BCBS Insurance Change Major Threat To Michgian Mental Health Care

Right when we need more mental health treatment in this state, Blue Cross Blue Shield is about to serious mess up insurance and thus the provision for mental health services in this state.

Click on Detroit: ‘Devastating’: Michigan mental health care workers concerned BCBSM billing change could cut access to counselors

BCBS is the big dog in Michigan health insurance coverage, and they run the vast majority of insurance coverage for people in this state.  This change to mental health billing and in essence not covering therapy by limited license practitioners is going to massively reduce the number of eligible practitioners to be able to be provide treatment ,and prevent limited license practitioners from getting paid for hours they do in practice before they are fully licensed. And they can't ever get fully licensed without doing a ton of direct patient hours.

We already have a mental health crisis in this state and not enough practitioners to handle the load, and this is going to make it worse. 

More mentally ill people and everyday people in crisis not getting covered treatment and thus not getting treatment - what could possibly go wrong?

One would think the government might intervene in such decisions,  given BCBS' almost monopoly power in this state, but given the governor we have, don't count on it.

That's because BCBS has Governor Whitmer in their back pocket.  Indeed, that would be an understatement.  Her father was the former CEO of Blue Cross, and that's not the least of the ties.

Heck, she was practically installed as governor by BCBS.

Detroit Metro Times: Blue Cross has given more cash to Whitmer than any Michigan gov candidate in past decade

The Intercept: A Blue Cross CEO Encouraged a Michigan Woman to Get Into Politics. Now She’s Running for Governor and Says Single Payer Is Unrealistic

Don't expect the governor to step in against this destructive coverage decision anytime soon.

When it comes to the Gov's claims about being for "the people" of this state, the people sure take a back seat to the largest insurance company in the state. 

Friday Range Afternoon

So having reached and overrun my dealing with Stupid People tolerance level for the week, I left the office at noon and headed off to a lunch meeting with the guys.

We then headed to the range.  Traffic there was hellacious for some reason.

I re-zeroed my IWI Masada.  The re-zero was necessary as I had removed the RMR to change the battery and found getting it off rather more difficult than it should be.

After over 2,500 rounds, the plastic plate had the front posts that fit into the front holes on the RMR on the plate broken off sometime during shooting those rounds, transferring all the recoil energy to the screws, one of which decided to become very difficult to remove as a result.

 

So, I changed the broken plastic plate for a CHPWS Metal plate.  An easy swap and the metal plate fits perfectly and the RMR, complete with fresh battery, was reattached and secured with blue locktite, as one does. 

Impressively, at the range it required no re-zeroing after the replacement and was right on target when shooting it, which was nice. 

 

I also had brought out another handgun for the first time - a mix of classic and current technology.

 

Its a Girsan MCP35 PI LW Match High Power pistol.

The LW stands for lightweight, namely an aluminum frame.  The PI is for the Argentine Detective style slide.

In short, its a handy Hi Power package suitable updated with a flat trigger, a larger beaver-tail, an optics-ready slide for direct mounting of RMSc footprint optics, an ambidextrous safety, and no magazine safety. 

The magazine is also updated to a 15-round flush-fitting magazine with 2 rounds more than the original Hi Power capacity.

 It is a Hi Power with a  Glock 19 form factor.

 

 

It feels good and fits the hand very well. The G10 grips are nice and grippy, but not obnoxiously rough. 

I added a Holosun 407K with a green dot to the top of the slide, and took it to the range.  At 10 yards, it was shooting low, hitting close to the bottom of an 8.5x11 piece of paper when aiming dead center, and it took a fair bit of vertical adjustment, but was otherwise centered horizontally.

200 rounds and zero failures using 4 15 round magazines.  Lots of fun to shoot,  The trigger is heavier than it needs to be, and could be better.  It likely needs to be broken in a bit. Still, it's fun to shoot and knocked plates down with aplomb and speed.

We'll see how it holds up but it feels nice and solid  and it runs like a top so far and is a cool mix of new technology and sizing with the classic lines and feel of the Hi Power.

Not a bad Friday afternoon,  I left the range suitably refreshed, and  I got some more work done and then called it a day.  Range Time certainly helps reset the stupidity tolerance and frustration level quite nicely.

The Enemy Within The Gates Of Academia

While the average academic tends to be a progressive idjit who hates America, hates Israel and Western Civilization and spreads DEI garbage to further those ends, some members of the Red-Green alliance want to take it a step further and get more spicy:

The Detroit News:  UM group orchestrated terror campaign to sever Israel ties, feds say

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Wednesday against eight people linked to the University of Michigan accused of orchestrating plans to threaten university leaders, police and businesses with a wave of crimes designed to force the university to sever ties with Israel. 

