February 9, 2024

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to run for Senate

Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) on Friday announced a bid to replace retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). His run puts a state otherwise out of reach for Republicans into play, further complicating Democrats' already tough 2024 Senate map.

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/09/larry-hogan-republican-senate-2024

What he's saying: Hogan struck a moderate tone in a video announcing his run, saying he doesn't "come from the performative art school of politics." "We desperately need leaders willing to stand up to both parties – leaders that appreciate that no one of us has all the answers or all the power," he said.

https://twitter.com/GovLarryHogan/status/1755998920981799338
The backdrop: A businessman and son of a former congressman, Hogan was first elected governor in 2014 by nearly four percentage points and reelected by 12 points in 2018. A moderate and harsh critic of former President Trump, Hogan left office in 2023 as one of the most popular governors in the country. Hogan flirted with a third-party presidential bid backed by the non-partisan group No Labels, but ultimately endorsed Republican Nikki Haley for president.

The other side: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee signaled plans to tie the arch-centrist Hogan to the more conservative national GOP. "A vote for Republican Larry Hogan is a vote to make Mitch McConnell Majority Leader and turn the Senate over to Republicans so they can pass a national abortion ban," DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.
"Democrats have won every statewide federal election in Maryland for 44 years and 2024 will be no different."

State of play: Maryland is a heavily Democratic state, having voted for President Biden by more than 33 percentage points in 2020. With a presidential election coinciding with the Senate election in November, Hogan will likely face difficult headwinds.
Democrats have a competitive primary between Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), a self-funding businessman, and Angela Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George's County.

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February 9, 2024

Bernie Sanders Isn't Thankful for High Drug Prices

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-08-bernie-sanders-congress-high-drug-prices/



Today, CEOs for Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck, three of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The CEOs are likely to defend themselves from public outrage over the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs, which has made them and their companies fabulously rich. They will probably not be as blunt as a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed on the subject, which had the headline “Be Thankful for High Drug Prices.” “It’s funny you mention that, I was thinking about it five minutes ago,” Sanders told me with a laugh, in an interview to preview the hearing. “I thought maybe I will send that op-ed to the hundreds of people who have communicated with us, whose spouses have died, family members have died, because they couldn’t afford prescription drugs.”

The argument in the Journal op-ed is a familiar one from defenders of the pharmaceutical industry, which, as Sanders’s committee notes in a pre-hearing report, saw its ten leading companies earn over $112 billion in profits in 2022 alone. Both the op-ed and the Sanders HELP Committee report note that Merck has earned more from its cancer drug Keytruda in the U.S. ($43.4 billion since 2015) than it has in every other nation combined ($30 billion). This imbalance is also true of top drugs from Johnson & Johnson (Stelara) and Bristol Myers Squibb (Eliquis). But op-ed authors David Henderson and Charles Hooper, respectively, a Hoover Institution fellow and the head of a business consulting firm with dozens of pharmaceutical clients, claim that since the rest of the world is free-riding on U.S. drug development, U.S. patients simply have to fund the research that goes into developing lifesaving treatments.


In other words, the fact that Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, often three times or more than the residents of other industrialized countries, is just a necessary expense for innovation, and reducing prices would destroy the industry. “Suck it up” would be a good summary of their case. Sen. Sanders has a different view. He noted that Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers Squibb, two of the companies participating in today’s hearing, spent more on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation in 2022 than on research and development. Moreover, their innovation often goes to “me-too drugs,” where, as Sanders said, “they are trying to make minor alterations to get another patent and maintain their monopoly.” Indeed, the HELP Committee report found that Merck put 168 different patents on Keytruda, 64 percent of them after it received FDA approval. These “patent thickets” are designed to extend the exclusivity period.

Two of the three drugs in the crosshairs of Sanders’s investigation—Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Eliquis—are among the first ten drugs selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for price negotiation in Medicare. Both companies have filed suit against the U.S. to block the price negotiation, which is the crown jewel of the drug reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act. Other reforms for Medicare beneficiaries include a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs (down to $3,300 this year and $2,000 in 2025), a $35-per-month cap on insulin, and a rebate from drug companies on price increases that exceed the rate of inflation.

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February 9, 2024

What Election Is Joe Lieberman Watching?

flashback.................................................



