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They Couldn’t Access Mental Health Care When They Needed It. Now They’re Suing Their Insurer.
Notice what's missing.

In late 2024, Nimrod Shimrony, an emergency medical technician for the New York City Fire Department, tried to end his life. After completing an intensive outpatient treatment program, he and his wife searched for a therapist for months.

Valeria Calderón, a special education teacher with New York City’s public school system, suffered a miscarriage that same year. Before she tried to have a baby again, she sought help with the depression and anxiety she had been struggling with. She called more than a dozen therapists.

The therapists Shimrony and Calderón contacted were listed in their insurance plan’s provider directory, meaning they were supposedly in-network and the fees associated with visiting them would be lower. Given the number of names listed, there should have been lots of options. But Shimrony and Calderón couldn’t find any in-network provider who would see them.

“It blows my mind that I couldn’t find a therapist” through the directory, Shimrony said. “It was impossible.”

“I was hanging on by a thread,” said Calderón, who eventually paid more for an out-of-network provider. “There’s only so much you can vent to your family about and only so much support that they can do.”

Shimrony and Calderón are among the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week against EmblemHealth, which offers the most popular health plan for New York City employees.

The city employees allege that extensive errors in EmblemHealth’s directory left them with a “deceptive” and “misleading” impression about the size of the insurer’s provider network. The employees were forced to delay care, forgo treatment or seek help from costlier out-of-network providers, said the lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status.

Valeria Calderón, a special education teacher in New York City’s school system, struggled to find an in-network mental health provider. Sarah Blesener for ProPublica

Health insurers rarely face consequences for errors in their provider directories that make it difficult for many consumers to find in-network mental health care. ProPublica’s 2024 series, “America’s Mental Barrier,” examined the harms that patients face from so-called ghost networks. The series, which is cited in the lawsuit, also detailed the many ways that insurers have prompted mental health providers to quit accepting insurance.

Many insurers overseeing ghost networks have faced only small and sporadic fines from regulators, and patients often have limited legal recourse against them because of restrictions on the damages that typically can be recouped under federal law.

But there are health plans, such as ones local governments offer to employees or that some individuals buy through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, that aren’t covered by the federal law that restricts damages. Damages levied against those plans in lawsuits can be more substantial. That’s the basis for the current suit.

“We hope this case can use state consumer protection laws to better advocate for plan members,” said Sara Haviva Mark, an attorney representing the city employees.

ProPublica sent EmblemHealth a list of questions about the lawsuit. Shimrony and Calderón also signed documents waiving …

Former Rep. Mary Peltola jumps into Alaska Senate race
This is performative politics again.

Former Rep. Mary Peltola entered the Alaska Senate race on Monday, giving Democrats a major candidate recruitment win and the chance to expand the 2026 Senate map as they look for a route to the majority.

The Alaska Democrat’s decision is a victory for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Peltola to run against Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). Peltola’s brand as a moderate problem-solver and the state’s ranked-choice voting system open the door for Democrats, but it’s still a steep climb in a state President Donald Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2024.

In her announcement video, Peltola pledged to focus on “fish, family and freedom,” while also calling for term limits and putting “Alaska first.”

“Systemic change is the only way to bring down grocery costs, save our fisheries, lower energy prices and build new housing Alaskans can afford,” Peltola said. “It’s about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska First and, really, America First looks like.”

Peltola’s campaign creates another offensive opportunity in play for Democrats, who must flip four seats in order to retake the majority next fall. The odds are long, but Democrats have become increasingly bullish about their chances since their victories in last year’s elections. Peltola carved a moderate profile during her time in Congress, occasionally voting with Republicans on energy and immigration-related legislation.

Even so, Peltola’s decision to run Alaska presents tough sledding for any Democrat. Peltola’s 2022 wins came in large part because of a bitterly divided GOP field, and besides her victories that year, Democrats have won just one other federal race in Alaska in the last half-century.

Peltola was first elected in a September 2022 special election to replace Rep. Don Young, who served 49 years in the House and died while in office. She cited Young and former Sen. Ted Stevens, both Republicans, in her Senate announcement, who Peltola said “ignored Lower 48 partisanship to fight for things like public media and disaster relief because Alaska depends on them.”

In November 2022, Peltola won a full term, beating a divided Republican field that featured former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich. But in 2024, Peltola narrowly lost in a rematch with Begich, when the Republican Party consolidated behind him. She had also been mulling a run for governor this year, making her decision to go for the Senate a big win for Washington Democrats.

