Early this morning the Senate passed a bill to fund Homeland Security MINUS ICE.

It will move to the House today and we’ll see if President Crazy Pants signs it into law

HOUSE UPDATE: 2:06 PM - The House Republicans won’t pass the Senate bill!

THIS IS GOVERNMENT WITH REPUBLICAN MAJORITIES

They are swarming us. They are moving tactically as a group. They are masked. They are vulgar. They are in unmarked vehicles. They are poorly trained; they escalate every encounter. They are beating us, and they are killing us.

The brutal tactics of ICE agents look suspiciously similar to the Proud Boys and other Patriot groups’ violent January 6 insurrection tactics. Don’t they?

One huge difference between now and then?

These masked madmen are in unmarked vehicles, and they are heavily armed. Long guns, handguns, tasers, pepper balls, pepper spray, handcuffs. They are pretending to enforce criminal law, when Immigration is a civil matter punishable by fines and sometimes deportation. Entering the US to claim asylum is not illegal. The Administration draws no distinction and gives these masked men permission to do their worst.

The message is:

“WE are the police now. We can hurt you, and we’ll do it in public. The President has our backs.”

That’s not public safety, or law enforcement. That’s political violence.

These deployments in American cities are not targeting the “worst of the worst.” They aren’t about rapists or cartel members. They certainly aren’t about public safety. They make living in America less safe as we have seen on video after video. These men are designed to instill fear in ordinary peaceful people who disagree with the President. That’s a whole different mission than public safety.

You don’t deploy masked armed agents into neighborhoods to do routine policing. You do it to send a message: “Be afraid. Don’t challenge us. We’ll shoot you in the face and get away with it.”

When the goal is fear not public safety it’s not law enforcement anymore. It’s violence for power. Who has it and who is meant to feel it. Real Mafia shit. Real dictator shit.

I’ve heard that we are being prepared for a military presence at polling places during the Midterms this year. That would be illegal. Courts would intervene.

Under federal law, it is a crime for military personnel or armed federal agents to be deployed to polling locations to interfere with an election — unless there is an actual ongoing armed rebellion.

Introducing endless violence into ordinary suburbs and cities seems to be a good way to goad protestors into “armed rebellion.” Don’t take the bait. Don’t fall for it. We have the law on our side:

Federal statutes — dating back to post‑Civil War reforms — make it illegal to send armed federal forces to any place where votes are being cast for the purpose of influencing the election.

The Voting Rights Act also criminalizes voter intimidation — especially by federal agents — with penalties of up to five years in prison.

So, there’s that.

Right now, Congress should act to address the current situation.

First, Congress could prohibit DHS, ICE and Border Patrol from wearing masks.

Congress could insist cars be clearly marked.

Congress could prohibit interior enforcement by ICE and constrain their authority, including a requirement that they stick to the Border.

Congress could require agencies to publicly disclose any internal discussions about election day deployments, preventing secret plans from surprising local law enforcement.

Congress could tie all federal law enforcement or military funding to strict prohibitions on election interference in addition to existing laws.

And finally, attention must be paid to the new ICE budget. Congress should cut the appropriation or stop funding them altogether now that we’ve seen their tactics and who they’re going after.

The increase in the 2026 ICE budget suggests Trump is building a private army. His own militia. It is obvious that we do not have millions of illegal criminals or terrorists in America.

A new ICE budget would be key to reigning in the newly recruited, poorly trained, heavily armed, well-compensated goon squad.

The budget increase in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill for hiring ICE personnel was $29.85 billion in addition to the normal ICE baseline budget of $11 billion.

For Fiscal Year 2026, according to the House Appropriations Committee Report:

ICE’s baseline annual appropriation is roughly $11.0 billion. This is the funding Congress recommended in the FY 2026 Homeland Security appropriations bill

Beyond the NORMAL annual appropriations bill: $45 billion was added for expanded detention capacity—to build and operate detention centers for immigrants over several years.

Additional money: $29.85 billion for hiring, training and retaining ICE personnel with bonuses and student loan forgiveness.

Combined, these two provisions alone would total approximately $74.85 billion earmarked for ICE over the FY 2025–FY 2029 period, on top of the normal annual budget.

That represents a dramatic expansion in resources for immigration enforcement overall.

Goon squads have more resources now, but how those resources are used — and the policy choices that direct them — are determined by DHS leadership and, in some cases, by federal and state law.

ICE Queen Kristi Noem must be impeached and removed as Secretary of DHS. She is incompetent, lawless, cruel in spirit and she lies to Congress.