The centrist fantasies of his glib, nonpartisan No Labels group aren’t the cure for today’s angry politics. They’re the target.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/04/no-labels-centrist-fantasies-are-the-problem-not-the-solution.html





Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, co-chairman of the nonpartisan “problem-solving” advocacy group No Labels, has a novel theory of what we’re seeing this campaign. “Take a look at the two most interesting, surprising candidacies of the presidential year,” he said Thursday at an event celebrating the release of No Labels’ “policy playbook” for the 2016 election. “They want people to do something different. The best politics may be unconventional politics.” Lieberman, unconventionally, was explaining why he believes the moment is ripe for entitlement reform.

Perhaps No Labels has been watching a different election. Anger and the appetite for breaking the status quo in Washington are absolutely the gusts lifting the campaigns of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders. But working people across the country are not packing these rallies to demand the sort of technocratic dickering No Labels offers in its new 60-point policy platform, introduced Thursday at a luncheon in Washington’s luxury Mayflower Hotel. There has been bipartisan energy linking the anti-establishment bases of both parties this year, which theoretically should please No Labels. That energy, however, has been populist and directed at the sort of Washington elites whom they no longer trust to represent their interests. For today’s discontented voters, the sort of ballroom-luncheon centrism practiced for so long by the likes of Lieberman is more the target than the solution.

No Labels was founded in 2010 as a group comprising centrist Democrats and Republicans to counteract the entrenched gridlock that had begun to define the Obama era. (Another purpose: to offer sinecures to figures like co-chairmen Lieberman and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, whose political careers were ended due to lack of popularity within their respective political parties.) A cursory glance at the news suggests that such gridlock still exists six years later and shows little sign of abating, ever.

No Labels aspires to change all that through its 2016 election project, the National Strategic Agenda, a name clearly devised without much thought to its acronym. On Thursday, the nonprofit released a list of centrist policy proposals that it believes the next president and Congress, whether Democratic or Republican, can implement. It employed one gimmick that it hopes will critic-proof its proposals: A pollster tested out each idea under consideration, and the final list of 60 ideas includes only those that earned a majority of support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

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February 9, 2024

Jennifer Rubin: What Biden's second term would look like, with and without MAGA obstruction

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/08/biden-second-term-obstruction/

https://archive.is/vXWte



Americans have a very good idea what four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump would do in a second term. He and his cronies have let on: cut off Ukraine aid (“settle the war,” in his parlance, means give Russia what it wants), weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies, use the military to suppress dissent, shred the civil service, appoint compliant judges (think of 100 or more Judge Aileen Cannons), expand his Muslim ban, break up NATO and repeal the Affordable Care Act. Having boasted about overturning Roe v. Wade, he would surely be compelled to pursue a nationwide abortion ban.

To consider what President Biden would do in a second term requires that we examine two entirely separate scenarios. When MAGA Republicans lead the House and can paralyze the Senate (if not hold the majority outright), they oppose even legislation they say they want. That is precisely what happened in the border debate. Forget confirming Biden judges or executive branch appointees if Republicans have the Senate majority. And bring on the impeachment proceedings for Biden (don’t ask on what basis!) and whatever other Cabinet official raise their ire. Though a second Trump term would be catastrophic, a second Biden term with Republicans running Capitol Hill would be a three-ring circus. Biden would be hard-pressed just to keep the government open, the country from defaulting and impeachment from becoming commonplace.

That brings us to a second-term scenario in which, as Biden had in his first two years, Democrats hold slim majorities in both the House and the Senate. In that case, Biden would need to make a major determination: “go big” (before Democrats go home) or “go bipartisan.” “Go big” would recognize that our democracy is suffering from structural infirmities well beyond the MAGA movement. The MAGA Republican Party has learned to transform rules favoring the minority into the tyranny of a demographically shrinking, mostly White, Christian party. When Democrats have power (however briefly), a go-big outlook would recognize the urgency of protecting our democracy by enhancing majority rule.

That almost certainly would require modification, if not the demise, of the filibuster. If Democrats were that bold, they could achieve pro-democracy aims such as D.C. statehood, resuscitation of the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, additional voting reform (e.g., standardized early voting, nonpartisan redistricting) and significant Supreme Court reform (mandatory ethics rules and/or term limits). Beyond those structural reforms, Biden might go after the items that did not make it into the Inflation Reduction Act, including more extensive subsidized child care, universal prekindergarten and tax reform (e.g., raise the corporate rate back to 28 percent, narrow the gap in rates between earned income and capital gains, enact a surtax on the super-rich). He could also cement abortion rights into federal law by statute. And he might pursue comprehensive immigration reform, including a permanent fix for “dreamers.”

