Ken Klippenstein: I got the Luigi Mangione manifesto. The real one, not the forgery circulating online.

[Dennis Donovan]

Ken Klippenstein
‪@kenklippenstein.bsky.social‬
I got the Luigi Mangione manifesto. The real one, not the forgery circulating online. www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-man...

December 10, 2024 at 3:51 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lcy4n5pvnk2p

From the website linked above:

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No 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 allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

[struggle4progress]

1. I've got stacks an stacks of good stuff to read

Why would I waste my time readin a crackpot whose publicity plan was to shoot somebody in the back?

[BannonsLiver]

17. If what's in the stacks was really that good you'd probably be reading it.

[Nimble_Idea]

30. pass on your stacks

[Evolve Dammit]

40. because it's a valid viewpoint? Enough after decades of being screwed?

[mcar]

95. It's valid to commit murder?

Oh, ok.

[Evolve Dammit]

100. We all have our threshold of what we can tolerate. This was his.

[mcar]

102. Was it valid for the killer of Dr. Tiller to commit murder?

He obviously reached his threshhold. How about the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi? Was that justified? He'd obviously reached his threshhold.

[drmeow]

76. If you've got so much to read

why did you bother opening the post. It said what was in it right in the title.

[struggle4progress]

77. a word to the wise &c&c

[LeftInTX]

80. Na!!! Ken Klippenstein is an internet prankster. It's all good!

[orangecrush]

88. Hard pass on the stacks

[Cartoonist]

4. Key phrase

the American public has allowed them to get away with it.

[leftstreet]

6. +1

Yeah, that jumps out

[RussBLib]

25. or Congress

...they have more control over it than the people do, unless millions and millions of people rise up and demand change at the same time. That is very difficult.

[erronis]

27. Better: The corporate news media has not done its job and put the facts in front of the people.

There are many outlets such as ProPublica, KHN, TheGuardian, etc. that have done some great research and reporting.

But the "corporates" (Fox, NYT, WaPo, Sinclair, billionaire-owned outlets) are purposefully sitting on this critical information and feeding pure crap to the gullible.

[Evolve Dammit]

41. Spot on

[TheFarseer]

72. The corporate news

Gets paid by big tech, big pharma, insurance, energy, defense industry- and other corporations in the form of advertising to put their spin on the news so we only get the corporate establishment side of the story. It’s really hard to see the truth when you are getting paid to not see the truth.

[bikes and bunnies]

53. "But how are we going to pay for it, Bernie?"

-Hillary Clinton, dishonestly attacking Bernie Sanders' single payer health care plan, which would SAVE us billions of dollars.

I voted for Hillary, but that's the most detestable thing she ever said or did, in my opinion.
A Yale (ironically, her alma mater) study showed that around 300K lives would have been saved during the pandemic if we had a single payer system, which Bernie advocates.

[sheshe2]

66. Please link to that study, I would like to read it.

Forgive me but thousands of lives would have been saved if trump did not lie to the American people.

Trump told Bob Woodward he knew in February that COVID-19 was 'deadly stuff' but wanted to 'play it down'

"It's not just old people," Trump told Woodward, acknowledging the gravity of the disease, The Washington Post reported.

snip
In the same interview, Trump acknowledged that the disease was more deadly than he previously thought.

"Now it's turning out it's not just old people, Bob. But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old, older," Trump said, according to an audio clip, and then added, "young people, too, plenty of young people."

snip


Trump, speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, said he'd been trying to avoid "panic" and was showing "leadership."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658

[Meowmee]

68. Yes what a crock blame hrc for the psycho murdering millions with lies etc. on covid

[MadameButterfly]

85. It's not either/or

Both Trump and access to single payer cost lives.

Let's not put this on Hillary. Mainstream Democrats have called Bernie extreme and Single payer unaffordabe for years.
Now with Trump back in power, Dems are coming out of the woodwork sounding like Bernie on how to reach the lost working class voters.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

5. So basically, a long-winded version of, "I did it you dirty coppers!"

[Baitball Blogger]

7. I cry for that boy.

We all failed him. He wasn't wrong about the facts. Just wrong about the remedy.