So, this is what it looks like when we give the very worst people leadership roles, unchecked power and massive funding. They create a brutal, violent, vulgar, masked, secret police that look a lot like heavily armed January 6ers.

Immigration as a problem deserves better than this. This is the ugliest way possible to handle Immigration.

What we have wanted and needed is Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Instead, we get bloodshed and terror.

We need a serious government that can solve serious problems.

If Democrats gain control of the legislature, Trump’s lawlessness would at least be subject to oversight, a check on unchecked power, if not a way to remove him from our lives.

Get ready to vote.

Renee Nicole Good and Rebecca Good

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So, how’s that working out? Let’s have a look, shall we?

Remember when Trump, while running for reelection, told oil executives to donate a billion dollars to him and promised they’d be “rewarded”? He appears to be offering them the largest oil reserve in the world, Venezuela. Will they take it? Or is this Trump’s new grift? Or both?

As you know, we enjoyed a day and half of 2026 before the United States launched an unprecedented military operation against Venezuela. U.S. forces carried out coordinated air and ground strikes in Caracas and elsewhere, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The operation, dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve, was executed without explicit congressional authorization framed by the administration as a policing action, a law enforcement operation, rather than a declared act of war.

If this were truly a law-enforcement-style arrest, the mission would be limited to:

· Apprehending Nicolás Maduro (and any accomplices)

· Bringing them to U.S. custody

· Returning control of the Venezuelan government to its legitimate domestic authorities. i.e. The true winners of the 2024 elections.

That is not what’s happening here.

Trump has publicly expanded the mission far beyond arrest, saying the U.S. may oversee governance and consider access to Venezuela’s oil resources for “stabilization” and “reconstruction.” That’s not stabilization. That’s regime management—the soft term for installing or steering a puppet government.

It’s very similar to what we did in Iraq when we named L. Paul Bremmer Head of the “Iraqi Provisional Authority,” a Viceroy. He dismantled the elite Republican Guard and the rest of the military and fired everyone in the Ba’ath party. That created a large resistance movement that eventually became ISIS. Today, Marco Rubio was named Venezuelan Viceroy. I shit you not.

So, here we go again. Government and oil are on the table. ISIS—and history—remind us how that experiment ends.

The problem, as history keeps reminding us, is that resistance to occupation and smash-and-grab economics is inevitable. This style of “deal-making” doesn’t work, largely because American companies don’t want to operate in active war zones. Iraq proved that. Afghanistan proved that. Venezuela will prove that.

Even now, Big Oil is hedging. Executives have floated the idea of sending teams to Venezuela in March — two months from now — a clear sign they have no idea what “next steps” look like, or whether stability will exist at all.

Let’s be clear: this is not about democracy or helping the Venezuelan people. I wish it were. This is might-makes-right politics — expanding American corporate power into one of the world’s deepest oil reserves. And, as always, Trump won’t be doing this for free. He wants something. Actually, he wants everything. I’ll explain.

For Trump, this isn’t just about drilling, refining, or export kickbacks. It’s about the power of currency.

Oil has been trading in petrodollars since Henry Kissinger engineered the system decades ago. Recent reports indicate that Venezuela and China shifted away from US dollar payments for oil and began settling oil purchases in Chinese Renminbi (Chinese Yuan), Euros and Rubles.

Undermining or destabilizing the Petrodollar system weakens global demand for the U.S. dollar itself. The Petrodollar system is why the dollar is “the world’s currency.”

Saddam, Gaddafi, and now Maduro tried to trade oil in Euros, Dinars, and Chinese Yuan. Look at what happened to them!

History shows that such moves constitute a red line for the United States.

But, this time, something is different. Yeah, you guessed it. Trump. You know why it’s different? Remember what Trump owns. Stablecoin, crypto, “alternative currency.” A new way to pay for oil.

Dictators have been pursuing a de-dollarization of the world’s currency for years. It hasn’t gone well for them. America has obliterated their countries. But now China and Russia are paying for oil in anything but dollars, organizing (BRICS) in favor of a multipolar currency system.

Trump isn’t just trying to outsmart the authoritarian world leaders organizing for a multipolar currency system. Trump wants de-dollarization because Trump wants what HE OWNS to be the world’s currency.

Here’s a way he can try to do that:

If Trump can create a political vacuum in Venezuela, dollar-backed stablecoins could become the new oil-trading tool — fast, opaque, and largely invisible to traditional banks. That flexibility lets tech billionaires, Trump’s inner circle, and the Trump family skim profits and steer wealth in ways normal oversight would catch. In other words, the alignment of crypto and political chaos isn’t accidental — it’s Trump planned chaos as a way to create a new tool for billionaires to steal.

