About drug prices & MAGA propaganda tactics

A NYT article, Trump Moves to Crack Down on Drug Advertising, talks about djt talking about limiting drug ads on TV, as was the case in the 1990s. Chances of that happening are low, maybe ~2% in the next 18 months. It would be wonderful to not be carpet bombed by drug ads on broadcast TV, but there's just too damned much money in it for everyone involved. People involved in carpet bombing us with obnoxious drug ads will purchase enough $TRUMP meme coin, donate to his presidential library, give him a huge jet airplane, and/or otherwise bribe djt into dropping this idea. The idea is very likely DOA, i.e., dead on arrival. 

The NYT included some comments by Dr. Brainworm (RFK Jr). “Pharmaceutical ads hooked this country on prescription drugs. We will shut down that pipeline of deception and require drug companies to disclose all critical safety facts in their advertising.” Interest. Brainworm called the TV ads deceptive.

Something about this smells fishy. 

Last June, a post here focused on djt telling us he was gonna drop drug prices in the US to match the lowest price anywhere in the world. The prediction there was that affected drug companies and other special interests would quietly bribe their way out of the problem. Since it's been three months since djt's last blast of propaganda about drugs, I asked Comet (the agentic part of Pxy) for an update on how well djt's "effort" to drop US drug prices is proceeding. The answer is exactly as expected, it ain't gonna happen. Maybe the real "effort" here is to coerce money out of affected special interests like wealthy drug companies.

Q: This blog post from last June, https://dispol.blogspot.com/2025/06/thinking-about-how-politics-is-done.html, discussed Trump promising to drop drug prices in the US. Has that happened yet, or has the idea quietly died after sufficient bribery (free speech) of Trump got him to drop the idea? (error reduction instructions added here)

A: Trump's Drug Price Promises: Status Assessment as of September 10, 2025

Current Timeline and Promises

Sources indicate that Trump signed an executive order on May 12, 2025, titled "Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients". On July 30, 2025, he sent letters to 17 major pharmaceutical companies demanding they lower U.S. prices to match international rates, setting a September 29, 2025 deadline for "binding commitments".

Industry response 

Industry-Wide Spending (Entire Pharmaceutical/Health Products Sector):

• Q1 2025: $121.4 million

• Q2 2025: $105.4 million

First Half 2025 Total: $226.8 million. The pharmaceutical industry has significantly increased lobbying expenditures, spending a record $227 million in the first half of 2025, with the industry on pace to easily surpass its all-time high of $388 million for 2024.

Implementation Challenges

Legal experts note significant enforcement limitations. The administration's demands amount to a request that drug companies act voluntarily because there is limited** clear legal authority to enforce price reductions. Trump's previous 2020 attempt at Most Favored Nation pricing was blocked by federal courts due to procedural failures.

** I think limited legal authority means no legal authority.

Corporate Influence Dynamics
Major pharmaceutical companies contributed substantially to Trump's inauguration, including Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead, and Bayer (each $1 million), with Eli Lilly contributing $500,000. PhRMA contributed $1 million despite later opposing Trump's drug pricing executive order. Industry access continues through Mar-a-Lago meetings.

Recent Developments
As of September 9, 2025, Trump's most recent drug-related action focused on pharmaceutical advertising rather than pricing, signing a memorandum to crack down on direct-to-consumer drug advertisements. This represents a shift from core pricing issues to peripheral regulatory matters.

Assessment of Promise Status
Promises Made: Trump has claimed drug price reductions of "50 to 80 or 90%" would occur "almost immediately" and has demanded companies provide "binding commitments" by September 29, 2025.

Current Reality: The September 29 deadline has not yet passed. Limited evidence suggests minimal company compliance beyond preliminary discussions. The administration has shifted focus to advertising restrictions rather than direct price controls.

Q2: In view of all current evidence in the public record about Trump and MAGA politics, estimate how much money will need to flow from affected parties to Trump before he quietly drops the idea of decreasing drug prices.

