Miscellaneous political debris

I was reading about American prescription drug prices and I'd encourage all USA residents who think they're getting a fair shake to read how prescriptions on the NHS work here.

I hear a story every now and then out of the USA that goes something like "Big pharma' company raises cost of prescription drug by 4000%" and I heard from an American that he pays $40 for aspirin or something insane like that. And the reaction just seems to be "oh well, yeah, it happens". Last year when the NHS decided to raise their flat prescription rate by 20p from £8.40 to £8.60 ($11.70 to $11.98) there were newspapers practically saying "Here's how you can save yourself from this fiscal outrage" and "you don't have to stand for this tyranny". And that's not from universally left wing outlets btw, even some of the most awful far-right tabloids like the Express were somewhat outraged.

From over here it seems like a lot have Americans have learned helplessness when it comes to your corporate monopoly overlords. Not that the UK is a bastion of workers rights and labour redresses or something, but the US healthcare system just seems almost third-world a lot of the time.
 
I've been cycling through cocktails of prescription drugs for the last year as my heart, vision, and joints rot away er I mean deteriorate. Some dirt-cheap meds work better than horribly expensive others. Medicare and a Blue Shield drug supplement plan we bought helps immensely but my life support still costs a few hundred bucks monthly.

Am I worth it? My crazed partner seems to think so. Damn, if *I'M* the best thing in their life... :eek:

I wonder what my costs would be had we stayed in Bisbee AZ. We stocked at Mexican pharmacies just over the border in Naco, Sonora. Meds made in precisely the same plants as their USA versions cost 10%-30% of stateside prices. USA-trained Mexican dentists and physicians were a bargain there, too.

Deeper in Mexico, not at the border, is a farmacia chain whose name I forget but they're easily spotted. Look for a fat druggist costumed guy dancing on the sidewalk. Behind him is the bargain pharmacy. Next door is a prescription writer's office. You got a problem? Pay MX$20 (US$1.60 back then, about one buck now) for a scrip to fill next door for another few pesos. If you don't have that much, head for a national Social Security office for subsidized drugs, food, basics.

Yes, Mexico is horribly corrupt and cartel-ridden, but they do have a few things down.
 
MAY 01, 2018

Isaac Chotiner:

"Are you surprised there has been so little leaking from the Mueller team?"

Asha Rangappa:

(a senior lecturer at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a contributor to CNN.)


"These are all people who have been former prosecutors, or [whom] he has worked with, and I am sure he has read them the Riot Act. It’s a small group, so if there is a leak it will not be hard for him to identify who it was. One of the tidbits I remember with Peter Strzok was when the IG, or maybe a congressional committee, was looking for his texts from some date in July 2016 up until he was assigned to the Mueller investigation, people were wondering why they weren’t looking for texts [after that]. And I was like, I bet [Mueller] made them drop all of their existing devices or something to make sure they are clean. It isn’t just political repercussions from the leaks; the Russians want to know what they are uncovering, obviously. So that kind of security is driving them to be really careful. They are using very sophisticated sources and methods, and they cannot afford for that to be exposed in any way."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/what-is-robert-mueller-up-to.html
 
Snopes steps up and adds some answers



The Associated Press

@AP
AP has deleted a tweet that incorrectly said the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at its annual meeting. The ban was put in place by the Secret Service. A corrected tweet is coming


3:53 PM - Apr 30, 2018



In reality, the NRA was not responsible for the decision to bar attendees from carrying guns at the 2018 Leadership Forum. Due to the scheduled presence of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at the event, the Secret Service was authorized to implement security arrangements at the venue. As it routinely does for public events attended by the President or Vice President, the Secret Service made the decision to exclude firearms from the NRA Leadership Forum, as noted in an NRA
press notice

* Due to the attendance of the President and Vice President of the United States, the U.S. Secret Service will be responsible for event security at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum. As a result, firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum prior to and during his attendance.


https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nra-events-guns/

Guns! They are everywhere you want to be! Substituted by Secret Service guns, where applied.