This is not policy we can disagree on; this is a corruption model.

Once again, alignment between billionaires, heads of state, unimaginable wealth, the world’s most lethal military and a vacuum of sovereign authority in an oil rich nation hungry for change.

Right now, much of this is speculation. My speculation, but history suggests one thing clearly: Venezuela should prepare for a long war, not a quick “deal.” Empires that arrive promising order and profit usually leave behind resistance, instability, and wreckage — and call it peace on the way out.

Hey Venezuela meet President Donald J. Trump, The Peace President.

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They aren’t.

What happened is not unknowable. It’s uncomfortable.

Epstein did not persist because he was secretive.

He thrived because he was useful. To powerful and wealthy people. To institutions. To big law, and a system that rewards silence over truth.

A wealthy man with important connections in banking, government, big law, and law enforcement trafficked and sexually abused hundreds of underaged girls in plain sight. Law enforcement knew. Prosecutors knew. Financial institutions knew. Social circles knew. And at every step, the system chose story management over accountability.

That is not a mystery. That is policy.

Epstein wasn’t protected by darkness. He was protected by procedure. By a broken justice system that frames plea deals as efficiency. By jurisdictional handoffs. By sealed records. By big expensive law firms. By the quiet understanding that certain problems are better contained rather than solved.

The most revealing fact in the Epstein case isn’t who flew on which private plane or where. It’s that for years, nothing happened—despite credible allegations, witnesses, and documentation. It’s that nothing ever will.

That’s not failure. That’s a decision.

Epstein didn’t hide. Epstein circulated. Planes. Parties. Professors. Presidents. Princes. Prosecutors. He moved openly, confidently, buoyed by the oldest force in America: Extreme wealth and blackmail. “Don’t make this awkward.”

When he was first charged, the justice system blinked. Then it nodded. Then it handed him a plea deal so generous it should’ve come with a fruit basket, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries:

Reduced charges. (Sex trafficking of a 14-year-old minor became simple prostitution). Work release. Immunity for unnamed co-conspirators. Threats of violence against victims and their families. Silence as a feature, not a bug. And that was that.

It would be ten years until the story finally became unavoidable, thanks to the undaunting perseverance, journalistic diligence and curiosity of a lone Miami Herald reporter, Julie K Brown, working with a handful of Epstein’s’ victims.

Suddenly, the rest of the press discovered how to spell Jeffrey Epstein. Politicians discovered outrage. Everyone discovered shock. A collective gasp from people who had been aggressively stepping over the story for decades.

And then—miracle of miracles—Epstein was charged and died in federal custody before trial. “Suicide,” our then Attorney General Bill Barr said.

Cameras failed. Guards slept. Paperwork shrugged. The most surveilled man in America vanished from responsibility one final time, and the system looked at its shoes and said, Gosh.

Case closed.

Every institution involved behaved rationally according to its incentives:

· Well-connected State prosecutors made deals with their federal friends.

· Police deferred upward.

· Banks valued discretion.

· Media hesitated until they felt safe.

. Federal Bureau of Prisons loses Epstein to suicide

No grand conspiracy required. Just alignment.

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The fixation on Epstein’s death is especially telling. It allows the story to end cleanly. Villain gone. Case closed. Moral discomfort neatly buried under speculation.

But whether he killed himself or not is almost beside the point, unless you’re Bill Barr.

The point is that Epstein lived exactly as long as he was useful—and no longer.

And the system that enabled him did not collapse in shame. It stayed on track.

Epstein doesn’t expose a hidden cabal. He exposes something more mundane and more damning:

A system that cradles in its cracks the criminals it is designed to protect.

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Unemployment is now 4.6%, a 4 year high. Manufacturing jobs are down, inflation stubbornly the same as day one of Trump Part 2 (right around 3%). Home energy costs on the rise, meat is super expensive, appliances, furniture and toys all cost more. Airfare is through the roof. Where’s the BOOM? Trump says this is the BOOM. A++++++

In Trump Part 2, Trump is Trumpier. Lying, stealing and grifting is now the entire point of his Presidency. He won’t solve any of our problems, because he doesn’t know how.

The grift is what he knows, and it is literally, “monumental.” Dark money flows to him to build a gilded ballroom, as he solicits money for a new Arc de Trump. The Kennedy Center is now The Donald J Trump and The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts?

