawyers are invited to make some sort of statement to the public, it might be along the lines of . . . ” I look forward to being allowed to live long enough to defend myself against these charges in a Court of Law”.
And once again, Mangione and/or his lawyers should immediately start preserving all the images they can of both Starbucks Guy and Shooter Guy and locking them away beyond the reach of the authorities and their photoshop and videoshop experts. Because I think the authorities will work to put the same coat ( and the same eyebrows now that I read about the eyebrows) on all the images, to retro-make Shooter Guy and Starbucks Guy look like the same guy. The Defense needs to have a kangaroo-proof chain-of-custody demostration for the preserved images from before the change is made.
“Images released by police also seemed to show that person had used cash to buy something at a Starbucks before the shooting.”
There are Starbucks locations in NYC that accept cash? Last year I visited a Starbucks with a British friend in DC. This particular shop did not accept cash. What’s more, their system would not accept my British friend’s UK-issued Barclaycard, so I had to put our order on my AMEX. (FWIW, it was the location near 13th and F Sts.)
“The discourse, as I show above, is primed for the “War on Cash” to be intensified; the public relations spadework has already been done.”
Would a Starbucks gift card be traceable if it has not been registered?
He had all of his stuff with him at Micky Ds? I thought the shooter discarded the backpack and it’s contents in Central Park, as per camera evidence?
They sure are concerned about our “safety” when their guys are getting tagged. Too bad that concern ends when money is concerned.
I hereby propose “Wario” as his nickname.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wario
You mean “Waluigi”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waluigi
Here’s a new one I have heard. The shooter was taking revenge on UHC for non payment and attempted forced buyout. Supposedly the shooter’s family owns some nursing homes. It explains the Monopoly money and I’m willing to bet that the face amount of the fake money adds up to the buyout amount offered to his family business.
If that is what this was about, that would make it a kind of “War in Heaven” type of action. A scion of the gentry class getting personal revenge on a Head Butler for the Corporate Globalonial Plantation Class.