Thursday, November 28, 2019
Sanders Campaign Charges Bloomberg 2020 Run 'Is Against Bernie, Not Trump'
"Multi-billionaires like
Michael Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election," Sanders
said Sunday.
Monday, November 25, 2019
Billionaire media businessman
and former three-term Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg entered the
Democratic primary on Sunday expressly to attack Sen. Bernie Sanders' attempt
to win the party's 2020 nomination, the Sanders campaign charged Monday.
"Bloomberg is primarily
motivated by a desire to stop Bernie and his working-class movement,"
claimed Sanders speechwriter David Sirota Monday in his Bern After Reading newsletter.
According to Sirota, the
timing of Bloomberg's announcement lines
up with Sanders' rise in the polls and a well-reported meeting between the
media mogul and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the two wealthiest men in the
world alongside Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Bloomberg is also close with
Disney's Bob Iger, Sirota said.
Bloomberg's run is reminiscent
of the billionaire's decision in 2016 to float a run in order to take down the
Sanders campaign.
"Bloomberg began floating
the idea of a presidential bid in 2016, just as Bernie was beginning to gain
momentum in that race," wrote Sirota. "At the time, Bloomberg disparaged Bernie
and his campaign’s challenge to Wall Street."
Sanders, in a statement Friday
in advance of Bloomberg's entrance in to the race, said he was
"disgusted" that Bloomberg believed the race could be bought.
"I'm disgusted by the
idea that Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire thinks they can circumvent
the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy our
elections," Sanders said.
The Vermont senator doubled
down on those criticisms at a rally on Sunday in New Hampshire.
"We do not believe that
billionaires have the right to buy elections," said Sanders. "That is
why multi-billionaires like Michael Bloomberg are not going to get very far in
this election."
On MSNBC Monday,
anchor Katy Tur wondered if Bloomberg has another candidate in mind to take
down.
"Is this a real campaign,
is he really running?" wondered Tur. "Or is he running to torpedo
Elizabeth Warren?"
Warren, in New Hampshire on
Sunday, said that
while she accepts some excesses of wealth she draws the line at
billionaires having more political power than the rest of Americans.
"I understand rich people
are going to have more shoes than the rest of us," said Warren.
"They're going to have more cars than the rest of us, they're going to
have more houses—but they don't get a bigger share of democracy. Especially in
a Democratic primary."
Not 'Free Stuff,' But Public Goods: Ocasio-Cortez Denounces Neoliberal Talking Points on Publicly-Funded Education and Housing
"I never want to hear the
term 'free stuff' ever again."
Monday, November 25, 2019
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
won applause and cheers from her constituents on Sunday at a town hall in the
Bronx where she expressed deep frustration with the routine dismissal of
investment in public goods as "free stuff."
"I never want to hear the
term 'free stuff' ever again," Ocasio-Cortez told the audience.
The progressive first-term
Democrat explained her vision for newly proposed legislation—the Green
New Deal for Public Housing—for a $180 billion investment in upgraded
public housing that would prioritize communities on the frontlines of the
climate crisis, retrofit units with energy-efficient insulation and appliances,
and create 250,000 jobs. The bill is cosponsored in the Senate by Sens.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
Like public roads, schools,
and libraries, Ocasio-Cortez said, public housing should be recognized as a
public good funded by taxpayers, particularly the wealthiest people and
corporations.
"It is possible and it's
not that we deserve it because it's a handout," the congresswoman said.
"People like to say, 'Oh, this is about free stuff.' This is not about
free stuff... These are public goods."
Ocasio-Cortez won applause
from members of the audience for her plan, including one who shouted of
housing, "It is a human right!"
Watch:
On social media Monday
Ocasio-Cortez said public services for the use of all people "are worth
investing in, protecting, and advancing for all society and future
generations."
At Sunday's town hall,
Ocasio-Cortez denounced the term "free stuff" to dismiss progressive
proposals for benefits already available to people in many developed countries
as a "neoliberal" talking point.
