As millions of Americans skip their medication due to the ballooning high prescription costs, Congress is seeking ways to cap drug pricing.

The legislative effort, however, touched a nerve in the deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma’s largest trade group, along with its front groups and conservative organizations that receive funding from the industry, pushed back with millions of dollars of spending.

Prices of more than 3,400 drugs surged in the first half of this year, compared with 2,900 drugs that experienced a similar price hike a year ago, CBS News reported. Costs spiked by an average rate of 10.5 percent, five times the rate of inflation, the article noted.

Meanwhile, a third of uninsured Americans cannot afford to take their medication, and almost half of those who are not covered by insurance asked their doctors for cheaper options. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled her party’s plan last week to give the government a say in prescription drug price-setting. Dubbed the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, the legislation would allow the government to negotiate the Medicare price of up to 250 medications each year, including insulin, the cost of which tripled over the past decade.

Under the bill, companies that do not comply would face steep fines. […]

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• A team of researchers working with Tesla recently released a paper describing a lithium-ion battery that should last 1 million miles over 4,000 charges and depletions.
• The researchers reportedly optimized commonly used components of EV batteries, and made their findings available to other battery researchers.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said robotaxis could hit streets as early as 2020.

“They’re not ‘deranged,’ just cowards.”

On Sunday, Donald Trump suggested, or instructed, on Twitter that the Department of Justice should intervene in The New York Times’ investigation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged misbehavior in college. There was a time when a U.S. president interfering with the free press so blatantly would’ve attracted bipartisan condemnation, but Republicans are more obedient now. The President has trained his lapdogs well.

The Democrats have their own problems. Actor Tom Arnold is reported to have said, “I would endorse a fucking Nazi against Trump.” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg said on “The Argument” podcast that she’d prefer to have a homeless person in the Oval Office than Trump. They both suffer from the modern malady known as Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDR).

TDR gets all the attention, but there’s a related malaise with less fanfare attached—Trump Silence Syndrome (TSS)—that involves monastic silence among Republicans whenever Trump behaves in a way that no American president should be allowed to get away with, a routine occurrence now.

Trump Silence Syndrome is mocked and condemned less because it […]

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The National Rifle Association acted as a “foreign asset” for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee’s Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.

Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip’s costs.

The conclusions of the Senate investigation could have legal implications for the NRA, Wyden says.

Tax-exempt organizations are barred from using funds for the personal benefit of its officials or for actions significantly outside their stated missions. The revelations in the Senate report raise questions […]

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — According to a 2018 Gallup poll, 5% of U.S. adults consider themselves to be vegetarian.

• Nonwhite Americans (9%) are three times as likely as white Americans (3%) to describe themselves as vegetarian.
• 11% of self-identified liberals identify as vegetarian, compared with 2% of conservatives and 3% of moderates.
• Vegetarianism is less prevalent among older Americans: 2% of adults aged 55 and older say they adhere to a vegetarian diet, compared with 8% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 7% of 35- to 54-year-olds.

Though plant-based diets and meat alternatives have been featured in some recent high-profile forums, including the United Nations and Democratic presidential debates,and are becoming a staple even on fast food restaurant menus, the percentage of vegetarians has remained stable over the past two decades. (emphasis added) A 1999 Gallup survey that asked the same question found that 6% of Americans identified themselves as vegetarian.

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