Common Dreams:
"The pharmaceutical lobby is gearing up for a massive, multi-million-dollar post-election ad blitz to fight the shifting rhetoric surrounding drug prices, Politico reports.
Skyrocketing drug prices have become a central issue in the 2016 election cycle, bolstered by recent bipartisan legislation that aims to wrangle back control of the market and outspoken criticism from Bernie Sanders and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Now, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to push back on politicians from both sides of the aisle—a campaign that 'will dwarf the $20 million that health insurers spent on the iconic 'Harry and Louise' campaign credited with sinking...Clinton's health reform plan in the early 1990s,' reports Politico's Sarah Karlin-Smith."
-->No mention in the NYT of this campaign by Big Pharma to undermine democracy for a few billion more in profits. The media hides the real reason for outrageous drug prices in the US.
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Common Dreams:
"Pope Francis surprised reporters on a flight from Krakow to the Vatican late Sunday when he blamed the 'god of money' for extremist violence in Europe and the Middle East, saying that a ruthless global economy leads disenfranchised people to violence.
'Terrorism grows when there is no other option, and as long as the world economy has at its center the god of money and not the person,' the pope told reporters, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'This is fundamental terrorism, against all humanity.' ...
The remarks followed similar comments made last Wednesday, when Pope Francis argued that the current Middle East conflicts are wars over economic and political interests—not religion or so-called 'Islamic terrorism.'
'There is war for money,' he said on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'There is war for natural resources. There is war for the domination of peoples. Some might think I am speaking of religious war. No. All religions want peace; it is other people who want war.' "
-->So the conflicts in the Middle East are all wars for money, for natural resources and for domination of other peoples? This story was too much for the neoliberal cheerleader, the NYT. It didn't cover the Pope's comments.
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Common Dreams:
"There is little doubt that the global one percent is winning. In fact, a new study has found that the number of billionaires reached an all-time high in 2015 at the same time that their portfolios and piggy banks also continued to grow to record proportions.
According to the 2015-2016 Billionaire Census by international market research firm Wealth-X, which bills itself as 'the global authority on wealth intelligence,' the billionaire population grew by 6.4 percent last year and now totals 2,473 people worldwide. ...
'It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world's population owns no more than a few dozen super-rich people who could fit onto one bus,' Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, said at the time. 'The richest can no longer pretend their wealth benefits everyone—their extreme wealth in fact shows an ailing global economy. The recent explosion in the wealth of the super-rich has come at the expense of the majority and particularly the poorest people.' "
-->No word of this new study in the NYT, were stories that might make one "feel the Burn" about income distribution are routinely ignored.
