So will you…now won't you
DUH….
Top Elizabeth Warren Donor Profits Off Rising Drug Prices
Warren regularly lambasts drug companies, introduced legislation on rising costs
A firm founded by a top donor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's action fund, campaign committee, and leadership PAC profits off prescription drugs including those that the Massachusetts senator regularly chastises for hiking prices on consumers.
Warren for years has been outspoken against the drug industry and has had "big pharma in her crosshairs" while simultaneously introducing numerous pieces of legislation in attempts to tackle the rising prices of the industry. "Over the last 10 years, some of the wealthiest drug companies—those that capitalize on government research to generate billions of dollars in revenues through the sale of blockbuster drugs—have found another way to boost profits," Warren said in 2015. "They’ve been caught defrauding Medicare and Medicaid, withholding critical safety information about their drugs, marketing their drugs for uses that aren’t approved, and giving doctors kickbacks for writing prescriptions for their drugs."
Warren slammed pharma giant Pfizer in November 2018 for hiking prices on prescriptions, saying that Pfizer "‘promised' it wouldn’t raise prices, then turned around and raised them anyway," and added that "we can’t count on drug companies to tackle rising drug costs, so Congress must." The Massachusetts senator sent an earlier letter asking if they planned to raise costs and inquired into if they had lobbied the Trump administration on its proposals. Warren additionally spearheaded the Capping Prescription Costs Act of 2018, which "tackles high drug costs faced by families placing a monthly cap on their out of pocket drug costs." In December 2018, Warren introduced bicameral legislation alongside Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) to address the "skyrocketing" costs of prescription drugs that proposed government manufacturing of generic drugs. As Warren publicly knocked big pharma and pushed legislation against the industry, a firm run by a top donor to her action fund, campaign committee, and leadership PAC quietly profited off rising costs in the industry.
Pablo Legorreta, a former Wall Street investment banker who founded and acts as the chief executive officer of Royalty Pharma LLC, a New York City-based private equity firm, poured $10,800 into the Elizabeth Warren Action Fund. The $10,800 donation was one of the largest to the fund this past election cycle, according to filings. Legorreta's firm has banked off top-selling drugs and the skyrocketing costs of prescriptions, according to reports. Royalty Pharma has amassed an investment portfolio valued north of $15 billion by buying the rights to royalties on future drug sales, the New York Times wrote last year.
The report indicated that Royalty had partial rights in seven of the top 30 selling drugs in the country—including Humira, the highest selling drug, and Remicade, the fourth highest selling drug—and has dodged public scrutiny that other companies could not. Royalty buys royalty rights to drugs from the likes of patent holders or universities after regulators approve them for sales. "In recent years, Royalty Pharma’s deals have grown larger," the Times writes. "In 2014, it agreed to pay $3.3 billion to an affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for rights to the drug Kalydeco and other treatments for cystic fibrosis marketed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Last year, Royalty Pharma paid $1.14 billion to the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-owners of the rights to Xtandi, which treats advanced prostate cancer. This year, it agreed to pay up to $2.85 billion to Perrigo for rights to the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri."
Royalty's portfolio—which the firm calls "unparalleled" in the industry—additionally contains at least partial rights in many drugs that are marketed by Pfizer, who Warren regularly uses in her line of attacks on the drug industry. Those drugs include Lyrica, Ibrance, Xtandi, and Bosulif. An inquiry sent to Royalty Pharma for Legoretta about his contributions to Warren was not returned by press time. Warren's campaign also did not respond to requests for comments on the donations from Legoretta as the senator has chastised rising drug prices in the industry. Warren was not the only Democrat that received money from Legorreta this past election cycle. Legorreta gave a total of $101,200 to Democratic campaigns, funds, PACs, and state parties throughout the cycle.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/top-elizabeth-warren-donor-profits-off-rising-drug-prices-2/
Nuns were sexually abused by priests as church looked the other way, Vatican magazine says
The Vatican women’s magazine is denouncing the rape and other sexual abuse of nuns by priests and the resulting scandal of religious sisters having abortions or giving birth to children who go unrecognized by their fathers. The February issue of Women Church World, a monthly magazine, on Friday cited Pope Francis’ own analysis of abuse, saying that unchecked clerical power was at the root of the problem of priests preying on young children as well as adult nuns. It said nuns have been silenced for years by fear of retaliation against them or their orders if they report the priests who molested or raped them. The publication marks a significant public acknowledgment from inside the Vatican of the problem that the Holy See has long known about but has done next to nothing to address.
