MONDAY, MAY 12, 2025
The discourse which isn't a discourse: In its first attempt to report the president's semi-proposal, the New York Times offered some striking statistics.
That first attempt was published on Sunday. Headline included, it started like this:
Trump Plan Would Tie Some Drug Prices to What Peer Nations Pay
President Trump will sign an executive order on Monday aimed at lowering some drug prices in the United States by aligning them with what other wealthy countries pay, he said on Truth Social on Sunday evening.
The proposal he described, which alone cannot shift federal policy, is what he calls a “most favored nation” pricing model. Mr. Trump did not provide details about which type of insurance the plan would apply to or how many drugs it would target, but he indicated that the United States should pay the lowest price among its peer countries.
“Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before,” he wrote in his social media post.
[...]
Mr. Trump has long complained that the United States pays much more than other wealthy countries do for the same drugs. And he is right. In the United States, prices for brand-name drugs are three times as high, on average, as those in peer nations.
Say what? Here in these United States, "prices for brand-name drugs are three times as high, on average, as those in peer nations?"
If true, what a remarkable state of affairs! In its own initial report, the Wall Street Journal provided a specific example:
Trump Says He Will Sign Executive Order Aimed at Lowering Drug Prices
[...]
Americans often pay higher sticker prices for drugs than people in other countries. For example, the list price for diabetes medication Jardiance was $611 for a 30-day supply last year, according to health research nonprofit KFF, compared with $70 in Switzerland and $35 in Japan.
Say what? In a discourse which was an actual discourse, such a remarkable state of affairs would presumably be a matter of persistent reporting and discussion.
Not so here! Down through the years, we've often noted the fact that our nation's outlandish medical spending goes almost wholly undiscussed in the upper-end press. Today, matters are even worse. Today, there's only one topic which gets discussed:
Whatever unusual statement the president made in the past fifteen or twenty minutes.
Today, the Times had filed a second report about what, as it turns out, the president has actually semi-proposed. His proposal isn't what he said it would be—or at least, so the New York Times says:
With No Real Policy, Trump Asks Drugmakers to Lower U.S. Prices
President Trump on Monday signed an executive order asking drugmakers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medicines in the United States.
But the order cites no obvious legal authority to mandate lower prices. The order said the administration would consider taking regulatory actions or importing drugs from other countries in the future if drugmakers do not comply.
It was something of a win for the pharmaceutical industry, which had been bracing for a policy that would be much more damaging to its interests.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post that he would link U.S. drug prices to those in peer countries under a “most favored nation” pricing model, a policy he attempted unsuccessfully in his first term for a small set of drugs in Medicare. His executive order on Monday does not do that. Pharmaceutical stocks rose Monday morning on the news.
Oh well! In our view, this is the most remarkable part of this new Times report:
The executive order also called on federal agencies to investigate why European countries get lower prices and to push them to pay more. The Trump administration has limited leverage to drive up prices in Europe.
“I’m not knocking the drug companies,” Mr. Trump said on Monday shortly before signing the order. “I’m really more knocking the countries than the drug companies.”
[...]
At Monday’s event, Mr. Trump directed his ire toward European governments that have negotiated lower prices.
“We’re going to help the drug companies with the other nations,” he said.
Mr. Trump threatened to use trade policy to push European countries to pay more for prescription drugs. But drug companies are already locked into contracts with governments, and if they try to charge more for new medicines, European countries may balk at covering them at all.
Our allies are always our enemies with the sitting paranoid-in-chief. They're always ripping us off!
American health care has long been characterized by outlandish levels of spending. We've long noted the way the high-end mainstream press tends to avoid the remarkable data which emerge within that topic.
In truth, our "town which is no more a town" has long featured a public discourse which wasn't much of a discourse. Before the week is done, we'll walk you through this additional report from Sunday's Times, a report about the public schools:
Has America Given Up on Children’s Learning?
What happened to learning as a national priority?