A2: .... long analysis ....

FINAL ASSESSMENT 

Based on available evidence, a coordinated pharmaceutical industry effort in the range of $100-300 million across multiple funding channels over 6-12 months would likely be sufficient to secure a quiet abandonment of Trump's drug pricing initiatives. However, this estimate carries substantial uncertainty due to the unpredictable nature of Trump's decision-making and the complex political dynamics surrounding healthcare policy.

Critical limitations: This analysis cannot account for external factors, public pressure, or Trump's personal motivations beyond documented financial patterns.

Q3: So, given Q1 and Q2 spending of $226.8 million, the pharmaceutical industry may have already purchased relief from Trump's threat of drug price decreases?

A3: .... moderate analysis ....

Conclusion 

The pharmaceutical industry's substantial lobbying investment appears to have successfully purchased policy moderation. While Trump maintains rhetorical pressure, the policy trajectory suggests meaningful drug price reductions are unlikely to materialize, consistent with his established pattern of accommodating major donors while preserving populist messaging. The $226.8 million may indeed represent a successful "insurance premium" against serious drug pricing reform.

That analysis makes sense. Shifting his rhetoric from drug prices to TV ads helps the public forget about djt's original drug price drop promise. That's a nice deflection tactic. Good 'ole dark free speech.

The Epstein saga; The Israel-Palestine saga; MAGA's Authoritarianism creep

The NYT and lots of others report that the House Oversight Committee released some files turned over by Epstein’s estate. The release includes a copy of a sex note that djt wrote to Jeff. 

As expected for an embarrassment like this, the White House denies that it is a letter from djt. His letter to Jeff was in a book for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. It shows an imagined conversation between the two. In typical MAGA style, press secretary and shameless liar Karoline Leavitt claims the Wall Street Journal article "PROVES this entire 'Birthday Card' story is false". 

Once again, MAGA elites tell us that direct evidence of MAGA sleaze proves the sleaze is non-existent. By now, that is standard operating procedure for MAGA demagogues.

Last July, July, Vance dismissed the letter's alleged existence as "complete and utter bullshit," questioning its authenticity and asking "Where is this letter?" In response to Vance's question about the letter, Gavin Newsom snarkily commented "That aged well".

This Epstein thing has remarkable staying power. Quite unexpected.

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In a NYT opinion, Michelle Goldberg seems to tentatively reach the same conclusions about Israel-Palestine and the two-state solution that two authors assert in their new book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. Goldber's opinion is entitled, These Peace Negotiators Say It’s Time to Give Up on the Two-State Solution. The author's conclusions are that (1) the possibility of any two-state solution has vanished, (2) it may have always been a futile goal, and (3) two state had no chance of succeeding while the United States refused to exert significant pressure on Israel.

The first two of those conclusions seemed pretty obvious in Nov. 1995 after Rabin's assassination by an Israeli Zionist zealot with a gun. By then decades of peace talks and negotiations had failed. In the last year or two, there has been a trickle of observers who have come to at least the first two conclusions. 

The third conclusion, US pressure was necessary but never came, raises a matter of profound moral significance. If it was up to the US to force the parties into a two-state solution and the US failed, what does that say about the two sides? They could have voluntarily come to an agreement on their own, but they did not. Staunch Israel supporters will blame the Palestinian people and terrorists. The Palestinians will blame the Israeli government and Israelis. At this point, the bitter disagreements and bloodshed will not end until the Palestinian side is crushed into complete submission. But it is a fact, or close to it, that the possibility of a two-state solution has vanished.

Goldberg asserts what is arguably obvious and undeniable:

I’m the sort of person [the authors] refer to in their book, someone who has lost faith that there will ever be a Palestinian state but can’t envision a workable, tolerable alternative. Israel is not going to dismantle itself.

Yup, Israel is not going to dismantle itself. A tolerable alternative is not on the horizon. Diplomacy failed. Brute force won.

