What the…?
A few things I’ve run across…
- The universe poses a question — Have you heard about the question mark in space? Since it’s oriented so as to be readable on our planet, I sort of expect it won’t be long before a “WTF” appears to the left of it. News of how messed up we are has apparently spread across the galaxy. In case you can’t read the NYT version I linked to, try the NPR version.
- Record 14-foot monster alligator caught in Mississippi — In case you thought you were wrestling with some messy problems… This sucker weighed 802.5 pounds. Lately, we’ve been reading a good bit about “Proud Boys.” Well, I suppose you could say this is a picture of some proud boys of the generic kind…
- Sorry to hear the news about Tough Guy Bob Barker — I held back from posting the first thing that occurred to me when I got the news — his famous scene in “Happy Gilmore.” But then after that, The Washington Post did a whole story just about that — which I very much enjoyed. It told how Bob insisted on doing his own stunts, because his neighbor Chuck Norris had been coaching him. Much later, he supposedly told Rob Schneider, “I moved to Hollywood to be an actor, and the only person who ever let me do it was Adam Sandler!” Well, he took his shot, and scored. Watch the full fight scene here.
- Idalia expected to dump half-foot of rain on us — Yeah, like we needed that. And oh yes, it’s now a hurricane. I need to find us some good news…
- Watch ‘Breaking Away’ for free! — And here it is! This is to make up for all the things I link to that require subscriptions. I just discovered that YouTube is showing it for free! If you’ve never seen it, go watch it right now — subito! (As the protagonist would say — I think.) I already gave Scott Hogan a heads-up via twitter. He was our campaign manager back in 2018, and he’s from Bloomington, making him the only actual Cutter I know.
- Joe moves to cut some drug prices — Even better news. You go, Joe! I need to tell my wife he’s going after Eliquis, which she’s had to take since her mini-strokes, and the price on it is absurd. The link above is to The Guardian, which is free to read. Let’s see if they managed to write about it without a tone of disbelief at the problems we have over here paying for basic medical care…
Related Posts
Joe moves to cut some drug prices
Republicans are vowing to fight this in court. They prefer Americans keep paying the highest drug costs in the world.
Joe is moving to NEGOTIATE cutting drug prices, not cutting them. You need to understand political speech. Typically in a negotiation, one side gives something in return for the other side getting something in return. If you think Big Pharma is just going to bow down to Joe Biden and give up profits without any complementary action that is beneficial (mandatory vaccines comes to mind), you’re naive.
And why 10 drugs and not 100 or 1000?
This is a P.R. stunt.
You know what would be an EASY way to reduce drug costs? Go back to the days when prescription drugs could not be advertised on TV or in any general media. There are BILLIONS of ad dollars spent on drug ads for medicine that can only be prescribed by going to a doctor. Eliminate that and you can reduce all drug prices across the board.
But do you think any media entity would support that? Absolutely not… they’d come up with some b.s. about “we’re helping people get informed”…. right… then why don’t they run the ads for free like PSAs?
Anyway, when he was running for President in 2020, Joe Biden “promised” a public health option where people under 65 could participate in a Medicare style plan run by the government. As with most of his campaign promises, they disappeared right after he got elected. Any takes on a bet that it pops up again next year when (if) he gets back on the campaign trail? I assume he’ll blame Republicans for his inability to even attempt to do anything…
— We’ll see if this passes the Brad filter for criticism of Biden, however truthful.
Yes, he’s moving to negotiate the drug prices. That’s what the story I sent you to says. And that’s why I said moving to cut, not “cutting.”
The language is very clear, and so is mine…
Do I need to explain what negotiate means again? Do you actually believe pharmaceutical companies will give up profits overall?
You know what a real leader would do? Tell the drug companies if they want to keep their patents in the U.S. they will have to charge Americans the lowest price they charge in any other country in the world for the same medicine. Not pick 10 drugs and “negotiate”.
“And why 10 drugs and not 100 or 1000? This is a P.R. stunt.”
Well, I mean the reason is crystal clear for anyone that understands the process.
Many drugs that seniors use have generic medication alternatives that keep prices low. So there is no need to do so for hundreds of medications.
the 10 medicines chosen accounted for $50.5 billion, or about 20%, of total Part D prescription drug costs- and the 10 are commonly “over-priced” in the market-place per various reports with no generic alternatives available.