For decades, both Republicans and Democrats strove to be seen as champions of student achievement. Politicians believed pushing for stronger reading and math skills wasn’t just a responsibility, it was potentially a winning electoral strategy.
At the moment, though, it seems as though neither party, nor even a single major political figure, is vying to claim that mantle.
We were struck by several parts of that report. Within what passes for our nation's "issues" discourse, some journalistic instincts never change.
We'll discuss that report at some point this week. Full disclosure:
In part, the shape of a nation's journalism can be defined by listing the topics which get reported and discussed. Also, the shape of a nation's journalism can be defined by noticing the topics which get ignored.
The NY Times has to spin any Trump action as bad. Today, they report cutting drug prices good for drug companies: "It was something of a win for the pharmaceutical industry, which had been bracing for a policy that would be much more damaging to its interests."
ReplyDeleteFollowing the NY Times style, we can say, "Musk was good for USAID because he cut them less than he might have."
More idiocy.
DeleteYou want the NYT to lie to us like Fox does?
Delete"President Trump takes on 'Big Pharma' by signing executive order to lower drug prices"
Saying that about Musk would be a big lie.
DeleteWhat does the executive order actually say, DiC?
DeleteHere’s the description of the “order:”
DeleteIt is …”asking drugmakers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medicines in the United States.
But the order cites no obvious legal authority to mandate lower prices.”
Yippee! Trump singlehandedly , um, asked someone to maybe lower prices, pretty please. And you come here DiC and like a toady declare this another massive trump victory.
Trump has been so concerned about the price of drugs that he did absolutely nothing about it during his first term. And canceled the program that Biden's administration, through the Inflation Reduction Act, was extending to include more drugs at negotiated prices than had been initially included, insulin being the most publicized example. Only an idiot would lay the blame on international price discrepancies at the feet of countries with the leadership to have negotiated pricing. But that is where we are. When Bush Jr. rolled out Medicare Part D, the language of that bill did not allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. The lead Republican senator for that bill, from Louisiana, after its passage, decided not to run for another term in Congress. He had been offered a more lucrative job in the private sector, A million dollar a year gig, as president of Pharma.
DeleteThe bigger point here is that why won't they cover huge stories like cost of health care, and education policy.
DeleteHealth care and education are routinely covered.
DeleteSomerby should visit https://ground.news/
ReplyDeleteIt presents news stories from a broad range of sources but also analyzes the bias of various sources and identifies the blind spots (stories least covered by right and left and center sources). There is no reason to have to guess about this or to fight over it.
It's not a new or veiled story that Americans are getting ripped off on health care. Bob's point is that the American media won't cover this any more.
DeleteThe reason is obvious -- look who pays for all their $$$$ ads.
1:16: Nowadays, newspapers are almost entirely digital and rely far more on reader subscriptions for their funding than advertising. You claim they don’t report on this “any more”, but advertising was a far bigger source of revenue in the old days of print media.
Delete1:16 The high cost of drugs in the US has been reported time and time again to the extent that it is widely known. The disconnect between the public and their elected officials on this and other issues is what has turned this country into the equivalent of a banana republic.
DeleteThese two topics have nothing in common with each other. Why are they linked together here?
ReplyDelete"Martin Diaz came to the U.S. as a toddler, fleeing cartel violence. His family had proof of the danger—and hope for safety here. He married a U.S. citizen, and after years of waiting, their visa case finally moved forward.
ReplyDeleteDays later, ICE showed up at their Spokane home with no warrant, no ID, and no regard for the law. His wife wasn’t home, but a roommate filmed everything.
When he asked for badge numbers, agents said, “None of your business.” Then they assaulted Martin and dragged him away. Now ICE is charging him with assault. But the video tells the truth.
This is what ICE does—lie, escalate, and disappear people."
Watch the video: https://digbysblog.net/2025/05/12/amerika/
The words “With no real policy” belong in an opinion piece, not in a news article.
