May 29-31, 2017: Big Pharma Just Wants to Help You with Your Limp Dick

 

5/29/17: Did you know the pharmaceutical industry spent $78 million dollars in the first quarter of this year on research, because all they care about is helping you, typical American with chronic pain, cancer or erectile dysfunction? 

Okay. That’s fake news! 

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Big Pharma employs 1,100 lobbyists.

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Big Pharma spent that pile of cash on lobbying because they employ lots of lobbyists: 1,100, to be exact. 

Envision that horde swarming the halls of Congress every time some GOP shill trots out this gem: “Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.” 

By the way, did you know Big Pharma donated $58 million to subsidize prescription costs for sick children last year? 

Hahaha. 

Don’t be a guppy! That’s fake news again!

 

In 2016 they donated that much to various election campaigns. This is how the “free market” operates. You get what you pay for, and Big Pharma might as well be writing prescriptions that read, “Take one Congressman to breakfast in the morning, one to dinner in the evening, and contribute to their campaigns at the first sign of legislation that might reduce gigantic profits.” 

Consider Republican Rep. John Shimkus, who represents, in theory, the people of Illinois. Even the sick ones. Last year, he worked overtime to gather signatures from 242 members of Congress and block an Obama administration project to test ways to lower costs of Medicare Part B. 

That program spent $24.6 billion on prescription drugs in 2015. 

Hey, the drug companies said, “Let’s donate $300,000 to Shimkus! He’ll be our bought-and-paid-for stooge!” 

I’m not sure how many signers were Republicans. The first fifteen on the list all are. You can check if you’d like. Those who added their names included Steve Chabot, my very own congressman, Tom Price, now head of Health and Human Services, Steve Scalise, third-ranking House Republican, and Lamar Smith, leading climate denier in Congress, not counting Sen. “Snowball” Jim Inhofe.

Serving the interests of the American pe...um...Big Pharma.

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5/30/17: Trump once again calls on the Senate to change its rules. “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!”  

He’s not going to be happy until we have a one-party state, like Italy in 1930, for example.

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5/31/17: The “Fake News” folks at Vox join the “fake Russians” fray. Vox reports: “Federal investigators are fixated on a mysterious December meeting between senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov.” For some reason Kushner suddenly remembers he did meet with Gorkov, but they only talked about …he can’t be sure … maybe gardening. 

PBS wonders why Kushner suggested in that meeting that a back channel to Russia be created …using Russian diplomatic facilities. Critics wonder why any private citizen would “try to set up covert communications with a hostile power like Russia, particularly after U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of trying to interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump.” (See: 7/8-10/17.)