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Celerity
Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
December 26, 2024
The industry’s intellectual property manipulations are stealing from your pockets—and limiting the benefits of the Biden administration’s key achievement.
https://newrepublic.com/article/189450/big-pharma-patent-ira-billions
https://archive.ph/44hAe
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis and Delaware Senator Chris Coons are two of the pharmaceutical industry’s go-to lawmakers.
It was a dose of qualified good news. Signed in 2022, Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services a power they’d sorely lacked since the agency’s conception: the ability to negotiate drug prices directly with the manufacturers. The law was by no means perfect. The cost savings are only for 10, albeit very expensive, drugs, and the negotiated prices only apply to Medicare and Medicaid rather than extending to every health care insurance plan. Despite these limitations, estimates predict that price negotiations will save the government around $6 billion every year and send a clear signal to the pharma companies that the government was going to have a stronger hand in dictating prices. Here’s the bad news: The $6 billion the government is supposed to save from drug price negotiations is very close to the amount Medicare has already lost thanks to Big Pharma’s abuse of the patent system.
Earlier this month, the consumer watchdog Public Citizen released a report outlining how four of the 10 drugs subject to negotiation would have faced competition from less expensive generic brands before price negotiations went into effect were it not for tactics perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry known as “evergreening.” Put simply, evergreening is when a pharma company patents minor modifications on the drug as “new inventions” and then uses the new patents to extend their monopoly, freezing out competition and artificially keeping prices high. As a result, the report estimated Medicare will lose between $4.9 and $5.4 billion in savings that should have accrued had the medications come off patent earlier. The problem for many generic drug companies is that most medicines have multiple patents—which means there are many avenues for this kind of abuse.
Take, for example, one of the four drugs mentioned in the report, Enbrel. Sold by the pharma company Amgen, the medication is used to treat severe rheumatoid arthritis. In 2023 alone, the drug generated $3.7 billion in revenue. A separate report from Public Citizen revealed that Medicare could have saved over $1 billion in less than four years on Enbrel if generic competition had been allowed to enter the market in 2019 when the underlying patent was set to expire. Amgen filed three times as many patent applications for Enbrel in the U.S. compared to Japan and Europe, and 72 percent of all patent applications were filed after the drug received approval in 1998. Amgen has filed a total of 57 patent applications on Enbrel in the U.S. with the aim of extending its monopoly by 39 years. Enbrel’s patents are now due to expire in the U.S. in November 2028. In Europe they expired in 2015.
Big Pharma has many excuses to defend its abuse of the patent system. In fairness to pharma companies, it can take a long time from when the first patent is filed to when the drug goes through all the necessary clinical trials and makes it to market. By the time the first dose is sold, about half the life span of the patent has expired, leaving the pharma companies relatively little time to recoup the research and development costs. Pharma companies argue that along the way they develop legitimate new ways of administering or dosing the drug, and that these new inventions warrant new patents. This is all fair and good until you compare how many patents pharma companies file in the U.S. for a single drug compared to Europe.
snip
How Big Pharma Is Wrecking the Inflation Reduction Act
The industry’s intellectual property manipulations are stealing from your pockets—and limiting the benefits of the Biden administration’s key achievement.
https://newrepublic.com/article/189450/big-pharma-patent-ira-billions
https://archive.ph/44hAe
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis and Delaware Senator Chris Coons are two of the pharmaceutical industry’s go-to lawmakers.
It was a dose of qualified good news. Signed in 2022, Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services a power they’d sorely lacked since the agency’s conception: the ability to negotiate drug prices directly with the manufacturers. The law was by no means perfect. The cost savings are only for 10, albeit very expensive, drugs, and the negotiated prices only apply to Medicare and Medicaid rather than extending to every health care insurance plan. Despite these limitations, estimates predict that price negotiations will save the government around $6 billion every year and send a clear signal to the pharma companies that the government was going to have a stronger hand in dictating prices. Here’s the bad news: The $6 billion the government is supposed to save from drug price negotiations is very close to the amount Medicare has already lost thanks to Big Pharma’s abuse of the patent system.