(apology to Visa credit card ad)


https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nra-events-guns/
 
Guns! They are everywhere you want to be! Substituted by Secret Service guns, where applied.
Of course the Secret Service won't allow firearms inside the event site. All the shootings will be outside. Don't be surprised if cell service is blocked so Instagrams can't be uploaded. No recorded evidence? No problem.
 
May 1, 2011

President Clinton's order to stop scrambling satellite signals paved the way for civilians to use GPS with the same accuracy as the military had long enjoyed.

April 1982

Mobile phone.

Not a cell phone

Not a smart phone.

Big, heavy, ridiculous cordless phone.

1994

Smart phone


Support for GSM

1996


GPS

1999
 
Mistaken identity victim, suffers for actions of graffiti vandals

Occupy Wall Street 2011, Occupy Ferguson

An Oklahoma native left with a fractured nose and a blackened eye after being arrested by St. Louis Police during a 2012 Occupy protest will get $100,000


May 1, 2018

When police caught up to him, he says, he put up his hands in a show of surrender. They maced him anyway, he alleges — and then cuffed him and took him down to the station.

At the station, he would later allege in a lawsuit filed by non-profit Arch City Defenders, he was asked for his address. Because he didn't have one, he gave a post office box.

According to the lawsuit, Detective David King allegedly shouted, "That's not a fucking address." He then "swung his arm across the interrogation table, punching Mr. O'Rourke in the face." Another detective, Steven Burle, watched impassively, O'Rourke alleges.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/new...aten-by-st-louis-police-earns-100k-settlement
 
gsgs comment- My local independent TV channel decided to carry a story, originating in Buena Vista-An incident of police officer related insensitivity and intimidation, that occurred March 16, 2018 Something that occurs, daily.

Why is my local TV station airing this, now ?

There just seems to be something "off" about everything about this. I cannot pinpoint what it is, exactly. A whiff of cognitive dissonance.

The video is trending, nation-wide,
on all news related media platforms.

Is it because the victim has proof on video ?

Who is carrying the story ? Orange County Register is listed, as carrying the story, despite the fact that Orange County Weekly is the source for police misdeeds, police corruption, community protests against injustice, and full coverage of the Buena Vista community.

Pretty much, Orange County Register is benefiting from a nation-wide splash of a local Buena Vista story.

Orange County Register, which the OC Weekly has kept a close eye on.

The New York Times was watching, before the Orange County Register was sold

Aug 19, 2003 · Freedom, the family-controlled company that owns The Orange County Register, 27 other daily newspapers and 8 television stations, founded in 1930s by Ayn Rand fan, Libertarian

Few newspaper publishers have provided libertarians with the megaphone given to them for decades by R.C. Hoiles

(yes, but the newspaper had actual news reporters. The Libertarian articles were editorials, and opinion pieces.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/...s-pull-media-company-into-a-family-fight.html

The publication (Orange County Register) also received backlash over a seemingly tone-deaf tweet on Saturday which asked for "passionate Angelinos to share stories about their life and culture in L.A," and asked for emailed submissions, the LA Times reported. The tweet has since been deleted, and the publication has not tweeted since, after many scolded them for looking for unpaid work.

https://www.salon.com/2017/12/05/la-weeklys-new-owners-quit-paying-writers-push-outlet-to-the-right/

Aaron Kushner traveled to the IE to meet with staff of the Riverside Press Enterprise, the paper he acquired last November…only to lay off a bunch of people and install yes-men at the top.

https://www.ocweekly.com/aaron-kush...-press-enterprise-writers-un-rallied-6463005/



In 2012, after failed attempts to buy the Boston Globe and a newspaper group in Maine, Kushner bid on Freedom, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2009 with more than $770 million in debts.

