It is sweltering. At least I am well shorn.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:58 (average 5:02). To do it click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): White House leakers leak about leaking
Now, we all know that Trump loves to be the …umm… subject of leaks, and since Putin cut off his Russian hooker ration, I bet he makes do with this. RESIST!!
From Alternet: Trump promised to rein in drug prices. It was his only sensible campaign promise.
But the plan he announced Friday does little but add another battering ram to his ongoing economic war against America’s allies.
He calls it “American patients first,” and takes aim at what he calls “foreign freeloading.” The plan will pressure foreign countries to relax their drug price controls.
America’s trading partners “need to pay more because they’re using socialist price controls, market access controls, to get unfair pricing,” said Alex Azar, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who, perhaps not incidentally, was a former top executive at the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company.
Nations that are social democracies do not allow greedy drug companies to overcharge, so their people get affordable meds. The Republican solution is for Social Democracies to screw their citizens, claiming it would reduce US consumer drug costs. That’s a lie. It would just increase greedy drug company profit. RESIST!!
From NY Times: Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.
The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.
During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group.
The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor. [emphasis added]
For-profit fraud is an educational goal of the Republican Reich. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Fat chance! 🙁
16 Responses to “Open Thread – 5/14/2018”
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MSNBC: There’s no integrity at the top, with the Clown in the Car… so why not?? Just another day…..
AN: Exactly what you said, Tom. The drug prices will soar!! to the people who need them, and folks will die because they can’t afford the increased prices of their meds. Heartbreaking!
NYT: This is downright sickening!! They’re all crooked, at the expense of teachers/parents & students.
Cartoon: So Sad.
Sorry to read that you’re sweltering….hope that you can relax some this evening. Take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Hi again…I just wanted to share this quote from an unknown…who takes the credit. I’m just the messenger:
“McCain only wants real Presidents at his funeral, not one who got captured by Russians.”
“I prefer people who didn’t pay for phony medical excuses to avoid the draft.” Mr. McCain.
7:10
Here’s a petition to all the other signers of the Iran deal to essentially Truck Fump.
Axios – Well … “unusual” is certainly one way to describe it. “Chaos” comes closer, though. I wouldn’t put too much stock in him having “flipped” Republicans. All he “flipped” were the sheets they were hiding under.
AlterNet – How Republican!
NYT – DeVry is SLIME. I am so glad I am not trying to get an accredited edication today. It’s a jungle out there. It would break the hearts of a lot of real educators who have passed on – and even of administrator, like my mom, who worked so hard for so long for real universities and colleges because they truly believed in them.
Cartoon – Fat chance indeed!
Signed the petition, Joanne.
Signed with comment.
Although not one of the signatories to the original deal, Canada’s Prime Minister has publicly expressed support of the deal. From the CBC:
And I stand with these allied countries and Iran. I worry for the families of my friends who are still in Iran. I firmly believe that Israel is a provocateur. They have a right to defend themselves but that does not include being a provocateur . . . with anyone!
Been there. Signed that. Thanks!
The Orange Ogre is turning off countries so fast and so hard, soon we’ll be even more isolated than North Korea.
Israel: Live in peace, or die in pieces.
MSNBC: Management style- this management style is “It’s All About ME!” Flip the GOP? Not at all…it’s the same toxic GOP it has been since Reagan’s day, and they will simply go wherever the money smell is strongest. He has not flipped them, he’s simply given them permission to show their true, bastardly, colors in full public view.
Alternet: tDump presenting more horse pooh! He is, indeed, alienating this country. If he cared about Big Pharma, maybe he’d go after Purdue Pharma, the ONE company responsible for the opioid epidemic.
NYT: DeVos is doing to education just what she was hired to do, just like Pruitt and the EPA.
‘Toon: Happy Birthday, Israel! Peace has not been in its agenda for far too long.
Petition signed!
8,295 signatures
Truck Fump!