Earlier this month, the consumer watchdog Public Citizen released a report outlining how four of the 10 drugs subject to negotiation would have faced competition from less expensive generic brands before price negotiations went into effect were it not for tactics perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry known as “evergreening.” Put simply, evergreening is when a pharma company patents minor modifications on the drug as “new inventions” and then uses the new patents to extend their monopoly, freezing out competition and artificially keeping prices high. As a result, the report estimated Medicare will lose between $4.9 and $5.4 billion in savings that should have accrued had the medications come off patent earlier. The problem for many generic drug companies is that most medicines have multiple patents—which means there are many avenues for this kind of abuse.
Take, for example, one of the four drugs mentioned in the report, Enbrel. Sold by the pharma company Amgen, the medication is used to treat severe rheumatoid arthritis. In 2023 alone, the drug generated $3.7 billion in revenue. A separate report from Public Citizen revealed that Medicare could have saved over $1 billion in less than four years on Enbrel if generic competition had been allowed to enter the market in 2019 when the underlying patent was set to expire. Amgen filed three times as many patent applications for Enbrel in the U.S. compared to Japan and Europe, and 72 percent of all patent applications were filed after the drug received approval in 1998. Amgen has filed a total of 57 patent applications on Enbrel in the U.S. with the aim of extending its monopoly by 39 years. Enbrel’s patents are now due to expire in the U.S. in November 2028. In Europe they expired in 2015.
Big Pharma has many excuses to defend its abuse of the patent system. In fairness to pharma companies, it can take a long time from when the first patent is filed to when the drug goes through all the necessary clinical trials and makes it to market. By the time the first dose is sold, about half the life span of the patent has expired, leaving the pharma companies relatively little time to recoup the research and development costs. Pharma companies argue that along the way they develop legitimate new ways of administering or dosing the drug, and that these new inventions warrant new patents. This is all fair and good until you compare how many patents pharma companies file in the U.S. for a single drug compared to Europe.
snip
December 26, 2024
The authors of the bestselling “How Democracies Die” talk with editor Michael Tomasky about what kind of mark four more years of Donald Trump might leave on this democracy.
https://newrepublic.com/article/189233/trump-2025-second-term-agenda-democracy
https://archive.ph/WZW5W
And here we go again. President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time in signaling to Americans, through his Cabinet nominations and White House appointments, that he plans to move quickly to act on his most extreme promises. What kind of United States will we have in a year, or in four? How will the country and its democratic institutions change? What are the chances he doesn’t succeed? And what if he does—and an apathetic, exhausted, and inward-looking populace shrugs? We could think of no one better to ask these questions than Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the Harvard scholars who were co-authors of the 2018 bestseller How Democracies Die. They spoke with editor Michael Tomasky on November 25. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
MICHAEL TOMASKY: I want to start with this question. I was struck by this passage in the last chapter of How Democracies Die, where you posit three possible futures of a post-Trump America. One was the optimistic one. One was kind of a wash. Then another, which was numbered your second, a much darker future, was “one in which President Trump and the Republicans continue to win with a white nationalist appeal. Under this scenario, a pro-Trump GOP would retain the presidency, both houses of Congress, and the vast majority of statehouses, and it would eventually gain a solid majority in the Supreme Court.” Well … I’m not sure when you wrote that whether you thought that would come true, but here we are. And you say that this scenario could lead to confrontation, even violent conflict, which in turn could lead to heightened police repression. Daniel, now that this scenario is about to be reality, what’s your assessment of our situation in this country?
DANIEL ZIBLATT: When we wrote that, we didn’t think it was the most likely scenario. But as you say, here we are, and I think there are serious reasons to have concerns. There continue to be sources of resilience that we’re happy to talk about. One point I would make at the outset is that the need to rewrite the Constitution, say à la Viktor Orbán, is probably not the thing that’s concerning at this moment, because our Constitution works pretty well for the party that’s in control of all branches of government, and really the more serious concern is the risk of those in power going after the democratic opposition in ways that undermine competition. So it’s not about changing the rules, but really attacking civil society, attacking the opposition. That’s something that we really didn’t spell out in that scenario back in 2018, but it’s something that is top of mind for me right now.