Outside the Oval Office is his carefully curated Wall of Shame. Inside looks like Saddam Hussein blacked out, woke up in TJ Maxx, and said, “Yes. All of it.”

January 20, 2028, will be a “deep cleaning” day.

President Trump is an old man who yells at us while he’s publicly being purchased by anyone who can pay him. Take for example his claim to target drug traffickers. Trump shoots at Venezuelan fast boats claiming, without evidence these are drug smugglers bringing drugs into the US. Our drugs are primarily brought into the US by US citizens and come from China and Mexico. For reference:

Fentanyl smuggling: Most seizures occur at ports of entry where U.S. citizens are the primary smugglers - American Immigration Council

During the same “drug war” Trump pardons the former President of Honduras, a notorious and cruel, convicted and jailed Honduran drug kingpin sentenced to 45-years “for cocaine importation and related weapons offenses,” according to the Justice Department who prosecuted him. Now, he’s a free man thanks to a Presidential Pardon. Adding insult to injury the lawyer that prosecuted President Juan Orlando Hernandez, is Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, Emil Bove, now a Trump lifetime appointed appellate court judge on the 3rd circuit. Emil Bove has said nothing about the pardon.

Trump can’t solve a single problem that concerns us. He’s loud and stupid and embarrassing. He was 10 seconds away from his, “Get off my lawn,” moment last week in his prime-time Adderall induced rant except there is no lawn since Melania paved over it.

He still blaming Biden for leaving him an economy that The Economist called “The Envy of the World.” Don’t forget that. THAT IS EVERYTHING.

THE CANCER

And then there was my personal crap:

Last March, I was diagnosed with stage 3 Small Cell Lung Cancer. It’s a dangerous and aggressive cancer with only one protocol available. It’s do or die.

It’s concurrent rounds of chemotherapy and daily chest radiation for 37 days, followed by 10 consecutive days of brain radiation and monthly immunotherapy for 2 years.

I won’t sugar coat it nor will I make it the horror show some might imagine, but the truth is the treatments were hard on my body, especially my brain. My big, beautiful brain. I lost my sense of taste, my tongue feels like it’s wearing a sweater. I’ve had problems finding words, feel off-balance, and wake up nauseas and very tired most days.

I can feel, however, that recovery has begun! So, I’m ready to tell you.

My sense of taste seems to be returning; I take lots of walks in the wetlands for stamina and balance and try to eat regularly. My tongue still feels awful, and I sound weaker than you remember but I do feel like I’m getting stronger.

Monthly immunotherapy tires me out, but it allows my battered brain and body to recover.

The news I’ve been waiting for came in last week’s scans. I am cancer-free! The tumors are gone. Not just smaller, gone!

A Word About Our Health Care Delivery System

The radiologist who read my PET scan on December 8, wrote that I had surgery to remove my upper left lobe to address a truly cinematic tumor.

In actual reality, no such surgery occurred. The tumor responded to treatment, resolved completely, and my lung remains fully accounted for. This is called a complete recovery.

Writing in a radiology report that a patient who did not have a lobectomy had a lobectomy is a Medical Error. These scans follow you for the rest of your life and you’re left wondering about the accuracy of all of the findings. Am I cancer free? That report would make anyone lose their mind.

And so, another battle begins. Patients must find and fight erroneous medical findings too. Fight cancer, fight findings, fight the system. Fun times!

So, you ask, how do you correct medical errors? Well, of course, you have to read everything to find errors and of course, there’s an administrative nightmare waiting for you after you discover it. A ridiculous administrative labyrinth you’ll have to go through to make what is an easy and obvious correction. Either you have two complete lungs, or you don’t. I do.

I have submitted form after form on portals, emails, dialed various administrative departments from Privacy to Patient and Guest Services, Medical Records, Radiology to the CEO of the hospital. “I did NOT have surgery. I have two complete lungs.”

“We’ll have to look into it. Do you have documentation that you have not had surgery?”

Think about that.

I of course, offered an elegant, cost-effective easy solution. How about a five-minute phone call between my oncologist and your radiologist?

Oh no. No, no, no. You’re not listening. The preferred healthcare company approach to medical errors is to dedicate entire administrative departments, complicated call centers with endless hold music, call back options with no extension numbers and most definitely no doctor-to-doctor contact. YOU have to prove us wrong.

“I did not have surgery.” I said defeated and hung up.

Just when you think healthcare can’t get worse, it does.

