It'll be interesting to see if SCOTUS considers a rug-pull, or other common crypto scam, an official Presidential act and #47 gets immunity...

Thanks Bart. :-)

Hold the phone. Are you saying wind turbines don't actually cause noise cancer? /s ;-)

First Dark Matter and Dark Energy, then Dark Brandon, now *this*. :-)

But then he met mega donor Jeff Yass, who has a 22% stake in ByteDance:
Trump’s cozy relationship with billionaire mega donor Jeff Yass could be key in helping TikTok avoid a U.S. ban

It's worse than that, his reasoning is all about *him*:

As though people can't see the inauguration events w/o TikTok. (*eye-roll*)

Trump wanted to ban TikTok in his first term, then waffled on it noting the youngsters using it, then met with mega donor Jeff Yass (net worth ~$50 billion) who has a combined 22% stake in ByteDance, and is now solidly for keeping TikTok around. From Trump’s cozy relationship with billionaire mega donor Jeff Yass could be key in helping TikTok avoid a U.S. ban:

Probably won't be the last ...

Please don't give the (probable) incoming Secretary of HHS any ideas.

Hubble Bubble -- the bubbles expand too fast.

(Note: The Pink flavor is discontinued 'cause of Red Dye #3.)

Releasing more PFAS (back) into the environment. :-)

Agreed. While this wouldn't apply to me as I (a) don't live in NY, (b) actually can pass a background check, and (c) don't own a 3D printer. But, in any case, I have zero interest in printing guns or gun parts and I imagine a lot of people wouldn't either. This seems like banning knitting needles on airplanes *just* 'cause someone might knit an Afghan...

The U.S.actually has panels for that sort of stuff for Medicare and the ACA, to review procedures and medications for effectiveness and outcomes, but no one wants to listen to them. Those on the Right cry "Death Panels" etc ... and whinge about "unelected officials" limiting medical care ... I suspect it's more about keeping the "gravy train" GP mentioned going than anything else.

Insurance companies don't (usually) develop drugs, so not sure R&D factors into the middle-men price mark-ups, even when those companies are also owned by the insurance companies themselves. In these cases, they're probably separate companies for tax, PR, and/or liability reasons -- or just a way to maximize profits even more.

Don't know how accurate this is, but I've read several articles that say drug companies base prices on (a) what profits the R&D money would have generated if it had simply been invested over that time rather than used to develop a drug and (b) then what the market will bear for that drug (i.e. what they can get away with).

Presumably, what they've done (so far) is legal. What Martin Shkreli did wasn't. From wikipedia:

And, he's, apparently, a dick.

Interactive, time-lapse chart showing Life expectancy vs. health expenditure by country from 1970 to 2022.
The U.S. is an outlier -- and not in a good way...