TOMASKY: Well, let’s spell it out here. Steven, what would that attack on the democratic opposition look like?
STEVEN LEVITSKY: This is really classic authoritarian stuff. We don’t know how stable the majorities that the Republicans just won will be. I could not have imagined in 2017 a future in which Trump would govern as he governed and then win the popular vote in 2024. We don’t know whether they will have any success in locking these majorities in. We could still very much be in a scenario closer to regime instability than stable authoritarianism. In either case, we’re going to see really classic authoritarian behavior. Many of us tend to think that—particularly given that most of us haven’t experienced authoritarianism in the United States—we tend to think of authoritarianism as dissolving the Constitution, locking up opponents, and eliminating electoral competition. And that’s highly unlikely. It’s very, very unlikely that we see a move toward sort of Putin-style authoritarianism.
snip
Dire Days: What if Trump Does Everything He's Promised--and the People Don't Care?
The authors of the bestselling “How Democracies Die” talk with editor Michael Tomasky about what kind of mark four more years of Donald Trump might leave on this democracy.
https://newrepublic.com/article/189233/trump-2025-second-term-agenda-democracy
https://archive.ph/WZW5W
And here we go again. President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time in signaling to Americans, through his Cabinet nominations and White House appointments, that he plans to move quickly to act on his most extreme promises. What kind of United States will we have in a year, or in four? How will the country and its democratic institutions change? What are the chances he doesn’t succeed? And what if he does—and an apathetic, exhausted, and inward-looking populace shrugs? We could think of no one better to ask these questions than Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the Harvard scholars who were co-authors of the 2018 bestseller How Democracies Die. They spoke with editor Michael Tomasky on November 25. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
MICHAEL TOMASKY: I want to start with this question. I was struck by this passage in the last chapter of How Democracies Die, where you posit three possible futures of a post-Trump America. One was the optimistic one. One was kind of a wash. Then another, which was numbered your second, a much darker future, was “one in which President Trump and the Republicans continue to win with a white nationalist appeal. Under this scenario, a pro-Trump GOP would retain the presidency, both houses of Congress, and the vast majority of statehouses, and it would eventually gain a solid majority in the Supreme Court.” Well … I’m not sure when you wrote that whether you thought that would come true, but here we are. And you say that this scenario could lead to confrontation, even violent conflict, which in turn could lead to heightened police repression. Daniel, now that this scenario is about to be reality, what’s your assessment of our situation in this country?
DANIEL ZIBLATT: When we wrote that, we didn’t think it was the most likely scenario. But as you say, here we are, and I think there are serious reasons to have concerns. There continue to be sources of resilience that we’re happy to talk about. One point I would make at the outset is that the need to rewrite the Constitution, say à la Viktor Orbán, is probably not the thing that’s concerning at this moment, because our Constitution works pretty well for the party that’s in control of all branches of government, and really the more serious concern is the risk of those in power going after the democratic opposition in ways that undermine competition. So it’s not about changing the rules, but really attacking civil society, attacking the opposition. That’s something that we really didn’t spell out in that scenario back in 2018, but it’s something that is top of mind for me right now.
TOMASKY: Well, let’s spell it out here. Steven, what would that attack on the democratic opposition look like?
STEVEN LEVITSKY: This is really classic authoritarian stuff. We don’t know how stable the majorities that the Republicans just won will be. I could not have imagined in 2017 a future in which Trump would govern as he governed and then win the popular vote in 2024. We don’t know whether they will have any success in locking these majorities in. We could still very much be in a scenario closer to regime instability than stable authoritarianism. In either case, we’re going to see really classic authoritarian behavior. Many of us tend to think that—particularly given that most of us haven’t experienced authoritarianism in the United States—we tend to think of authoritarianism as dissolving the Constitution, locking up opponents, and eliminating electoral competition. And that’s highly unlikely. It’s very, very unlikely that we see a move toward sort of Putin-style authoritarianism.
snip
December 25, 2024
I was really looking forward to this time of year, and here we are again. Everywhere is beautifully decorated and it smells of delicious Christmas cookies. And of course one thing should not be missing. My Christmas mix. For me it is a very special occasion because it is my tenth Christmas mix. I am very happy about that. I hope you enjoy it and enjoy the Christmas season with your loved ones. See you again next year. I'm looking forward to it.