Democrats have an easier time winning if Republicans fracture between candidates in a state where ranked-choice voting means every candidate faces off against each other in the first round of voting, and Sullivan has not drawn any serious GOP challengers.

Peltola will also be without a crucial bipartisan supporter …

The Left’s Search for a New Cause
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

Monday marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring a man best remembered for urging Americans to judge one another by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It is a legacy rooted in a specific historical struggle—one that culminated in the Civil Rights Act after years of fierce resistance, largely from Southern Democrats, to dismantling Jim Crow.

Since that era ended, the Democratic Party has repeatedly searched for what might come next: a successor to the civil rights movement that once defined its moral authority. Over the decades, a series of causes have been framed in those terms, often with strained comparisons to the racial discrimination of the mid-20th century.

First came a movement centered on gender, casting women as victims of a patriarchal system in a way likened to black Americans’ experience under segregation. The analogy never quite fit. Later, similar language was applied to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, with LGBTQ+ advocacy presented as the new front line of civil rights.

Now, Democrats appear to have settled on a new cause: illegal immigration.

In this framing, enforcing immigration law is portrayed not merely as a policy disagreement but as an expression of white supremacy itself. Illegal immigrants, the argument goes, must be allowed to remain in the country, and any attempt at enforcement is morally suspect.

This is a stretch—one that suggests demand for examples of systemic American racism has outpaced the available supply.

Consider a recent example. On Monday, former Attorney General Eric Holder warned that the Voting Rights Act faces an abiding threat, claiming that the Trump administration is pursuing “unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering attempts” and engaging in a “concerted effort to resegregate America.”

Such rhetoric dramatically overshoots reality. There is no serious movement in the United States to reinstate segregated schools, water fountains, restaurants, or public accommodations. No credible constituency is calling for a return to Jim Crow, and no sentient observer believes America is on the verge of enforced racial separation.

In fact, the post-Jim Crow story of race in America was, for decades, one of steadily improving relations. Polling data show that until around 2013, large majorities of both black and white Americans believed race relations were getting better and had improved significantly since the 1960s.

That perception changed during the later Obama years and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which coincided with a sharp decline in public optimism about race relations. But declining optimism is not the same as renewed racial oppression, nor does it suggest that white supremacy now rules the roost.

Yet the search continues. Democrats need a new civil rights struggle to justify claims of moral urgency and political authority. That case has become increasingly difficult to make. The party is now defined, for many voters, by abortion on demand, an inability to articulate basic distinctions about sex and gender, and a posture approaching open borders.

So illegal immigration is being folded into the civil …

GOP Rep Gonzales says video of kids exposes Dem ‘grandstanding’ over conditions at Texas ICE facility
Every delay has consequences.

Children being held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center in Texas have access to computers, physical activities and education, according to a video posted by Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who said Democrats have spun the truth about the agency.
The 34-second clip posted by Gonzales on X shows the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in the San Antonio suburb of Dilley, about 72 miles southwest of the city. It is one of the few facilities that houses families.
"In the coming days, you’ll see a lot of grandstanding by politicians at the Dilley ICE Center in my district, #TX23," Gonzales wrote. "It’s all for show. I've been there and seen the state-of-the-art facilities and protocols that @ICEgov follows. 
"Our ICE agents and CBP personnel are doing their jobs, and yet again, Democrats are doing everything they can to spin the truth against law enforcement."
ICE REJECTS ‘FALSE NARRATIVE’ ABOUT FAMILY SEPARATION, ASSERTS MINNESOTA CHURCH RIOTERS WERE NOT PEACEFUL
In the video posted by Gonzales, children are using computers in a library, reading at a table and sitting in classrooms, possibly doing schoolwork under what appears to be adult supervision.
Another portion of the video shows a child playing at an indoor basketball hoop, a shaded picnic table area and children appearing to play "red light, green light" on an outdoor basketball court.
The video runs counter to long-held claims by many Democrats who have accused ICE of placing children in cages and holding them in unsanitary and inhumane conditions.
"I want the truth to just be out," Gonzales told Fox News Digital about the video. "This notion that they're in cages, that they're mistreated and all these other things is a flat-out lie.
"It’s easy to talk about a problem and then only talk about the parts that are emotional or the ones that you want to use for your political gain."
HOUSE DEMOCRATS ASK JUDGE TO BLOCK NOEM’S REVIVED ICE VISIT RULE, SAY DHS DEFIED COURT ORDER
On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he was denied entry into the Dilley center despite giving officials there 24 hours’ notice.
"This is astonishing. It tells you that these guys have something to hide," Murphy said in a video. "If they are not letting members of Congress in with less than seven days’ notice, it tells you how much work they know they need to do to cover up and hide the things they don’t want us to see."
In another video, he said he met with two families who were held in detention for over a month, leaving their children "scared" by the experience. 
Gonzales said he visits ICE detention …