[Bettie]

10. Unfortunately, there is no actual remedy for it

the way our society/government is currently structured.

The filthy rich own our entire political apparatus through their ownership of the media which allows them to craft whatever message they choose and their ownership of most of congress who will vote for whatever they are told, in order to keep the dark money flowing to their coffers. The open donations are peanuts to what the Super PACs take in and spend.

Health care will never be fixed, it will continue to be great for those with vast wealth, a constant (and expensive) struggle for the middle class, and a nightmare for the poor.

No one with any power is willing to do anything about it.

[Baitball Blogger]

16. The assumption is that our laws will continually stop acts like the one Mangione took.

I hope that's the correct assumption, but as our society continues to degrade, ie. closing options for the young, while the wealthy continue to exploit them, I am afraid this is only going to get worse.

I mean, I never understood Timothy McVeigh's issue, but it seems like there were more that came after him. And I did understand what happened in Columbine, and I thought we were making inroads with the anti-bullying policies. But now we're in a new age where bullying is a sign of strength and shooters are politically incentivized to hunt down and kill people that have been dehumanized.

And now we have Luigi Mangione. I would not be surprised if there are copycats.

[UpInArms]

91. The remedy is a remedy is to

Regulate capitalism

[LudwigPastorius]

12. A 26-year-old is not a boy.

[yardwork]

49. He is and he's not.

As the mother of four young adult males, I think 26 is very young in today's world, in the U.S. It is far younger than it was just a few generations ago.

When I was 26, I was married for the first time and we owned a house. My parents had a child by the time they were 26. My grandparents had several children and had been independent adults for many years by the time they were 26.

People are taking much longer to grow to maturity. Many young people struggle with mental health issues. Many are not resilient.

This kid - and he is a kid, imo - is obviously intelligent (masters in Engineering) but seems to have little real-world experience. It's not clear that he had a career. He seems to have bounced around, reading the internet, building a half-baked concept of the world. He's not wrong that the insurance and health care industries are nightmares. I recognized that at his age, decades ago. That's why I went back to school and tried to do something about it. It didn't occur to me to solve it with a bullet. I think that's a sign, ultimately, of immaturity.

It's very sad, all around.

[LizBeth]

64. Pretty much.... hitting about 30 talking adult.

[Self Esteem]

47. He's a white male born to an uber-wealthy family. No one failed him.

[Baitball Blogger]

54. What a strange reply.

He had empathy for all Americans who were being screwed by the system. And see, the thing is, you don't learn to temper that emotion until you get older. It takes a while to learn that we are not all the same. As in, we are not like Magas.

[Self Esteem]

58. Not all Americans. He clearly didn't have empathy for the man he shot and killed.

But I'll end with this: what's strange is your trying to reason his actions.

He's a murderer.

[Baitball Blogger]

59. Yes, he's a murderer. And if you read back you'll see I never condoned it.

But I think it's equally stupid for those who didn't see it coming. We are a country without guard rails.

[Self Esteem]

69. Whether that's true or not, our country did not fail him.

You said it did. He was given pretty much every advantage one could ask for in America:

Male
Extremely wealthy
Ivy league educated
White

That isn't failing him. He's not some poor destitute soul here. That's all.

[Baitball Blogger]

71. We are going to disagree.

I remember somewhere that many of the revolutionaries in latin America were well educated. They could see the problems in their countries. But just like Mangione, they went after the wrong remedy.

And, yes, since this country voted for Trump, it no longer has a moral high ground. Please. You know what I heard when Clinton was caught over a blow job? It's nothing compared to Trump who is a 34 count Felon and rapist and appointing rapists, chronic alcoholics, Russian sympathizers.

How does anyone not lose their minds. We have no real commitment to the rule of law -- as a country.

[Self Esteem]

75. Yes we are going to disagree. He's not an unfortunate soul left behind.

He's mentally ill and his actions are horrific.

It's funny how we get upset when the media attempts to humanize mass-shooters, yet so many people are going to do it with this guy.

It's disgusting.

[LeftInTX]

81. Maybe he did it because he's a narcissist this is his way of "being a hero". He certainly has admirers now.

BTW, he did not write that. An internet prankster did. But I think his manifesto is quite similar.