"I'm already hearing some
of these neoliberal folks who are trying to flip the script on us and
say...'Oh, I don't want to pay for a millionaire's kids to go to
college,'" she said.
The argument makes no more
sense, Ocasio-Cortez suggested, than saying publicly-funded infrastructure
unfairly benefits the rich.
"I believe all people
should be able to go to a public library," she said. "Everyone can
drive on our roads, everybody should be able to send our kids to public school,
and every person who needs it should have access to public housing that looks
like this."
'Massive Criminal Enterprise': Giuliani Reportedly Sought Ukraine Business Deals as He Worked to Dig Up Dirt on Biden for Trump
"Giuliani sought a
payments of $200,000 from the recently dismissed prosecutor general of Ukraine
earlier this year. So, Mr. President, about that corruption in Ukraine you said
you were so worried about..."
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Public optics for Rudy
Giuliani continued to get worse on Wednesday after the New
York Times and Washington
Post both reported that President Donald Trump's personal attorney
earlier this year sought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of business
opportunities in Ukraine from the same government officials he was working with
to uncover dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.
The Post reported
that Giuliani negotiated a contract earlier this year to represent Yuri
Lutsenko, then Ukraine's top prosecutor, for at least $200,000. The
negotiations came at the same time Giuliani was working with Lutsenko to dig up
damaging information on Biden for the benefit of Trump.
"The agreements were
never executed, and there is no indication that Giuliani was ultimately paid by
Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials," the Post noted.
"But the negotiations proceeded far enough that legal agreements were
drafted under which Giuliani's company would have received more than $200,000
to work for the Ukrainians."
According to the Times,
Giuliani and lawyers close to him were engaged in a months-long effort to take
on "various Ukrainian officials or their agencies as clients."
The Times reviewed
"a proposal signed in February by Mr. Giuliani," which "called
for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice to pay his firm $300,000."
"In return, Mr. Giuliani
would help the government recover money it believed had been stolen and stashed
overseas," the Times reported. "The Times could
not determine whether the documents it reviewed comprise the entirety of the
efforts by Mr. Giuliani and other lawyers to represent Ukrainian government
officials."
Giuliani downplayed the talks
in an interview with the Times and said he "never received a
penny" from Ukrainian officials.
The new reporting was viewed
by progressives and analysts as further evidence that Giuliani and Trump were
pursuing corrupt ends in Ukraine while publicly claiming to be fighting
corruption.
Reflecting on the new
revelations, Post columnist Paul Waldman wrote:
Why would Giuliani be
simultaneously pursuing what former national security official Fiona Hill
called a “domestic political errand” on Trump’s behalf — pressuring Ukraine to
announce an investigation that would smear former vice president Joe Biden —
while simultaneously looking to cash in himself?
The better question is, why
wouldn't he?
"Trumplandia is just a
massive criminal enterprise," tweeted Adam
Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic.
Why Are Drug Prices Rising So Much? Pharma Exec Admits 'No Other Rationale' But Profit-Making
"The industry executive
said the quiet part out loud," said one outside expert in response.
"Price-gouging is central to the industry business model."
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Corporations' quest for
profits is what "is driving up drug prices and nothing more."
That's according to Dennis
Bourdette, M.D., chair of neurology in the Oregon Health and Science University
(OHSU) School of Medicine, who co-authored a study published
Monday that sought to find out companies' rationale for the escalating prices
on medications for patients with multiple sclerosis.
Prices for those drugs, an
accompanying press release notes, have jumped up by 10% to 15% every year for
the past decade.
The study by a team of
researchers at OHSU and the OHSU/Oregon State University College of
Pharmacy, which appears in the journal Neurology this
month, was based on interviews with four current and former pharmaceutical
industry executives who had direct involvement in the pricing or marketing
of MS drugs.
The executives, who were not
named, laid bare the motivating factor for the surges.
"I would say the
rationales for the price increases are purely what can maximize profit,"
sad one executive. "There's no other rationale for it, because costs [of
producing the drug] have not gone up by 10% or 15%; you know, the costs have
probably gone down."