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In some ways, embodied authoritarianism is like any other embodied ideal or ideology. Groups and institutions built around an ideology like MAGA's sacred kleptocratic authoritarianism can (usually do?) undergo mission creep if they can do so. When it happens, it almost always comes with an attendant expansion of scope and power. An example is the expansion of MAGA authoritarianism built on the ideal of illegal immigration as a fearsome enemy. Base human sentiments of intense bigotry and blatant racism mostly power the growth of this strand of MAGA authoritarianism.

The American Prospect reports that the DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) is now claiming that bystanders who videotape ICE agents and raids on targeted people and locations constitutes violence. Elite MAGA thugs and ICE agents use that expanded definition of violence to justify assaults on journalists who have documented detentions of allegedly illegal immigrants. ICE arrests and disappearances is happening on streets, workplaces, and courtrooms. ICE arrests and detentions now routinely occur without due process. DHS brazenly claims that recording such illegal activity is an act of “violence” and will be dealt with accordingly. 

According to the TAP article, last July MAGA DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that violence is "anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they're at." A DHS spokesperson also commented: "We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law." That videotaping 

This is an example of MAGA authoritarianism sweeping aside constitutional rights, e.g., the 1st Amendment guarantee of a right to criticize and report government abuse. This is what American authoritarian mission creep looks like as it kills democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.

MAGA updates: Racism in immigration policy; Stupidity in economic policy; Our plodding MSM

MAGA racism: Along with lots of others, the AP reports that our MAGA USSC has allowed djt to sic his federal law enforcement thugs on anyone in Los Angeles who looks Hispanic or speaks Spanish. All they have to do is look at someone and stop 'em and box 'em up based only on their looks or language. As is now usual for our morally rotted, authoritarian, kleptocratic USSC, this decision wasn't explained. This was another of the MAGA court’s morally rotted shadow docket.

One of the people MAGA's cruelty roughed up commented: “I was treated like I didn’t matter – locked up, cold, hungry, and without a lawyer. Now, the Supreme Court says that’s okay? That’s not justice. That’s racism with a badge. The system failed us today, but I’m not staying silent.”

As usual for our crappy MSM, the knucklehead reporters on this reporting Jaimie Ding, Amy Taxin and Mark Sherman got two huge items that ~98% of the MSM gets wrong ~98% of the time. First, they incorrectly called MAGA authoritarianism "conservatism". Dumb fucks. Second, they referred to the USSC decision as "the latest victory for President Donald Trump’s administration at the high court". Instead this bullshit is far more accurately a matter of being "the latest USSC blow to democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties". Idiots. FWIW, I emailed a poison dart to those three boobs, pointing out their ghastly errors. 

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This and other sources are reporting that djt and his MAGA secretary of treasury Scott Bessent are in frantic hair-on-fire mode to get the USSC to reverse a lower court decision that most of djt's stupid, economically damaging tariffs are illegal. The appeals court issued its decision on August 29, 2025. This is another of those fake emergencies that MAGA liars love to claim. Claiming an "emergency" gives the USSC cover to do dirty dictator deeds while being shielded by the secrecy the USSC's sleazy shadow docket affords. The appeals court ruling is that djt's reliance on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to support his tariffs are illegal. The MAGA lie is that unless the USSC reverses the lower court, America will be on the brink of economic catastrophe and devastation.

In his Supreme Court petition, djt said hat reversing tariffs "would be a disaster" and could make America "a third-world country". Oh my! This sounds serious. 😟 . . . . . But it's not. 🙃

This is also another example of djt and his MAGA elites doing stupid, damaging things and then cynically complaining that things are broken, with an emergency fix being needed. Endless lies. By now, it is routine for djt and MAGA elites to create a destructive cycle of implementing bad, harmful policies, then using the inevitable negative consequences to justify further harmful authoritarian measures. MAGA's Cycle of Stupid often includes claims of victimization for whoever might plausibly be victimized, whether it's true or not. A Yale Budget Lab analysis reveals MAGA's cycle: tariffs cause significant economic harm when implemented (reducing GDP by 0.4% long-term, costing households $2,300 annually), but their reversal also creates substantial disruption. Even with djt's illegal tariffs removed, the economy would still face unemployment increases of 0.3-0.5 percentage points and GDP losses equivalent to $25 billion annually.