California sues Trump administration over alleged 'unlawful' pipeline restart approval years after oil spill
We're watching the same failure loop.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Friday the state is filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) asserting federal jurisdiction over two state oil pipelines and green lighting their restarts.
The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration has "unlawfully given the company Sable Offshore Corp. the green light to restart pumping oil through to onshore pipelines that originate and terminate within California, starting in Santa Barbara County and ending in Kern County," Bonta said at a news conference at Dockweiler State Beach.
He noted that one of the two Los Flores pipelines ruptured in 2015 due to corroded pipes, causing that Refugio oil spill disaster that "dumped more than 100,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the environment and at least 21,000 gallons of oil into the ocean."
Bonta claimed PHMSA’S approval of the restart of the pipeline is the "latest example of Trump doing the oil industry’s bidding."
NEWSOM VOWS TO BLOCK TRUMP’S REPORTED ENERGY PLAN IN CALIFORNIA, EXPERTS PUSH BACK
The White House told Fox News Digital in response: "High energy prices are a choice and California Democrats continue to fight against President Trump’s energy dominance agenda that unleashes our natural resources and drives down prices for American families and businesses. It’s a shame that AG Bonta and Governor Newscum are putting partisan politics over common sense." 
Bonta claims because the pipelines are located solely in California without crossing state lines and without going into federal waters, "oversight of the pipelines is controlled by California, not the federal government."
"The Trump administration unlawfully undermined California’s authority, unlawfully federalized the pipelines and usurped state control and unlawfully issued Sable a sham emergency permit to begin pumping oil when there’s absolutely no emergency," he said. 
TRUMP ADMIN URGES JUDGE LIMITING ICE IN MINNESOTA WOULD BE ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ OVERREACH
"In short, the Trump administration broke the law again, which is why we are suing again."
Bonta said this marks the 55th lawsuit California has brought against the Trump administration.
He said the lawsuit isn’t about whether the pipelines should be restarted, but whether California or the Trump administration gets to make the decision.
"The answer is clear: The state of California gets to decide," Bonta said.
He explained that Sable asked the Trump administration to declare the pipelines "interstate," meaning "the pipelines are part of a larger system …

Complaint Accuses Trump’s Criminal Attorney of “Blatant” Crypto Conflict in His Role at DOJ
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.

An ethics watchdog group filed a complaint Thursday seeking an investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney — now the No. 2 at the Justice Department — broke federal conflict-of-interest law when he issued a new prosecution policy that benefits the cryptocurrency industry.

The complaint comes after a ProPublica investigation revealed last month that Todd Blanche owned at least $159,000 worth of crypto-related assets when he ordered an end to investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges launched during President Joe Biden’s term. Blanche, the deputy attorney general, issued the order in an April memo in which he also eliminated an enforcement team dedicated to looking for crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes.

Blanche had previously signed an ethics agreement promising to dump his cryptocurrency within 90 days of his confirmation and not to participate in any matter that could have a “direct and predictable effect on my financial interests in the virtual currency” until his bitcoin and other crypto-related products were sold.

Later ethics filings show Blanche divested from the investments more than a month after he issued the memo. Even when he did ultimately get rid of his crypto interests, his ethics records show he did so by transferring them to his adult children and a grandchild, a move ethics experts said is technically legal but at odds with the spirit and intent of the law.

In its complaint this week, the Campaign Legal Center asked the Justice Department’s acting inspector general to launch an investigation. The complaint alleged that the evidence suggests that Blanche “blatantly and improperly influenced DOJ’s digital asset prosecution guidelines while standing to financially benefit.”