Such statements, said the
researchers, counter the industry's narrative that
the high drug prices are an effort to recoup their research and development costs.
"The industry executive
said the quiet part out loud," said Zain Rizvi, law and policy researcher
with Public Citizen's Access to Medicines project, in a statement to Common
Dreams. "Price-gouging is central to the industry business model."
One executive inteviewed for
the study pointed out that the U.S. is a global outlier when it comes to the
price hikes. They said that "it is only in the United States, really, that
you can take price increases. You can't do it in the rest of the world. In the rest
of the world, prices decline with duration in the marketplace."
Maintaining or lowering the
prices would give a negative impression about the medication, said one
executive. "We can't come in at less," they said. "That would
mean we're less effective, we think less of our product, so we have to go
more."
The responses, said Bourdette,
who also directs the OHSU Multiple Sclerosis Center, speak volumes.
"The frank information
provided by these executives pulls back the curtain of secrecy on how drug
price decisions are made," he said.
While the new study focused on
MS medications, the issue of skyrocketing prices is more widespread. As
economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted last
year:
"The government gives drug companies patent monopolies that make it
illegal for competitors to sell the same drug. These patent monopolies allow
companies to charge prices that are a hundred or even a thousand times the free
market price."
And other recent
research backs
up the case that drugmakers are relying on price hikes to drive their
growth.
Thus, the need for fundamental
change is clear, said Rizvi.
"This is not the case of
just one bad actor. This is the case of an entirely bad system," he added.
"The study underscores that we need a sea change in our drug pricing
system to put public health over private wealth."
Just One Week After Trump Rolled Back Safety Measures, Chemical Plant Explosion Rocks Texas Town
"This facility has a
track record of violating the Clean Air Act."
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Concerns about air
quality lingered Wednesday
following a major early morning explosion at a chemical plant in Port Neches,
Texas that shot a fireball into the sky.
The disaster at the TPC
Group-owned facility roughly 94 miles west of Houston took place a week after
the Trump administration rolled
back safety rules meant to protect workers and people who live near
chemical plants. In light of the timing, Catherine Fraser, Environment Texas's
clean air associate, called Wednesday's
explosion "a timely warning that state and federal officials need to do
more to keep communities safe."
"It shook our house
twice," Shawn Dunlap, who lives in neighboring Nederland, told NBC
News. "It was just like a bomb going off." Twitter user
@souljaslim52 put it another
way: "shit blew tf up."
According to a statement from
TPC Group, the incident occurred at 1:00am local time. The company said it
"cannot speak to the cause of the incident or the extent of damage."
The Port Neches Police Department, in a statement posted
to Facebook, said, "There's extensive damage throughout the city."
Area residents reported damaged
homes, with some suffering shattered glass and blown-off doors. Three
workers at the plant also suffered minor injuries, the company said.
"Throughout the morning
more booms could be heard in the area as firefighters attempted to control the
blaze," reported Beaumont's KBMT.
Local ABC affiliate KTRK reported that
the chemical burning is butadiene, which the EPA classifies as
carcinogenic.
Area residents captured images
and sounds of the explosion:
Environment Texas's Fraser, in
her statement, pointed to the plant's history as cause for particular concern.
"This facility has a track record of violating the Clean Air Act,"
she said, "with five other illegal emissions events just in 2019, emitting
carcinogenic 1,3 butadiene and other chemicals, and a history of community complaints."
"According to the EPA,
the TPC Plant has been in non-compliance 12 separate quarters over the last 3
years, and has received 7 formal enforcement actions over the last 5 years.
According to the TCEQ, the chemical of most concern is butadiene," Fraser
continued. "The TPC plant emitted 61,379 pounds of butadiene in 2018.
Butadiene is a known human carcinogen."
Environmental justice expert
Mustafa Santiago Ali weighed in on the explosion with a brief statement on
Twitter. He noted that the Trump administration's move last week to finalize
the weakening of the Chemical Disaster Rule and chided the president for "putting
more people's lives in danger."
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