If Congress doesn’t extend the ACA subsidies for another 3 years by December 31, 2025, Americans will see the cost of this bloated, stupid delivery system skyrocket. 22 million will see their premiums become unaffordable and go without coverage or buy some catastrophic plan that covers nothing.

Congress has gone home until 2026.

Now you know what I’ve been doing this past year. Now you know what you’ll be doing next year.

Fingers crossed.

RIP Rob Reiner. You made so many of my favorite movies.

Hi Ms. Rhodes,

I wanted to follow up and share a quick update. This past week, we completed the process of separating phone lines for each of our clinics in the Southeast Florida region. If you take a look at our website, you’ll now see the direct phone number listed for each clinic, and calls are being routed to staff assigned specifically to that location. We’ll be reaching out to current patients over the next few weeks to let them know about the change — but in the meantime, they can still reach us using the old numbers as well.

We’ve also made some big improvements in how our Patient Access and Contact Center teams are structured. Instead of sending calls to a general pool, we now have small, dedicated teams supporting specific clinics and physicians, all under the guidance of local leadership. This is something we’ve been working on for a while, and it’s been going really well — your feedback was a great reminder that we’re moving in the right direction.

Looking a little further ahead, we’re also working toward strengthening Care Management, or what you might call a “Patient Navigator” program at each clinic. While we already have team members across the state helping patients with everything from medical and financial support to nutrition and emotional care, we know we can do more — and we’re committed to it. Samantha Watkins and I, along with the rest of the leadership team, are focused on making sure our patients and their families feel supported every step of the way. Patient satisfaction isn’t just something we track — it’s something we take personally, and it is something we constantly measure our team members against.

As we keep moving forward, I’d love for you to continue sharing your thoughts. Honest feedback like yours really helps guide our decisions, and we’re grateful for it

Ken Sturtz
Chief Information Officer

Chief Administrative Officer

Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute

5550 W. Executive Dr., Suite 350, Tampa, FL 33609

T: 813.816.7171 | C: 210.722.6920

E: Ken.Sturtz@FLCancer.com

Me, the girl who had two blowouts a week, every week for 20 years, tried to act tough and just let it go. My beautiful friend Patty showed up for me, stood with me, bravely and with lots of love, did it with me.

Gulp.

PROGRESS!

We have an update on the Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute’s cruelest call center!

I heard by phone from Ken Sturtz, Chief Information Officer at Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute. He was joined by Samatha Watkins VP of Operations and Special Projects.

Ken seemed genuinely shocked to learn what a hideous and ridiculous circle jerk the automated call center turned out to be. Sam, not so much. Ken vowed to do a deep dive into the call center and report his findings on June 9th.

In their telling, someone spent millions of dollars developing the cruelest call center. I said, “Get your money back.”

I told them I knew their history. I also knew that McKesson Corp purchasing a 70% share in their practice gave them a new infusion of 2.5 billion to fix it and I asked Ken to do something radical: actually make life easier for patients.

Not just a gesture, but something tangible—like direct phone numbers that connect us to our care teams, and patient navigators who can help manage the endless stream of appointments, scans, labs, and treatments.

When navigating cancer—or any serious illness—patients are fatigued, sometimes in pain, and emotionally overwhelmed. It’s not just hard; it’s a full-time job, we didn’t apply for, managing care when we’re already at our worst.

Some of us have complex regimens that require perfect execution. Our lives depend on it.

After our call, I received the following response.

Ms. Robertson,

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Sam Watkins and I truly appreciate your openness in sharing your experiences and concerns. Your candor means a great deal, and it's through conversations like this that we can better understand where we need to improve.

We want to sincerely apologize that your experience has not met the standards we hold ourselves to at FCS. Please know that we are actively reviewing the call recordings and taking a close look at the additional suggestions you shared with us. Your input is being taken seriously, and we’re committed to following through.

We’re especially grateful for your heartfelt advocacy—not just for yourself, but for all cancer patients. Your voice is helping to drive change that will benefit many others.

We’ll continue to stay in touch and truly welcome any future outreach from you. In the meantime, I’m happy to commit to letting you know what steps we’ve taken on several issues before Monday June 9.

Thank you again for your trust and your time.

Ken Sturtz
Chief Information Officer

Chief Administrative Officer

I appreciated his acknowledgment and willingness to review the issues I brought forward. I can’t wait for him to hear the recorded phone calls. Stay tuned for June 9th.

So far, this is what I’ve learned about cancer…

Depression isn’t an option. Block that road off. Station cops on the exit ramp of your mental highway Depression exit ramp. Do NOT get off there.

