Posted on

Video: Cop Hugs Scared Woman Fleeing from Domestic Dispute After Car Chase


A police chase that spanned two counties in Kentucky ended as a terrified woman ended up hugging a police officer leading the pursuit and surrendering to law enforcement peacefully.

Watch:

“A great example of keeping your emotions in check at the end of a pursuit,” the Hodgenville Police Department wrote, praising Chief James Richardson.

The pursuit began when the woman, identified as Latrice Curry, was disturbed by a domestic altercation with her husband and fled the residence before the police arrived, the New York Daily News reported.

When a deputy followed her, she sped away, sparking a hot police chase Wednesday involving multiple officers.

The chase came to an end when the 41-year-old woman pulled over in a Hodgenville parking lot to avoid a potential roadblock.

Officers then approach the vehicle with guns drawn, yelling at the woman to get out of her car.

But as Richardson moved closer to the vehicle with his gun drawn, his mood suddenly changed.

“I got to the driver’s side door and told her to unlock the door. She had her hands up; she was shaking like a leaf. I mean the poor girl, when I opened the door it was like a look of sheer terror. She was scared to death,” Richardson told the New York Post.

Richardson then placed his gun back in his holster and told Curry to “calm down.” The police chief had to help her take her seatbelt off because she was shaking so badly.

“I didn’t perceive her as a threat, she didn’t have any weapons. I took control of her hands, she started crying. She reached out and hugged me, and I just kind of hugged her back,” the police chief said.

Curry was arrested without incident and charged with fleeing police, traffic violations, and endangerment.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Posted on

This Is Why Hospitals Can Charge $6,000 Or $60,000 For The Exact Same Procedure

This Is Why Hospitals Can Charge $6,000 Or $60,000 For The Exact Same Procedure

Several months back, we pointed out how new disclosure laws would be forcing hospitals to disclose the cost of services and rates negotiated by insurers. Now, the numbers are starting to trickle in – and they’re ugly. 

Roughly 6,000 hospitals across the nation are starting to reveal the rates they negotiate with insurers for a number of procedures. The figures show how widely prices vary for the same procedure depending on who is paying, as highlighted by a new Wall Street Journal report.

For example, the report found that a C-section can cost between $6,241 and $60.584 – all depending on which insurer covers it. Niall Brennan, chief executive of the Health Care Cost Institute said: “It is shining a light on the insanity of U.S. healthcare pricing. It’s at the center of the affordability crisis in American healthcare.”

The rates are a key driver of the massive healthcare costs in the U.S., some of the highest in the world. It was a Trump administration rule that shed light on the differences in procedure pricing – some of the widest gaps in pricing of any U.S. industry. Gerard Anderson, a healthcare economist at Johns Hopkins University, commented: “These price differentials are unique to the healthcare and hospital industry.”

The prices have a direct effect on consumers, as they push up premiums and deductibles. And, in a stunning revelation, "total U.S. expenditures on private health insurance have increased 50% in the past decade through 2019, according to federal figures," the Journal wrote. 

The report found that a Northern California system of 24 hospitals had sometimes "extreme" pricing ranges for procedures. One cardiac procedure varied between $89,752 to $515,697, depending on insurer. For those paying out of pocket, the procedure cost $325,703. The system, called Sutter Health, did $13 billion in 2019 revenue is is known for drawing an antitrust suit from the California state AG in 2018. The system paid $575 million to settle the claims.

Sutter Chief Financial Officer Brian Dean commented: “We enter into negotiations with every health-insurance company or payer in good faith and with the end goal of providing access to quality, affordable care for patients.”

“The variation in the data reflects robust competition in the markets for commercial insurance,” he argued.

One former insurance executive told the Journal that they could expect the same types of wide ranges for pricing across the country:

"The California system’s pricing spread for the procedures reviewed by the Journal are likely at the upper end, but similar patterns will be found at many hospitals around the country, said Alan Muney, a former Cigna Corp. executive. “This is probably typical of what you’re going to see across big delivery systems,” he said.

Prices paid by private insurers in the nation’s $1.2 trillion hospital sector are often far higher than the amounts paid to hospitals by the Medicare program, which are set by the government. Plans offered by insurers under Medicare or Medicaid often get rates tied to those mandated prices."

Insurers have a better chance of winning better rates if they can drive more patients to a certain hospital, another former insurance executive said. Hospitals, meanwhile, sometimes set their prices with "little bearing on the actual cost or value of a service", the report says. Rather, hospitals set prices based on their own targets for margins and according to what the market will pay. 

