Tues - Was the Coup Filmed? The Panzerhaubitze 2000 are Here

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

I visited a Doritos farm today.  What a cool ranch!
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

So Dead, Dead From Waiting for You 

The first images showing armed police waiting in a corridor during last month's school shooting in Uvalde, Texas have emerged.

Police arrived earlier in the attack and with more firepower than previously reported, according to US media who have seen investigative documents.

The images show police holding rifles and riot shields.

They say 11 police officers arrived within three minutes, and an officer with a ballistic shield was in the building at 11:52.

This happened after school district police chief Peter Arredondo had reported that the gunman had "shot a lot" and that the police only had "pistols", according to the media outlets.


The police finally breached the door into the classroom where the gunman was at 12:50. He was shot dead by members of the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit.



How Bad is Elon Musk?  His Daughter Wants to Not Be Related to the World's Richest Man

One of Elon Musk’s children has petitioned a California court to recognize her new name and gender, saying she no longer wishes to be related to her famous and wealthy father “in any way, shape or form.”

The petition was filed by Xavier Alexander Musk, who turned 18 earlier this year and made the filing with a county court in Los Angeles soon thereafter. She requests that her name be changed to Vivian Jenna Wilson. Wilson is the last name of her mother, Justine Wilson, Musk’s ex-wife and mother of five of his seven children.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX, is the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of $214 billion.

He has been criticized for some of his statements on Twitter regarding gender identity issues. For example in December 2020 he posted a tweet, since deleted, that said “when you put he/him in your bio” alongside a drawing of an 18th century soldier rubbing blood on his face in front of a pile of dead bodies and wearing a cap that read “I love to oppress.”

John Eastman, Meet the Bus

With the Justice Department and Jan. 6 committee taking a close look at Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he and his cronies could certainly use a fall guy, and it looks like they’ve found their patsy: right-wing lawyer John Eastman.

Eastman worked for Trump as the attorney devised legal strategies to overturn the election to keep the outgoing president in power. But, in recent weeks, Trump has confided to those close to him that he sees no reason to publicly defend Eastman, two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. The ex-president is also deeply annoyed with Eastman and all the negative “attention” and media coverage that the lawyer’s work has brought Trump and his inner sanctum, including during the ongoing Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday I Didn't Put These Things Together:  The Ads, the Threats, the Violence



In a different time and place, I might dismiss someone else writing this column as yet another example of “hair on fire” media blowing things out of proportion. But we live in a world where Trump supporters rioted in the Capitol—shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” and attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

We live in a world where Rep. Adam Kinsinger (a Republican who has angered the MAGA world for his participation in the Jan. 6 Committee) has said that his wife received a letter threatening to execute her, him, and their baby. Against this backdrop, Greitens’ rhetoric could easily inspire violence, even if Greitens’ motive is mere political opportunism. It’s almost certainly a troll, but who can even tell the difference anymore between a gross, but harmless troll and an actual incitement to violence?

His Wife Said "Don't Run".  But there Were Some Strangers Who Were Crying.



He's Running Again to Strip Health Care Coverage from People

Just a few days ago, Johnson insisted that we have to go back to the bad old days when people with chronic and serious illnesses were thrown into expensive, bare-bones coverage high-risk pools.



It's Not Just the BIG Pharma Companies that are Fleecing the Government.

How can the U.S. government lower the high price of prescription drugs? It may need to look to tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban for answers.

Medicare could have saved nearly $4 billion in 2020 by purchasing generic drugs at the same prices offered by Cost Plus Drug Company, Cuban's online pharmacy that launched this year, according to a study published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Cost Plus Drug offers certain generic drugs, such as the depression drug fluoxetine or blood pressure medication lisinopril, at discounted prices, by selling medications at a fixed markup of 15% plus a $3 flat fee, according to the company’s website. Cost Plus doesn't offer brand-name drugs or accept insurance, so patients pay for medications out of pocket.

The study "does show that Medicare is overpaying for some of the generic drugs," said Dr. Hussain Saleem Lalani, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the study’s lead author. "And this is a conservative estimate, so the actual savings are likely higher.”

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital compared the price of 89 generic drugs sold by Cost Plus Drug in 2022 to the price paid by Medicare Part D plans in 2020. Medicare Part D provides coverage for a wide range of prescription drugs, including for self-administered drugs, such as for those to control high blood pressure or diabetes.