And who are these fine folk?  The names are not surprising: 

Those charged in the indictment unsealed Wednesday were:

∎ Zainab Hakim, 23, of Canton Township.

∎ Amatullah Hakim, 21, of Ann Arbor.

∎ Paige Feyock, 26, of Ann Arbor.

∎ Ahmet Korkaya, 28, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

∎ Jonathan Zou, 22, of Ann Arbor.

∎ Alexander Sepulveda, 23, of Chicago.

∎ Mariam Odeh, 24, of Dearborn.

∎ Colin Weger, 24, of Ann Arbor. 

Oh, and it turns out Mariam Odeh happens to be an allegedly ex-campaign staffer for Democrat US Senate candidate Abdul Al-Sayed - even as she was paid by the campaign in March of this year, and was apparently on staff in April, so "ex" sounds rather recent don't it?  Funny coincidence, that.

The Detroit News: Ex-Abdul El-Sayed campaign staffer charged in UM threat case                                                                                                                            
Progressives seek to destroy Western Civilization.  Islam is simply not compatible with Western Civilization, even when you wrap it in academic garb.

About time we start taking this threat more seriously. 

BLM = Belfast Lives Matter

The people of Belfast are making their displeasure at unfettered third-world immigration and two-tier policing known.

The Nightly:  Belfast race riot signals a backlash against Black Lives Matter movement

 The horrific sight of an immigrant trying to behead a man on a Belfast street will increase the already heightened hostility in Britain towards foreigners . . .

The Belfast attack came a little after a week when a Sikh man, Vickrum Digwa, was jailed for fatally stabbing 18-year-old accounting student Henry Nowak. Digwa claimed he was racially abused and acted in self defence.


A decision by police officers to initially accept the false story, and handcuff Mr Nowak as he died from stab wounds, triggered an outpouring of anger towards what many people feel are police policies designed to protect minority groups at the expense of fighting crime.

One might say it just a "fiery but peaceful protest".  You'd be a feckin' eedjit for saying so, but  that would be simply copying the progressive line on such demonstrations, except the progressives these days are stating it is actually a riot and blaming it on the "far right".  Don't expect the progressives to be taking a knee for Henry Nowak anytime soon now.

One might also say its a really bad idea to severely annoy people who really know how to put on a riot. And the people of Belfast KNOW how to riot like nobody's business.

When you have Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics on the same side rioting against these policies, it's gonna get, as some might say, extra fiery and extra peaceful, now innit?

Good To See A Bad Case Dismissed Against A Fellow Aaron

The case against Aaron Spencer has been finally, and properly dismissed.

Dismissed it has been, but not because, as one would think, his conduct in defending the life of his daughter from a predator was justified.

Instead, it was properly dismissed because of police and prosecutorial misconduct - in spoliating evidence.

CBS News: Judge dismisses murder charge against Arkansas sheriff nominee who killed daughter's alleged abuser

A judge has dismissed a murder charge against an Arkansas man who won the GOP nomination for sheriff while awaiting trial for the shooting death of his teenage daughter's alleged abuser.

Special Circuit Court Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. dismissed the case against Aaron Spencer on Thursday afternoon — just a few weeks before his trial on the second-degree murder charge was expected to begin — because a dash camera memory card that may have captured the shooting was lost by law enforcement.

 Apparently the dashcamera itself was initially withheld from the defense, and then only produced with the SD card, which had apparently been reviewed, and then conveniently went missing:

Spencer's attorneys filed the motion seeking to have the case dismissed, contending that video and audio of the dash camera from Fosler's truck may have contained evidence that would have cleared Spencer of any wrongdoing. According to court records, a detective with the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office removed the dash camera from the truck when responding to the scene of the shooting.

But the camera's internal settings were not preserved, and the battery of the camera was allowed to drain, and as a result, the camera went back to its default settings. When the camera was sent to the attorney general's office for a forensic exam, the memory card that was in it when it was collected from the truck was missing. The detective who collected the camera later admitted that it was not logged into evidence right away, but was instead stored in his personal office rather than the evidence room, according to court records.

Yep, that's not suspicious, at all. 

Meanwhile CNN gave its salacious best: CNN: Judge dismisses murder case against Arkansas sheriff candidate Aaron Spencer

 Spencer admitted to gunning down Michael Fosler in the early hours of October 8, 2024, after he found him with his daughter after midnight despite a no-contact order. Fosler, 67, was out on bond while facing dozens of charges, including internet stalking of a child and sexual assault in connection with Spencer’s daughter, who was 13 at the time.

