cogman @ cogman @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Yes, I suspected that distrust in doctors and vaccines (re: needles) is a big part of the reason for the uptick. Bicillin is a butt shot rather than a pill and it requires several dosages over time to be effective. I'm sure the doctors office charges $100 for the wellness checkup on each visit. (and $100 for the $0.10 shot)

That said, there have been shortages of the drug in general which is a huge problem.

The medication, Bicillin (penicillin G benzathine) is a mold byproduct. It's produced by fermentation. The only reason pfizer wouldn't be producing enough of it is that the profit margins aren't high enough.

You could convert a brewery to a Bicillin "factory" and have enough of it to supply the nation.

Pfizer wants to act like this is somehow a result of not enough employees or equipment or whatever. But the real problem is they haven't spent the probably $100k to buy a new vat to produce the stuff.

This is why there shouldn't be drug companies. It's criminal that such an old and well known drug is being left in the hand of these crooks trying to rob the public in dire health straights.

Oh, and yes, it is THAT penicillin. The one discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

It's even neater. The name of towns/cites cannot be trademarked. The safest thing you can do when naming a project is naming it after a town so you don't run into legal troubles in the future.

The other route that could work is public civil defenders. It requires the government to properly fund and staff, but having a legal firm sponsored by the state willing and ready to take up cases would mean that the private entities can still get their lawyers but they can't steam roll over someone that doesn't make $500k a year.

Of course, there could be corruption issues. I wouldn't want the lawyer on my case being drinking buds with the lawyer on the opposing side.

You get sanctioned and maybe even thrown in jail.

You HAVE to participate and pray that the judge in the case is willing to listen to you arguments for dismissal. If you don't do that much a judge is free to issue punishments for not participating. Sanctioning can be as bad as fines but could further be things like "Ok, you've failed to participate so we are going to assume you are guilty" (Which, btw, is what happened to Alex Jones. He did not participate in discovery in any of his cases and so got a default judgements in multiple cases).

If the judge decides that there is any sort of merit (and the standard for that is really low. Cases almost never get dismissed) you enter the most expensive part of trial, pretrial and discovery. This is where both sides get to see each others documents on the case and lawyers spend countless hours filing pretrial motions with the court. This is something that can literally last years and even decades, especially in civil matters which take a back seat on the docket to criminal cases. Generally speaking, this is why people and companies tend to settle. It's a cost saving measure because making you way all the way to trial can easily dwarf the cost of settlement.

This also, btw, is why patent trolls are so effective. They'll often ask for an amount low enough that most companies will just pay the fees yet high enough to keep them in business. Even if the patents themselves are potentially invalid.

Yes, it doesn't make sense. In fact, a big issue is that we don't have any sort of public civil defenders (we absolutely should). So for most individuals lawyers are prohibitively expensive. You basically have to either be rich, be lucky enough to have a case that aligns with a charitable legal organization's goals, or luck out on a legal firm deciding to take your case pro bono for their own reasons.

It's the power of propaganda. These people didn't get to this position naturally, they got there because of the billionaire funded propagandists undermining trust in the experts because they are saying "climate change is a huge problem, we need to regulate these oil companies" and "hey, we need to miss out on profits and quarantine for the public good".

Ever wonder why conservatives hate the EPA? A government agency that should be the least controversial around? Yeah, it's because billionaires can make more money dumping toxic waste into the public water supply than responsible disposal. So attack the agency preventing that as being too liberal.

The Koch's, Murdock, she the Mercers have fucked over multiple nations.

Yup.

Because here's the thing, lawyers are super expensive and these corporations have in house lawyers for handling anyone that wants to sue. They'll happily argue the validity of the EULA because they know just getting through the pretrial phase will cost you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Corporations have weaponized this fact at every chance they get.

It's the exact same reason why companies in California and other states make employees sign noncompetes, even though they are explicitly unenforceable. It's so the company can financially punish you even if you are in the right.

Exactly, I demand better of him and I will probably vote for him. I really wonder though how someone that's a Muslim or Palestinian can stomach voting for him. His policies around Israel are pretty much identical to what Trump would do which is a big deal for a lot of people. He's basically saying "Forget that I let Israel murder and starve to death your loved ones, I've been pretty good when it comes to monopolies right?!?".

I'll vote for him because he's the better of two options, however, he has blood on his hands and that may just lose him a second term.