When Freedom emerged from bankruptcy a year later, the investment banks that controlled it sold off many of the chain's most valuable assets, leaving the barely profitable Register, a smattering of other newspapers and more than $100 million in unfunded pension liabilities, several industry sources said
http://www.adweek.com/digital/whos-aaron-kushner-and-why-does-he-want-boston-globe-131180/

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/20/business/la-fi-oc-register-kushner-20130820/2

OC Weekly's story-


APRIL 3, 2012

Freedom Communications, the Irvine-based media company whose flagship newspaper is the Orange County Register of Santa Ana, has completed the sale of its eight television stations to the company that famously ordered its ABC affiliates not to show an April 30, 2004, Nightline tribute to American soldiers killed in Iraq
(because it was “too political”). Sinclair Broadcast Group of Hunt Valley, Maryland, also had its hundreds of stations run prime-time infomercials in October 2004 critical of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's
Vietnam War service and anti-war activism, and another in November 2010 painting Barack Obama as an extremist.

Coupled with recent sales of some newspapers outside Cali you've never heard of, the TV deal supposedly erases the debt that threatened to sink the whole Freedom enchilada. The company emerged from bankruptcy protection two years ago still $325 million in debt.

Ironically, Sinclair Media Group filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2009 that stated it would have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy if $1.33 billion in debt could not be refinanced.

https://www.ocweekly.com/orange-cou...-tv-stations-to-conservative-concern-6472156/

The Gothamist newspaper survived because, after all, New York is feisty. New York has millions that support PBS and NPR.


The other newspapers associated with it, did not survive.

SOUTHERN Californians have been bludgeoned with bad news lately, as a number of media outlets — LAist, BuzzFeed, Los Angeles magazine, the LA Times, and the OC Weekly — have either shut down or seen major layoffs. (In Orange County, editor Gustavo Arellano resigned after being asked to machine-gun his staff.)

In parallel with the way rich right-wing men like Robert Mercer, Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Bros have — often invisibly — distorted our national politics with huge contributions and bogus foundations, especially post-Citizens United — the Weekly’s new owners snuck up on us. This group created a new company, told a number of half-truths, then came in, busting a union and firing nearly the paper’s whole staff. This group of Libertarian jackals has also hinted that they will no longer pay writers for their “contributions.” The Don’t Work For Free movement has never seemed so relevant.

One post, published by contributing writer Keith Plocek on Wednesday evening following the firings, is still active on the site. Keith writes: “The new owners of L.A. Weekly [sic] don’t want you to know who they are. They are hiding from you. They’ve got big black bags with question marks covering their big bald heads.”

https://www.artsjournal.com/culturecrash/2017/12/the-murder-of-the-la-weekly.html

Semanal Media, the mysterious new owner of LA Weekly, had taken the reins of the paper from Voice Media Group. In the span of a few hours, Semanal fired 75 percent of its full-time editorial staff, including all five editors, the publisher, two staff news writers, the film critic, and the head of sales. Only one staff writer, an art director, and a copy chief remain. Former editor-in-chief Mara Shalhoup compared the cuts to the Red Wedding, the particularly brutal slaughter scene in Game of Thrones. Only a shell was left of the newspaper staff that had existed the day prior.


https://psmag.com/news/the-inside-story-of-how-la-weekly-played-itself

Rough times,for newspapers


https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04...its-vital-role/amp/?__twitter_impression=true


What did the Conservatives have against the Denver Post ?

Here in Colorado, Alden has embarked on a cynical strategy of constantly reducing the amount and quality of its offerings, while steadily increasing its subscription rates. In doing so, the hedge fund managers — often tellingly referred to as “vulture capitalists” — have hidden behind a narrative that adequately staffed newsrooms and newspapers can no longer survive in the digital marketplace. Try to square that with a recent lawsuit filed by one of Digital First Media’s minority shareholders that claims Alden has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of its newspaper profits into shaky investments completely unrelated to the business of gathering news.

Coloradans feel the insanity of it in their bones. And what a sad history.

