URLs du Jour

2022-08-14

  • So I guess she won't be singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" anytime soon. The Washington Free Beacon covers a case of you-know-what envy: If I ‘Had a Penis’ I’d Be President.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) would probably have won the 2020 Democratic primary—and presumably the general election as well—if Democratic voters weren't a bunch of disgusting misogynists, the failed candidate told an NBC News correspondent following her third-place finish in the Iowa caucus.

    "Everyone comes up to me and says, ‘I would vote for you, if you had a penis,'" Warren vented to Ali Vitali, who recounts the previously unreported conversation in her forthcoming book, Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House … Yet.

    Everyone comes up to her and says that?

    I'll take "Self-Serving Falsehoods" for $200, Alex Mayim.

    And (darn it) I really shouldn't do this, but… from the WFB article, to be sung to the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain":

    I could mine the finest minerals,
    Conferrin' with my generals,
    A closet bolshevik;
    The rubes would all respect me
    In four years they'd reelect me
    If I only had a dick.

    I'd be more than just a token
    Of misogyny unspoken,
    The carrot and the stick;
    I would dance and be merry
    I'd be scrappy, I'd be scary, 
    If I only had a dick.

    Fun facts: in the 2020 New Hampshire Presidential Primary, Senator Warren came in a solid fourth place (9.2% of the vote), despite being from neighboring Massachusetts.

    The wiener-equipped Senator Sanders, also from a neighboring state, won the primary with 25.6%.

    But Senator Klobuchar, allegedly wangless, got more than twice as many votes as Liz (19.7%).

    Also pricking a hole in Liz's tallywhacker theory: having male membership didn't help Joe Biden beat her: he came in fifth.

    Okay, I'll stop now.


  • Let's blame… um… Walgreens! Elizabeth Nolan Brown shakes her head at legal antics: Walgreens 'Helped Fuel' Opioid Crisis in San Francisco, Says Judge.

    Is Walgreens an illicit drug dealer? That's essentially what a federal court has ruled, suggesting the pharmacy should have stopped "suspicious orders" for opioids from being filled. In failing to do so, the retailer "substantially contributed" to the opioid epidemic in San Francisco, Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled.

    Walgreens was "responsible for shipping nearly 1 out of every 5 oxycodone and hydrocodone pills distributed nationwide during the height of the opioid crisis," reports The Washington Post. And "more than 100 million prescription opioid pills were dispensed by Walgreens in [San Francisco] between 2006 and 2020," notes the Los Angeles Times.

    Walgreens isn't accused of filling fake prescriptions; the opioid orders it filled were written by licensed doctors. But some of these doctors had "suspect prescribing patterns," noted Breyer. And other orders were written by doctors who would go on to have their licenses revoked or face criminal punishment. The judge agreed with the city and county of San Francisco, which brought the suit, that Walgreens pharmacists were negligent in not realizing something was afoot and therefore illegally contributed to a public nuisance. A trial will be held to determine damages owed.

    "The effects of the opioid epidemic on San Francisco have been catastrophic. The city has fought hard and continues to do so, but the opioid epidemic, which Walgreens helped fuel, continues to substantially interfere with public rights in San Francisco," Breyer wrote.

    This seems, frankly, insane. Walgreens fills prescriptions. It is not in the business of drug enforcement. If some of the prescriptions filled by Walgreens were written by dirty doctors or went to people who abused them, it is not on individual pharmacists to figure that out.

    The 80-year-old judge is Stephen Breyer's brother, and was appointed to his judgeship by Bill Clinton. And if ENB claims he's insane, it's probably true.


  • A safe prediction. Steven Greenhut looks at the inevitable: A more powerful IRS won't target only the wealthy.

    The Internal Revenue Service's national headquarters in Washington, D.C.—a hulking New Deal-era monstrosity that's ironically located on Constitution Avenue—has U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' oft-repeated words carved on the exterior facade: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

    Yet there's nothing particularly civilized about the IRS—the nation's heavy-handed, incompetent and scandal-plagued tax-collection agency. The building's columns and detailing echo the French Renaissance style, but behind the façade the IRS' inspiration is more aligned with Robespierre given the terror its agents inflict on American citizens.

    […]

    Expecting a $739-billion spending bill to reduce inflation is like expecting a tanker of gasoline to douse a fire, but that's the least of our problems. The measure proposes to provide an additional $80 billion to the IRS—boosting its budget six times and doubling the number of federal revenue officers.

    Greenhut's final zinger:

    Perhaps the IRS ought to use some of its new funding to replace the Holmes quotation with this one from another iconic high-court justice, John Marshall: "The power to tax is the power to destroy."


  • In so many ways… Michael F. Cannon points out that Government Is the Scourge of Diabetics, Not Their Savior.

    Congressional Republicans have defeated a proposal by congressional Democrats to mandate that private insurance companies cap out‐of‐pocket spending on insulin by their enrollees at $35 per month. Republicans were right to do so. Government is already driving insulin prices sky‐high. Further intervention would make matters worse.

    Diabetics need insulin to live. Insulin prices should be falling over time, yet they have more than doubled over the last 10 years. Many diabetics struggle with those rising prices, sometimes with deadly consequences. A humane health system would make insulin increasingly accessible to diabetics.

    Cannon fires out five, count 'em, five, ways Your Federal Government makes things worse for diabetics. Here's number two:

    Second, government increases the cost of insulin by requiring diabetics to get prescriptions before purchasing many insulin products. It makes little sense to require diabetics, who are highly knowledgeable repeat consumers of insulin, to obtain prescriptions each time they purchase it. Canada allows diabetics to purchase any insulin product without a prescription. If the FDA or Congress were to remove those requirements, both the price of insulin and the ancillary costs of obtaining it would fall.

    I've always wondered what the point was of requiring prescriptions for medicines that are unlikely to be abused. Like, sigh, my blood pressure meds. I probably wouldn't need blood pressure meds if not for articles like Cannon's!