Go North one more exit and get off at Rage. Rage gives you lots of energy, which, will be in short supply. Don’t make treatment decisions while raging, just use it to get out of bed and fight. Oh, and be polite!

Round 2 of Chemo starts Tuesday. Blech.

Brett’s new show starts TOMORROW at Noon Eastern.

Find it here

Show the love he deserves HERE

Let me know what you think.

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Love ALL ways,

Randi

Go to my YouTube Channel and Subscribe (for FREE) and you’ll get pinged the minute he goes live on Monday June 2, 2025! I’ll be watching!

Show some love right here ya bastids!

Love ALL ways,

Randi

The majority of you my loyal clients, are telling me to go to another Cancer Center. One that might be far from home. While the GIANTS in Cancer Care all have stellar reputations, and great outcomes, I’d rather FIX the Cancer Center I have close to my home. Make it more responsive to people with cancer in Southeast Floriduh because there are 5 MILLION people living here and because that’s just who I am. I think that’s who YOU are too so…here’s where we are and what we need.

WHERE WE ARE

I wrote to the CEO, Nate Walcker, and Ken Sturtz Chief Information Officer and then locally, asked my oncologist to have the Palm Springs Office Manager come see me in the exam room, because of course, I couldn’t call her.

I got lucky!! Paydirt! WINNING!

Janette is a wonderful woman who gives a shit. She gave me her email, her cell phone number (which I’ve used) and her EXTENSION. Sadly, this formidable, compassionate, smart woman is only in charge of her own office. Each of the 100 offices of Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute is a SILO. They do not speak or coordinate care between them. The call center has your “chart.” Yeah, what? I know.

So, you can just imagine my joy when I received the letter below from Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute!

It’s the chupacabra of Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute. It’s the “Patient EXPERIENCE Advocate,” located on the other side of the state but, they have ONE and Dionne Dishmon has a phone extension! (Don’t scare her away!)

See below:

WHAT WE NEED

So, I really have no idea how to contact BOND villain, “The Nurse Triage” because they don’t have an extension but, I was thinking…maybe YOU are a phone tech.

Maybe you’re a phone tech and maybe you can explain what call forwarding is to Miss Dishmon, now that we have her number, so she can pass it on to one of these super caring Executives like CEO Nate Walcker or Ken Sturtz Chief Information Officer? Or if you’re a member of LINKEDIN and want to let Ken know, THIS ISN’T THAT HARD KEN!

Maybe Ken brings you onboard to fix this because perhaps the solution is a tad more elegant than the old call forwarding feature invented in the 1980’s by Ernest Bonnano. I dunno. Phone-tech-ery isn’t my jam, but reading Miss Dishmon’s’ letter today, the unsolvable problem, the enigma, the conundrum, The Rubix Cube McKesson Corp’s Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute can’t decode is how do you call a “traveling” doctor?

Phones can’t possibly connect to physicians’ PA’s, RN’s or Medical Assistants because they move in packs (?) and are always “on the move!” They can’t possibly receive patient calls when they are “on the move.”

Need your expertise loyal supplicants! South Floriduh Cancer Patients will be grateful! LET’S FIX THIS!

Love ALL ways,

Randi

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Taylor Swift isn’t hot. Donny Fucktard took a hand-me-down Qatari 747 in violation of the Constitution, Putin is humiliating his bestie on the world stage, repeatedly and everything costs more.

Eh, not worth coming in today.

At this point, only the apocalypse would make me consider returning to the studio.

The show had to end. For starters, talking about the worst President evah gets old really fast the second term around. And then, there’s the cancer.

I have cancer. Again. This cancer is a new cancer. It’s not my old breast cancer returning. This is a lung cancer. A big one.

For everyone who is still following this Substack and hoping for an update, there it is.

I broke my DNA. I was a degenerate smoker, and there’s payback for that. I have an inoperable oozing pussy gravy sore of a tumor in my left lung. I quit smoking 4 years ago. Ha! My doctor never had me screened for lung cancer. Ha! She’s been my doctor for 10 years! Ha! She forgot that I am an ex-smoker with a history of cancer. She made me come in every three months for Lipitor refills! Hahahahahaha. Yeah, well, hmmm.

I’ll try to keep an accurate diary of how disappointed and disgusted we should all be with health care delivery in America.

Here’s a quick and recent example: Friday, I spent an hour on hold trying to get copies of my previous mammograms from my old imaging center, with no luck.

“Sorry for the hold. We’re going home early today. Check back on Monday.”