Privately insured patients drive margins typically – and hospitals that boosted margins generally didn’t cut costs, but rather raised revenue by increasing rates billed to commercial insurers, one study found. Economists have found that quality is generally no better at more expensive hospitals. Michael Chernew, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, said: “We have not found evidence that price is a great signal for quality.”

The new data will draw the eyes of insurers and hospitals, moreso than consumers. Elizabeth Mitchell, chief executive of the Purchaser Business Group on Health, which represents major employers, said they will use the data to help choose which hospitals to use and how to negotiate with insurers.  

The Journal examined one cardiac code for cardiac-valve procedures involving catheterization performed on patients with risk factors. It confirmed that the largest spreads on pricing were in procedures that cost the most:

Seven insurers pay the lowest negotiated rate, $89,752, for their Medicare plans. The lowest price for a commercial-insurance plan, the type offered to employers, is $197,900. At the top end, the charge is $515,697 for patients whose health plans don’t have the hospital in-network.

For hip- and knee replacements, Medicaid and Medicare plans paid the lowest prices at the Modesto hospital, $3,264 and $16,349, respectively. The lowest price paid by a commercial insurer totaled $51,895. The highest rate reached $81,617, again for patients whose insurance didn’t include the Modesto hospital in-network.

Recall, we first brought up President Trump’s plans to institute these transparency plans back in January.  

The $1.2 trillion industry comprising some 6% of the country’s economy is now subjected to more transparency than it has seen in decades. The point of instituting the disclosures, according to the Trump administration, was the hope that good ol’ fashioned market dynamics will kick in, and help lower prices across the board.

Previously, hospital pricing was negotiated confidentially between hospitals and the employer groups and insurance companies that pay for care.

Many criticized this system for obscuring market rates and helping drive up the cost of health insurance premiums paid by employers and workers. Rising hospital prices accounted for about one-fifth of the nation’s health spending growth over the last 50 years.

Now, we will see first hand if a free and open market can help solve some of the industry’s problems. At least, until President Biden reverses the new rules. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/13/2021 – 17:00

via ZeroHedge News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://cms.zerohedge.com/

Posted on

Christian Post Slams World Council of Churches for ‘Anti-Israel Policy’


The Christian Post has denounced the World Council of Churches (WCC) for its historic and current antisemitism, accusing the WCC of “blatant fabrication” in its description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Christian Post’s hard-hitting essay Saturday was penned by two guest contributors, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, both of whom occupy leadership roles at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The authors accuse Rev. Frank Chikane, moderator of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), of calling on Christianity “to revert to its worst medieval Jew-hatred” in a recent Zoom call.

“We need to begin to say to those who support Israel to brutalize Palestinians that the blood of the people of Palestine will be sought from them because they collaborate by allowing this system to continue,” said Chikane, a South African Pentecostal pastor.

“For those who will not work towards delegitimizing the entire system (aka the State of Israel) that facilitates daily ‘brutality’ against Palestinians, he intoned a curse, ‘The blood of the people of Palestine will be upon them,’” the essay states.

“Every day people get killed,” said Chikane, a declaration described as “a blatant fabrication” by the two rabbis, “unless he means those who are stopped in their attempt to thrust knives into Israeli civilians.”

In responding to the controversy, the WCC itself declared that during the Zoom meeting Chikane “was speaking in his own personal capacity, not as a spokesperson for the WCC.”

Nonetheless, in their Christian Post article, the rabbis assert that the WCC’s anti-Israel policy predates Chikane by decades.

The WCC “chose not support the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948, warning instead that its political complexity might invite more global anti-Semitism,” they state.

The WCC also blamed Israel for inspiring the fears of its neighbors Egypt, Syria, and Jordan at the time of the Six Day War in 1967 because of Israel’s “dynamism and possible expansion,” they declare.

In the 70s and 80s, “the WCC’s contempt for Israel continued apace,” they add. “Regularly, it condemned Israel, while failing to criticize Arab terror attacks.”

Moreover, the authors insist, while the WCC was “busy doubling down on Israel, there was little or no criticisms of the truly brutal regimes in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, China, and Iran.”

“The Soviets used influence to ensure that the WCC did not criticize its invasions of Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia,” they state.

The rabbis’ criticism of the WCC, especially regarding the group’s affinity for communist regimes, dovetails with testimony given by the former head of Communist Romania’s secret police in 2015.

Ion Mihai Pacepa, a 3-star general who defected to the United States in 1978, asserted that the Theology of Liberation was the creation of the KGB, who exported it to Latin America as a way of introducing Marxism into the continent.

“Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity,” Pacepa said. “What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians.”

Pacepa said that Liberation Theology was born of a 1960s top-secret “Party-State Dezinformatsiya Program” approved by Aleksandr Shelepin, the chairman of the KGB, and by Politburo member Aleksey Kirichenko, who coordinated the Communist Party’s international policies.

The program mandated that “the KGB take secret control of the World Council of Churches (WCC), based in Geneva, Switzerland, and use it as cover for converting Liberation Theology into a South American revolutionary tool,” Pacepa said.

The Soviets were aware that the WCC was the largest international ecumenical organization after the Vatican, he said, representing some 550 million Christians of various denominations throughout 120 countries.

In a curious coincidence, in 1983, Chikane became the general-secretary of the Institute for Contextual Theology, a Christian think-tank inside the South African Council of Churches that promoted Liberation Theology.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Posted on

“My Entire Family, My Law Firm, My Home Is Under Siege Right Now” – Trump Attorney Van Der Veen Chokes Up Talking about Vicious Assaults by Democrats (VIDEO)

Trump impeachment attorney Michael van der Veen joined FOX News following the successful acquittal of his client President Donald Trump in the sham Senate Impeachment Trial.

During the discussion FOX News host Griff Jenkins asked him about the reports that his home was attacked.

Attorney Van Der Veen responded: “Um… my, uh… my home was attacked. I’d rather not go into that. To answer your question, my entire family, my business, my law firm are under siege right now. I don’t really want to go into that.”

Democrats painted “Traitor” on thie outside of Van Der Veen’s home in Chester County.

The post “My Entire Family, My Law Firm, My Home Is Under Siege Right Now” – Trump Attorney Van Der Veen Chokes Up Talking about Vicious Assaults by Democrats (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

via The Gateway Pundit

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com

Posted on

Border Patrol Confiscates 194 Pounds of Illegal Mexican Bologna from Car in New Mexico

Holy baloney! On Thursday morning, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection division in Columbus, New Mexico, stopped a 2019 Nissan Rogue driven by a permanent resident from Albuquerque, according to a CBP news release. In the hatchback area of the truck as well as inside the vehicle, officers found 22 rolls — totaling 194 pounds…

The post Border Patrol Confiscates 194 Pounds of Illegal Mexican Bologna from Car in New Mexico appeared first on The Western Journal.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com

Posted on

McConnell blasts ‘disgraceful’ Trump, hints at criminal prosecution: ‘Didn’t get away with anything yet’

After the Senate voted on Saturday to acquit former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tore into Trump.

McConnell, who voted to acquit Trump of charges of "incitement of insurrection," unequivocally blamed Trump for the deadly violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., saying Trump is certainly guilty of a "disgraceful dereliction of duty."

"There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of [Jan. 6]," McConnell said.

"The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president," McConnell added, which he called a "foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo" of Trump’s "false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole."

Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit: "There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically & morally r… https://t.co/zWcEuyNtP8

— Axios (@Axios)1613251820.0

As TheBlaze reported, McConnell had already announced that he would vote to acquit Trump.

The Kentucky Republican explained afterward that he voted "not guilty" based on jurisdictional considerations, meaning he did not believe the Constitution permitted the Senate to exercise its impeachment powers against a private citizen, despite Trump being formally impeached by the House while he was still in office.

In fact, McConnell said Article 2, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution makes Trump "not eligible for conviction."

However, McConnell conceded that he would have "carefully considered" the impeachment charge if Trump were still in office.

Criminally liable?

Toward the end of his speech, McConnell said that "by the strict criminal standard," Trump is "probably not" guilty of incitement of violence.

However, McConnell made it clear that Trump has not been criminally absolved.

"President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations has run," McConnell said.

"He didn’t get away with anything — yet, yet," McConnell added. "We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation, and former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one."

WATCH: After voting to acquit Trump, McConnell says there’s ‘no question’ he provoked Capitol attack youtu.be

Thus far, no criminal action has been initiated against Trump related to the Capitol riots.

However, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has launched a criminal probe into Trump over his alleged attempts to "overturn Georgia’s election results," NPR reported, which stems from a call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R).

via Conservative Review

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.conservativereview.com/

Posted on

Mississippi Passes Bill Banning Transgender Athletes From Girls’ Sports

The Mississippi state Senate passed a bill on Thursday prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in women’s’ or girls’ sports in Mississippi universities and schools. Lawmakers in eleven other states are introducing similar restrictions regarding athletics and “gender-confirming health care for transgender minors this year,” according to the Associated Press. On January 20, President Joe Biden […]

via Conservative Review

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.conservativereview.com/

Posted on

Trump Responds After Final Vote Cast in Impeachment Trial: ‘A Sad Commentary on Our Times’

Former President Donald Trump was acquitted Saturday in his second Senate impeachment trial by a vote of 57-43. Seven Republicans sided with the Democrats who sought to convict Trump as a first step to barring him from ever seeking office again: Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa…

The post Trump Responds After Final Vote Cast in Impeachment Trial: ‘A Sad Commentary on Our Times’ appeared first on The Western Journal.

via The Western Journal

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com

Posted on

Liberal Hollywood celebrities, who are known private jet flyers, demanding Biden kill Dakota Access Pipeline

Canceling the Keystone XL pipeline was one of President Joe Biden’s first actions after taking office, which reportedly cost at least 11,000 jobs thus far. Now, a group of Hollywood celebrities is demanding President Joe Biden kill the Dakota Access Pipeline.

However, many in the anti-pipeline coalition of liberal celebrities are famous for globetrotting around the world in carbon-spewing private jets.

A group of celebrities wrote a letter to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to permanently shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline, also known as the Bakken pipeline.

"We urge you to remedy this historic injustice and direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to immediately shut down the illegal Dakota Access Pipeline while the Environmental Impact Statement process is conducted, consistent with the D.C. District Court’s decision and order," the letter states. "Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps must ensure a robust environmental review with significant tribal consultation, tribal consent, and a thorough risk analysis."

On Jan. 26, a federal appeals court upheld a district judge’s order for a full environmental impact review of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Though the DAPL is under review, the pipeline may continue to operate.

"We respectfully urge you to reverse another harmful Trump Administration decision and immediately shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) during its court-ordered environmental review," the letter from a "broad coalition of Native-led groups, environmental organizations, and influencers" says.

"With your leadership, we have a momentous opportunity to protect our water and respect our environmental laws and the rights of Indigenous people," the letter concludes. "This is our moment."

The letter is signed by liberal celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Don Cheadle, Chris Hemsworth, Alyssa Milano, Cher, Amy Schumer, Ed Helms, Jane Fonda, Chelsea Handler, Joaquin Phoenix, Marisa Tomei, Jason Momoa, Jennifer Connelly, Orlando Bloom, Rooney Mara, Sarah Silverman, and Shailene Woodley.

Ironically, the so-called environmentalists calling for an end to the oil pipeline are also well-to-do celebrities who have a record of flying private planes instead of commercial planes to decrease their carbon footprint. Many of the virtue-signaling celebrities prefer to fly on private planes, which burn 40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights, according to one report.

Fox News compiled a list of celebrities who say they are fighting against climate change, but also brag that they travel on private jets.

While boasting about his Marvel-licensed T-shirt "promoting climate justice and clean energy resources around the world," Chris Evans was also flying in a private jet.

@BridgetPhetasy This is my favorite: @ChrisEvans sporting a @100isNow #climatechange shirt from @MarkRuffalo… on… https://t.co/qlQTuPJICk

— Douglas Karr (@Douglas Karr)1564158962.0

Fellow Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo was branded as a "hypocrite" by National Review in 2016 for lecturing people about fracking before flying in a private plane from New York to London for a British movie awards show.

According to a 2014 Daily Mail article, "DiCaprio took at least 20 trips across the nation and around the world this year alone – including numerous flights from New York to Los Angeles and back, a ski vacation to the French Alps, another vacation to the French Riviera, flights to London and Tokyo to promote his film Wolf of Wall Street, two trips to Miami and trip to Brazil to watch the World Cup."

The article states that if DiCaprio had taken a commercial airliner for all of those flights, he could have saved 44 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from going into the atmosphere.

Jane Fonda, Scarlett Johansson, and Cher have all used private jets in the past.

Comedian Chelsea Handler and Amy Schumer bragged that they flew their dogs on luxury private jets.

Grow America’s Infrastructure Now claims that shutting down the Dakota Access Pipeline would result in the loss of 3,000 direct upstream jobs, 4,900 indirect jobs, and 7,400 lost jobs due to the lack of money coming into the region. The report finds that North Dakota and Montana would lose out on $912 million in taxes.

The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile DAPL stretches near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The tribe fears pollution or oil spills in the nearby Missouri River.

Recently, John Kerry was named as President Joe Biden’s new climate czar, which set off a wave of criticism for his hypocrisy for the time that he used a private jet to travel to accept an environmental award in 2019.

via Conservative Review

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.conservativereview.com/