In 2009, the large chain that owned the Rocky Mountain News closed that storied paper’s doors. In 2010, Alden bought the chain of papers that features The Denver Post. The hedge fund gained a talented team of journalists reporting from all over the state, the nation and some of the biggest hotspots in the world, a winner of numerous Pulitzer Prizes, including newsroom-wide awards for its coverage of the massacres at Columbine and, more recently, a theater in Aurora.


https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/06/as-vultures-circle-the-denver-post-must-be-saved/


BUENA PARK (CBSLA) — A simply convenience store purchase escalated into a potentially deadly dispute when an off-duty police officer pulled his weapon on a man over a $1.19 pack of candy

Security video clearly shows Jose Arreola paying for a roll of Mentos at a Buena Park convenience store. A man later identified as a city police officer out of uniform walks in after Arreola puts the candy in his pocket, prompting the officer to tell him, “Hey, give that back. I’m a police officer.”


At that point, the officer pulls out a handgun from his sweater pocket, stunning Arreola, who quickly puts the candy back on the counter. “Oh, I paid for it!” exclaims Arreola.

The officer asks the clerk if he did, in fact, pay for the candy. After he asks the clerk the same question multiple times, the officer says, “My apologies. My apologies.”

“You know who I am, right?” the officer asks the clerk. “Yeah, I know,” he responds.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/05/04/buena-park-mentos-police-officer-pulls-gun-jose-arreola/


State is discussing the incident, and a detail emerges-

While waiting for his change, Arreola put the mints in his pocket. That’s when the man standing behind Arreola in line, who came into the store after he had handed the clerk the cash, identifies himself as a police officer and takes out the gun from his pocket.


Despite Arreola protesting that he had just paid for the item, the officer insists that he must put the mints back on the counter. It is only after the clerk confirmed the purchase that the officer apologized and handed him the candy.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-gun-on-man-he-thought-had-stolen-mentos.html
 
Public school teachers are begging, scrimping, and donating

The Charter schools are swimming in tax payer cash


Hall, a former public school principal who leads Arizonans for Charter School Accountability, said the Blocks appear to have made a fortune off Arizona taxpayers. Hall has compiled financial records from numerous charter schools in the state, and contends Basis has among the highest costs per pupil for administration.

"We had to watch every nickel we spent," Hall said of his time in traditional public schools. "It's such an extreme. It's almost like Alice in Wonderland."

But Rowe said having Basis.ed manage all aspects of the charter schools has yielded major cost savings.

Last December, as Scottsdale parents were receiving yet another solicitation for donations to pay teachers, the Blocks made a $1.68 million down payment on an $8.4 million condominium in New York City, property records show.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...ze-low-teacher-pay/473963002/?from=new-cookie
 
iu
 
Opening up a Time Capsule

December 29, 2016


How A Connecticut Journalist Broke A Key Part Of The Bizarre Las Vegas Newspaper Story

The recent sale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is such a strange and complicated morass that it’s hard to know where to begin


There was the shroud of secrecy that was pierced when we learned that the buyer was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. The threads connecting the transaction to Russel Pergament, a former top executive with The Real Paper, the Tab newspapers, and the short-lived commuter tabloid BostonNOW. And, above all, the role of Michael Schroeder, a former BostonNOW executive who’s emerged as a principal player in all of it.


Mystery involving an article that was published by the New Britain Herald criticizing a Nevada county judge who had tangled with Adelson.


Edward Clarkin—a reporter who, according to the Hartford Courant, could not be located and might not exist.

New Britain Herald owner Michael Schroeder’s middle name is Edward and that his mother’s maiden name is Clarkin.


Why Schroeder? As it turns out, he was originally the only person listed as an officer with News + Media Capital Group, the Delaware corporation set up by Adelson.

(Does GateHouse still continue to operate the Las Vegas paper ?)