Last year, after the Associated Press and other media reported on the scandal, the international association of women’s religious orders urged sisters to report abuse to police and their superiors, a significant shattering of the silence that has long kept the problem secret. “If you point to power, to clericalism, the abuse against religious sisters takes on another aspect and can finally be recognized for what it is: an act of power in which touch becomes a violation of one’s personal intimacy,” editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote in Friday’s article. It noted that religious sisters told Vatican officials as far back as the 1990s about priests sexually abusing nuns in Africa because they were considered “safe” targets during the HIV crisis.
While little or nothing changed, sisters from the developing world and also wealthier countries are beginning to denounce their abuse as part of an overall demand for greater power for women in the church — part of the #MeToo movement. “If the church continues to close its eyes to the scandal — made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren’t recognized by priests — the condition of oppression of women in the church will never change,” Scaraffia wrote.
The issue has been in the headlines lately after a nun in India filed a police report accusing her bishop of rape. The bishop has denied her claims, and the controversy has split her religious community, which is financially dependent on the diocese. “The priests and even more, the bishops, have a huge power, not just over a single nun but over a whole congregation,” Scaraffia told the AP in an interview Friday. “So if an abused nun goes to her superior general and says that she has been abused, she will be told, ‘Keep quiet, because if you don’t this bishop will turn against us.’”
Women Church World, which is published in Italian, French and Spanish, last year made headlines with an issue devoted to work and an article denouncing how nuns are often treated like indentured servants by cardinals and bishops, for whom they cook and clean for next to no pay. In an opening editorial, one of Italy’s leading Jewish intellectuals, Anna Foa, said the abuse scandal had transformed a caress “into an expression in and of itself suspect and practically obscene.” Foa also cited Francis’ words in “thanking journalists who were honest and objective in discovering predator priests and made the voices of victims heard.”
https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-vatican-nuns-abuse-20190201-story.html
Pope making historic visit to United Arab Emirates on mission to forge interfaith dialogue
Less than a week after returning from his last foreign trip, Pope Francis sets off Sunday on a trip to the United Arab Emirates where he will celebrate the largest public open-air mass ever to be held in the region.
On his first full day in the city, the Pope will meet the crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, as well as members of the International Muslim Council of Elders in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, and attend and speak at an important interreligious meeting together with about 700 people from different faiths in the region. On Feb. 5, the second and final day of his visit, he will celebrate mass at the Zayed Sports City, which is built to contain 50,000 people. Over 130,000 people, mostly Catholic immigrants from Asia working in the region, have received tickets. Those who cannot find a place in the stadium will watch the mass on giant screens in the surrounding area. The Pope will tour the crowds inside and outside the stadium while inside his popemobile.
The Pope will be greeted upon arrival and will be accompanied throughout his visit by the Grand Imam Al-Azhar from Cairo. This will be the fifth time these two religious leaders have met. The first pope to visit the Arabian peninsula, his visit is seen as momentous for the Muslim region and especially important for the UAE, which is currently celebrating its ‘Year of Tolerance’ and wants to be seen as a peace-building nation, especially between people of Christian and Muslim faiths. Critics of the UAE’s record on human rights and the country’s involvement in the war in the neighboring state of Yemen hope the pope will use the visit to speak out against these and other issues in the region.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/pope-making-historic-visit-united-arab-emirates-mission/story?id=60778449
Pelosi-Affiliated PAC Sent $250,000 to George Soros Effort
Liberal activist campaign targeted infrequent voters and bankrolled primarily by Soros
A political action committee linked to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pushed a total of $250,000 to an activist campaign that was primarily bankrolled by liberal billionaire George Soros, Federal Election Commission filings show. The House Majority PAC, the Pelosi-affiliated group dedicated to electing Democrats to the House of Representatives, this past election cycle made numerous transfers to the "Win Justice" campaign, which was launched by a handful of liberal activist organizations including Planned Parenthood Votes, Color of Change PAC, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Center for Community Change. The group would work to push minority, young, and woman voters to the polls in Florida, Michigan, and Nevada.