“The public has a right to know that decisions are being made in the public’s best interest and not to benefit a government employee’s financial interests,” Kedric Payne, the organization’s general counsel and senior director of ethics, wrote in the complaint. The inspector general’s office “should investigate and determine whether a criminal violation occurred.”

The Campaign Legal Center is a nonpartisan government watchdog group dedicated to addressing challenges facing democracy in the U.S. Its trustees and staff include Democrats and Republicans, including Trevor Potter, a Republican former chair of the Federal Election Commission, who serves as president of its Board of Trustees.

Under the federal conflicts-of-interest statute, government officials are forbidden from taking part in a “particular matter” that can financially benefit them or their immediate family unless they have a special waiver from the government. The penalties range from up to one year in jail or a civil fine of up to $50,000 all the way to as much as five years in prison if someone willfully violates the law.

In the complaint, Payne alleged that Blanche’s orders violated the law because they benefited the industry broadly, including his own investments. He estimated that Blanche’s bitcoin alone rose by 34%, to $105,881.53, between when he issued the memo and when he divested. At the time he issued the memo, …

Newsom’s Davos Disaster Exposes His Anti-American Grandstanding
Is this competence or optics?

“Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris.”

That was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, delivering a remarkably on-point put-down of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

And the put-down was warranted, given that Newsom was hopping from camera to camera at the conference, painting himself as the leader of the American resistance against the American president, and generally acting the fool.

I always thought Newsom looked like how the Devil’s lawyer would be portrayed in a movie, but a mix of the main villain from “American Psycho” and Barbie’s boyfriend certainly seems spot on.

Aside from Bessent’s barb, Newsom’s presence at Davos—where world leaders and the global elite generally gather to out-smug each other—didn’t do him any favors.

Somehow, in an environment that seems perfectly suited to his persona, Newsom flamed out. And that flameout wasn’t just because his speech, which was clearly intended to be in the style of a post-State of the Union address partisan rebuttal, got canceled.

No, I think the reason is that his newest schtick of being the American lefty memelord who is totally not running for president ran into the larger political forces at play. Newsom clearly wanted to present himself as the champion of the great global “liberal international order” empire fighting those mean nationalistic bullies like Russia and the United States.

But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered what was almost certainly the best address representing that view. And while Carney’s speech was wrong on much of its substance—President Donald Trump certainly had some harsh and apt criticism—it was at least serious and credible.

Not so with Newsom, who just seemed eager to please cameras while making strange analogies and telling crude inside jokes about how world leaders are “selling out” to Trump, which didn’t land.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday showed off knee pads that he suggested were for leaders “selling out” to the Trump administration.
— CNBC (@CNBC) January 22, 2026

What made this “selling out” joke even more ridiculous is that Newsom decided it was the right idea to take a minute to pose for a picture with leftist billionaire megadonor Alex Soros while he was there.

Great catching up with the real star of the 2026 World Economic Forum, my friend Gavin Newsom.

So glad he’s here calling out world leaders for believing appeasement works when it comes to Trump. It doesn’t. It only emboldens him to become more chaotic and destructive.

World…
— Alex Soros (@AlexanderSoros) January 20, 2026

Again, not great.

Some may say that Trump often creates a spectacle, that he’s not above trolling, and that Newsom is just acting in response. But Trump is the president and he’s actually getting things done on the world stage. Even the Greenland brouhaha that caused so much angst throughout Europe seems to have ended up as a deal that’s good for the U.S. and our allies.

In other words, there …

Vance Believes American Economy Is About to Boom, Champions American Worker in Toledo Speech
What's the administration thinking here?

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance appeared at Midwest Terminals in Toledo, Ohio, where he touted the successes of the Trump administration.

Vance’s speech centered around “the great American comeback” in the wake of the Biden administration.

Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks in Toledo, Ohio, Jan. 22, 2026
— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) January 22, 2026

Prosperity Under Trump

The vice president believes the American economy is about to boom.

“I think that we are on the cusp of the greatest economic year in the history of the United America because we’re doing something new,” Vance said.

Vance voiced the Trump administration’s appreciation of the American worker and contrasted this administration with the policies of offshoring and globalization of prior administrations.

“We’re investing in you, we’re investing in American workers, we’re investing in American businesses, and we’re saying to everybody that the United States is open for business, but only if you invest in our great American people and our great American businesses,” Vance asserted.

“We are done with the old approach of shipping American jobs overseas and investing in everybody else,” the vice president added. “We are back to investing in the American worker, and we’re not going to stop fighting for you until we return America to true golden age of great American prosperity.”