[IbogaProject]

99. He still has issues w medical care

I'd bet the pain meds available for him were scarse and inadequate. And insurance often denies request for advanced imaging which has the effect to stall care. We do not know if any family resources were availible to him. Missing since summer Mom only got around to filing missing person's request as Thanksgiving approached.

[sheshe2]

73. He was a man not a boy.

He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. His family is worth millions. How exactly did we 'Fail' the poor little rich kid?

[soandso]

8. Part of that is actually what's been reported

So no scoop on getting the real thing. It's also not a manifesto. It's a brief explanation of why he did it.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Typical narcissistic wacko paints himself as a hero of sorts.

Only he could see it, only he could do something about it, and with such honesty.

Psychology has been kicking around for almost 150 years and we're besieged by loonies who can't regulate their own thoughts, emotions, and actions. Are we making any progress?

[Nimble_Idea]

31. who cares

ASK MELONIA

[LeftInTX]

82. That's how I see him. He's like Trump..."I can shoot someone in the middle of the street and I would be a hero"

It seems to be working.

[sop]

11. Still trying to understand what he thought shooting the UHC CEO would accomplish. It changed nothing.

He threw away the rest of his life. And for what? A few social media likes?

[LudwigPastorius]

15. I think his plan was:

Phase 1) Kill insurance CEO

Phase 2) ?

Phase 3) Everyone receives quality, affordable healthcare

[TommyT139]

29. nvm

(Sadly, android emojis don't work here!)

[LauraInLA]

18. I think he's hoping to get lots of attention during the trial and thinks that will spur a nationwide discussion

that will result in changes. I also think he believes there will be copycats. I think he’s probably wrong about creating dialogue producing changes. I think he’s right about the copycats, unfortunately. Just as “going postal” became a serial occurrence for years.

[Nimble_Idea]

32. as the orange diarrhea would say - wut u got to lose?

[Hellbound Hellhound]

19. It inspired others. He's become a martyr for those who have no other outlet, those who have nothing left to lose.

Cancer patients, those suffering from perpetual disease, those who've had their claims denied over and over and over again. I lost my job because my insurance insisted that my rotator cuff surgery wasn't "Necessary", when my career depended on me using that arm.

Tell me, when my career, my lifestyle, everything I've put towards developing, becomes nonexistent because some random Artificial Intelligence has decided arbitrarily that I don't need my arm to do my job, and I've appealed twice through legal means, what do I do? What recourse do I have? I've got bills to pay, a daughter to support, a wife to support.

The guy's a hero and he knew exactly what he was doing. Gods bless him. May a hundred thousand more follow in his footsteps.


On Edit: I get better healthcare in prison than I do outside. Think about that.

[ColinC]

21. Its made the cost of healthcare an evil of insurance companies the number 1 topic in news and social media

...for about 2 weeks now?

I wouldn't be surprised if that was his intent.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

34. Seems he got a lot of people talking about healthcare in America.

[33taw]

63. He got BCBS to back off the anesthesia policy.

[Trellastic]

13. It's complex.

The Corporate-church-state-media industrial complex is running the country, telling people what to think, how to think, what to buy, how to feel, how to look, what to hate, what to fear and what to be concerned about. Also who to vote for from the choices they mostly allow.

All the while most people are spending their lives and health working in hopes of affording/maintaining a home and health care.

This is obvious but people are busy and distracted. It is sad that this young guy murdered someone, but it is wonderful that he cares about people in society. I say his family raises some funds with merch- say some coffee mugs or t-shirts that say 'Deny, Delay, Depose' or whatever was on those bullets. Buon Natale to Luigi and his family.

[ThePartyThatListens]

14. Interesting stuff

[Jit423]

20. I'll just say what I have been saying for the last 20 years or more:

World-wide greed and corruption of the uber-class is eventually going to set the world on fire and everyone without millions will become refugees or immigrants of some kind. And mother nature will finish the job of ridding the planet of human scum.

[barbtries]

48. i have also been saying for years

that greed will kill the human race.

I didn't think i would live long enough to see it happen though.

[LexVegas]

22. I'd like to see him walk. nt

[LAS14]

23. It's possible to entertain conflicting opinions.

Mangione (if guilty) should absolutely face the full force of the law. He needs to pay the price he signed up for.

