How the sausage is made: PhRMA, Billy Tauzin and the Baucus Bill

By Dan Brooks in health care, health insurance reform, obama, representative democracy 4 Comments
Former LA representative Billy Tauzin, who became the head of PhRMA the same day he left Congress

Former LA representative Billy Tauzin, who became the head of PhRMA the same day he left Congress

Since July, rumors have circulated that representatives of PhRMA—Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry’s trade group and lobbying machine—were meeting with President Obama to discuss potential pharmaceutical pricing regulations in health care reform. Back in 1994, when Clinton tried to overhaul the health care system, PhRMA was instrumental in blocking reform and funding a subsequent Republican resurgence in Congress that, among other services to the nation, forced the President to admit to getting a blowjob from a fat girl on television.* The drug industry is one of the largest sources of lobbying money in Congress, and their opposition to Medicare price negotiations has been vigorous and longstanding. During the 2008 campaign, Obama cited such negotiations, along with the importation of inexpensive prescription drugs from Canada, as a major objective of his reform plan. Now, however, a deal has been struck, Medicare negotiations are off the table, and PhRMA has invested $150 million in advertisements supporting the Baucus bill.

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A little perspective on this socialism thing

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 3 Comments
Oh, Internet. Will your trenchant political commentary ever cease?

Oh, Internet. Will your trenchant political commentary never cease?

First of all, whoever Photoshopped the popular web meme on the left to create the much-more-popular-with-me web meme on the right is a genius—in that he has repurposed a brutally stupid image in order to indict brutality—and less than a genius in that he seems to have been unable to match one of the world’s most common fonts. Good work anyway, dude. Second of all, “socialism” is rapidly overtaking “love” on the list of words most terribly abused by contemporary discourse. Accusations of socialism have dogged the Obama administration, whose decisions to take ownership stakes in GM, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have outraged Republicans, who believe the federal government should only have ownership stakes in, um, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The GOP isn’t the only powerful voting bloc that’s concerned. Among retards, socialism has become synonymous with totalitarian government, as one attendee at congressman Brian Baird’s health care town hall reminds us. “The Nazis were the National Socialist Party,” he says. “They were leftists.”

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The Summer of Hate: Counterculture in 2009

By Dan Brooks in counterculture, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, inevitability of death, oppositional culture, populism, representative democracy, subculture, the crank factor, town hall meetings, town hall protests, widespread dumbening 4 Comments
Apparently if you go Hot Topic it's all Glenn Beck CDs and copies of The Wealth of Nations now.

Apparently if you go to Hot Topic it's all Glenn Beck CDs and copies of The Wealth of Nations now.

I was going to be angry about these kids, but one look at the profoundly sixteen-year-old-girl expression on that sixteen-year-old girl’s face and I didn’t have the heart. (If you’d like to get real sad, you can read a blog written by that poor girl’s mother, in which she calls Barbara Boxer a “moronic twit.” The badge on the right side indicates that she’s made the list of “best conservative blogs on the net,” which is apparently determined by total word count.) That’s her boyfriend on the left, proving again that teenage boys will do anything under certain conditions. And what are these desperate youths and the ragtag band behind them protesting for? Lower taxes on the rich, reduced social services, deregulation of business and conservative fiscal policy.

To hear Frank Rich tell it, protests like these are harbingers of a new era of cultural and political upheaval. Last weekend was the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, which television raised me to believe was the most important moment of the 20th century. It turns out that was all to promote The Wonder Years, though, because this year’s commemoration was overshadowed by the season premiere of Mad Men. First of all, if you don’t watch Mad Men, you should start immediately. It is the Cadillac of television shows, or the Combat! blog of television shows in that Frank Rich and I agree with it more than anyone else in America. Second of all, Frank Rich is right. The year that resonates with our present cultural moment isn’t 1969; it’s 1963.

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