ReplyDeleteThe presence or absence of a policy is not a matter of opinion.
DeleteIt doesn’t say Trump doesn’t have a policy. It said he has no REAL policy. “Real policy” doesn’t have a clear, objective meaning. It’s an opinion, not a fact.
DeleteThe less real the policy, the less it is a matter of opinion. Journalists can be expected to know what a policy is when they see one.
DeleteEO's are not legally binding, so the context that Trump was just doing something performative is important and newsworthy.
DeleteThe Rude Pundit gets things right:
ReplyDelete"Stop Buying Republican Bullshit on Immigration: There Is No "Invasion"
The red lights flashing the word "pretext" were turned up to 100 in a presidential "proclamation" last week (if by "proclamation," you mean, "a steaming, stinking heap of buzzwords guaranteed to make the yahoos go dick-punching mad with rage"). "Over the last 4 years, the United States has endured a full-scale invasion of aliens entering and remaining in the country illegally, causing a relentless onslaught of crime, vagrancy, violence, and death in countless American communities," it says. This "lawless invasion" has apparently made it harder to get into a hospital or go to school.
Now, you, being a hopefully rational human or freakishly smart animal, might think, "Umm, isn't crime at historic lows?" And you'd be right. You might then question whether there is a "relentless onslaught" of anything but hard workers who commit crimes at a lower rate than the fucked-up Americans who are accusing them of committing crimes. In fact, even as the numbers of people crossing into this country at the southern border surged to record highs in the post-Covid era in the first couple of years of Joe Biden's presidency, the crime rate dropped, which, frankly, could be used to suggest that crime goes down when more migrants come here (I know that's not the reason, but I'm saying that the bullshit inferences politicians make can go both ways).
Meanwhile, Republicans are going completely bugfuck insane on deportations and lies about our immigration system. Today, President Trump himself shat into his Truth Toilet, "Our Country has been INVADED by 21,000,000 Illegal Aliens, many of whom are Murderers and Criminals of the Highest Order, and if we aren’t allowed to remove them because of a radicalized and incompetent Court System, the USA will quickly and violently become a CRIME RIDDEN THIRD WORLD NATION, NEVER TO SEE GREATNESS AGAIN." And then he went on to scream about winning the 2024 election and how that lets him do anything he wants, as if that's how the fucking government in this country works.
Meanwhile, the man who is no doubt the infected cockhole creating the racist deportation policy, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who looks like he brags about how he jacks off to videos of starving Palestinian children, makes Trump look like a model of rationality as he screams on various news shows about how much he loves "Americans," which means, you know, "white people." He gave away the game on the rhetoric being used by the White House and the rest of the Nazi right. "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion," Miller slurped lizardly. "So I would say that’s an action we’re actively looking at." And while the White House insists it's just for undocumented migrants, I'm mean, come the fuck on. Of course not. Of fucking course not.
See, that's the whole thing about the calculated use of "invasion." It's necessary to say that we are under some kind of coordinated attack in order to unleash the unchecked, unreviewable ability to simply jail, deport, kidnap, or, fuck it, murder anyone who gets in the way of the Christian nationalist takeover of the country, starting with the Alien Enemies Act and getting to martial law. And, no, I don't think I'm overstating it. I think with the arrest of Newark mayor Ras Baraka for trying to find out what the fuck is going on at an ICE facility in his own goddamn city, with the threats to arrest Democratic members of Congress who were there with him, and so much more, including the ongoing effort to disappear non-citizens who say things like "Israel shouldn't murder every Palestinian and take Gaza" (I mean, the war's end would limit Miller's spank bank), but I think with all that, I'm probably not freaking out enough, and I am freaked the fuck out..."
Cont.
