I have watched PBS News Hour rather regularly since it was The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. I started when I was working a fulltime job as a midnight computer operator while attending college full time. Naturally, it wasn’t every day given my schedule but it was many. The habit stuck with me for the rest of my decades until now. It used to be a bastion of fair ethical reporting. When mistakes happened they quickly cleaned it up. The Friday episode following the United Healthcare CEO being shot was unforgivable.
Brooks & Capehart
One of the many things I have liked about PBS News Hour was Brooks & Capehart. I really liked Shields & Brooks before it but sadly Mark Shields passed away. It always felt like Mark Shields had been covering politics since George Washington got elected. Another bright spot was Amy Walter.
There will be much that I miss no longer watching PBS News Hour, but I cannot forgive the Brooks & Capehart episode that had some woman sitting in with David Brooks saying “America is not that kind of country” and parroting the propaganda that “profit margins are only 6%.”
My God! You people are supposed to have went to college! Reputable colleges make everyone take Cost Accounting. In cost accounting you learn of one bucket on the balance sheet that is every fraud master’s favorite bucket for cooking the books: Overhead.
Overhead
Originally this was designed as a bucket for factory maintenance. You had to maintain your factory in order to make the things that you sold. Before China, America was the world’s factory. Later CEO’s and accountants found you could put just about anything in that bucket, especially when the IRS kept getting its funding cut so they didn’t have the staff to audit you.
- Bribes, also called lobbyist payments.
- CEO bonuses, stock options.
- Board member bonuses, stock options.
- Direct campaign contributions.
- Multi-million dollar vacations for Supreme Court Justices.
There really is no creative limit to what a really good fry cook can shuffle into that Overhead bucket so your balance sheet makes you look like a pauper when the tax man cometh. It’s not limited to insurance companies. The House That Jack Built, GE, was built on accounting fraud. No, they didn’t just discover accounting fraud, been going on for decades.
America is not that kind of country
David Brooks has said many things on PBS News Hour I agree with. Some I disagree with. But this was unforgivable. The attempted justification for the position made it so much worse.
My family has had claims denied by United Healthcare.
David Brooks
I didn’t put more words in that quote because I’m not certain it is verbatim. I don’t wish to go watch the episode again.
You, David Brooks, have means!
You aren’t the waitress with two kids and a deadbeat dad for an ex-husband for whom the $25 co-pay is a lot of money. That same waitress who finds out the bloodwork or whatever has been denied by United Healthcare and now she has to come up with $250 or more. Now she gets to choose. Do I not pay rent? car insurance? Buy groceries? Skip a car payment?
You aren’t the retiree who got hornswaggled into the Medicare Advantage Scam. There was no stick in the law handing out prison time to CEOs who decided to just stop providing coverage to people. There was, however, wording in the law that created this scam that trapped people into Medicare Advantage pretty much for the rest of their lives even if there suddenly were no providers in their state.
What about the courts?
Jamie Dimon engaged in a massive financial fraud that made Bernie Madoff seem like a kid stealing an apple from a fruit stand. Jamie Dimon paid Hillary Clinton a “speaking fee” and never spent one day in prison. Bernie Madoff died there. There is no justice in America. To get the verdict you want in the Supreme Court you take him on a multi-million dollar vacation involving private jets, yachts, villas, etc.
Yes, Clarence Thomas, and by extension, the entire Supreme Court will not face ethics probe. If the Missouri Bar had any credibility they would take it upon themselves to disbar Clarence Thomas for gross ethical and financial violations. The Supreme Court has become a modern day Tammany Hall.
Your outrage at Yale
I think the final nail in the coffin for PBS News Hour came with your outrage someone who went to Yale and shot a CEO of an insurance company was being held up as a hero. Obviously they don’t make journalists read Robin Hood or watch any of the movies based on that story. A child of privilege with education and to the manor born throws it away when he sees the plight of common man. Yes, Luigi Mangione is going to be held up as a hero by a large chunk of the population. That chunk of the population which has been shit on by people who now buy and sell judges like baseball cards.
With Supreme Court justices out for their own financial gain and the good life of multi-million dollar vacations we have no justice system. With Vladimir Putin using Project Meddle to dupe the uneducated into voting his largest mole into office again, we have no hope of justice ever returning. The day Donald Trump was elected to his second term Russia conquered America without firing single shot. With Kangaroo Courts firmly in place, Donald will be an effective sock puppet for Presidents Putin and Musk.
Yes, Luigi Mangione is and will be a hero to a massive swath of the population because nobody else gives a shit about them. Instead, he threw his life of privilege away knowing full well a life sentence before age of 30 was going to be the best outcome he could hope for.
Had the CEO of United Healthcare been wacked by a run-of-the-mill gangbanger he would not be a hero.
You’re a journalist dammit! Not some fraud master on Fox News.
PBS News Hour didn’t fix this later in the broadcast. It’s too late to fix now.