I still admire his personal sacrifice and commitment to trying to do something about our broken, power-dominated health care system.

[erronis]

28. Agree. But first let's have trump face the full force of the law.

[Nimble_Idea]

35. good luck with that

busy trying to save democracy from inside a tesla posting about mah climate change on X

[Karasu]

36. We've been TRYING. Literally nothing has fucking worked.

And instead, he's being fucking rewarded. Much like CEOs are every day just for existing, but arguably worse in that he gets to try to claim "the people" are on board with this shit. When it couldn't be farther from the truth, and most all of them have no fucking idea what they're in for.

[Meowmee]

67. Yeah many have forgotten about orange psycho

But are all in on m being brought to justice.

[JoseBalow]

24. "Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming." Parasites, plural?

Who else was on his "To Do" list? I'm curious if the mysterious "spiral notebook" was indeed present, and what was in it.

[Karasu]

37. He was almost certainly referring to UHC (and the health insurance industry) as a whole.

[JoseBalow]

42. Maybe... I guess we'll find out

eventually, I hope.

[Clouds Passing]

26. Reply to post on bluesky...

‪Friend of 19th century agrarian populism‬ ‪@misteres.bsky.social‬
·
1h
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. -JFK

[Hellbound Hellhound]

33. Can't say that, because "Violeenc bead!" from the illiterates who have never read a history book in their lives. n/t

[BlueKota]

65. JFK knew what he was talking about.

Regardless of whether one thinks violence is or isn't the answer, it's only logical that if you back people into a corner and refuse to move out of their way, eventually they will quit asking nicely and start trying to shove their way free.

I also had a professor who said something along similar lines. He said people don't care when a politician doesn't deliver on promises, they made during a campaign. Yet once they start taking away rights and privileges people have enjoyed and come to rely on, no one should be surprised at the resentment that will begin to build and eventually erupt into violence and that never ends well for anyone.

Unfortunately I think that's where things are headed now, and those too drunk on their own wealth and power, aren't grasping that there is a likely catastrophic downside to all of their actions not only for us, but for them too. It's not only simple logic, but a basic understanding of human nature. They are just to blind to see it.

[ForgedCrank]

38. Openly admitting

that this was done for terroristic purposes makes the 2nd deg murder charge even more perplexing.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

43. All the more reason to declare him not guilty. n/t

[LeftInTX]

83. They will increase the charges later.

You want to charge when you have the maximum amt of evidence. Yesterday, it firearms just to get him in jail. However, they needed to charge him with murder to prevent him from getting bail. He is facing extradition.

If you charge without the best evidence, the defendant can get the case dropped if he has a good attorney.

[SunSeeker]

39. That's pretty short, don't know why MSM outlets keep chopping it down.

And it's a lot less crazy than I thought it would be.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

44. Pretty clear. They're already posting articles about "Don't give up the culture war, ignore the class war!"

They know the writing on the wall. The rest of us just have to be stoic enough to act upon it.

[4catsmom]

45. has someone started a GoFundMe for him yet?

I'll donate

[Hellbound Hellhound]

46. Several times but GFM has shut them down. n/t

[Hellbound Hellhound]

55. Don't quite understand your reply, but tis what tis. n/t

[Ninga]

56. Did Kyle Rittenhouse have GFM?

[Hellbound Hellhound]

57. He did, but not for his legal defense.

He skirted GoFundMe's clauses that way, so it was a GFM for "Continued wellbeing and living arrangements".

[Ninga]

60. Thanks for the clarification.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

62. NP! o7 I try to keep an ear to the ground for enemy movements. :) n/t

[Meowmee]

70. I don't know, but I remember people at DU being happy that he was acquitted

[markodochartaigh]

51. Very intelligent people can harbor bizarre delusions.

By all accounts he is very intelligent, and well educated. However, he says "...the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world...".

The US does not have a health care system. The US has a profit making system which produces as much profit as possible while producing as little health care as possible as a byproduct.

Unfortunately the US prison system psychiatric services are seriously overwhelmed. I doubt if he will get the help he needs to dissuade him from this ludicrous and harmful delusion.