New Britain Herald and the Bristol Press, which nearly went out of business after their corporate owner, Journal Register Company, declared bankruptcy. Their savior: Michael Schroeder.


"I have watched in recent days as Mr. Schroeder has emerged as a spokesman for a billionaire with a penchant for politics who secretly purchased a Las Vegas newspaper and is already moving to gut it. I have learned with horror that my boss shoveled a story into my newspaper—a terrible, plagiarized piece of garbage about the court system—and then stuck his own fake byline on it. He handed it to a page designer who doesn’t know anything about journalism late one night and told him to shovel it into the pages of the paper. I admit I never saw the piece until recently, but when I did, I knew it had Mr. Schroeder’s fingerprints all over it."


https://www.wgbh.org/news/post/how-...ke-key-part-bizarre-las-vegas-newspaper-story
 
MAY 10, 2018

Trump Fan Sheldon Adelson Places $30 Million Bet on the Midterms


In 2016, GOP-aligned super PACs outspent their Democratic rivals by $165 million across all elections, $607 million to $442 million. And House Republicans are hoping to benefit from similar largesse from their friends in the midterms. They’ll likely need it given recent special elections suggest Democrats are getting far more bang for their buck these days.

Republican megadonors have good reason to heed the call. While the GOP tax law hasn’t turned out to be a huge success with your average voter, it will definitely pay dividends for the party’s donor class. Take Adelson, who’s worth an estimated $43 billion (and who also—bonus!—vehemently opposed the Iran nuclear deal that Trump just broke). As Bloomberg News’ Steven Dennis notes, Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, reported a $670 million tax windfall in the first quarter of the year thanks to the Republican tax overhaul. At that rate of return, a $30 million investment looks like a bargain.


https://slate.com/news-and-politics...l-ryans-favorite-super-pac-usd30-million.html

As George Takei might say,"Oh my!"
 
Tromp has a role model. Extremely educated Sir William Berkeley (1606-1677), Royal Governor of Virginia, said in 1642,
"I thank God, we have not free schools nor printing;
and I hope we shall not have these hundred years.
For learning has brought disobedience,
and heresy and sects into the world;
and printing has divulged them
and libels against the government.
God keep us from both!"​
Free education and a free press? Fuck-em.
 
Subverted

The education system in America was subverted before I was born.


At one point, most of the people in the United States reclaimed the Power of the People. Our government had been subverted.


The subversion committed by Whole Foods is glaringly obvious.



The natural foods movement did not begin with Whole Foods, but rather sprang from the ideas of Japanese writer and spiritual leader George Ohsawa. In his book Zen Macrobiotics, Ohsawa advised readers to eschew sugar, canned goods, produce grown with nonorganic pesticides and fertilizers, and almost all animal products. His followers established Erewhon in the mid-1960s in Boston while promoting the macrobiotic lifestyle. Despite running afoul of the FDA, Erewhon gained its economic footing and by 1971 reported annual sales of $1.8 million. With locations in Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Toronto, it laid the groundwork for a transformation of the grocery industry.


Whole Foods was engineered to subvert the People's market by Mackey.


CEO John Mackey conveniently neglected to mention that Whole Foods once accepted a critical loan from the government following a damaging flood to its Austin store in the 1980s.

So much, for his Libertarian mythology.

He cannibalized a community, by breaking the law. A liar, a thief, a robber, and a weasel.

He stood on a pile of corpses, and boasted about himself.
 
40 years, ago, Survivalists drifted into New Hampshire. There were always pockets of odd beliefs, nursed by a crackpot that owned a local newspaper. The crackpot had an excuse. America broadcasted propaganda, Red Russia and Red China broadcasted their propaganda. There were grifters willing to exploit other's fears, to make money for themselves. They spread paranoia and suspicion.


In the past 15 years, characters with odd ideas drifted into tiny New Hampshire villages. They spout nonsense, and trouble the local police.


FFS, New Hampshire has always had rifles and guns. People have always hunted, fished, and had farm animals in the mountains and valleys. The majority have always been sensible about their use.