After adjusting for changes in drug costs between 2020 and 2022, the researchers found that Medicare paid more on 77 generic drugs: $8.1 billion compared with $4.5 billion if Medicare had purchased the drugs at the same prices as Cost Plus.

Only 12 drugs did not appear to offer any savings.

The researchers did not account for out-of-pocket costs for Medicare enrollees, meaning it was unclear how much lower their cost at the pharmacy counter would have been had Medicare purchased the drugs at a lower price.

The findings illustrate the need for policy reform, the authors wrote.

Medicare “could save a lot more money if it had stricter policies on how it paid for drugs,” Lalani said. “There’s a lot more reforms that could be done to optimize the generic drug pricing system, and we should really consider doing those things to lower costs for patients,” he said.

Price negotiation a "black box"

Lalani said the study had limitations: Researchers could only compare prices for drugs that were sold by Cost Plus Drug, which represent 25% of the approximately $38 billion in Medicare Part D generic drug spending in 2020.

Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the study certainly raised the question of whether Medicare plans are leaving money on the table, and could be getting better deals on drugs. She was not involved in the research.

Right now, price negotiation is “just a completely black box. There’s not a lot of transparency,” she said.

"We're kind of putting the burden on the patients to chase down lower prescription drug prices as opposed to kind of finding ways to make them widely accessible," she said.

However, making changes that could tackle the problems of generic drug pricing has not been the primary focus of policymakers, Cubanski said. That’s because the kinds of medications patients usually struggle to pay for are brand-name drugs.

Democrats, in particular, have pushed for laws that allow Medicare to directly negotiate prices of the most expensive drugs, which is currently prohibited.

“Saving $3.6 billion is certainly worth pursuing if there’s an opportunity to get that amount of savings,” she said. But most of the dollars from Medicare “are going to higher-priced, brand name and specialty drugs.”

Lalani, who led the study, said it underscores the need for a closer look at our prescription drug pricing system, which includes wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and insurers.

They Also Are in Favor of Setting Pi to 3.25, the Sun Rising in the South, and Declaring Cancer Illegal

The Republican party in Texas has officially adopted a series of extreme-right positions that includes claims Joe Biden was not legitimately elected and homosexuality is “abnormal”.

They Have Only Two Words to Say to You:  "No Plastics".  Will You Think About It?

The government of Canada announced that it will ban the manufacturing and import of a number of “harmful” single-use plastics, with several new regulations coming into place in December.

The new rules, announced Monday, will apply to checkout bags, utensils, food-service products with plastic that is difficult to recycle, ring carriers, stir sticks, and straws with some exceptions, the government announced in a release.



Brilliant!  Just Brilliant!



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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

I Doubt Putin or Elon Musk Was the Buyer

Dmitry Muratov, the Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal for a record $103.5m to help Ukrainian children displaced by the war.

The gold medal was sold to an as yet unidentified phone bidder at the sale in New York, which was organised by Heritage Auctions.

The sale was spirited, with lots of applause and bidders egging one another on to increase the total. Muratov was seen recording videos of the bidding screen and those in the room.

When the final bid came in, at tens of millions of dollars more than the previous offer, many in the room expressed shock, including Muratov himself.

An Actual Christian Walked into a Southern Baptist Convention.

A Black pastor accused some Baptists of “losing their minds” when Barack Obama became president, and they were eager to become “political whores with this whole [Donald] Trump stuff.”

The harsh verdict was delivered from the audience during last week’s annual Southern Baptist Convention in Anaheim, California, by minister Kevin Smith, the former executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland-Delaware.

“I think some Southern Baptists lost their minds when a Black man was elected president. Not all, but some,” Smith told the crowd (see the video below at 0:33).

“I think some Southern Baptists were unloving to Black people beginning in 2012 with the killing of Trayvon Martin,” he added, referring to the Black teenager fatally shot in Florida while walking through a neighborhood.

“I don’t mean agree about politics or policy ... I just mean giving a darn that somebody else is hurting who is supposed to be your brother or sister in Christ,” Smith said. “And I think some Southern Baptists just bent over and became political whores with this whole Trump stuff.”



I Don't Think This Will be Temporary

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration announced on Tuesday a temporary pay raise for federal wildland firefighters, saying they were facing longer, more severe fires partly due to climate change and their pay has lagged that of others.

Firefighters across the United States have battled record-breaking forest fires in recent years and the administration said investing in the wildland firefighting workforce was a matter of national security.

"Shifting development patterns, land and fire management decisions, and climate change have turned fire 'seasons' into fire 'years' in which increasingly destructive fires are exceeding available Federal firefighting resources," the administration said.

