Uncategorized

Big Pharma has feels for mifepristone Corporations are not people, my friends. They have no feelings, only appetites and strong instincts for self-preservation. In that way, they are primitively animal-ish the way A.I. simulates thought. But damned if they aren’t territorial, too. David Dayen considers Big Pharma’s reaction to the potential banning of mifepristone: The pharmaceutical industry is very upset. Right-wing federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling overturning the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of abortion medication mifepristone could severely damage companies’ ability to develop and market prescription drugs. Companies could spend a fortune getting a drug approved, only to see the courts take issue with the process, and the money washed down the drain. To them, it’s the worst thing a court ruling can be: bad for business. That’s why Big Pharma is speaking out.

The last few years have seen a new round of vigilante killings in America, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the civil rights movement. And under a new interpretation of the meaning of self-defense, many are getting away with it. Recall a few years back when an armed man named George Zimmerman down in Florida thought a young Black kid named Trayvon Martin looked suspicious so he jumped him and when the startled teenager fought back, Zimmerman shot and killed the boy. He said he felt threatened and was only defending himself. The jury acquitted him. More recently, a young white man named Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges in Kenosha, Wisconsin when he waded into a protest armed with an AR-15 and killed two unarmed men, wounding a third. Rittenhouse may have been the one armed with a semi-automatic rifle but he said he felt threatened by the protesters so he opened fire. The jury found that to be a reasonable reaction. This interpretation of self-defense exists partly because the right has legalized carrying loaded firearms in public which makes any public confrontation potentially lethal.

Nikki Haley tonight in Iowa spoke at length about the 2015 Charleston church shooting and her push to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol — a defining moment in her governorship that she has largely avoided talking about on the campaign trail. Haley said of her push to remove the Confederate flag: “Half of the state saw the flag as heritage and service, the other half saw it as slavery and hate. My job as governor wasn't to judge either side. My job was to bring out the best in them to get them to see a way forward.” Haley argued after the mass shooting of nine African Americans by a white supremacist that the “national media came in, they wanted to make it about racism, they wanted to make it about gun control, they wanted to make about the death penalty.” “The goal was, how do you hold the state together and not let that happen?…This was on the heels of Ferguson, you knew that everything was about to fall apart. And we basically, rather than falling into fear, we turned toward God and we made sure we came together as a state.” Originally tweeted by Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) on April 12, 2023.

I follow current events pretty closely but I was surprised to see that there’s a huge controversy over Bud Light beer and I had no idea what it was about. The right wingers are all up in arms and boycotting the beer and naturally, it turns out, it’s because of … hate. Philip Bump explains: The marketing plan was obviously courting controversy from the outset. Bud Light, the most popular beer in the country, was going to put together a campaign centered on a group that makes up less than 9 percent of the population of the United States? The beer brand planned ads targeting this small subgroup, despite the political overtones of doing so — despite the risk of associating the brand so closely with a lifestyle that was foreign to most Americans. But Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, celebrated the move in a statement. The beer brand had “deepened our commitment to the state of Texas with our ‘Brewed in Texas’ campaign,” she said in 2022, pointing to ads featuring a bull rider and a star player on Mexico’s national soccer team.

They’re gearing up: A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants. “We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said in a short interview. Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach.

I’ve got a new piece up at UnHerd about the way in which small/medium farmers across the world are being forced to shut down in the name of “sustainability”, to the benefit of Big Agro and the world’s food oligarchs — and the catastrophic consequences this could have at a time when the world is already facing a food …

Continue reading

In my latest column for UnHerd I chart the rise of private military and security companies (PMSCs) — the modern version of mercenarism. There’s much talk these days about the infamous Wagner Group, Putin’s “private army” that is playing a leading role in Ukraine. But Wagner is just the tip of the iceberg. The corporate security and military industry …

Continue reading

During his recent visit to Moscow, Xi Jinping reaffirmed the two countries’ strong ties and emphasised that Russia has not been isolated by the global community. Indeed, China isn’t the only country Russia has strengthened ties with since the start of the conflict. Despite the West’s attempts to “globalise” the conflict, only 33 nations — …

Continue reading

It’s been 75 years since the signing into law of the Marshall Plan, which laid the groundwork for a mutually beneficial North Atlantic alliance that offered Europe several decades of economic prosperity and military security. Today, that world no longer exists. Indeed, the contrast between the Marshall Plan and America’s approach to Europe today couldn’t …

Continue reading

John Amato at Crooks and Liars: Bill Barr, Trump’s former Attorney General, told ABC’s This Week that Trump’s legal trouble may help him in the Republican primary; however, it all but assures he would lose in the 2024 general election. “What do you think the likelihood is at the end of the day that we are actually going to see Donald Trump convicted and sentenced to prison?” Host Jonathan Karl asked. Barr at first made the case that the indictments are part of a conspiracy to help Trump by those in power wanting the cockwombler to be the nominee in 2024. “I also think though, as far as the general election is concerned, it will gravely weaken Trump. He is already, I think, a weak candidate that would lose,” Barr said. ” But I think this sort of assures it.” Barr seems perturbed by this. Why should that be? He knew what he was dealing with when he covered for Trump’s massive obstruction of justice while he was president. (Also, everything else.) . But then Trump lost and was no longer of use to him.