.@VP: "I think that we are on the cusp of the greatest economic year in the history of the United States of America because we're doing something new for a change — we're investing in YOU… and we're saying to everybody that the United States is open for business, but only if…
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 22, 2026

Vance continued to tout the administration’s accomplishments that matter to Ohioans, including no taxes on tips and no taxes on overtime.

But there is still work to be done, especially when it comes to affordability after the Biden-era inflation.

Vance vowed to “fight every single day for better home prices for Americans, for lower prescription drug prices, and of course, for rising wages.”

“That is what we’re going to do, that is what we have done, and that is what we promise will be the legacy of the second Trump administration: more prosperity for you,” Vance claimed.

.@VP: "The Democrats talk a lot about the affordability crisis in the United States of America, and yes, there is an affordability crisis — one created by Joe Biden's policies… The average American has seen $1,300 of real increase in their wages just in the past year. Well…
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 22, 2026

Midterm Elections

But for the Trump administration to achieve its objectives, the 2026 midterms are crucial.

Democrats are attempting to take the House and Senate from Republicans. The GOP has narrow majorities in both chambers.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, represents Toledo in Congress, and Republicans believe they can flip Kaptur’s seat this November.

Kaptur, in response to being called out in Vance’s speech, said, “The Trump Administration’s reckless tariffs and disastrous trade wars …

Can ICE Enter a Home To Make an Arrest With Only an Administrative Warrant?
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.

Post by well known 4th amendment scholar Orin Kerr about ICE's new position that they can enter a home to make an arrest under only an administrative warrant. TL;DR:
It's always hard to offer a take on a legal argument when you have to speculate about what the legal argument is, so my take on this is tentative. But if I had to summarize my current thinking, it seems to me that the DHS policy is likely wrong in light of Coolidge, Shadwick, and Payton, although the DHS position is not frivolous in light of Abel as interpreted in Malagerio—and the trickier issue may be actually getting a merits ruling on the issue in court in light of the absence of remedies due to the Supreme Court's gradual cutting back on Bivens remedies.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The New York Times and World Affairs Tooth Fairies
Who benefits from this decision?

Since it’s a cardinal rule of journalism that reporters not become the news themselves, it’s crucial to point out that several New York Times correspondents broke it in an unintentional but genuinely important way during their recent interview with President Trump.

The transcript (which weirdly was published in full only three days after the two-hour Oval Office session) contained plenty of typical Trump-ian stunners (IMO both insightful and head-exploding), and is definitely worth reading for them alone.

But what’s most newsworthy – and troubling – about the transcript is what it reveals about the Times reporters themselves.  Specifically, their knowledge about world history and international relations seems on a par with your average eighth grader – at best.

And bizarrely, this includes most prominently, David E. Sanger, the Times “National Security Correspondent” who covers “President Trump, his administration and the foreign policy, intelligence and military advisers who shape the nation’s national security policy;” who has “written four books on American national security;” and who co-teaches “a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government titled ‘Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press.’” (See here.)

Yet Sanger (with whom I’ve had a few personal dealings over the years that have gone just fine), seems completely unfamiliar with the realist school of analyzing world politics and the concept of sovereignty.

The first consists of writings that stretch back literally 2,500 years (Google “Thucydides” and “Melian Dialogue”) and that have consistently and (in my view) compellingly argued that relations between states have always been shaped first and foremost by their definitions of self-interest.

The second centers around the idea that the state is necessarily judge, jury, and court of appeals when it comes to deciding how to advance or protect its interests.  That’s because no commonly accepted higher authority exists to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise among them.

So that’s why I was pretty gobsmacked to read Sanger point out to the president, “[A] lot of people [are] wondering whether you believe you have the right, as the world’s largest superpower, to go in and extinguish any threat or seize any resource you think is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”

Indeed, a lot of people are wondering this.  Which means, depressingly, that – apparently like Sanger – a lot of people think that the United States should not “extinguish any threat or seize any resource [it thinks] is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”

But what else is the United States supposed to do, especially regarding threats?  Of course, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that threats can be dealt with effectively in a variety of ways, and that military force is not always the best choice.

At the same time, who does Sanger believe should make that decision other than the United States itself?  Some other country?  According to what justification?  The Organization of American States?  The United Nations? Who elected those international groupings to pass …