The network created an affiliated federal PAC—the Win Justice PAC—to fund their efforts. The PAC is operated by Deepak Pateriya, the chief of staff at the Center for Community Change Action, a left-wing Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is regularly involved in protests and direct action against President Donald Trump and Republicans. Deepak Bhargava, the executive director of the Center for Community Change, is a part of Soros's 12-person advisory board for U.S. Programs at his Open Society Foundations. The Win Justice PAC was given $3.7 million from committees including SEIU Cope, America Votes Action Fund, Civic Innovation, and Planned Parenthood Votes. The Pelosi-linked PAC ultimately sent a total of $250,000 in funds to the Win Justice PAC throughout the cycle, according to filings.
However, the PAC received a majority of its funds from deep-pocketed billionaires. The PAC reported $7.8 million from individuals, $5.2 million of which came from Soros, who was the PACs first and sole donor for some time after its launch. Later donors to the PAC included billionaire financier Donald S. Sussman, Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, Soros's daughter-in-law Andrea Soros, real-estate mogul George Krupp, and Weston Milliken, a secretary at the Democracy Alliance, the left's largest dark money donor network in which Soros is a top member. The Democracy Alliance, founded in 2005, consists of more than 100 liberal donors who have steered more than $600 million to liberal organizations and infrastructure since its inception. Pelosi has appeared alongside Soros at the group's secretive conferences to deliver keynote addresses to the donor network.
Gara LaMarche, the president of the Democracy Alliance who previously worked at Soros's Open Society Foundations, sat on the advisory board of the Center for Community Change, the group whose sister organization operated the Win Justice campaign's federal PAC. The Center for Community Change and Color of Change, another organization involved with Win Justice, are both recommended groups for funding by the Democracy Alliance. In addition to targeting infrequent voters, the Win Justice campaign spent hundreds of thousands backing candidates such as former Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida, who lost his election to Rick Scott, Ellisa Slotkin, who won her race in Michigan's 8th congressional district, and Rep. Jacky Rosen, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in Nevada. The House Majority PAC did not respond to inquiries into the money it gave to the Win Justice effort by press time
https://freebeacon.com/politics/pelosi-affiliated-pac-sent-250000-to-george-soros-effort/
I think we will have to look at all of their entity 990's to know for sure…I wouldn't put it past them to this though.
Trump Administration Announces U.S. Withdrawal From INF Treaty
The Trump administration announced on Friday that the United States would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty because Russia continues to be in violation of the agreement. The White House released a statement from President Donald Trump in which he calls out Russia for violating the treaty and posing a threat to NATO allies.
For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity, covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad. Tomorrow, the United States will suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty and begin the process of withdrawing from the INF Treaty, which will be completed in 6 months unless Russia comes back into compliance by destroying all of its violating missiles, launchers, and associated equipment. Our NATO Allies fully support us, because they understand the threat posed by Russia’s violation and the risks to arms control posed by ignoring treaty violations. The United States has fully adhered to the INF Treaty for more than 30 years, but we will not remain constrained by its terms while Russia misrepresents its actions. We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other. We will move forward with developing our own military response options and will work with NATO and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct. My Administration remains committed to effective arms control that advances United States, allied, and partner security, is verifiable and enforceable, and includes partners that fulfill their obligations. For arms control to effectively contribute to national security, all parties must faithfully implement their obligations. We stand ready to engage with Russia on arms control negotiations that meet these criteria, and, importantly, once that is done, develop, perhaps for the first time ever, an outstanding relationship on economic, trade, political, and military levels. This would be a fantastic thing for Russia and the United States, and would also be great for the world.
The Cold War-era treaty, which eliminated nuclear missiles from Europe, was negotiated by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The treaty dictated both countries eliminate their short-range and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles. Russia has violated the treaty by developing, testing, and deploying a new ground-launched cruise missile called the SSC-8. Trump announced his intention in December to pull out from the treaty and gave Russia until Feb. 2 to get back in compliance. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on camera Friday to announce the administration's decision.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-administration-announces-u-s-withdrawal-from-inf-treaty/
I think this calls for a dig..finding all of those organizations using "Democracy" in their name..I agree it does seem like a code..the thing is Dems seem to forget we are a Republic.
Why do I think this is a younger Juan Williams every time I see it?