DL Open Thread Sunday, October 10, 2021
Sit down for this one: Donald Trump lied about how much money his DC hotel brought in. It ran in the red, of course — this is a guy who figured out how to lose money running casinos — and lost $70 million, despite L’il Donnie Two Scoops accepting $3.7 million from foreign governments. This is an incredibly low amount to sell out a country for.
Because he’s a piker, Trump can only dream of ripping off the public on the scale of Big Pharma. Consider Merck. As Thom Hartmann explains using the example of molnupiravir, a monoclonal antibody being used to treat Covid, American taxpayer/consumers are being reamed at both ends.
It was originally developed by Emory University to treat horses infected with Venezuelan equine encephalitis with a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense and $19 million from the National Institutes of Health. In other words, its invention was paid for with your tax dollars.
Emory University passed along the patent on molnupiravir to a small company, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which in turn passed it along to the pharmaceutical giant Merck. Manufacturing cost for molnupiravir, according to a report from researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health, is around $17.74 for a 5-day course of treatment. Merck just signed a contract with the federal government to sell 1.7 million treatment courses for the government to distribute to infected people for $712 each.
This price-gouging hustle was both made possible—and, ironically, perhaps made illegal—by a piece of legislation passed back in 1980 that gave universities the ability to sell patents to inventions funded with federal money to non-profit organizations and small businesses…but not to major corporations. Since then, small businesses like Ridgeback have served as middlemen handing off profitable pharmaceuticals developed with our tax dollars to giant corporations like Merck.
All you young’uns mock us, but back when we had a president whose scandal sparked a Constitutional crisis, we paid more attention — my generation can still rattle off the names of minor Watergate co-conspirators, many of whom did time for little more than passing along the checks. This excerpt from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s report on the insurrection can get you started on a list of people who damn well ought to do time this time around, because they did a lot more than just pass along checks.
Because Republican politics is all performance art, it’s easy to lose track, but remember when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced his state would build the silly-ass wall the Biden administration wouldn’t, and that he’d crowd-source the funding? He did, and though it was far less than he wanted, his appeal did bring in $54 million. Just one problem: All but about $1 million came from a single donor, a member of the execrable Mellon family, which is why I think that if we’re not going to tax the rich into the poorhouse or assassinate them, we should at least sterilize them.
Philadelphia’s Italian-American community has succeeded in its effort to demonstrate that Italian-Americans are the most pathetic ethnic group in the country, managing to convince a judge — an elected judge, which is why electing judges is the worst idea in a country full of bad ideas — that the city had to remove the plywood surrounding the Christopher Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza because a bunch of dead-end guidos can’t live without pretending that they have some kind of kinship with Columbus. News flash — they don’t. Columbus was Genovese. There was no “Italy” when he made his voyages, and most of the Italian-Americans in this country come from the southern part of the peninsula — literally another kingdom at the time Columbus sailed. A more rational judge overruled that idiot decision — really, we’re going to let small, ill-educated mobs set city policy now? — but it shows, in a nutshell, why I’m leaving the country and this is my last DL Open Thread for the foreseeable future.
The floor’s yours. Last one out turn off the lights.
A lifetime ago I worked in the building that is now (temporarily) Trump’s Pennsylvania Ave hotel. While I was there the GSA had a study done to see if it could be converted into a hotel and leased to a major hotel chain. The answer (“There is no way in hell a profitable hotel can occupy this space”) was comforting to someone who liked the office as it was. The agency was downsized and my job was cut a year or so later. C’est la vie.
When I heard about Trump entering into a deal to make it a landmark hotel, I thought – that checks out.
A Sondheimian salute to the soon-to-be denizen of France:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNF_APZadiU
“…I’m leaving the country and this is my last DL Open Thread for the foreseeable future.”
Say it ain’t so, Al! You are one of the few voices of reason in this fucked up world. I, for one, will miss your intelligent and well thought out posts and comments, even though I don’t always agree with them. Please continue to post from wherever you land.
Best wishes, and stay safe.
One reason I’m leaving is to escape the media-driven madness gripping this country, and if I keep reading the American news it defeats the purpose. I’ll still be doing the songs of the day unless something unforeseen intervenes.
“One reason I’m leaving…”
I’m glad it’s not the only reason. Although it’s well nigh impossible to avoid the onslaught of American news, it can still be done by avoiding the internet, newspapers, radio, and broadcast television. Sort of like sticking your head in the sand, but for a good reason. Personally, I find that looking at a lot of foreign press websites (until I hit the pay wall) helps to balance out the madness.
I hope that wherever you land, you don’t watch CNN!
Once again, best wishes.
He got me through the Trump years. That is no hyperbole.
Honestly I can’t blame Alby for going ExPat at this point. Thought about it a thousand times myself and may yet do it. The forces of greed and stupidity run this country and I see it getting no better, even post Trump we’re still stuck with a partially brain dead electorate, the Republican party and worthless “Democrats” without a clue.
Al (with El Som) and the morning radio show on WDEL got me through many many dark mornings over a decade’s time.
Update on Philly’s Columbus statue:
https://www.inquirer.com/news/columbus-statue-italian-american-heritage-south-philly-parade-20211010.html
Briefly, a higher court judge overruled the order to unbox it, and it remained covered for Sunday’s Italian Festival and parade.
Happy Indigenous People’s Day, everyone!
“…I think that if we’re not going to tax the rich into the poorhouse or assassinate them, we should at least sterilize them.”
“…Italian-American community has succeeded in its effort to demonstrate that Italian-Americans are the most pathetic ethnic group in the country…”
Alby, keep feeding us with the hot takes. DL needs to better flash out its eugenics program.
All kidding aside, just remember that whatever social democracy you plan to flee to, remember that it wouldn’t exist if not for the the world order created by American military dominance. Our tax dollars subsidize effete euro trash wannabes who sip their espressos in sidewalk cafes while writing salon-dot-com thinkpieces about problematic western culture. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
The fact that you believe that bullshit is why I’m outta here. Your tax dollars are swallowed by the oligarchy, and the bullshit they fed you is how they keep you emptying your pockets willingly.
The last time America displayed military dominance was in 1945. Your understanding of world politics is stuck about then.
Funny how we can still smell Europe’s filthy drawers years after they all collectively shit themselves when NATO was being challenged. I guess they are still stuck in ‘45as well
Yes, I give a flying fuck what some rando asswipe says. Fuck off, and have a nice life.
I do find it rather amusing that every brain-dead Murkin has to run down other countries because they can’t find fuck-all to say about this one.
Yeah Alby, how can you be leaving this paradise on earth?
“murk #1 in..
– most hours of television watched per person each week
– health care spending as a percentage of GDP
– largest % of people people on pharmaceutical drugs
– percentage of women taking antidepressants
– largest student loan debt
– highest negative trade balance
– military spending greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined
I think it’s funny that s/he is bragging about spending almost a trillion dollars a year to protect the world — as if anybody in this country would actually vote to spend that money on someone other than ourselves. Fuck, we won’t even spend the money on our own country.
And then they’ll brag that we’re a democracy. Yeah, right.