MSNBC: The White House thrives on all the leaks because it gives both their base and themselves the idea that they are very busy and therefore must be getting lots of things accomplished. I don’t agree with the last comment Jim Vandehei made. Drumpf hasn’t managed to flip many thing, showing that the power of a president is greater than we thought. He “flipped” exactly that which the GOP wanted him to flip or allowed him to flip because they enabled him. Those things they let him get away with, because that way they could remain in power too, were things they would have impeached a Democrat for in seconds. A system of checks and balances only works when someone is watching and tending the scales.
Alternet: Actually it is the other way around: patients in social democracies have seen the prices of medication soar because of monopolisation of the market by a few global pharmaceutical companies who keep patents active long after they’ve run out, prohibiting development of generic medication, and demanding a ransom for cash-cow medication. The only thing that is keeping cost down on long-existing medication is forcing doctors to prescribe generics if they exists. New medication, especially specialized (cancer) medication is another story, forcing (non-profit) ensurers and government to reconsider putting caps on certain treatments or stop covering them altogether. Our only hope lies in the EU getting a grip on it as it has so much more leverage than individual countries, but American-style lobbying is finding its way into the EU parliament too. If Drumpf get’s his way, thing will go bad for everyone, I’m sure.
NYT: This special Fraud Team within the Educational Department has now been turned into EPA II by assigning a Pruitt clone, Julian Schmoke, as its supervisor. And this time the source of the conflict of interest is all too obvious: Betsy DeVos. It’s shameless and sickening. ???
Cartoon: In 70 years Israel has only drifted further from peace with Palestinians or with its neighbours. Drumpf is now doing his utmost to make even thoughts of peace impossible. 58 Palestinians dead and thousands injured only yesterday, which the authorities defended with the statement that they had thrown leaflets on Palestinian land warning them not to try and cross the border. I’m deeply ashamed instead of celebratory.
Thanks for the correction from afar!
Puzzle — 3:52 I saved you from being Stung Puddy Tat!!!
MSNBC — It would not surprise me if Drumpf has a Secretary of Leaks, or that Huckabee Sanders is in charge of leaks. If you want something to leak, just tell a group of people not to leak it and at least one person will leak it. That’s human nature.
And as to Drumpf turning Republicans to his view, I doubt that. They go along because it meets their need for power and access to the gravy train.
AlterNet — Drumpf is so full of shit that his eyes are brown!
“The Republican solution is for Social Democracies to screw their citizens, claiming it would reduce US consumer drug costs. That’s a lie. It would just increase greedy drug company profit.” — You are so correct!!! The provincial governments currently negotiate with the drug companies for more affordable prices. That’s something Drumpf should understand being the “deal maker”. Even some Americans get their drugs here in Canada because they are cheaper. I wonder how they will be affected by Drumpf’s scam? Republicare rings a bell. The Canadian Parliament is currently looking at a national pharmacare plan, ideally, universal pharmacare. Right now, not all drugs are covered under BC’s plan but most are. For example, I take two for diabetes that are not and one costs me over $120/month.
NY Times — Ah, the keep them dumb so we, wealthy Republicans, can rob the public purse incessantly! There is one thing that Republicans do exceedingly well at . . . lying. Keep people under educated, particularly the “unwashed masses”, and they won’t know what is happening to them.
Cartoon — AMEN Freya!!!
I had a really lousy sleep last night because of the heat. Yesterday hit 33C (91F) with overnight temps about 15C but it was muggy! Today it is supposed to be hotter but it is supposed to cool down for Wednesday and Thursday with marine air coming ashore, but we’ll see. Crank up the AC. I do not have AC so I have to pull out the fan from the basement. On top of that, I have to do the dreaded task today or be a nekkid Sasquatch. What a horrible thought for everybody else!
I still have a 1 3/4 dawgs left.
I hope you feel better!
Nekkid Sasquatch?!!? Can we expect pics or vids?
Since it would mean posting them on the internet and that is frowned upon, no pics or videos!
Thanks all. Hugs!