Conservative and pharmacy industry opposition (who are mostly in bed with Conservatives) have created a situation where the process is going to be quite slow and seniors and taxpayers are going to keep paying the price for the Republican right wing opposition.
Many of the 10 drugs are also much lower priced in other countries placing the brunt of high prices on American seniors and taxpayers.
“You know what a real leader would do? Tell the drug companies if they want to keep their patents in the U.S. they will have to charge Americans the lowest price they charge in any other country in the world for the same medicine. Not pick 10 drugs and “negotiate”.
Are you joking?
Doug, you might be happy if a “real leader” told drug companies such a thing, but most most seniors want an actual solution, not someone SAYING something and then the industry laughing their heads off at the person who thinks that such a thing would change anything.
President’s don’t have the ability to tell a private company that they won’t get to keep their patent.
This isn’t Donald Trump giving a Chinese company a deal right after his daughter got 18 trademarks approved for her business dealings in China.
especially with a Republican House of Reps who are trying their best to protect Pharma from having to negotiate for lower drug prices with American seniors and taxpayers.
“You know what would be an EASY way to reduce drug costs? Go back to the days when prescription drugs could not be advertised on TV or in any general media. There are BILLIONS of ad dollars spent on drug ads for medicine that can only be prescribed by going to a doctor. Eliminate that and you can reduce all drug prices across the board.”
Congress, under both parties, have shown little interest in banning ads.
Democrats have proposed (and there is a current Democrat proposal) to clarify ads and force drug companies to spend more time in an ad making dangerous side effects more known to the public.
Republican opposition to Medicare being able to negotiate lower drug prices is almost universal. Republicans simply do not want seniors paying lower drug prices.
August 30th
Rudy Giuliani loses defamation case against him a federal judge has determined. The judge will now set a trial date to determine what damages he will be held liable for – most likely later this year.
Giuliani is reportedly in deep financial trouble.
Rudy, along with Donald Trump and the Trump campaign publicly accused two election workers in Georgia of illegal activities. Donald Trump called one a “professional vote scammer” and “hustler.”
Trump supporters piled on with death threats directed at both women.
A Trump campaign official traveled to Georgia and went to the home of one of the women in order to influence her testimony in the investigation. An elderly Lutheran pastor from Ohio also traveled to Georgia to the home of the same woman to influence her testimony. Both have been charged with illegal activity.
There was no evidence presented in court, and no evidence was revealed that either woman did anything illegal or violated Georgia election policy. Georgia election officials have consistently maintained their investigation revealed both women followed state policy.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/politics/rudy-giuliani-georgia-election-workers/index.html
This week in Right Wing Republican extremism
Local right wing Republican prosecutor near Knoxville Tennessee says he will prosecute people at an upcoming county gay pride event including anyone that dresses as a male or female impersonator. (The Tennessee anti gay law has been ruled unconstitutional by a Memphis federal judge— a judge appointed by Trump).
Despite a number of very civil Conservative Republican elected leaders defending Proud Boy members and saying they did nothing wrong……
Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boy member was sentenced to 17 years in prison. While crying in court, he admitted he let politics take over his life, and admitted the people that led him astray politically didn’t care about him.
He told the judge he had screwed up his life, lost his license to perform his chosen career, and had ruined everything. Now he’s headed to federal prison. HIs family is in ruins and he’s destroyed any possibility of a decent outcome in the future for himself.
He also maintained his denial that he attacked anyone, even though video shown in court showed him spraying police officers with various chemicals designed to incapacitate them.
In Texas, a number of towns are passing “anti abortion trafficking laws” criminalizing using roads through their towns to take a woman to an out of state medical clinic to talk about options for an abortion. Despite warnings this is unconstitutional, the “constitution lovers” have said they do not care.
Some supporters of the law have admitted that it would be virtually impossible to prosecute someone using this law. But that doesn’t matter. Their uncivil extremism is the point. A small group of Texas legislators have said they support the effort.
As with most things abortion related, most of the people showing up at the meetings to promote the law are men.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/09/01/hate-crime-in-jacksonville-charges-for-drag-show-in-tennessee/70733197007/
Around the world it’s been demonstrated that respect for women’s rights — including in particular reproductive rights — go hand-in-hand with greater and lesser respect for democracy. The more a regime or a society attempts to restrict those rights, the greater is the trend toward authoritarianism. We see the same relationship here.