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February 9, 2024

Metaphors make the world

Woven into the fabric of language, metaphors shape how we understand reality. What happens when we try using new ones?

https://aeon.co/essays/how-changing-the-metaphors-we-use-can-change-the-way-we-think







If Ralph Waldo Emerson was right that ‘language is fossil poetry’, then metaphors undoubtedly represent a significant portion of these linguistic remnants. A particularly well-preserved linguistic fossil example is found in the satirical TV show Veep: after successfully giving an interview designed to divert the public’s attention from an embarrassing diplomatic crisis, the US vice-president – portrayed by the outstanding Julia Louis-Dreyfus – comments to her staff: ‘I spewed out so much bullshit, I’m gonna need a mint.’ When used properly, metaphors enhance speech. But correctly dosing the metaphorical spice in the dish of language is no easy task. They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted nearly 2,500 years ago. For this reason, artists – those skilled enhancers of experience – are generally thought to be the expert users of metaphors, poets and writers in particular.

Unfortunately, it is likely this association with the arts that has given metaphors a second-class reputation among many thinkers. Philosophers, for example, have historically considered it an improper use of language. A version of this thought still holds significant clout in many scientific circles: if what we care about is the precise content of a sentence (as we often do in science) then metaphors are only a distraction. Analogously, if what we care about is determining how nutritious a meal is, its presentation on the plate should make no difference to this judgment – it might even bias us. By the second half of the 20th century, some academics (especially those of a psychological disposition) began turning this thought upside down: metaphors slowly went from being seen as improper-but-inevitable tools of language to essential infrastructure of our conceptual system.



Leading the way were the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson. In their influential book, Metaphors We Live By (1980), they assert that ‘most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature’. What they mean by this is that our conceptual system is like a pyramid, with the most concrete elements at the base. Some candidates for these foundational concrete (or ‘literal’) concepts are those of the physical objects we encounter in our every day, like the concepts of rocks and trees. These concrete concepts then ground the metaphorical construction of more abstract concepts further up the pyramid. Lakoff and Johnson start from the observation that we tend to talk of abstract concepts as we do of literal ones. For instance, we tend to speak of ideas – an abstract concept that we cannot directly observe – with the same language that we use when we speak about plants – a literal concept with numerous observable characteristics. We might say of an interesting idea that ‘it is fruitful’, that someone ‘planted the seed’ of an idea in our heads, and that a bad idea has ‘died on the vine’.

It is not just that we speak this way: Lakoff and Johnson take us to really understand and make inferences about the (abstract) concept of an idea from our more tangible understanding of the (concrete) concept of a plant. They conclude that we have the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE PLANTS in mind. (Following convention, I will capitalise the conceptual metaphor, wherein the abstract concept comes first and is structured by the second.) Lakoff and Johnson further illustrate this with the following example. In English, the abstract concept of an argument is typically metaphorically structured through the more concrete concept of a war: we say that we ‘win’ or ‘lose’ arguments; if we think the other party to be uttering nonsense, we say that their claims are ‘indefensible’; and we may perceive ‘weak lines’ in their argument. These terms come from our understanding of war, a concept we are disconcertingly familiar with.

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February 9, 2024

Why would Merrick Garland pick as special counsel to investigate Biden a diehard GOPer who Trump liked so much that he

https://www.threads.net/@deanobeidallah/post/C3GlMunJwyv

https://www.threads.net/@deanobeidallah/post/C3GlLxOJEV5

February 8, 2024

Luigi Riva obituary

One of Italy’s greatest forwards and the star of the Sardinian side Cagliari when it won the 1970 league title

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/luigi-riva-obituary



The Italian footballer Luigi Riva, who has died aged 79, was his country’s all-time leading scorer with 35 goals in 42 international appearances between 1965 and 1974. A swift and deadly forward, he established his reputation by making the most of the limited opportunities offered to attackers confronting the stern defensive tactics espoused by coaches in Italy’s domestic league.