Love you!
Tracklist:
1. Snowball (unreleased) | start point: 0:00
2. Wizard (unreleased) | start point: 6:24
3. You Take Me Higher (unreleased) | start point: 12:10
4. Ghost (unreleased) | start point: 18:23
5. Cuba Libre feat. Topkumpelz (unreleased) | start point: 24:04
6. Isolation (unreleased) | start point: 30:30
7. The Sun Beyond The World (unreleased) | start point: 36:40
8. Running Around (unreleased) | start point: 43:41
9. New Wave (unreleased) | start point: 50:40
10. What Else (unreleased) | start point: 55:22
Note: All tracks are written and produced by Boris Brejcha.
For any question: contact@fckng-serious.de
Boris Brejcha - Christmas Mix 2024 🎄🩶🩶🩶🩶🩶 "10th anniversary" (dropped today)
I was really looking forward to this time of year, and here we are again. Everywhere is beautifully decorated and it smells of delicious Christmas cookies. And of course one thing should not be missing. My Christmas mix. For me it is a very special occasion because it is my tenth Christmas mix. I am very happy about that. I hope you enjoy it and enjoy the Christmas season with your loved ones. See you again next year. I'm looking forward to it.
Love you!
Tracklist:
1. Snowball (unreleased) | start point: 0:00
2. Wizard (unreleased) | start point: 6:24
3. You Take Me Higher (unreleased) | start point: 12:10
4. Ghost (unreleased) | start point: 18:23
5. Cuba Libre feat. Topkumpelz (unreleased) | start point: 24:04
6. Isolation (unreleased) | start point: 30:30
7. The Sun Beyond The World (unreleased) | start point: 36:40
8. Running Around (unreleased) | start point: 43:41
9. New Wave (unreleased) | start point: 50:40
10. What Else (unreleased) | start point: 55:22
Note: All tracks are written and produced by Boris Brejcha.
For any question: contact@fckng-serious.de
December 25, 2024
https://prospect.org/power/2024-12-24-king-david-rubenstein/
David Rubenstein in September 2022
In December of 2019, as House Democrats were drawing up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, I was again introduced to the viewers of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN: “This is a historic moment. So how do historians look at it? I’ll talk to Doris Kearns Goodwin, Rick Perlstein, and David Rubenstein …” One of these things is not like the other. Prospect readers know David Rubenstein is not a historian, but the billionaire founder of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. Much like those English monarchs who by reason of the 1322 statute of Prerogativa Regis to this day enjoy personal ownership of all “Whales and great Sturgeons taken in the Sea or elsewhere within the Realm,” titles the rest of us have to earn by sweat and struggle, David Rubenstein possesses by right. Though that is hardly the most brazen of his thefts.
Born in 1949 to an immigrant mother put to work in a dress shop when she was six and a father who worked his way up to file clerk at the Postal Service—details we will be revisiting later—Rubenstein was an idealistic 27-year-old constitutional lawyer when he was tapped to become deputy domestic policy assistant in the Carter White House. “He strongly believed in the nobility of being a public servant” and was fantastically devoted to it, Dan Briody wrote in his excellent 2003 book The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group. “Some thought that he was actually living in the White House.” No wonder, then, that he hated the lobbying job he took after Carter lost. “I found it demeaning,” he recalled to a reporter in 1993. Wait ’til you learn about the work he apparently did not find demeaning.