I decided to keep my appointment with the new imaging center, where I had the PET scan that diagnosed my lung cancer, BAPTIST HEALTH CITY. Baptist Health City. The nerve.

“We can’t do anything for you without your prior imaging. We only compare last year to this year’s imaging if this is a diagnostic mammogram. That’s protocol.”

I asked to speak to someone with a medical background. I said, “This is NEW cancer. This is lung cancer NOT breast cancer. I had my PET scan here, and I have the pathology report. It’s not breast cancer, but my oncologist found a NEW palpable mass in my left breast. It’s new! It’s a NEW cancer. It’s not breast cancer. We need to see if it’s lung cancer that spread to my breast!”

“Where does it say that?” the person asked.

”Here. It says that, right here,” I said following the words on the report with my finger.

“Oh! The doctor found it? Okay, then. Oh it’s lung cancer. Oh, well, you have to know if the lung cancer metastasized to your breast. Well, yes, that’s important. We can screen for that today.”

Three hours later, I was taken to the imagining room. Later that night a report was posted on their “portal.” WINNING!

Now I just needed the medical decoder ring to translate this complex medical mess of words.

I copied and pasted the Final Report from the “portal” into Chat GPT. Chat, my new best friend, told me, in less than 30 seconds, “This is a cautious report with no finding of cancer!” Yay!

So why didn’t I just ask my oncologist? I can’t ask my oncologist. My oncologist doesn’t have a phone. I’ll explain.

My oncologist is part of a group of around 200 oncologists operating as Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute. Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute was a physician owned oncology and research group last time I had cancer. That’s why I returned to this practice, but recently, McKesson purchased it.

McKesson. McKesson. Why do you know that name? You do know that name.

McKesson was a major distributor of oxycodone and Hydrocodone before their license to sell was suspended in Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Colorado. In 2017 McKesson was forced to pay a record $150 million dollars civil penalty for violating the Controlled Substances Act. In 2019, McKesson and three other distributors would be ordered to pay $6.68 billion over 18 years, in a settlement with four additional states.

THAT McKesson owns Florida Cancer Specialists now. Pill mill supplying McKesson. Appalachia poisoned by McKesson, McKesson. Banned from distributing oxycodone and other controlled substances in at least four states McKesson owns Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute. I shit you not.

Now, with McKesson in the driver’s seat, Florida Cancer Specialists demands high volume oncology treatment. Each doctor must treat MORE patients than ever before. To do this, Florida Cancer Specialists uses a uniquely cruel operating system. Ready for this?

189 doctors, ONE PHONE NUMBER.

Yes, you got that right, ONE PHONE NUMBER. No extensions, no office numbers, no cell phones. Just one number for four group offices in West Palm Beach that forwards to a CALL CENTER! What will they think of next?

Here’s how it works. You have cancer. You were told to get a mammogram, but you need a simple question answered so you can book your mammogram, i.e. “Do I want a screening mammogram or a diagnostic mammogram?” You call 561 366 4100.

Stay on hold for 20 minutes and a “We can call you back,” message is triggered. The call back comes. It’s a call center worker calling you. The agent asks, “What’s your question?” You ask and return to hold. The agent is looking for someone in the call center who can answer your question.” After another 20-30 minutes you will get a human. “What is your question?”

“I’m trying to schedule my mammogram and ultrasound. Does the order call for a screening or a diagnostic appointment?”

Answer, “I will ask your doctor and call you back.” You will not get called back until the end of the business day or perhaps the next day, because you have been triaged.

Of course, you can’t schedule your appointment today. You have just lost a day in your cancer battle.

This is why you copy and paste your reports into Chat GPT.

McKesson practically invented the high-volume oncology call center health care delivery model. They brag about it in the Quarterly Report* (see excerpt below)

So that’s what’s going on.

I started chemo and radiation treatments a week ago. So far, I’m tolerating it well.

If you are going through something and want to vent or want to create a support system that we all could learn from, regarding health care, nutrition, i.e. smoothie recipes for protein, iron, constipation, headache remedies, ringing in the ears, or just a place to vent, let’s do it together.

That’s the way we’ve always done it. Together. We’ll do this together too even though I’m broken.

