Damn.
Donald Trump
described those 50 GOP former national security officials who are
supporting Hillary as “nothing
more than the failed Washington elite looking to hold onto their
power,” and thanked them “for coming forward so everyone in the
country knows who deserves the blame for making the world such a
dangerous place.” I hate it when Trump is
right.
Pot/Kettle:
Vladimir Putin,
who knows whereof he
speaks, asks “Do you actually believe US elections are democratic?”
Well, the Supreme Court vote was pretty open...
Motivation:
In order to continue
the very profitable global war on terror, a continuing supply of
terrorists is essential. The
GWOT isn't about terrorism, it's about maintaining
a perpetual state of
emergency that
justifies continuing erosion of our civil liberties. Sounds cynical,
but explains a lot of Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria/Libya. [Hat tip to
George Anderson, in Comments]
Thumb
On The Scale:
Under
the TPP, violations of environmental or labor standards cannot
be challenged by environmental or labor groups, but if a company
doesn’t like the environmental or labor regs it can go to court and
seek billions of dollars in “damages”.
Long/Short:
'Jokes'
about assassinating Hillary Clinton are
not jokes and cannot be condoned or explained away with 'just
joking.' They are a call to action for the group that understands
exactly what Trump was suggesting.
Oops:
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics would like to apologize for overstating
1Q2016 hourly wages by 4.7%, which means that instead of labor costs
zooming up 4.5% they actually decreased by 0.2%. Sort of takes the
wind out of the wage-inflation meme.
Bricks
Without
Straw:
An
agreement on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) swindle will not be reached by the end of the year, despite
the desires of Merkel and Obama. Seems that the negotiators haven't
been able to finalize even a single chapter of the proposed
agreement.
Trumpmanship:
Philippines
leader calls US ambassador 'gay son of a whore'. This
is the sort of foreign relations that Donald Trump would bring us.
About
Time:
Obama is
accused of putting US
national security ahead of promoting democracy abroad. The
biggest threats to the US are global warming, energy dependence,
inequality, and Wall Street.
Magic
Elixir: If the
government funded pharmaceutical research and put the results in the
public domain, we could cut healthcare costs immensely. Of course
that would keep investors and Wall Street from extracting every penny
you have for your medications, and there's no way we can let people
stand in the way of profits. Pay up or die, that's their motto.
A
Quote: “Paying
someone to borrow your money [negative
interest] sounds like a
questionable idea on paper, and seems not to be working out so well
in practice.”
Near
And Dear:
Aaron Persky - the CA judge who gave Stanford swimmer Brock Turner
six months for rape so as not to damage his life, and sentenced a man
who violently beat his girlfriend to a single weekend in jail so
as not to interfere with his job - has
sentenced a married father of two to a single night in jail for
possession of images of sexual abuse of minors, including the rape of
an infant – then promising to reduce the crime to a misdemeanor if
the guy didn't get caught diddling children for a whole year. Has
anyone checked the judge's hard drive?
A
Parting Shot:
6 comments:
As always, thanks for the effort you put in. I most certainly appreciate it.
However, I have a small correction on you comment ending with:
"Pay up or die, that's their motto"
Considering the ongoing and increasing data regarding the efficacy of these patent nostrums, perhaps a more appropriate phrase would be:
"Pay up and die, that's their motto."
Just sayin'
Actually, I'm not happy with either formulation because Pharma's business plan is "pay us all your money and we'll keep you alive enough to pay for next month's pills, too." Cure, at any price isn't part of the plan. - ckm
Merci!
The vast majority of medical research already takes places through NIH funding, and most of it yields little that can be commercialized. It's not to say it's meaningless, as it's never clear what work will turn into the next treatment. So were the NIH not deploying a wide net, the industry would have to either do it themselves with out-sized risk, or just move into finance and screw people the modern way; by not even making anything.
One thing to keep in mind, is that medicines constitute about 15% of health care costs. This can be seen as excessive, or minimal when you consider that doctors don't really do much as much "curing" in the absence of medication. I completely agree that the public should retain valuable IP, and even develop the ability to translate it to clinical therapies. Short of that, the whole system is sick and I think there are a lot of legitimate targets for the excessive cost in addition to pharma (admins, devices, IT, infrastructure, corporate ownership...).
Probably should have stopped with 'thank you' but I'm drawn to the 'elephant in the room' here, the push to 'privatize/monetize' as much as possible [especially essentials like healthcare] in the wake of the burgeoning population explosion and the post WWII 'recovery' of the European economy.
Capitalism has never been 'sustainable' and those who would prevent sustainability [so they can remain rich] are pulling out all of the stops to ride this pony all the way off the edge of the cliff.
Yes, more cynicism but the truth is seldom pretty...
Call To Action: Reminds me of Hill-Billy's call to action for the murder of Berta Caceres, etc. One could include Kadaffi, who deserved to die, but only at the hands of a legally constituted court, without thousands of innocents going with him.
How does it go?... She who lives by the sword, shall
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