When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot in cold blood in Midtown Manhattan, the executive and his business practices were thrust into the national spotlight. Thompson led the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health care company by revenue in the world. His $10.2 million annual pay package — including salary, bonus and stock options awards — made him one of the company’s highest-paid executives.

Denying Medicare Advantage recipients procedures, services and medication escalated into criticism from the American Hospital Association (AHA); who in an open letter reprimanded Thompson for spearheading the denial of payments for what it deemed non-critical visits to hospital emergency rooms.

Thompson et al. were sued in 2024 in a class action lawsuit that alleged insider trading and fraud. Particularly, Thompson failed to disclose an antitrust investigation into the company by the United States Department of Justice before dumping $15 million in stock. Stay tuned re: The City of Hollywood Firefighters Pension Fund v. UnitedHealth Group.

As the nation bristles online about an industry that too often denies coverage and reimbursement for medical claims, a gunman has been apprehended, as the pretenders of the new world order take their seat at Notre Dame.

Our Lady of Paris

The Notre Dame de Paris (1163) has reopened following 5+ years of renovation following a fire that destroyed its spire and roof in 2019. An estimated 340,000 donors from 150 countries generated €840 million to rebuild.

President Emmanuel Macron, grappling with a deep political crisis, welcomed 1500 guests and heads of government in what ostensibly appeared to be a state occasion. Until, that is, the Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrichstruck struck three blows on cathedral’s door with a staff. To which the cathedral, perhaps even the nation rose in song: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.”

An epithet to the restoration, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and President-elect Donald Trump, sat side by side seeming lost in the Magnificat. Nadine Sierra’s National Anthem stirred congregants whilst cameras panned to the iconic defenders of democracy. “Tremble, tyrants and ye traitors.” Two voices, if for a moment, in harmony.

Trump acknowledged the siege of Damascus ahead of the ceremony on Truth Social. “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & the United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let is play out. Do not get involved.”

U.S. troops have been in Syria for a decade to counter ISIS. Now Israel is in play: absconding the Golan Heights; striking and occupying military posts across the border; and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared "we are changing the face of the Middle East.”

Russia has operated several major military bases in Syria since 2015, but despite the Kremlin's claim of striking a deal with the Hayar Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group to maintain it military presence the opposite appears to be true. Satellite images reveal that Russian military and commercial activity is halted; no cargo ships have entered or left Tartus since the siege; and naval vessels once docked at the port city of Tartus are now gone; and soldiers were filmed packing up a S-400 defense missile system and pouring out of the compound.

For Iran, Syria provides dozens of military bases and a land corridor for its vast network of proxies. Not merely a command post, Iran uses Syrian labor to manufacture and distribute weapons to roughly 20 affiliates in the Mediterranean. From Jordan to Lebanon to the Red Sea, Iran's goals in the Middle East include undermining Israel, driving U.S. forces out of the region, and advancing a nuclear weapons program.

While President-elect Trump proclaims “this is not our fight" he has said nothing of politically exploiting the fall of Damascus. Not since Constantinople has the crossroads of east and west played so well into an emperor's hand.

Axis of Resistance

Ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad has fled to Moscow and been granted asylum in Russia, following a stunning rebel advance that seized control of Damascus and ended the Assad’s 50 year regime. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, a Syrian militant who has served as the emir of Tahrir al-Sham since 2017, is now the de facto leader of Syria.

The Axis of Resistance has been interrupted. The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, which Iran financed, has weakened the Islamic Republic. Then, firing off 300 drones and missiles into Israel in April — which the U.S., Jordan and Saudi Arabia intercepted — demonstrated Iran’s lack of militarily sophistication. Moreover, the main architect of Hamas’s October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar, has been shot; Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has been killed; and Syria is now controlled by a Sunni Muslim group hostile to Iran.

While few could have predicted Iran’s annus horribilis, there remains a trifecta in the east with an informal power alliance with a proven long game, and a dealmaker on the horizon who has something to gain. A Ukrainian politician and lawmaker has nominated President-elect Donald Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. “It is my belief that Trump has made considerable contributions to world peace, and that he can make more in the future. Trump also laid the foundations for today's international coalition of support for Ukraine by demonstrating global leadership in supplying weapons to resist Russia's brutal and illegal war of aggression.”

In 2020, Trump arranged a peace deal between Israel and the UAE; established diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain; and brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Sudan. The Abraham Accords represent a collection of diplomatic agreements forged between Israel and several Arab nations.

Prepare for bombast on Truth Social about the America First bramble, but pay closer attention to a quieter, far more sophisticated diplomatic mission to join President's Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter as a Nobel laureate of world peace.

Road to Damascus

Luigi Mangione, 26, has been arrested in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione is an Ivy League scholar; valedictorian at the all-boys independent Gilman School; and holds both a bachelor and masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis: a condition that causes vertebra to slip or shift forward onto the vertebra below. It's characterized by excruciating pain, and often lead to rejected claims by insurance companies. In a manifesto Mangione writes:

The US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. The reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.

Likewise, the Apostle Paul was a scholar of Jewish law and Greek philosophy; who intensely persecuted the followers of Jesus Christ after the crucifixion; and was complicit in the stoning of the St. Stephen, the first protomartyr of the Christian era. That Paul experienced a radical conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus produced 13 or 14 of the 27 books of the Bible, almost 25% of the New Testament.

Considered controversial in it's day, Paul's manifesto held that personal suffering is a prelude, perhaps even a precondition of redemption and grace. But it was the fall of Damascus that signaled the end of days.