by John Walters
Starting Five
Let’s Begin The Day With A Tweet From The Most Powerful Man In The World Attacking A Woman’s Looks
Take. Twitter. From. Him. pic.twitter.com/zthEW0h4Pq
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 29, 2017
You have to credit the growth that Donald Trump has made in just two years. In the summer of 2015 he accused another attractive blonde anchor, Megyn Kelly, of bleeding “from wherever.” At least now he is more detailed.
But seriously it’s great to see Melania’s cyberbullying initiative is off to an amazing start.
— Slade Sohmer (@Slade) June 29, 2017
Loved this one, too:
Wait. I thought “Infrastructure Week” was *last* week… https://t.co/wrnCnl4fRP
— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) June 29, 2017
Mika had the last word…
— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) June 29, 2017
2. Only Her Alibi Is Bulletproof
I guess you can say he ghosted her…
Pedro Ruiz, 22, wanted to shoot a video that would truly go viral, so he told his baby momma to shoot him——or at least to shoot the book that he was holding in front of his chest. Monalisa Perez did just that, and now she’s in jail for second-degree manslaughter.
Worse, the video has not been posted to YouTube.
I’m waiting to see which outlet will be the first to report the title of the book. I’m hoping it’s The Darwin Awards.
3. She’s Always “Right”
CNBC is not posting the video on its site, but yesterday afternoon co-host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera had quite the contentious back-and-forth on health care costs with a guest, Steve Brill (a Yale-educated lawyer who has written an acclaimed book on health-care costs). The gist: Brill suggested that our government’s complete free market allows big pharma to extort patients in need of drugs and that we should copy European plans to set price controls. MCC’s harsh reaction: Shame on you for suggesting that any company’s profits should be subject to price controls.
I watched all of this from my rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper West Side.
4. We’re On To Martha’s Vineyard…
“Oh, honey, I think it would be fun!”
“(Inaudible grumbling)”
Bill Belichick, serial winner of Super Bowls, and his girlfriend Linda Holliday posed for a photo shoot that will appear in N magazine (Nantucket) that comes out this week.
5. (Start Shooting At) My Fellow Americans*
*The judges will also accept “Arresting Bitch Face”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDa3FgEcpCk
The woman in this video, Dana Loesch, is an on-air host at The Blaze.
Music 101
Hotline
Let’s celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone today by playing this anachronistic video about a dude phoning his girlfriend on a public phone. The Sylvers, a Jackson 5-lite band, had a Top 5 hit in 1976 with this neo-disco tune.
A Word, Please
Mendicant (noun)
Beggar (So why don’t you just say ‘beggar?’ Shush!)
JW –
It’s a curious (and if done correctly, extremely fascinating) capitalism discussion/debate when it comes to Rx companies. On one hand, I believe in pure capitalism – especially the tenet that of supply and demand dictating pricing. But, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem “fair” that a Shkreli would send the price of a vital and widely used medication into the stratosphere.
It makes sense that there’d be patents on new Rx’s – those help protect intellectual property. Without it, there’s substantially less incentive to be innovative or the first to develop a groundbreaking medical treatment. But the same patents that protect the innovators from knock-offs, also allow for the artificial inflation of prices.
What is the government to do here, then? Put pricing controls on Rx’s? Wouldn’t that lead to less motivation to be innovative? Should the gov’t provide subsidies to the Rx companies? If so, where do the funds come from? (As an aside, I’d suggest spending less on foreign aid – why pay for friends/allies when we’re borrowing money to keep the gov’t afloat? Doesn’t make sense to me to lend borrowed money on which we’re paying interest.)
All that to say, I do not think it’s as cut and dry as anyone portrays.
How does the rent-controlled apartments work? It sounds like the landlords could charge much more than you’re paying. Who sets the price? It doesn’t quite seem like a direct apples-to-apples comparison to Rx patents, though. How old is your building? If it’s more than 20-30 years old, has it been renovated recently? Did the builders receive subsidies or tax abatement to build it?
Perhaps the trade off on the price control on Rx/healthcare is some sort of tax cut? That brings less into the gov’t coffers, and ultimately adds to the debt, or cause the gov’t to find funding elsewhere (i.e. raising taxes somewhere else). Would Rx companies equate the tax cut in exchange for price controls as fair?
Every SINGLE DAMN DAY it’s another national embarrassment that this morbidly obese SOCIOPATH is OCCUPYING the White House. And what I truly think of his “wife”, I cannot write here or you’d block me, but let’s just say I will NEVER believe than any woman alive with eyes & a sense of smell could actually love that piece of shit or even have ‘sexual relations’ unless paid. On the table or electronically wired…
I detest MCC. A few years ago when Becky went on maternity leave, that woman filled in as a substitute host on Squawk Box. I was so disgusted & irate every morning before I went off to work, I had to stop watching until Becky returned. She attempts to appear intelligent & knowledgeable but comes off as an obnoxious, overbearing EXTREME Rightwing blowhard. Once I started watching Mike & Mike in the fall of 2011, my viewing of CNBC in the morning has lessened these past 6 years to almost nil. However, I did happen to click over this morning & damn, there she was again. Anyhoo, the one thing I did see/hear this morning on that show is that apparently the Neo-Nazis in Congress want to make it even LESS desirable to save for one’s retirement. Unfuckingbelievable! The median retirement savings level in this country is at CRISIS level NOW!
Speaking of retirement, do you ever run those Retirement Calculators to see how you’re doing? I did two of them this morning. One said I’ll have $10 million at age 95 (HAHAHAHAHAHA, so far off it’s hysterical!), & the other said I’d be flat broke at 98. That latter is most disheartening as at age 6, I made my 1st “life goal”, which was to live to 100. 🙂 🙂
Leave it to 538 to ruin the Summer of Judge for you, John: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-mlbs-new-home-run-era-its-the-baseballs-that-are-juicing/