Just under six feet tall, with a saturnine visage, a lean build and a devastating mixture of speed and shooting power, “Gigi” Riva scored the first of two goals in the final of the 1968 European championships, giving Italy victory over a highly rated Yugoslavia team in Rome. Two years later in Mexico City he scored in Italy’s enthralling 4-3 victory in extra time over West Germany in a World Cup semi-final, before making much less impression as he and his teammates were humbled 4-1 in the final by Pelé’s resplendent Brazil.



But Riva is most fondly remembered as the star of a club team from Sardinia who, under the coach Manlio Scopigno, known as “the philosopher”, won the Italian first division championship in 1969-70. Only six years after leading Cagliari to promotion from the second tier, Riva unlocked catenaccio (doorbolt formation) defences to score the goals with which they captured the Serie A title from the northern giants of Turin and Milan.



The depth of that Sardinian affection could be seen at his funeral, held in the city where he had seen out his playing career despite lucrative offers from Juventus and other clubs, and where he lived for the rest of his life. An estimated 30,000 people – almost twice the current capacity of the club’s stadium – congregated in Cagliari outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria, waving flags, banners and scarves in the dark red and blue club colours he had worn with such distinction.

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February 8, 2024

Luigi Riva obituary

One of Italy’s greatest forwards and the star of the Sardinian side Cagliari when it won the 1970 league title

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/luigi-riva-obituary



The Italian footballer Luigi Riva, who has died aged 79, was his country’s all-time leading scorer with 35 goals in 42 international appearances between 1965 and 1974. A swift and deadly forward, he established his reputation by making the most of the limited opportunities offered to attackers confronting the stern defensive tactics espoused by coaches in Italy’s domestic league.



Just under six feet tall, with a saturnine visage, a lean build and a devastating mixture of speed and shooting power, “Gigi” Riva scored the first of two goals in the final of the 1968 European championships, giving Italy victory over a highly rated Yugoslavia team in Rome. Two years later in Mexico City he scored in Italy’s enthralling 4-3 victory in extra time over West Germany in a World Cup semi-final, before making much less impression as he and his teammates were humbled 4-1 in the final by Pelé’s resplendent Brazil.



But Riva is most fondly remembered as the star of a club team from Sardinia who, under the coach Manlio Scopigno, known as “the philosopher”, won the Italian first division championship in 1969-70. Only six years after leading Cagliari to promotion from the second tier, Riva unlocked catenaccio (doorbolt formation) defences to score the goals with which they captured the Serie A title from the northern giants of Turin and Milan.



The depth of that Sardinian affection could be seen at his funeral, held in the city where he had seen out his playing career despite lucrative offers from Juventus and other clubs, and where he lived for the rest of his life. An estimated 30,000 people – almost twice the current capacity of the club’s stadium – congregated in Cagliari outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria, waving flags, banners and scarves in the dark red and blue club colours he had worn with such distinction.

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February 8, 2024

Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/08/ukraine-soldiers-shortage-infantry-russia/

https://archive.is/Iand1



KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia. In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.



One battalion commander in a mechanized brigade fighting in eastern Ukraine said that his unit currently has fewer than 40 infantry troops — the soldiers deployed in front-line trenches who hold off Russian assaults. A fully equipped battalion would have more than 200, the commander said. Another commander in an infantry battalion of a different brigade said his unit is similarly depleted. The soldiers interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and could face retribution for their comments.



The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to replace his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, with one chief disagreement being over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize. The Ukrainian presidential office declined to comment, referring questions to the Defense Ministry, which in turn referred questions to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff. The General Staff did not respond to a request for comment. Zaluzhny has told Zelensky that Ukraine needs nearly 500,000 new troops, according to two people familiar with the matter, but the president has pushed back on that figure privately and publicly.



Zelensky has said he wants more justification from Ukraine’s military leadership about why so many conscripts are needed and has also expressed concern about how Kyiv would pay them. Financial assistance from Western partners cannot be used to pay soldier salaries, and Ukraine’s budget is already under strain, with a $60 billion aid package proposed by President Biden stalled in Congress. The European Union last week approved roughly $54 billion in aid after it was delayed for weeks by opposition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The debate in Kyiv about mobilization — and to what degree the country should ramp it up — has angered soldiers on the front line.

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February 8, 2024

After Republicans tanked the border security bill, Tim Scott says he voted against a stand-alone bill for Israel/Ukraine

aid because: We should first secure our southern border.



https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1755348380643938537


Tim Scott is at Uncle Ruckus level

https://twitter.com/JustinTinsley/status/1750320605331608014