This is such a misleading headline, it's propaganda. Biden Did not say "Immediate ceasefire, no excuses" Boy I wish he did. Instead he said "Boy I hope we have a cease fire. There's no excuses for Israel keeping aid from going in".

Ok, read what actually was said then come back.

The headline is misleading. Biden simply said "I hope a ceasefire happens one day". Which is a FAR cry from "demanding a ceasefire now". He isn't doing enough because he hasn't been saying things like "We are planning on withdrawing aid from Israel if they keep up this offensive". Instead it's "Well golly gee I hope Hamas returns all the hostages for a 2 week ceasefire and no troop withdrawals by Israel."

But hey, at least he's decided that he can say the word "ceasefire" Up until maybe a couple of weeks ago that was a forbidden word by the administration.

Hmmm I wonder.

Could it be because, as I said, this ruling cites multiple supreme court cases in context? That it provides you exactly what you asked for if you'd simply read it?

Nah, that can't be it. Guess it'll remain a mystery.

Look at all these human shields... shielding the food and medical aid. Guess we better mow them down.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/d.c.-circuit-rules-trump-is-not-immune-from-prosecution

Read the district court's well cited and researched ruling doing exactly that.

If the question was so novel then why did the supreme Court punt it to the lower court and then ignore the lower courts narrowing? What purpose did that serve?

This is rat fucking.

And it's a dumb question "is the president a dictator"? Are you serious? How can the correct answer be anything besides "no"? This is the easiest question to answer that's ever been asked.

The consequence of "yes" is that Biden gets to order the assassination of some senators and justices and can call off the upcoming election. That's how ridiculous this is.

The lower court wrote 57 pages of heavily cited legal theory and history proving "no". There's no reason for the Supreme Court to ignore all that.

There's a Twitter link here from the IDF. The comments show exactly what they are thinking "these are ants, look how funny it is that we killed 100 of them".

Literally people cheering for a military shooting at starving people. Christ this is what Nazis look like.

How long before Israel starts ironically selling arab skinned lamps?

It shouldn't have taken any time. They should have denied cert.

The fact that at least 4 justices granted it is beyond ridiculous.

Further, they've delayed the hearing until the end of April, which is extremely stupid, they are hearing cases now.

They may not even issue a decision in June with the rest of the cases, it may be next year. And if that's the case and trump is elected, he could stop the hearing in it's tracks by pardoning himself.

They seriously took the position "yeah, the ruling that said in this specific instance with Trump, a president cannot be immune. A perfectly reasonable take given there's so many more mundane reasons why the FBI might convict a former president.

This is worse. Bush v Gore was about an election that just happened. It was about an actual case.

Here, the supreme Court took a very narrowly decided case, ignored the decision, and then changed the question being asked to one they want to answer.

Further, the special prosecutor asked them months ago "hey, can you take up this case now rather than delaying everything" which is something previous courts have done (for example, Bush v Gore).

But instead, they delayed, pushed to the lower court, delayed since more,.

It's rat fucking to the extreme. The Supreme Court has no legitimacy.

Got to be honest, I don't think it was an issue of banks not knowing about the scam.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of these "loans" weren't partially secured with foreign checkbooks.

I'll take it one step further, most rich people pay for big bills with debt whenever possible. That's because debt doesn't incur tax events. It's better to take out a 10 year loan for 1 billion dollars and pay it off by slowly selling of equity then it is to sell 1 billion in equity + the extra you'll need to pay off the tax man.

Yeah.. Because there's no place for downward pressure on health expenses. Hospitals are incentivized to raise prices as much as possible, because they know insurance companies will negotiate downwards. Insurance companies pass all costs back down to the pool while working as hard as possible to deny everything. Drug companies know they have a captive market, nobody else is making that medicine you need for survival so "Cha-Ching!". Employers are looking for the cheapest health plans possible which means the shittiest plans for their employees. And any company that sells medical equipment is looking at selling it for as much money as possible (or in a "package" that gets hospitals to overcharge on individually wrapped tylenol). Hospital Admins spend more time and money to make sure patients are charged $20 for a $0.10 pill than they trying to keep enough doctors and nurses on staff.

Medicare for all, that's the only way to start righting the ship here. Nationalizing the entire healthcare system would be the next step. It's beyond stupid that we run healthcare for profit.