I’m getting as much done early as I can, because I expect a very busy day. Sometime this afternoon my interim prosthetic leg will arrive. I will use it for about six months, shrink out of it, and have a new cup made. Today I will take my first baby steps on two feet. I also expect visits from PT and OT. OT plans to help me use the shower. I’ll just have to suffer through that. 
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 2014 there was a huge increase in sexually transmitted diseases in the United States.
The CDC estimates that nearly 20 million new STD infections happen each year in the U.S., with the majority affecting 15 to 24-year-olds.
Reports of gonorrhea and syphilis also increased in 2014. There was a 2.8% increase in chlamydia since 2013, and reports of syphilis, which has three stages, increased for the most infectious stages of the disease by 15.1%.
One of the reasons for this rise in STDs is the war being waged on public health in this country over the last couple of decades.
The increase in STDs is in many ways a result of cuts in funding to public health clinics, Gail Bolan, director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, told NBC.
“Most recently, there have been significant erosions of state and local STD control programs,” Bolan said. “Most people don’t recognize that the direct clinical care of individuals with sexually transmitted diseases is supported by state and local funds and federal funds.”
This leads to men and women not getting tested and treated early, before further infections occur. As the CDC report notes, it’s not particularly economic to cut our public health and then have to pay it out on the other end.
This is a direct result of the Republican sequester. Thanks, Republicans!
From The New Yorker: In an announcement on Monday morning, Pfizer, the big drug company, whose headquarters are on East 42nd Street, in Manhattan, said that it is merging with one of its competitors, Allergan PLC. Ian Read, a Scottish-born accountant who is Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive, said that the proposed deal, which is valued at a hundred and sixty billion dollars, would “create a leading global pharmaceutical company with the strength to research, discover and deliver more medicines and therapies to more people around the world.”
On Wall Street and in the world of big pharma, that statement will raise chuckles. It is widely acknowledged that the primary impetus for the deal is a financial one. In merging with Allergan, which is based in Dublin, Pfizer intends to move its corporate residency to Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is just 12.5 per cent, compared to thirty-five per cent for a company of its size in the United States. Over the next few years, the merger could save Pfizer billions of dollars in taxes and deprive the U.S. Treasury of the same amount.
Tax-driven deals of this nature are known as “inversions,” and they are becoming increasingly common. Burger King, Liberty Global, and Medtronic are among the U.S. corporations to have carried out mergers that moved their headquarters abroad. Last year, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that inversions were “wrong,” and that he would try and restrict them. Only last week, the Treasury Department issued some new administrative guidelines in this area. Without actual legislation, though, there isn’t very much the Obama Administration can do to prevent these exercises in corporate tax-dodging, and Republicans on Capitol Hill have displayed little eagerness to coöperate in a crackdown.
It’s simple. If a company wants to do business in our marketplace, they should have to pay taxes here. To make this happen we must flush the Republican Party.
From NY Times: For more than a year, a rare coalition of liberal groups and libertarian-minded conservatives has joined the Obama administration in pushing for the most significant liberalization of America’s criminal justice laws since the beginning of the drug war. That effort has had perhaps no ally more important than Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by a pair of brothers who are well-known conservative billionaires.
Now, as Congress works to turn those goals into legislation, that joint effort is facing its most significant test — over a House bill that Koch Industries says would make the criminal justice system fairer, but that the Justice Department says would make it significantly harder to prosecute corporate polluters, producers of tainted food and other white-collar criminals.
The tension among the unlikely allies emerged over the last week as the House Judiciary Committee, with bipartisan support, approved a package of bills intended to simplify the criminal code and reduce unnecessarily severe sentences.
This makes it crystal clear that Republicans really don’t give a damn about sentencing reform. They’re just using it to mask protecting big corporate criminals from responsibility for their crimes.
Cartoon:
8 Responses to “On the Edge–11/25/2015”
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Glad you've got that shower planned for after building up the sweat from your first walk in awhile.
I think the CDC also has some data showing how abstinance only sex education contributed to this result which should horrify all who care about health and people at all.
And increasing drug profits is among the TPP horrors as well–one industry that needs some reigning in badly.