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A NYT opinion by Ezra Klein (not paywalled), Stop Acting Like This Is Normal, is another blast by a MSM person gone woke about who and what djt and MAGA elites are. Ezra figured it out. Attaboy.

Klein argues that none of the three the reasons the Dems gave for supporting the MAGA spending bill last March to prevent a government shutdown applies now. The reasons were (1) the courts were stopping djt and Schumer didn't want djt to use a shutdown as an excuse to shut the courts down, (2) a shutdown would empower DOGE to gut the executive branch faster, and (3) markets were in chaos despite promises of stability and growth. If those really were the Dem's reasons to keep funding the government, they seem weak at best, but mostly wrong. Klein argues a 4th reason was apparently not on the Dems radar screen, namely they weren't prepared to explain a shutdown and articulate their vision. That sounds right. It still sounds right.

Klein argues the original three reasons no longer apply and the Dems have no choice but to let the government shut down. He puts his new woke mindset like this:

But something else has changed, too. We are no longer in the muzzle velocity stage of this presidency. We are in the authoritarian consolidation stage of this presidency.

I want to be very clear about what I am saying here. Donald Trump is corrupting the government — he is using it to hound his enemies, to line his pockets and to entrench his own power. He is corrupting it the way the Mafia would corrupt the industries it controlled.

So there we have it, another rare convert in the MSM actually used the word authoritarian. Klein gets it, reluctantly. He could have also used the label kleptocratic but didn't. 

What about Klein's argument that the Dems need to let the government shout down in the near future? That's probably more right than wrong. That's the case even if the Dems still suck at messaging. They probably still can't effectively articulate what they are and would do differently. But that's all we've got, so that's what we have to go with. 

A peanut commented: Even if the Dems pick this battle, there's no guarantee that they'll win. The GOP's messaging ecosystem vastly outpowers theirs. But if they're too afraid to even pick this battle out of fear of losing and facing a blowback, then real questions need to be asked if they're even an opposition party worth trusting, or just a controlled opposition serving the same masters. And it probably will directly have a bearing on the voter enthusiasm for the Dems in the midterms. 

The continuing saga of Pxy problems

The deep dives into Amy Coney Barrett and her judging record yesterday and this morning continued to show weaknesses and slop in AI outputs.

Q9: Pxy, you're making waaay too many mistakes this morning. Get some coffee and wake up.

A9: You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the repeated verification errors. I've been sloppy with quotations, citations, and basic fact-checking this morning - exactly the kind of mistakes that undermine credibility and violate the verification protocols I'm supposed to follow.

.... blither .....

I'll slow down and be more methodical with sourcing and citations from here on. [Huh??]

Q10: "I'll slow down and be more methodical with sourcing and citations from here on." Can you actually do that, or is what you are doing baked into how you normally operate?

A10: You're asking a really important question about whether I can actually change my behavior or if these verification errors are just how I'm designed to operate. 

.... blither ..... 

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. [Geez, that's not very reassuring 🙁] The verification protocol exists precisely because there's something in my normal operation that tends toward these kinds of errors - fabricating quotes, misattributing sources, conflating paraphrases with direct citations. The fact that I keep making these mistakes despite having explicit instructions not to suggests it might be more "baked in" than I'd like to admit.

Pxy ends with this "yes but no" incoherence: What I can commit to is being more transparent when I'm uncertain about sources and being more willing to say "I cannot verify this claim" rather than presenting unverified information as fact. But you're right to be skeptical about whether I can fundamentally change how I operate.

I'm skeptical. One has got to stay vigilant about fact checking AI.

Germaine & Pxy engaging in knowledge