The pay increase as well as new mental wellness and health support were being funded by $600 million from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The temporary pay increases will put retroactive pay, from Oct. 1, 2021, into wildland firefighters' pockets, the administration said.

It did not say how many firefighters would benefit from the plan but said that last year, the administration increased the minimum wage for some 11,300 wildland firefighters.

Another Holiday

Facing pressure to do something legislatively to curb skyrocketing gas prices, President Joe Biden said Monday he will make a decision on pursuing a federal gas tax holiday by the end of the week.

The move would suspend a federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon of gas and 24.4 cents for diesel as fuel prices have soared above $5 a gallon in many states.

While it might provide some short-term relief, the policy has plenty of critics. Many economists argue a pause in the federal gas tax could drive up inflation once the holiday ends, deplete transportation funds and only reduce a fraction of the overall historic spike in gas prices.
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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 118

Fighting

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the eastern cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk are seeing the “most difficult” fighting. Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said Lysychansk was shelled non-stop on Monday and Russian forces have entered the industrial part of Severodonetsk, where an estimated 500 civilians are sheltering in the Azot chemical plant.

The coming week is set to be decisive for Russian efforts to take Severodonetsk, the Institute for the Study of War cited Ukrainian officials as saying.

Zelenskyy claimed Russia is planning a renewed attack on Kharkiv after Moscow withdrew its forces from the city and region in mid-May.

Moscow is holding more than 1,500 Ukrainian civilians in Russian prisons, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Diplomacy

Russia warned NATO member Lithuania that unless it lifts a new ban on the transit of goods to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, Moscow will take undisclosed measures to defend its national interests. Russia’s foreign ministry will summon the European Union ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday over the dispute, the governor of Kaliningrad said.

A referendum on Ukraine’s occupied region of Kherson becoming a part of Russia will be held this autumn, the Moscow-backed authorities in the region said.

The Russian co-winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, journalist Dmitry Muratov, sold his medal for $103.5m at an auction to raise money for children displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Actor Ben Stiller visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, telling him: “You’re my hero.”

Economy

China’s crude oil imports from Russian soared by 55 percent in May compared with a year earlier, displacing Saudi Arabia as its top supplier.

Europe’s biggest Russian gas buyers are racing to find alternative fuel supplies and even looking at burning more coal to compensate and avoid a possible energy crisis next winter.

The Panzerhaubitze 2000 are Here

Ukraine said it had “finally” deployed advanced German artillery system, in the latest delivery of the long-range, precision weapons that it has been calling for.

“Panzerhaubitze 2000 are finally part of 155 mm howitzer arsenal of the Ukrainian artillery,” Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on social media, thanking his German counterpart Christine Lambrecht.

Germany said last month it would send seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, ramping up deliveries of heavy weapons to help Kyiv battle Russia’s invasion.

Going After Russia Where It Hurts.  Oil.

The governor of Moscow-controlled Crimea has said three people were injured and seven are missing after Ukraine fired on three oil drilling platforms in the Black Sea off the Russian-annexed peninsula.

“We confirm that there are three injured and seven reported missing. We guarantee that the search will continue,” Governor Sergey Aksyonov said on Telegram on Monday, referring to platforms of the Crimea-based oil and gas company Chernomorneftegaz.

This is the first reported strike against the offshore energy infrastructure in Crimea since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
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Jabs for Toddlers

Covid-19 vaccinations for children younger than 5 are beginning Tuesday across the United States, marking a milestone in the nation’s fight against the disease.

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration expanded the emergency use authorizations for Moderna’s vaccine to include children 6 months through 17 years and Pfizer/BioNTech’s for children 6 months through 4 years.

Then on Saturday, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on Covid-19 vaccinations for children under 5, clearing the way for vaccinations to be administered in that age group.

About 17 million kids under the age of 5 are now eligible for Covid-19 vaccines.
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Was the Coup Filmed?

The House select committee investigating events around the Jan. 6 insurrection has issued a subpoena to documentary filmmaker Alex Holder. The subpoena, first noted by Politico, reveals that Holder and his crew were apparently given broad access to Donald Trump, his staff, and his campaign team to create a documentary about Trump’s reelection effort.

Among recordings being sought is “any raw footage” that Holder and his team may have taken on Jan. 6; raw footage of interviews with Trump, his adult children, Jared Kushner, and Mike Pence; and any footage in which Trump or members of his team discuss election fraud.
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