That’s some innovation I tweeted this yesterday but wanted to make it clearer after the Biden administration announced names of the first 10 drugs chosen for price negotiation under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. Industry lobby PhRMA argues (and Republicans back them) that high U.S. prices reflect the high cost of drug development. Allowing the government to negotiate lower bulk prices for drugs (as takes place in Europe and eleswhere) will stifle innovation, they argue, is “tantamount to extortion,” and will cut funds for research. (It might also lower investors’ and executives’ take-homes, but don’t look too closely at that, okay?) Listen, “Americans pay from two to six times more than the rest of the world” for brand name prescriptions (2015). “American patients have long borne the burden” of “juicy returns” from $630bn in global sales in 2022, “65% of the global haul,” reports The Economist, which estimates the surcharge at two to three times more than consumers pay in other wealthy countries.
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And if I was President…. Via Teagan Goddard: Manchin Pitches $100 Million Project to Boost Centrism “Sen. Joe Manchin and his daughter Heather Manchin are pitching major political donors on a nascent effort to promote centrist policies and candidates that is projected to cost more than $100 million,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The project comes as Manchin, a 76-year-old West Virginia Democrat, is weighing whether to mount an uphill effort to win re-election to the Senate in 2024 or pursue a long-shot run for president—or take on a different role in politics altogether. The centrist senator, who represents a solidly Republican state, has been a pivotal deal maker in recent years and has flirted with becoming an independent, citing increasing frustration with both parties.” Politico: A 6-figure Donald Trump donor is now a No Labels adviser A major Republican donor and one-time financial backer of former President Donald Trump is now a leader in the Florida chapter of No Labels’ third-party presidential bid.
House Freedom Congress to the rescue? Donald Trump’s legal problems just got very real. We now have trial dates being set, jockeying among various co-defendants and even his former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, taking the stand to essentially say he was only following orders. It now appears certain that one way or the other, Trump will be facing a jury before the 2024 election. And for all his blustering about how every indictment makes him more popular, he wants his Republican supporters to do something about it. Salon’s Amanda Marcotte has a full rundown of the Republican hysteria around the threat to their Dear Leader. The party is in such disarray that it’s difficult to anticipate how successful they might be at their various gambits to interfere in the 2024 elections around the country. But the outlines of what the MAGA caucus in the House plans to do in Washington are clear. They want to impeach Joe Biden, as we all predicted the moment they took the majority in 2022, and flood the zone with investigations. And they want to hold the government hostage by shutting down the government. If all goes well, they might even wreck the economy in the process.
Florida officials searched high and low for it In case you wondered about the process that led to the preposterous finding that slavery was beneficial for the enslaved in the Florida “AP standards” here it is. It’s as bad as you might have thought: Florida officials tasked with reviewing a new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies raised multiple concerns the curriculum didn’t offer any “opposing viewpoints” or “other perspectives” of slavery before the state rejected the program earlier this year, the Miami Herald reported Tuesday. The newspaper obtained copies of internal state documents after the state said in January that it would not allow schools to offer the new Advanced Placement course. The state claimed at the time the pilot program “significantly” lacked educational value and violated Florida law. The decision came amid Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) ongoing effort to target so-called “woke” culture, including the passage of the “Stop WOKE Act” last summer meant to limit teaching about systemic inequality.
This is what many millions of Republicans watch and believe is true. The internet sources are even worse. Do we need to look any further than this to understand what’s happened to them and why our country is in such desperate trouble? Over on Truth Social they’re getting it from the horse’s mouth:
Apparently, he meant that literally Here’s Trump telling Glenn Beck that he would get payback. Of course, we knew that. Revenge has been his guiding philosophy his entire life: Former President Donald Trump joined controversial radio host Glenn Beck for an interview on Tuesday and was asked flat out if he would use the office of the president to jail his political opponents – as he promised to do in 2016. “You said in 2016, you know, ‘lock her up.’ And then when you became president, you said, ‘We don’t do that in America.’ That’s just not the right thing to do. That’s what they’re doing. Do you regret not locking her up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?” Beck asked Trump. “Well, I’ll give you an example. Uh, the answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us,” Trump replied, making clear he would. Trump did NOT say, “we don’t do that in America” and he led “lock her up” chants at his rallies all four years.
His defamation of Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman I dearly hope it sends him to the poorhouse. And it may. The judge in the case just brought the hammer down: A federal judge has ruled former New York mayor and Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming two Georgia election workers whom he falsely accused of tampering with the 2020 election results. Judge Beryl A. Howell entered a default judgment against him “as a straight-up sanction” for his failure to provide necessary documentation to the plaintiffs. Giuliani will still go to trial in D.C. federal court on the amount of monetary damages he owes to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss. But Howell has already ordered Giuliani to pay roughly $132,000 in sanctions between his personal and business assets for his failures to hand over relevant information. And she said those failures, combined with Giuliani’s own admissions, compelled her to rule without a trial that he defamed both women, intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them as part of a civil conspiracy and owes punitive damages.
New polling from Georgia: Most Republican voters in Georgia polled by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution say they still believe the 2020 presidential election was tainted by large-scale fraud — despite abundant evidence to the contrary. The poll of likely Republican Party primary voters shows that 61% of respondents said there was widespread fraud in the last presidential election, a distrust that has persisted for nearly three years as another race looms. So most of them think the election was stolen in Georgia. They believe Trump but not their state officials who claim that he is lying. And yet, a majority supports them too: Though many GOP voters retain their unproven suspicions about the 2020 election, they haven’t turned against Georgia Republican leaders who rejected Donald Trump’s unfounded claims. Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused Trump’s call for a special legislative session to question the election results, achieved an 80% approval rating. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a major Trump supporter, won approval from 44% of poll respondents, with 45% undecided.
“A man hears what he wants to hear….” Judd Legum wonders why President Joe Biden gets no credit for what on paper is a good economy: 1. The unemployment rate is 3.5% The U.S. has added an average of 312K jobs every month for the last year GDP growth has been 2.0% or higher for a year Inflation is down to 3.2% If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible? 2. But an August survey by Quinnipiac University found that 71% of Americans describe the economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Just 3% say the economy is excellent. What explains this discrepancy? If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it’s terrible?The leading economic indicators show the U.S. economy is performing well, but most Americans still believe economic conditions are extremely poor — as if the country was mired in a deep recession. Wha…https://popular.info/p/if-the-us-economy-is-doing-well-why 3. One factor is partisanship. More people today will rate the economy as poor if they don’t like the person in the White House, regardless of economic conditions.
I just watched Andrea Mitchell attempt to interview the fast-talking hustler Vivek Ramaswamy. It wasn’t pretty. Anyway, this is making the rounds today: Philip Bump has this interesting take: This Oct. 27, 2003, exchange between Sharpton and Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball,” has reentered circulation in the past few days because there was a 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the room. The event was hosted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics and, at the time, Vivek Ramaswamy was a Harvard student. So when Matthews turned to the audience for questions soon after the event started, Ramaswamy was the first to offer one. “Rev. Sharpton, hello, I’m Vivek,” he began. “I want to ask you — last week on the show we had Sen. [John] Kerry and the week before we had Sen. [John] Edwards, and my question for you is: Of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience?” And right there, you can probably see why the clip has gained new attention.