[orangecrush]

89. I see

What you did there.

[url=https://ibb.co/ZdWbLZw][img][/img][/url]

[markodochartaigh]

90. "Early and unnatural death"

Well, we're getting there.


https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/08/life-expectancy-gap-rich-poor-us-regions-more-than-20-years

[malaise]

74. Both are fascinating

Bottom line - the establishment will never p,u k heroes for ordinary folks

[usonian]

78. Copycat.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/12/09/luigi-mangione-unabomber-four-star-review/76868674007/


A Goodreads user who appears to be Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old who was arrested and charged with murder and other felonies in connection with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. gave a 4-star rating to the manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber.

https://archive.org/details/kaczynski2/mode/1up

[Passages]

79. The rest of the CEO's are reading this and reading this and reading this....

I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

[LeftInTX]

84. Ken Klippenstein wrote that. He's an internet prankster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Klippenstein

Online pranks
According to The Daily Beast, Klippenstein "has a history of pranking unknowing targets on Twitter".[40] Klippenstein has occasionally been the subject of reporting, as well, due to him pranking individuals from across the political spectrum. Following a Twitter flame war with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, he attracted Musk's attention by sharing a Vogue photograph from the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty showing Musk with Ghislaine Maxwell, a long-time associate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who had been convicted of sex trafficking.[41] Musk, who as of June 3, 2020, had 35.5 million Twitter followers,[42] publicly posted that Klippenstein was a "douche-about-town".[43] On January 9, 2024, he and other journalists were abruptly banned from Twitter, which Musk now owns. No explanation was given.[44] Klippenstein and the other journalists were later reinstated following media coverage of the incident.[45]

In July 2019, Klippenstein was covered in the media after a Twitter incident in which he was retweeted by Iowa Congressman Steve King just before changing his Twitter display name to "Steve King is a white supremacist".[46][47][48] In March 2021, Klippenstein pranked author Naomi Wolf by recommending she tweet an image of a fabricated anti-vaxxer quotation paired with a picture of American pornography actor Johnny Sins.[49]

On Memorial Day 2021, Klippenstein tricked political commentators Dinesh D'Souza and Matt Schlapp, as well as Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, into retweeting a photograph of John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whom Klippenstein claimed was his veteran grandfather.[50] After being retweeted by Gaetz, Klippenstein changed his display name on Twitter to be "matt gaetz is a pedo". Gaetz later deleted his retweet.[51][52]

[Passages]

87. I know who he is, but thank you.

Every CEO will read this and more because they know their role in America's inequality.

And, they're fine with it.

[LeftInTX]

96. It turns out that it's real. My apologies.

[Passages]

103. It's ok...Ken does play on the public perception sometimes.

Thank you and no worries.

[TBF]

93. Do you have proof that he wrote this exact piece -

because pieces of it have been described in articles on the New York Times this morning. He may have the real thing this time.

[LeftInTX]

97. I think it is real because now other media sources are picking it up.

When I saw the source, I was skeptical because he was the only one publishing it. I looked at his history and saw he had a history of pranks.

I don't know why the MSM didn't publish it in the first place. Usually they all compete and publish the same thing at once.

So my apologies for saying it was fake.

[TBF]

101. That makes perfect sense - thanks.

[cer7711]

92. An example of lone wolf, leaderless resistance. Impossible to stop.

See Elizabeth Warren's comments on this issue.

[AntiFascist]

94. Also, a big "L" Libertarian, tech bro type...

He admired and followed Elon Musk, RFK Jr and Peter Thiel, also reposted anti-woke propaganda. He seems more aligned with Jan. 6 rioters than the Left. He has managed to unite many on the Right and Left under a common cause, though.

[TBF]

98. Agree - this is just an issue that resonated with so many.

And it's really more likely he'd be libertarian given his wealthy background. He is also in that "tech bro" universe - white, male, computer science major. I'm sure they can't all be stereotyped, but there are many from that area who seem to be more conservative (as you mention - following Musk and Thiel is an obvious tell on that).

We'll see how it all shakes out if he makes it to trial. I'm still afraid he'll be disappeared ... capital does not like being messed with and he took down a big CEO.