Why are they spouting Extremist Right Wing talking points in the tiny village square ? No one wants to take away their hunting rifle. The federal government is not over-reaching. The only thing that is required is that laws are followed, no one is hurt, and property is respected.

What is in New Hampshire, that the Koch brothers could find of exploitable value ? The point the Koch brothers preaching, is they should be able to do anything, anywhere. No matter who lives there, what is there, or what is nearby. Corrupt state officials should be allowed to sell their souls to them. The Koch brothers dislike opposition, and they seek to remove restrictions that protect nature, and archaeology, and landmark formations.



In New Hampshire, toxic polluting factories are gone, the water is clean. There are extensive forests. NH is a small state, but there might be something to mine.


Most of the East Coast has said no to gas pipelines and fracking. Communities came together, found resources, and found a legal way to say no.


There is a worm in the apple, now.

Why is it, that Trump visits New Hampshire ?
 
This week, a toddler was taught a lesson, at the daycare school. Not to throw rocks at other children. A teacher instructed the children's actions.

Wonkette used a quote, which seemed familiar.


It came from a well known author.

It was made into a graphic novel.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation
Miles Hyman 2016


Something new, connected with it


https://medium.com/@seungminlee1998/movie-the-lottery-2018-vlog-analysis-67eb06985b94
 
Despite all the BS from lefties, Democrats, most of his own party, NOT having held a political office, and the Obamba and HRC misguided "hangers' on" trying to destroy him, Teflon Don's approval rating is even higher than Obama's wuz and ole' Teflon's ratings keep going up. Soon it will be so overwhelmingly skyrocketing!

So much WINNING!
 
Burlington, Vermont, Says "No" to F-35s, Setting Off a Chain Reaction

The F-35 fighter bomber is screamingly loud. The US Air Force also says that the F-35 has a high crash rate. A Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division report describes releases of toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals, particulates and fibers during combustion of a military carbon composite aircraft body, making the consequences of an F-35 crash in a city catastrophic.

A proposal to base 18 F-35 fighter bombers at the city-owned airport in Burlington, Vermont, would put nearly 3,000 small working-class homes in a noise danger zone that the 2013 US Air Force Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) says will impair children's learning and cognitive development.

Notwithstanding lockstep support by the Vermont political and commercial establishment, the plan to base the fighter bombers in Burlington was shaken up in March when citizens voted to cancel the basing. While the vote was a major step toward revoking the plan, a bit more than a democratic vote of the people may be needed in view of the enthusiasm for F-35 basing that Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, US Sen. Patrick Leahy and commercial real estate developers continue to display, notwithstanding the serious harm the basing will impose on thousands of families.

A map in the Air Force EIS indicates that the F-35 taking off in normal military power with its afterburner off is almost as loud as the F-16 taking off with its afterburner blasting. When an afterburner is engaged, fuel is injected into the exhaust stream to increase the temperature and speed of the exhaust as it leaves the tailpipe nozzle, significantly increasing thrust. Unfortunately for people and animals in the flight path, the afterburner also vastly increases the noise level. The EIS says that a person on the ground below will be hit with 115 decibels when the F-35 is at 1,000-feet elevation on takeoff with its afterburner off.

But even 115 decibels is a sound level above the threshold of pain. To avoid permanent hearing loss, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says that a worker may be exposed to 115 decibels for no more than 28 seconds. The NIOSH recommends that protective measures be taken at the much lower 85 decibels sound level.

That's louder than Trump's Derp!:eek:
 
You should read this book. It describes you.


Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself



Despite all the BS from lefties, Democrats, most of his own party, NOT having held a political office, and the Obamba and HRC misguided "hangers' on" trying to destroy him, Teflon Don's approval rating is even higher than Obama's wuz and ole' Teflon's ratings keep going up. Soon it will be so overwhelmingly skyrocketing!

So much WINNING!
 
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