Hillary Clinton releases plan to slow rising drug costs. Like her student loan debt plan, it's as unwieldy as Obamacare and, also like Obamacare, will probably do some good. Here's a campaign slogan: Jeb give you wankery, but Hillary gives you wonkery! But, ah, you know what else would stop runaway drug prices? Single-payer health care, that's what.
Ho hum, Marco Rubio thinks Pope Francis's "moral authority" only extends to things like abortion and "the importance of marriage" and certainly not economics. Mr. Rubio wants you to believe that more tax cuts for the rich alleviates poverty, but wanting you to believe that "morality" has only to do with the narrow buttons Republicans always push is even worse than that. At least he's having a public spat with Donald Trump, which lessens the possibility that Mr. Trump will pick him as his running mate, and having Marco Rubio as the VP nominee (I don't think he's quitting the Senate for any other reason!) is almost as bad as having Scott Walker as the VP nominee.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones evaluates Jeb Bush's claim that it's just too hard to start a business in America, and finds it wanting. Those of us who started a business in one day already find Mr. Bush's claim surprising, of course, but read the piece anyway, so you can be reminded that (for example) it's bad to generalize about an entire country by using data from two cities, and it's also bad to cite "authorities" if their science is bad.
Martin Shkreli is so hated in America that even Donald Trump piles on, calling Mr. Shkreli "spoiled," "smug," "disgusting," and a "disgrace," concluding, also, that "(h)e is zero. He is nothing." And that, folks, is why Donald Trump has led in polls for so long -- because he talks about Martin Shkreli the way a lot of folks would talk about him. I'm not terribly motivated to be polite about Martin Shkreli, either.
Finally, Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe got very, very upset when folks described a man he invited to testify at a committee hearing as a "white supremacist." Mr. Metcalfe insisted the man was actually a "white nationalist," and added that "(t)o say somebody is a nationalist and for the independence of their country and a patriot to (sic) defending their country, is a lot different from saying somebody is a racist," leaving us to wonder exactly which white nation Mr. Metcalfe's guest hails from. Or should I say heils from?
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