Love you MORE

Randi

*McKesson Annual Report Excerpt:

For 4Q25, the company recorded revenues of $90.8 billion, up by 18.9% YoY compared to $76.4 billion in 4Q24, primarily driven by growth in the U.S. Pharmaceutical segment, due to increased prescription volumes from retail national customers and growth in the distribution of specialty products, including higher volumes in oncology. Operating Income for the quarter was $1.6 billion, up by 30.8% YoY with a margin of 1.8%, up by 20 bps. Adjusted operating income was $1.5 billion, up by 23.5% YoY with a margin of 1.7%, flat as compared to the prior year. The growth in operating income benefited from growth across all operating segments, including strong oncology and other specialty provider volumes, the onboarding of a new strategic customer in 2Q, and increased demand for access solutions in the Prescription Technology Solutions segment. Net income for the period was $1.31 billion, up by 57.3% YoY, while adjusted net income was $1.27 billion, up by 56.7% YoY. Similarly, Diluted EPS on a reported basis was $10.01 per share, up by 66.3%, while adjusted diluted EPS was $10.12 per share, up by 63.8% YoY. The growth in Net income and EPS was driven by a lower effective tax rate and strong operational growth across the business.

THE 10 BIGGEST MCKESSON LAWSUITS

Law firm Recovers $141 Million McKesson Investors Money

You will start with the crust.

To buy or to make your own? That is not really the question. Either way it’s an amazing pie.

If you want to make your own crust, use the recipe below for Flaky Buttery Pie Crust or any similar recipe. Pie crust is easy. Pie crust only has 4 ingredients, Flour, salt, cold butter and ice-water. I said COLD BUTTAH. Okay?

You do need to make it 4 hours before you want to fill and bake your pie, because the dough needs to be refrigerated. You can make it and refrigerate overnight if that works better for you.

Store bought pie crust is absolutely fine! Just follow the BLIND BAKE instructions on the box.

Just know no matter how delicious your pie comes out, the FIRST question will be, “Did you make the crust?” I love saying, “I did.” Do it once, and you’ll never NOT do it. OR don’t! Really, up to you.

When your crust is ready…

Preheat your oven to 325 and gather your ingredients

Ingredients

Lemon Filling:

• 1 cup white sugar

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• 3 tablespoons cornstarch

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 ½ cups water

• 2 medium lemons, juiced and zested

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 4 egg yolks, beaten

• 1 (9 inch) prepared pie crust, baked

Meringue:

• 4 egg whites

• ½ cup white sugar

  Directions

  • Gather all ingredients and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

    1. To make the lemon filling: Whisk 1 cup sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt together in a medium saucepan; stir in water, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until mixture comes to a boil. Stir in butter.

    2. Place egg yolks in a small bowl and gradually whisk in 1/2 cup of hot sugar mixture. (This is called tempering…it prevents the eggs from scrambling)

    3. Now you can whisk the egg yolk mixture back into remaining sugar mixture. Bring to a boil and continue to cook while stirring constantly until thick. Remove from heat; pour filling into baked pastry crust.

    4. To make the meringue topping: Beat egg whites in a glass, metal, or ceramic bowl with an electric mixer until foamy. Gradually add sugar, (go slow) continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. (Meringue needs a LOT of whipping) Start your mixer slow and go up a notch every 4 or 5 minutes, until meringue forms stiff peaks.

    5. Working quickly, spread meringue over pie filling, sealing the edges at the crust. Use the back of the spoon to create peaks on the top of the meringue if you like.

    6. Bake pie in the preheated oven until meringue is golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.

This is the recipe I use to make flaky pie crust, but you ABSOLUTELY CAN use store bought and follow the BLIND bake instructions on the box. This is a SINGLE crust pie.

Butter Flaky Pie Crust (With Video)

Preheat oven to 400

This pie crust recipe made with butter produces a consistent dough that bakes into a crisp and flaky pie crust every time. It's perfect for any single-crust pie. It only has 4 ingredients. Flour, salt, butter and ice cold water.

1 (9-inch) single pie crust

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup butter, diced and then chilled

• ¼ cup ice cold water, or as needed

Directions

1. Gather all ingredients.

2. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Use a pastry blender to cut in chilled, diced butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Add 1 tablespoon cold water at a time, mixing with a spatula or your hands until the dough comes together; you may need less than 1/4 cup water.

4. Shape dough into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

5. Place chilled dough on a generously floured surface and roll out to an 11-inch circle, adding more flour to your rolling pin as needed.

6. Carefully roll dough onto the rolling pin, then unroll over a 9-inch pie dish. Press dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the dish. Trim any excess dough and flute the edges. Poke fork holes in the bottom of the pan.

7. Blind bake for 15 minutes.

PRO TIP

Dice the butter first and then chill before using. Seriously, use COLD BUTTAH.

If you refrigerate the dough overnight, let it sit for a few minutes before rolling.

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