The next bit sounds like the setup for a joke from a time when comedians wore tuxedos. In 1986, a wizardly tax lawyer named Stephen Norris was looking for someone who knew some powerful Eskimos. He called Rubenstein, who allegedly had the biggest Rolodex in Washington. Norris had learned that Native Alaskans had been awarded a certain tax loophole in 1983 to soften the impact of losses from failed tribal business ventures: They could sell $10 million in tax write-offs to willing buyers for $7 million in cash; the buyer thus got to reduce their taxable net income by $3 million. The loophole was intended to have a small effect; Norris and Rubenstein figured out a way to run it at industrial scale. All told, according to Briody, the duo starved the federal Treasury of something like a billion dollars.
This was the gang that incorporated in 1987 as the Carlyle Group. Even the moniker bespeaks a staggering obsession with status: They named it after the grand old Manhattan hotel whose name had been synonymous with luxury ever since it opened in 1930. As Briody notes, it “sound[ed] like old money.” Which was ironic, because that was the same reason its Jewish developer named it after a long-dead British author in the first place. It’s a Gatsbyesque story with Reagan-era accents. This was the dawn of an era when two age-old markers of status, “smartness” and wealth, were merging as one. “I thought I had a pretty good I.Q. myself, and people were making a lot more money than me who I thought maybe weren’t so smart,” Rubenstein told Michael Lewis for a 1993 New Republic profile, “The Access Capitalists,” that first brought him to wider attention. Access was Norris and Rubenstein’s instrument, like the alto saxophone was Charlie Parker’s.
snip
King David - 'Billionaires I have known': The final installment
https://prospect.org/power/2024-12-24-king-david-rubenstein/
David Rubenstein in September 2022
In December of 2019, as House Democrats were drawing up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, I was again introduced to the viewers of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN: “This is a historic moment. So how do historians look at it? I’ll talk to Doris Kearns Goodwin, Rick Perlstein, and David Rubenstein …” One of these things is not like the other. Prospect readers know David Rubenstein is not a historian, but the billionaire founder of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. Much like those English monarchs who by reason of the 1322 statute of Prerogativa Regis to this day enjoy personal ownership of all “Whales and great Sturgeons taken in the Sea or elsewhere within the Realm,” titles the rest of us have to earn by sweat and struggle, David Rubenstein possesses by right. Though that is hardly the most brazen of his thefts.
Born in 1949 to an immigrant mother put to work in a dress shop when she was six and a father who worked his way up to file clerk at the Postal Service—details we will be revisiting later—Rubenstein was an idealistic 27-year-old constitutional lawyer when he was tapped to become deputy domestic policy assistant in the Carter White House. “He strongly believed in the nobility of being a public servant” and was fantastically devoted to it, Dan Briody wrote in his excellent 2003 book The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group. “Some thought that he was actually living in the White House.” No wonder, then, that he hated the lobbying job he took after Carter lost. “I found it demeaning,” he recalled to a reporter in 1993. Wait ’til you learn about the work he apparently did not find demeaning.
The next bit sounds like the setup for a joke from a time when comedians wore tuxedos. In 1986, a wizardly tax lawyer named Stephen Norris was looking for someone who knew some powerful Eskimos. He called Rubenstein, who allegedly had the biggest Rolodex in Washington. Norris had learned that Native Alaskans had been awarded a certain tax loophole in 1983 to soften the impact of losses from failed tribal business ventures: They could sell $10 million in tax write-offs to willing buyers for $7 million in cash; the buyer thus got to reduce their taxable net income by $3 million. The loophole was intended to have a small effect; Norris and Rubenstein figured out a way to run it at industrial scale. All told, according to Briody, the duo starved the federal Treasury of something like a billion dollars.
