Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines
CNN captures horrific photos of mass grave site in Ukraine
Rep. Matt Gaetz Votes Against Capping Insulin Prices, Says People Should Just Lose Weight
On Thursday, the House passed a Democratic-sponsored bill to cap the price of insulin at $35 a month for most Americans, an effort to crack down on price-gouging by drug makers who have raised the price of a lifesaving product used by millions of Americans by almost 500 percent in recent years. Some people now pay more than $1,000 a month for insulin to treat diabetes, even with insurance. Democrats had been seeking a way to rein in drugs prices overall in a broader policy proposal, but it had little chance of passing the Senate. Hoping for bipartisan compromise, they siloed the insulin price control as its own measure. Still, only 12 House Republicans voted in favor of a bill that’s wildly popular with the American public.
Among those voting “no” was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the GOP’s leading troll, who has come up with perhaps one of the most offensive justifications for GOP opposition to the popular bill. In his newsletter Friday, Gaetz told his constituents that he opposed the bill because fat people, not Big Pharma, are responsible for driving up the cost of insulin. He suggested that Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to obesity, could be cured if only people would workout more and lose weight, at which point they wouldn’t need insulin anymore and the drug costs would fall without government intervention. Gaetz wrote:
While Democrat posturing of H.R. 6833 victimizes insulin payees as people with an uncontrollable disease that are being taken advantage of and need Big Brother to throw them a raft, lifestyle changes en masse would expeditiously lower demand and the subsequent prices of insulin. 90-95% of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which “can be prevented or delayed with healthy lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, eating healthy food, and being active.” Arbitrary price controls are no substitute for individual weight control. Since 2000, the number of diabetes cases in the U.S. has nearly doubled. The demand for insulin has increased and the requisite price increase has followed suit. In other words, the price of insulin increases as waistlines increase.
More than a quarter of Florida residents are obese, including Gaetz’s favorite Palm Beach resident, former president Donald Trump. And more than 10 percent of the state’s population suffers from diabetes, not all of which is caused by lifestyle factors. Gaetz’s attempt to sympathize with them was probably not very convincing. “While I empathize with all Americans suffering from disease and will continue to fight Big Pharma, I voted against H.R. 6833,” he wrote. “I will not see a reemergence of FDR price controls and join the Democrats in their attempt to pave the Road to Serfdom.”
This isn’t the first time Gaetz has shown real scorn for overweight people. In January, on his podcast “Firebrand,” he decried Twitter’s banning of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for “telling the truth” about the relationship between Covid and obesity. After a segment about his advocacy for medical marijuana, he warned that legal weed was “not an excuse for America to sit home fat and high.” He decried “woke” culture for “cheerleading for the chubbies.”
“I’m not here to fat shame anyone,” he said. “I’d have no room to talk. I know personally how challenging issues of weight can be. I’m frequently way behind in my own goals. But society has now gotten to the point where it’s considered verboten to consider that a daily salad might make you more resilient to all kinds of disease than the vax of the month pushed by Big Pharma. Where’s Michelle Obama when you need her?” He expressed nostalgia for the former First Lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign and puzzled over how the country had gone from her push for a better diet to the current “obesity-embracing woketopia,” where people are accusing “the Body Mass Index of being a tool of white supremacy.”
Even his own colleagues are not immune from Gaetz’s obesity scorn. He once took a potshot at Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who has openly discussed his struggle with obesity and went through weight-loss surgery in August 2002, suggesting that Nadler should be put in charge of the “congressional weight loss program.”
While Gaetz may claim to empathize with people struggling with weight issues, he clearly doesn’t think he’s one of them. In August, he declared that he didn’t “fit in” with other members of Congress because most of them are old, obese people.
‘It is not normal’: Adviser to Kyiv mayor reacts to dead civilians in Bucha
Republican Gov Roasts Trump As “Fucking Crazy”
The Washington Post reports:
After a two-year absence, the Gridiron Club hosted its 137th dinner Saturday night with the profound desire that the pandemic, two presidential impeachment trials and an attack on the U.S. Capitol have not permanently ruptured this country.
So there was both shock and relief when New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, the Republican speaker for the night, weighed in on Donald Trump.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Sununu said to laughter and applause — and, notably, no booing. “I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution,” he added. “But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”
Politico has some of Sununu’s other jabs:
On Ginni Thomas’ now-infamous text messages to Mark Meadows: “We know she may be extreme, but let’s face it: when it comes to texting, she’s no Anthony Weiner. And you guys thought we forgot about that freakshow.”
And Ted Cruz hanging out with the People’s Convoy: “Nobody really knows why [the Convoy protesters are] in Washington in the first place — which pretty much describes Ted himself, right? … What is with Ted? You see that beard He looks like Mel Gibson after a DUI or something.”
On Trump ally and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell: “This guy’s head is stuffed with more crap than his pillows. And by the way, I was told not to say this, but I will: His stuff is crap. I mean, it’s absolute crap. You only find that kind of stuff in the Trump Hotel.”
Only two other Republicans attended this year’s event, Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Roy Blunt.
Zelensky Delivers Powerful Message At The Grammys
“The war. What is more opposite of music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people. Our children draw swooping rockets, not shooting stars. Over 400 children have been injured and 153 children died, and we will never see them drawing.
“Our parents are happy to wake up in the morning in bomb shelters, but alive. Our loved ones don’t know if we will be together again. The war doesn’t let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence.
“Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals. Even to those who can’t hear them. But the music will break through anyway.
“We defend our freedom. To live. To love. To sound. On our land, we are fighting Russia which brings horrible silence with its bombs.
“Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today. Tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks and TV. But not silence.” – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, addressing last night’s Grammy Awards.
Trey Gowdy Demands Madison Cawthorn Name Names
Former GOP rep turned Fox host Trey Gowdy unloaded on Madison Cawthorn’s “orgies and cocaine” claims last night.
My question for the congressman is simply this: Who? Give us the names. If you’re being invited to cocaine parties by colleagues, tell us who invited you? Who used illicit drugs in front of you? Who broke the very laws they passed, and expect to us follow?
Which of your colleagues believes he or she is above the law? Who is doubling as a deviant by night while talking about family values by day? The good ones don’t make the news, the bad ones get all of the attention.
This modern obsession with negativity does not need to be enhanced by exaggeration. I was in DC for eight years, and the people I associated with it were nothing like what this congressman described.
Tim Scott’s idea of a wild time was ordering dessert. Kevin McCarthy did take to us see movies, and one time, he did order butter popcorn if that counts.
Joe Kennedy’s nickname was ‘milk,’ because It was the strongest thing he drank. Jason Chaffetz didn’t need milk because he didn’t even drink coffee.
The people that I was around did none of what you described ever, so if you are invited to NC -17 parties and watching people do cocaine, you are hanging around with the wrong people, but you should name them, so their constituents know what they are doing on the people’s time.
And if none of what you described really happened, you need to admit that too. Either tell us who you saw doing cocaine and who invited you to sexually explicit parties, or admit what we suspect, which is that you made it up.
And then ask yourself where fairness and honesty fall on the list of qualities we should be looking for in members of Congress.
I think he doth protest too much. Look we have long heard of the amount of drinking and illicit sex high ranking government people do. Matt Gaetz is accused of running drug fueled sex parties. Do we think he was the only one?
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