Delete"What is encouraging about Democrats directly confronting the increasingly lawless actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs and their increasingly brazenly thuggish behavior is that it shows they are finally giving up on trying to stupidly appease Republicans on border policy. Simply put, there is no appeasing them without mass deportations and suspension of constitutional rights. It was stupid when Democrats shifted right with the proposed border deal that Trump got shitcanned last year, and it was stupid when they didn't counter Republican hysteria over every single individual crime committed by an undocumented person. Instead, they leaned into the shift in public opinion on immigration that the fearmongering had achieved and essentially gave credence to the GOP's lies in a moment when they should have said, "No, they are fucking liars."
Take just one thing that Trump, Miller, and the rest of the liars use: the supposed war being waged against this country by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Remember how they supposedly took over the town of Aurora, Colorado? And Fox "news" and its devolved descendant news outlets went berserker over the idea? Yeah, you know how many gang members local cops in Aurora found there? A dozen in a city of nearly 400,000 people. Either the 12 gang members had a fucking nuclear missile or everyone was lying. Oh, and Trump tried to say that the Venezuelan government was sending these highly-trained drug dealers in to overthrow the country. But a leaked intelligence memo said that was fucking bullshit, as if it ever made sense that the estimated 600 Tren de Aragua cartel members in the United States are an actual threat. Yes, I said, "600." You can arrest them, you know, and give them their habeas rights and then incarcerate them, like you would any other fucking criminals found guilty.
I will say it again: There is no invasion. And it's some punk-ass bullshit to act like there is one, like the United States can't handle a handful of criminals.
Last week, Andrea Flores of FWD.us addressed Senate Democrats and told them that it's time to stop ceding the border issue to Republican scare tactics, that being MAGA-lite lost them votes, and that they needed to come up with actual solutions, not just shit like limiting asylum. They need to come up with paths to citizenship, support for due process, and more. That also includes getting funding for immigration courts while opposing funding for the savage actions of ICE. Hopefully, it's a message Democrats take to heart because if you allow that the savages have a point, then you're pretty much a savage yourself.
Hell, I'd start hammering away on the most blatantly racist thing I've seen in a while: the quick approval of refugee status for white fucks from South Africa. That's literal white privilege. The refugee program was shut down for anyone who was a shade darker than eggshell. But, here we are, letting actual apartheid lovers jump the line. That's an easy story to make people appalled."
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2025/05/stop-buying-republican-bullshit-on.html
Instead of "stop ceding the border issue to Republican scare tactics," maybe the Dems should join Trump in his statutory duty to deport all the illegal immigrants. The wall is a winning issue for Trump. Dems would be more popular if they cooperated and supported the wall.
DeleteDiC, dude, man, your just another brick in the wall man. Give it the fuck up already. Get help. You will feel better.
Delete“ his statutory duty to deport all the illegal immigrants”
DeleteWhere do you get this idea that the President is required to deport every illegal immigrant?
The Executive Branch is responsible for enforcing the law. In our democracy, law enforcement people are not supposed to ignore their duties because they have sympathy or respect to the perps. It undermines representative democracy if government officials simply ignore laws that they don’t like.
Delete"It undermines representative democracy", like it's some common Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.
DeleteIf you wanted Biden to enforce border laws, you should have gifted him a 747.
DeleteThere are various forms of waivers, clemency and forgiveness available to illegal immigrants. There is no statute that says they must all without exception be deported.
Delete"It undermines representative democracy if government officials simply ignore laws that they don’t like."
DeleteI'm pleased to see you post such a satement, given your steadfast defense of Mr. Trump.
Deportation is not punishment, 2:01 AM. An illegal migrant can be completely forgiven and deported; there's no contradiction.
DeleteAnd this hypothetical illegal migrant can then apply for an entry (or immigration) visa, like everyone else.
This is known as "due process". You've heard about due process, right?
4:24 and 2:01,
DeleteContact your Congressional representatives, and ask them what they are doing to streamline immigration and make it easier to navigate.
Remember, this isn't sports, and you aren't just a spectator.