This was the gang that incorporated in 1987 as the Carlyle Group. Even the moniker bespeaks a staggering obsession with status: They named it after the grand old Manhattan hotel whose name had been synonymous with luxury ever since it opened in 1930. As Briody notes, it “sound[ed] like old money.” Which was ironic, because that was the same reason its Jewish developer named it after a long-dead British author in the first place. It’s a Gatsbyesque story with Reagan-era accents. This was the dawn of an era when two age-old markers of status, “smartness” and wealth, were merging as one. “I thought I had a pretty good I.Q. myself, and people were making a lot more money than me who I thought maybe weren’t so smart,” Rubenstein told Michael Lewis for a 1993 New Republic profile, “The Access Capitalists,” that first brought him to wider attention. Access was Norris and Rubenstein’s instrument, like the alto saxophone was Charlie Parker’s.
snip
December 25, 2024
The Exciting World of AI - Tom Tomorrow
https://prospect.org/power/2024-12-24-this-modern-world/
December 25, 2024
https://www.notus.org/whitehouse/biden-legacy-democrats
Forget any anger over waiting too long to drop out of the presidential race or dismay that his administration tried to brush off concerns he was too old to run. Forget that after repeatedly pledging he would not grant clemency to his son Hunter, he gave him a sweeping pardon. Forget, too, the news that his dismal approval rating just hit its lowest since taking office and his administration’s unpopularity dragged down Democrats in the House and Senate. NOTUS spoke to over 20 House Democrats, who mostly gave glowing reflections on Joe Biden’s time in office. President-elect Donald Trump has taken center stage since the election — inserting himself into congressional negotiations and making state appearances overseas — while Biden has made himself scarce. But Biden’s allies on the Hill say he’ll be remembered for far more than just helping usher in a second Trump administration.
“He brought the country together,” Rep. Debbie Dingell argued to NOTUS. “The infrastructure money that he invested is fixing roads and getting internet to every family. Education, infrastructure, health care. He did a lot of good things.” Rep. Adriano Espaillat called Biden’s legacy “one of the best in the last, at least, 50 years.” “Probably one of the most productive administrations ever,” Espaillat told NOTUS. “When I went to Egypt for COP27, that was a big hit. The Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, a bunch of pieces.” And Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic majority leader who helped execute Biden’s legislative agenda in Congress, offered similar praise. “He had some extraordinary domestic accomplishments,” he told NOTUS. “He’s done a lot for this country. A lot of people know that,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland told NOTUS. “And when I think about the election results, this was not a mandate, right? [Republicans] barely won the House.”
Other Democrats argued that Biden’s legacy is much more complicated. Yes, Biden is the president who signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law which capped insulin prices at $35 and advanced efforts to curb climate change. He also signed the CHIPS and Science Act which strengthened supply chains and boosted the U.S.’s competitiveness with China. Democrats also point to the 16 million jobs created while Biden was in office and the massive COVID-19 relief bill passed during the earliest days of the administration. But a number of Democrats pointed to the war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues as a larger blemish on Biden’s record. As Rep. Yvette Clarke put it, Biden wasn’t “able to bring the hostages back in the Middle East.” “This is the thing that sort of detracts from all that success,” she told NOTUS. The White House did not return a request for comment.
Biden is also leaving office mired in trust issues. His pardoning of his son Hunter for crimes spanning 11 years, despite pledging that he wouldn’t, left even his closest allies confused and furious. Looming over all this is the incoming administration and a Republican governing trifecta. Biden’s legacy, Rep. Ritchie Torres said, will be much like former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s: “mixed.” “The best of his legacy includes the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lay the foundation for a clean energy transition, and the CHIPS Act, which is going to be instrumental in reindustrializing America,” Torres said. “But the worst of his legacy includes the election of Donald Trump. I do feel like the president’s mishandling of the migrant crisis contributed heavily toward Donald Trump’s win in November.”
snip
'One of the Best': Democrats Say Biden's Legacy Will Look Good in Time
With less than a month left of the Biden administration, congressional Democrats contend that history will ultimately be kind to the one-term president.https://www.notus.org/whitehouse/biden-legacy-democrats
Forget any anger over waiting too long to drop out of the presidential race or dismay that his administration tried to brush off concerns he was too old to run. Forget that after repeatedly pledging he would not grant clemency to his son Hunter, he gave him a sweeping pardon. Forget, too, the news that his dismal approval rating just hit its lowest since taking office and his administration’s unpopularity dragged down Democrats in the House and Senate. NOTUS spoke to over 20 House Democrats, who mostly gave glowing reflections on Joe Biden’s time in office. President-elect Donald Trump has taken center stage since the election — inserting himself into congressional negotiations and making state appearances overseas — while Biden has made himself scarce. But Biden’s allies on the Hill say he’ll be remembered for far more than just helping usher in a second Trump administration.