Should have known the Kochs had their hand in what was gumming up the works opposite of intent of the bipartisan legislation for criminal justice reform. What criminal sentences do they know they should have to serve?
Cross posted to Care2 at:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/527046926/3930425
Thanks for the crosspost.
It sounds like it will be a good day (if tiring). I hope that comes true!!
DKos – I don't know how old the saying "Penny wise and pound foolish" is – it obviously predates the American Revolution, but is probably much older – but, whenever it was new, there must have been Republicans.
New Yorker – This one is particularly difficult to restrict. The classic inversion is when the US company buys the foreign company and "moves its headquarters" to the subsidiary. But this time, the Irish company Allergan, is "buying" Pfizer – on paper – though Pfizer is lots bigger and worth much more. We don't have a lot of authority over Allergan.
NY Times – I know I said this, but it bears repeating, this is like resurrecting "benefit of clergy" but to apply it only to the worship of Mammon. The wealthy do consider themselves "more equal" than others. How far can it go? (I also note the timing of this is interesting, coming, as it does, just as Exxon has been caught lying for decades.)
I am sure I am not the only one who got the email, voiced by a 36 year old who plans to vote for the first time in 2016: "As a fast-food worker, I felt that no one listened to me – that the deck was stacked in favor of big companies like McDonald's, where I work." All the accomplishments of unions have been forgotten and/or demonized and so people are just too discouraged to register, let alone vote. No turnout program is going to get around this.
I just read that outgoing Democratic Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear just re-enfranchised 180,000 former felons with the stroke of a pen. I hope it has an effect.
Cartoon – Sure looks good.
This is why I love Gov. Beshear. However, the governor elect, Matt Bevin thinks he may overturn this when he takes office. Republican, of course.
I hope you have a strenuous but good day today, TomCat! At your age chances are there wasn't anyone around to make a picture/video of your first baby steps, so make sure you have your phone/tablet with you so you can ask someone to take one now you're getting a second chance at a "first step".
Daily Kos: STD's are on the rise in many countries, but there it's not caused so much by financial cuts as by the fear of getting HIV infected decreasing year by year and the number of people having unprotected sex increasing. I would like to see some global figures on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if America's rise in STD cases was mainly caused by Republican sequester. If Planned Parenthood is de-budgetted, you can expect another sharp rise in STDs.
The New Yorker: With this merger Pfizer/Allergan will become the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world and will dictate/dominate the global market. It isn't just about paying taxes, it is also about being able to ask whatever they like for their drugs and about the power to buy out any competition. No company should be allowed to become so big.
NY Times: Anything that involves the Koch brothers and their ilk comes with strings attached. It's been like that for a long time now, so Obama and the Democrats could and should have known this was coming. I hate to say it, but perhaps they did.
Cartoon: Agreed!
I hope your day went well, you have a lot learn but we know you will do it.
Daily Kos: This also shows how well the " abstinence only" sex education does not work. The Republicans seem far more interested in citizens sexuality than they do in running the country properly.
The New Yorker: Inversions will continue as long as we have a Republican controlled Congress.
NY Times: If the Koch Brothers are advocates of this, then the rest of us need to be against it. They all ready spend millions to buy our government. They will receive something from this or they would not be sponsoring.
Thanks all. I'm in rush mode.
Wow! On two limbs! That will be GREAT. Glad you are progressing so FAST! It seems like it has been a long time, but for what you have been thru, buddy you are FLYING!
As for the rest of the post, I am TERRIFIED of Big Pharma and this just makes it GARGANTUAN Pharma!
Koch needs a kock-block out on them and their ideas of "fair"!!!!! They wouldn't know FAIR if if it hit them in the SCHNOZZ!!! They make me sick and there is a "Koch Industries" plant close to where I live. Ugh!!!
Buddy, I hope you have plenty of Thanksgiving pie and turkey. I know being in the hospital is a bummer, but take it from me, ya ain't missing nothing here but an ice storm. We can't go anywhere and the stores are too far away. So it's jus me and my old man, both of us feeling crappy from the ice. Can't even get our dogs out to do their bidniss! It's gonna be a fun night! Love ya, TC! Have a more fun than me!