A person who is legally in the US and has a visa to remain or a greencard as a permanent resident, should not be sent to a third country where they have never lived and held there in a prison without any chance to present their evidence of the right to live in the USA. People like @4:24 don't seem willing to admit that this is happening, that the courts are forbidding it but Trump is doing it anyway. Citizens are being deported, which is against our Constitution.
DeleteIt's easy enough to navigate, 9:04 AM. If you can't navigate, stay home, in your village; moving across borders is not for you.
DeleteAnything that stops the whining from bigots about an immigration invasion is good enough for me, 11:58.
DeleteIf your business can't afford the taxes, and adhere to government regulations, shutdown and let someone with a better business plan (one that can afford to pay taxes and adhere to government regulations) enter the market.
DeleteCapitalism 101.
Pocketing the money you save not hiring lobbyists, is smart.
11;58,
DeleteHow easy was it for you to immigrate to the USA?|
In particular, how much time did it take, and how much did it cost you?
If your tax rates are so low, you can't afford to hire enough immigration lawyers to vet potential immigrants, maybe being a nation in this day and age isn't for you.
Delete
DeleteYes, Soros-bot, a nation in this day and age isn't for me. So, keep away, stay home, in your good nation with enough lawyers.
We voted to make the USA a shit hole country, that can't find good lawyers, Soros-bot.
DeleteAmericans live as ex-pats in many nations of the world. Increasingly, those other countries are tightening their borders and imposing stronger restrictions on who may apply for citizenship or residency. Some explicitly impose the same restraints on Americans and we do on their citizens seeking to move to the USA. This is kind of like the tariff war Trump has begun, where there is a tit-for-tat imposition of tariffs depending on what we impose on them.
DeleteClimate change is going to cause migration from the less habitable places to ones where agriculture is still possible and people can live without extreme weather or restrictive adaptations to heat and cold. We are already seeing that kind of travel within the US as the result of natural disasters and high prices for housing. The equivalent of state-by-state residency requirements may arise, even though our constitution protects the right to travel in the US. When that happens, we might want to rethink our attitudes toward immigrants.
If you, 12:56 PM, voted in American elections, then you're a criminal. Because no 18+ American citizen would spell "shit hole".
DeleteEntering the US improperly is a misdemeanor akin to a speeding ticket.
DeleteThe notion that our president should be involved in adjudicating every speeding ticket in the country is so ludicrous that someone arguing for the president to oversee deporting all undocumented people instantly loses all credibility.
Trump is underwater on immigration and with Hispanics. DiC has it backwards, Trump would be more popular if he was not trying to seem like the Gestapo.
Further, progressive policies are more popular than right wing/Republican policies, so Trump would be more popular if he supported things like Medicare for all, unions, and anti monopoly policies.
As it is, Trump is now the least popular president in modern times.
Speeding ticket is not a misdemeanor, Corby.
DeleteYou're a liar, Corby. And that's just the first line of your latest word-salad.
2:10,
DeleteCope, Soros-bot.
Watching white people throw temper tantrums, because they are getting totally out-classed by illegal immigrants in the job market, is hilarious.
DeleteIt seems silly to me for Somerby to be complaining about lack of coverage of school test scores when Trump has ordered the Dept of Education to be dissolved (they are the people who administer those big nationwide tests that measure educational progress in our schools). Further, curriculum is being upended by the mandated elimination of all DEI history, social studies, science etc., so teachers are unsure what they should be teaching any more. Some educators may rightfully fear that any test scores produced might be used by our racist government to eliminate participation in educational opportunities by minorities and female children.
ReplyDeleteSomerby used to use NAEP reporting to disparage efforts to decrease the performance gap between white and black students. How can we trust that he has childrens' interests at heart when he complains about lack of coverage of school performance during a time when education is in turmoil, along with everything else in our culture.
How many Hispanic children are afraid their parents may be disappeared by ICE? How can they do their best on a standardized test under those circumstances?