“He brought the country together,” Rep. Debbie Dingell argued to NOTUS. “The infrastructure money that he invested is fixing roads and getting internet to every family. Education, infrastructure, health care. He did a lot of good things.” Rep. Adriano Espaillat called Biden’s legacy “one of the best in the last, at least, 50 years.” “Probably one of the most productive administrations ever,” Espaillat told NOTUS. “When I went to Egypt for COP27, that was a big hit. The Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, a bunch of pieces.” And Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic majority leader who helped execute Biden’s legislative agenda in Congress, offered similar praise. “He had some extraordinary domestic accomplishments,” he told NOTUS. “He’s done a lot for this country. A lot of people know that,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland told NOTUS. “And when I think about the election results, this was not a mandate, right? [Republicans] barely won the House.”
Other Democrats argued that Biden’s legacy is much more complicated. Yes, Biden is the president who signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law which capped insulin prices at $35 and advanced efforts to curb climate change. He also signed the CHIPS and Science Act which strengthened supply chains and boosted the U.S.’s competitiveness with China. Democrats also point to the 16 million jobs created while Biden was in office and the massive COVID-19 relief bill passed during the earliest days of the administration. But a number of Democrats pointed to the war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues as a larger blemish on Biden’s record. As Rep. Yvette Clarke put it, Biden wasn’t “able to bring the hostages back in the Middle East.” “This is the thing that sort of detracts from all that success,” she told NOTUS. The White House did not return a request for comment.
Biden is also leaving office mired in trust issues. His pardoning of his son Hunter for crimes spanning 11 years, despite pledging that he wouldn’t, left even his closest allies confused and furious. Looming over all this is the incoming administration and a Republican governing trifecta. Biden’s legacy, Rep. Ritchie Torres said, will be much like former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s: “mixed.” “The best of his legacy includes the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lay the foundation for a clean energy transition, and the CHIPS Act, which is going to be instrumental in reindustrializing America,” Torres said. “But the worst of his legacy includes the election of Donald Trump. I do feel like the president’s mishandling of the migrant crisis contributed heavily toward Donald Trump’s win in November.”
snip
December 24, 2024
Label: Warner Bros. Records – K 17354 T
Format: Vinyl, 12", Limited Edition, Single, 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 6 Apr 1979
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk
Angelic Upstarts - I'm An Upstart (1979) 💀🟠🧷🎸
Label: Warner Bros. Records – K 17354 T
Format: Vinyl, 12", Limited Edition, Single, 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 6 Apr 1979
Genre: Rock
Style: Punk
December 23, 2024
Read the story. https://www.notus.org/2026-election/republicans-anti-trans-attacks-have-left-democrats-flat-footed
Democrats Get Candid About Not Wanting to Talk Trans Rights
Read the story. https://www.notus.org/2026-election/republicans-anti-trans-attacks-have-left-democrats-flat-footed
December 23, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/us/christmas-adam-dec-23.html
https://archive.ph/GBc0R
Innovation Church in Lafayette, Ind., offers only one holiday service — on Dec. 23, or what is becoming known as Christmas Adam. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Some 2,000 years ago, on a holy night in Bethlehem as stars were brightly shining, a young woman gave birth to a baby and laid him in a manger. The baby Jesus was a thrill of hope for a weary world, the gospel story goes, and Christians ever since remember his birth in the candlelight of Christmas Eve. Then, much more recently, though no one can seem to recall exactly when or where, came the birth of a new celebration. Adherents call it Christmas Adam. And they celebrate on Dec. 23. Why? They have a universal reply: “Because Adam came before Eve.”
