{"id":36210,"date":"2019-04-13T10:15:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T17:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=36210"},"modified":"2019-04-13T10:15:23","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T17:15:23","slug":"open-thread-4-13-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/13\/open-thread-4-13-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 4\/13\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>News\u2019 endless attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It&#8217;s a chilly day here in the CatBox.&nbsp; I woke up in the middle of the night and could not sleep, so I feel very tired.&nbsp; Tomorrow is a very busy WWWendy day, so please expect only a Personal Update or an Open Thread with no links messages on Care2.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 2:26 (average 4:30).&nbsp; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2019-04-13-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here<\/a>.&nbsp; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PZ8BluTTzt8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/mediamatters4america\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Media Matters Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Fox News\u2019 endless attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">Barf Bag Alert!!<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/PZ8BluTTzt8\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The bizarre antics of the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, <em>Faux Noise<\/em>, make it abundantly clear that AOC is a significant force for good in the US. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UTZgerssSrU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCH1dpzjCEiGAt8CXkryhkZg\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Sanders Channel<\/a>): <\/font><font color=\"#000000\">Bernie &amp; Civil Rights in Chicago<\/font><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/UTZgerssSrU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Kudos to Bernie for his youthful activism. Like him, I was also arrested demonstrating in Chicago. It was in August, 1968. Bernie remains in my top three for 2020. <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/4\/11\/1849603\/-Democratic-lawmaker-to-big-PhRMA-on-insulin-prices-your-days-are-numbered\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>In a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on insulin prices Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and fellow lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2019\/4\/10\/18302238\/insulin-walmart-relion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blasted manufacturers and drug industry intermediaries<\/a> for creating a situation in which as much as a quarter of the population with diabetes is rationing and skimping on lifesaving doses of the drug because of cost.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how you people sleep at night,&#8221; Schakowsky told the panel. &#8220;I just want you to know your days are numbered.&#8221; Lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/insulin-prices-2019-diabetes-rationing-insulin-amid-rising-drug-prices-sanofi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">heard from patients<\/a> with diabetes as well, including 28-year-old Kristen Whitney Daniels, who was kicked off her parents&#8217; insurance plan when she reached 26, and started rationing insulin then. &#8220;Nobody cared or nobody understood that without this next vial of insulin, I wouldn&#8217;t live to see another week. [\u2026] I can&#8217;t really explain how isolating and how terrifying it is.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2019\/4\/3\/18293950\/why-is-insulin-so-expensive\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">totally unnecessary and completely unjustified<\/a>. The man who discovered insulin nearly 100 years ago, Frederick Banting, refused to patent the drug under his name. With his co-inventors James Collip and Charles Best, he sold the patent for $1 to the University of Toronto, because they rejected the idea that people who needed this new wonder drug to survive would not be able to afford it. Since then, this drug that has been around since 1923 has become a potent symbol of corporate greed and everything wrong with our healthcare system. Pharmaceutical companies are holding diabetes patients hostage just because they can, because they can get away with continuing to jack up prices and profits.  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It has to change. After I fall through the Medicare donut hole, my insulin costs me over $1,000 for a three month supply.&nbsp; My Advair costs even more!&nbsp; <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font>  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font>  <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/0413Cartoon.jpg\"><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News\u2019 endless attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez It&#8217;s a chilly day here in the CatBox.&nbsp; I woke up in the middle of the night and could not sleep, so I feel very tired.&nbsp; Tomorrow is a very busy WWWendy day, so please expect only a Personal Update or an Open Thread with no links messages on <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/13\/open-thread-4-13-2019\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}