Countdown’s Keith Olbermann describes a dirty billing scheme by United Health Group, putting corporate profits over the health of its customers. Countdown further reports on questionable payments to CEO Stephen Hemsley and the corporation's political ties and poor performance.
This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Aug. 25, 2009.
MSNBC'S Joe Scarborough has said it before, but this time he's pretty sure it's true -- the walls seem to finally be closing in on Donald Trump.
The former president has managed to escape consequences for a number of high crimes and misdemeanors, but the "Morning Joe" host believes a grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is moving closer to an indictment.
"It's very clear this is going to be a very easy case and the pleadings will be clean, slick, to the point: Donald Trump obstructed justice," Scarborough said. "He obstructed the investigation, he lied. We're going to get to his lawyers memos that came out that Jack Smith now has that are going to be devastating for the cause, but the bottom line in this, again, let's just circle back."
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"He's calling it a witch hunt, other spokespeople are calling it a witch hunt, lawyers are calling it a witch hunt," Scarborough added, "but you and I both know, based on people we have been talking to close to Donald Trump, they know this is not a witch hunt. They -- let me say the words, let me say the words -- they feel -- are you ready -- the walls -- everybody say it with me -- closing in on this one. So, yes, people can mock me for saying that, just like they mocked people on the show for saying it before the Manhattan [district attorney] came down with charges, but based on everything I'm hearing, based on what you're hearing, at least last week, they are extraordinarily concerned about indictments coming down in this case because they know he lied and he got caught lying to the feds."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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High-level experts with the United Nations have issued a joint statement condemning the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that reversed decades of legal precedent protecting abortion rights for women.
"The regressive position taken by the US Supreme Court in June 2022, by essentially dismantling 50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion in the country, puts millions of women and girls at serious risk," said the 13 experts, all appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, on Friday.
According to a statement issued by the UN's Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR):
Abortion bans in 14 States have made abortion services largely inaccessible and denied women and girls their fundamental human rights to comprehensive healthcare including sexual and reproductive health. The experts said the bans could lead to violations of women's rights to privacy, bodily integrity and autonomy, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, equality and non-discrimination, and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and gender-based violence.
Such state-level bans on abortion and other restrictions to reproductive care, say the experts, are having far-reaching and negative impacts. In addition, they are a violation of international human rights law.
"Women and girls in disadvantaged situations are disproportionately affected by these bans," the experts said, referring to those in marginalized communities, living on low incomes, in abusive relationships, or in rural regions with little access to care or support services.
Last month, the U.S.-based National Abortion Federation (NAF) released a new report showing that "violence and disruption" against abortion providers and clinics rose sharply since the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization by the Court in the June of 2022 that overturned protections in Roe v. Wade.
NAF has been tracking such attacks since 1977, but Melissa Fowler, the group's chief program officer, said in May that the new statistics since last year prove "anti-abortion extremists have been emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the cascade of abortion bans" passed by Republican-controlled legislatures nationwide.
"As clinics closed in states with bans, extremists have simply shifted their focus to the states where abortion remains legal and protected, where our members have reported major increases in assaults, stalking, and burglaries," said Fowler.
In Friday's statement, the UN experts said they were "particularly alarmed by the increasing reports of threats to the lives of abortion service providers across the country" as well as by a new pattern of surveillance—including electronic tracking—being used against people seeking abortion care.
The joint statement urged both federal and state governments in the U.S. "to take action to reverse the regressive rhetoric seeping through the legislative system and enact positive measures to ensure access to safe and legal abortion."
The experts who issued the statement were: Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (chair), Ivana Radačić (vice-chair), Elizabeth Broderick, Meskerem Geset Techane and Melissa Upreti, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls; Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Felipe González Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; Ana Brian Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy; Gerard Quinn, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities; Ashwini K.P., Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Prince Harry will become the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for more than a century when he testifies this week against a tabloid newspaper publisher.
Harry, 38, is expected to take the witness stand at London's High Court in a trial considering unlawful information-gathering claims against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
King Charles III's younger son and other high-profile figures allege that the publisher engaged in illegal activities, including phone hacking, at its titles and are seeking damages.
The case is one of several that Harry has brought against British newspaper groups since stepping down from royal duties in early 2020 and relocating to the United States.
The MGN trial, which is expected to last up to seven weeks, kicked off last month, days after Charles's May 6 coronation which Harry attended.
The California-based prince also made a surprise appearance at the High Court in March for a privacy claim he and others have launched against Associated Newspapers (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, made written submissions in that case but did not give in-person evidence, sitting near the back of the court during several days of proceedings.
His appearance on the stand, expected Tuesday, is said to be the first time a senior royal has given evidence in court since Edward VII, who took the stand in an 1890 slander trial before becoming monarch.
Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne, has had a difficult relationship with the media, especially since he and his American wife Meghan left Britain.
As well as filing multiple lawsuits, the couple has repeatedly lashed out over alleged privacy invasions by photographers in particular.
Just weeks ago, they claimed to have been involved in a "near catastrophic car chase" with paparazzi in New York, an incident police and other officials played down.
Harry's mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a 1997 Paris car crash as she was being pursued by photographers.
He has also challenged the UK government in court over his security arrangements when he is back from the United States.
But on May 23, he lost his bid for a legal review of a decision refusing him permission to pay for specialist UK police protection himself.
In television interviews and his explosive memoir "Spare" -- released in January -- Harry hit out at other royals, accusing them of colluding with the press.
In court filings unveiled in April, Harry claimed the royal family as an institution had struck a "secret agreement" with one UK publisher that had prevented him from suing, to avoid a royal entering the witness box.
He also alleged the monarchy wanted to prevent the opening of a "Pandora's Box" of negative coverage that could tarnish the royal brand.
The MGN case centres on claims its tabloids conducted unlawful information-gathering, including voicemail tapping, to obtain stories about Harry and other high-profile figures.
The other claimants are two television soap opera actors and the ex-wife of a comedian.
At the outset of the trial on May 10, MGN apologized and admitted to "some evidence" of unlawful information-gathering and assured that "such conduct will never be repeated".
But it denied voicemail interception and argued that some claims had been brought too late.
The claimants' lawyer David Sherborne submitted that "industrial scale" illegal activities were happening at MGN and had been approved by senior executives.
Harry's unofficial biographer Omid Scobie -- who co-authored a best-selling 2020 book about Harry and Meghan -- claimed in a submission that he was shown how to hack voicemails while on work experience at MGN title The Sunday People.
Scobie also said that while on work experience at its sister paper The Mirror he overheard the then-editor Piers Morgan being told that information for a story about Australian pop star Kylie Minogue had come from voicemail.
Morgan, editor of the tabloid between 1995 and 2004, has denied any involvement in phone hacking.
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