It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Unlike Christmas Eve, Christmas Adam is not part of an official Christian calendar. The Vatican certainly does not recognize it, and many churchgoers have not heard of it. There is not one way to celebrate. But some evangelically minded and social-media-savvy Protestant churches and families have embraced the celebration, making up Christmas Adam traditions as they go, one joke at a time. For some, Christmas Adam is purely a chance to share a clever pun. For others, it is practical way to compete in a crowded holiday season, by offering church services a day before the holiday actually starts.
It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
To be clear, the “eve” in Christmas Eve refers to the evening before the holy day. It does not refer to the biblical Eve, whom God formed from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis. Still, this play on words has paved the way for Adam, the first man, to creep into the modern Christmas story. Christmas Adam is just a “silly generic term,” said Rev. Sean G. Morris, 35, of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tenn. “Dec. 24 gets an official title — it gets called Christmas Eve,” he explained. “So what the heck, let’s give December the 23rd a semiofficial imprint as well.”
Mr. Morris, 35, has started his own Christmas Adam ritual. On Dec. 23, he shares a photo of a McDonald’s sandwich, the McRib (rib — get it?), dripping in sauce. Then he downs one. And his children roll their eyes. “It’s become a ridiculous personal tradition of mine,” he said in an interview. “I only eat it one day a year.” Some friends, including fellow pastors in the Presbyterian Church in America, have joined in on the annual pun, he said, much “to the chagrin of our wives.” (The wives do not have their own tradition for Christmas Eve, he said, as they are usually busy wrangling children and finishing last-minute tasks.)
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Behold! 'Christmas Adam' Is Born.
First there was Christmas Eve … and then a new celebration was created.https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/us/christmas-adam-dec-23.html
https://archive.ph/GBc0R
Innovation Church in Lafayette, Ind., offers only one holiday service — on Dec. 23, or what is becoming known as Christmas Adam. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Some 2,000 years ago, on a holy night in Bethlehem as stars were brightly shining, a young woman gave birth to a baby and laid him in a manger. The baby Jesus was a thrill of hope for a weary world, the gospel story goes, and Christians ever since remember his birth in the candlelight of Christmas Eve. Then, much more recently, though no one can seem to recall exactly when or where, came the birth of a new celebration. Adherents call it Christmas Adam. And they celebrate on Dec. 23. Why? They have a universal reply: “Because Adam came before Eve.”
It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Unlike Christmas Eve, Christmas Adam is not part of an official Christian calendar. The Vatican certainly does not recognize it, and many churchgoers have not heard of it. There is not one way to celebrate. But some evangelically minded and social-media-savvy Protestant churches and families have embraced the celebration, making up Christmas Adam traditions as they go, one joke at a time. For some, Christmas Adam is purely a chance to share a clever pun. For others, it is practical way to compete in a crowded holiday season, by offering church services a day before the holiday actually starts.
It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
To be clear, the “eve” in Christmas Eve refers to the evening before the holy day. It does not refer to the biblical Eve, whom God formed from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis. Still, this play on words has paved the way for Adam, the first man, to creep into the modern Christmas story. Christmas Adam is just a “silly generic term,” said Rev. Sean G. Morris, 35, of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tenn. “Dec. 24 gets an official title — it gets called Christmas Eve,” he explained. “So what the heck, let’s give December the 23rd a semiofficial imprint as well.”
Mr. Morris, 35, has started his own Christmas Adam ritual. On Dec. 23, he shares a photo of a McDonald’s sandwich, the McRib (rib — get it?), dripping in sauce. Then he downs one. And his children roll their eyes. “It’s become a ridiculous personal tradition of mine,” he said in an interview. “I only eat it one day a year.” Some friends, including fellow pastors in the Presbyterian Church in America, have joined in on the annual pun, he said, much “to the chagrin of our wives.” (The wives do not have their own tradition for Christmas Eve, he said, as they are usually busy wrangling children and finishing last-minute tasks.)
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