US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2333

On September 23 2015 11:48 Plansix wrote:

30 feet? Why is it even a balloon? Now you're suggesting we use balloons over poles? And the height is want makes things like drones work. Without it, it's a traffic camera.

On September 23 2015 14:53 IgnE wrote:


Very real possibility that the economy hits the shitter before elections.

On September 23 2015 16:15 IgnE wrote:
There are fewer mechanisms of control to prevent further bleeding this time. Bailouts are political suicide and you can't lower rates further than zero.

Not to mention that if the US economy stutters that means really bad things for the rest of the world. A not insignificant percentage of China's production capacity is not being used because the markets are saturated, and this is supposedly with a healthy global (read: US) economy.

Pope Francis wasted no time injecting politics into his visit to the White House on Wednesday, opening his remarks with a pointed reminder that the United States has a historical commitment to welcoming immigrants and following it with an exhortation to halt climate change.

"As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families,'' the pope said before a crowd of 11,000 on the South Lawn. "I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation.''

The 78-year-old pontiff also called for the protection of religious liberty while saying that American Catholics are "committed to building a society with is truly tolerant and inclusive.''

“With countless other people of good will, they are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty,” Francis said.

President Barack Obama also spoke about religious freedom, a topic that has come under more intense discussion in the U.S., in part because of debate about whether the legalization of same-sex marriage is unfair toward people of faith who disapprove of homosexuality, such as a Kentucky clerk recently jailed for five days for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Obama noted that Francis was a champion of religious liberty and took more of a global view about discrimination against Christians and other people of faith.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The company that sparked an angry backlash after it raised the price of a drug for treating a deadly parasitic infection by more than 5,000 percent says it will roll back some of the increase.

Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli told ABC News on Tuesday that the new price would make Daraprim more accessible, although he did not say what the new price for the drug would be. A spokesman for Turing did not immediately respond to a request for details.

"We've agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit," Shkreli told ABC.

The company obtained rights to sell the drug, the only U.S.-approved treatment for toxoplasmosis, in August. It hiked the price overnight from $13.50 per pill to $750.

Turing had said it would use profits to improve the drug's formulation and develop new, better drugs for the infection. It also stressed that some patients can get financial aid from the company to obtain the drug.

But the price hike sparked outrage from medical groups representing doctors who care for patients with HIV and other infectious diseases, because Daraprim treats patients with compromised immune systems.

On September 23 2015 16:15 IgnE wrote:
There are fewer mechanisms of control to prevent further bleeding this time. Bailouts are political suicide and you can't lower rates further than zero.

Not to mention that if the US economy stutters that means really bad things for the rest of the world. A not insignificant percentage of China's production capacity is not being used because the markets are saturated, and this is supposedly with a healthy global (read: US) economy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has recovered emails from a private server used by Hillary Clinton while secretary of state that she said were deleted because they involved personal matters, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the investigation.
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The FBI is examining the server to see whether any information, including classified data, was mishandled. Bloomberg quoted its source as saying the investigation would take at least several more months.

It was not clear how many of the personal emails had been recovered, the news agency said.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill, asked about the report, said: "We've cooperated to date and will continue to do so, including answering any questions about this that anyone including the public may have."

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Clinton's use of her private email for her work as America's top diplomat came to light in March and drew fire from political opponents who accused the Democratic presidential front-runner of sidestepping transparency and record-keeping laws.

The controversy has cut into Clinton's lead in the race for the Democratic nomination for the November 2016 election.

Clinton has apologized for using a private server rather than the government system but has said she sent no information by email that was classified at the time and received no material marked that way.

Last December, she provided what she said were copies of all the work emails she had in her possession, nearly two years after she stepped down as secretary of state.

She handed over about 30,000 emails she sent and received, although her staff have since acknowledged that some work emails are missing. She did not hand over another 30,000 emails from the period that she deemed personal and said she chose "not to keep."

The company that managed Clinton's private email server said it had "no knowledge of the server being wiped," indicating that tens of thousands of emails Clinton said were deleted could be recovered, the Washington Post reported earlier this month.

The State Department has been releasing the emails to the public in keeping with Clinton's request after redacting parts of them to remove sensitive or classified information.

On September 24 2015 03:12 GreenHorizons wrote:


Considering the pill costs about $1 per pill to make $13.50 should be more than enough to turn a profit.

What happened is some spoiled shit hedgefund guy saw an opportunity to exploit a group of people and he took it without an ounce of shame. He sat on an interview and acted like he wasn't doing anything wrong because in his head he wasn't. Just the free market working it's magic.

He pretty well summed up much of what is wrong with the pharmaceutical industry and "the invisible hand".

On September 24 2015 02:14 Plansix wrote:
I love who the Hilary Email story has so little meat to it that every report is about them "finding more emails". Not the content or if they did anything bad. Or that they were released to scary terrorist. Just that they found another one.

Call me when someone charges her with anything.

A Florida Atlantic University Poll released Wednesday shows Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio leading former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the Sunshine State’s GOP presidential primary, The Sun Sentinel reports.

Rubio is in second place in the poll with 19.2 percent, while Bush is in third place with 11.3 percent. New York businessmen and Palm Beach resort owner Donald Trump is in first with 31.5 percent. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.2 percentage points.

Tampa Bay Times Political editor Adam Smith points out that Florida’s winner-take-all primary — meaning that all 100 delegates will go to the winner, rather than being divided among the top finishers — could hurt Bush. Many GOP political consultants early on believed that Rubio would never run for the presidency if his mentor Bush did so the state primary became winner-take-all.