Yep, a 67 year old, with a reputation for being a pedo, is released with charges of internet stalking and sexual assault on a 13 year old, while on bond takes the same 13 year old at night into his truck.  Aaron Spencer, the girls father finds him and stops the truck.  A fight ensures and Spencer then shoots him protecting his daughter.

One would think based on those circumstances, the defense of a third party alone the case against Aaron Spencer should never have been brought.  Add to it the  impressive mishandling of evidence, and the dismissal is more than justified.

On the upside, the detective that mishandled the evidence has been terminated, so that's at least something. 

I certainly hope Aaron Spencer wins the election as Sheriff and helps to clean up the department accordingly so "mistakes" with evidence do not happen in the future.

It's the National Institutes of Health, Not the National Institutes of Hijinks

Hijinks, in this case, of a very serious pathogenic nature.

The Detroit News: Feds: 2 researchers brought vials of monkeypox to DTW

The Detroit Free Press: Feds: 2 researchers smuggled monkeypox through Detroit airport 

Two researchers with the National Institutes of Health have been charged with smuggling monkeypox into the United States and lying about it — an alleged crime that was detected at Detroit Metro Airport.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, June 2 in U.S. District Court, one of the defendants is from the Netherlands, the other from Cameroon. Both are virus experts who work for the NIH at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana, in a lab that, according to the government, has the highest level of biosafety precautions for scientific research of known and potential human pathogens. 

The "highest level of biosafety precautions".

Well, according to federal prosecutors, they allegedly bypassed proper procedures for transporting and importing dangerous pathogens, instead bringing the materials into the country in luggage and then lying about it.

Given their scientific expertise and workplace responsibilities, the allegations are especially striking.

This is the latest in a series of biological-material smuggling incidents uncovered at the Detroit Airport.

Midwesterner: UM faces federal investigation after students from China repeatedly busted for crimes in Michigan

 USDOJ: Three Chinese National Scholars from University of Michigan Laboratory Charged for Conspiring to Smuggle Biological Materials into the U.S. 

NIH Scientists acting like Mad Scientists is just not a good look. 

Oh Canada, WTAF Pt 2

Carney  definition: a carnival worker, Carnies are junky ride jockeys that are here today and gone tomorrow. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is certainly putting on a clown show.

In response to a massive rise in antisemitism and assaults on Jews in Canada he has announced a new committee to deal with the problem:

Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, which will be chaired by Culture Minister Marc Miller.  . . . its “first responsibility” will be to “address antisemitism.”

Sounds lovely, but as carnies are wont to do, it is a bait and switch.

This DEI committee replaces the special envoy to combat antisemitism  post- but that envoy post has been vacant under Carney for almost a year now.

Instead of a focus on stopping antisemitism as announced this committee is basically a DEI clown show.

In another sign that the Prime Minister is clearly not serious on actually combating antisemitism, this committee announced to combat antisemitism has more Muslims than the Jews on the committee (there's all of one Jew on it) and those Muslims have rather colorful backstories:

The makeup of the new advisory council includes some questionable choices. Miller, for example, served as immigration minister from July 2023 to March 2025. Given that Canada has welcomed unprecedented numbers of newcomers over the past decade, many from countries with high rates of antisemitism, it seems unlikely that he will be willing to admit that some of his own policies may have contributed to the problem.

It also includes Avnish Nanda, the lawyer who represented the anti-Israel students who launched a Charter challenge against the University of Alberta after they were evicted from their illegal encampment, and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra.

Alghabra, in particular, has faced considerable scrutiny for his views on Israel and questions over his support for Islamism. He’s the former president of the Canadian Arab Federation, a group that, after this tenure, lost federal funding for its apparent support of Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2022, he defended his attendance at a Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group reception attended by Nazih Khatatba, the editor of an Arabic-language newspaper accused of spreading antisemitism.

This is not to say that either Nanda or Alghabra are antisemites, but given their history, they are certainly odd choices to lead a council tasked with, as Carney put it, “preventing radicalization and addressing institutional biases.”

But, at fear not, there's also a progressive LGBT actisvist,  a retired speedskater, and a Metis advocate for natives in society on the committee so there's that. I daresay the speedskater will be on thin ice with the group.

Yes, the committee announced with great fanfare and tasked to address antisemitism in Canada has people on it who are arguably on the side of the antisemites.

You really can't make this stuff up.