Big Pharma Made it to the White Hous

Big Pharma Made it to the White House

Russell Brand has an excellent video out today. Big Pharma, in the guise of the largest and richest makers of the COVID-19 vaccines, has made their spokesman JOE BIDEN'S MAIN MAN! Can they make it any plainer? They're in charge.

Jeff Zients, kinda rhymes with Jeff Science, is the new White House CHIEF OF STAFF! He's JeffZ here now and forever.

JeffZ is a rich man who has been in bed with and in the pocket of BIG PHARMA for many years. You've seen him, you just didn't notice.That's how he got rich. $442M rich.

He and Big Pharma got rich by taking gummint money and creating vaccines with it. The vaccines cost $2.35 a dose to make, but we paid the bill! So, net cost to them = $0. 

Now they're trying to decide their new price. It will be somewhere between $100 and $130 per dose, retail, and you know it'll be on the high side of that. Hell, why not? Their profit on one $130 sale is... $130!

Ike was right: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

We let our guard down and misplaced power came in to take charge.

Ike would surely recognize Big Pharma and Big Tech as today's versions of the military-industrial complex. Oh, that still exists and is profiting greatly at your expense. Never forget. But there are new hungry monsters today.

JeffZ gets to decide who sees the president and who carries out the president's wishes, as laid out by Big Pharma, Big Tech and our Military-Industrial Complex. 

He was their spokesman, f'God's sake. They'll be visiting and explaining their visions of the future to JoeyB. 

JeffyZ will explain them to JoeyB in small words after the meetings. JoeyB will act accordingly.

JeffyZ's main job is to make JoeyB look good. He'll do that by deflecting criticism and blaming others for JoeyB's blunders. He'll coach JoeyB how to look tough. Corn Pop tough, not China tough. That's too much.

What does this mean for you? First, he will make policy in the name of the president. You know JoeyB can't do it himself, right?  

If JeffyZ was BP's highly-paid spokesman before and he wants to be the same after (Why not? The pay is great!) he will certainly carry their water now that he has become White House Chief of Staff.

JoeyB made huge policy decisions on his first day, thanks to people like Susan Rice and his other back room tsars. Since then, pretty much nothing as far as real policy decisions or changes. Certainly, nothing about the border or inflation or BP or BT.

Hello, Little People.

Secret Docs!

Hey, look - Secret docs! 

Money Shovels!

Remember when it was going to be a NEW billion bucks for Ukraine? That was two days ago. Now its two-and-a-half billion dollars. THIS TIME! There will be more. A LOT more because there are so many hogs at the trough. Try not to look.

Hey LOOK! The president has secret docs AT HOME! And he's dripping out the story! Wow! No need to worry about feeding that pesky Ukraine War. Just look at those secret docs, will you? 

And if you notice our money hole, you're a fascist, racist, Maga Republican. Turn your back, you traitor!

And the president of Ukraine? Well, he's a symbol of a righteous war, isn't he? Good looking young guy, a symbol, along with his pretty wife, of the righteousness of the war?

Makes shoveling money into a hole seem like the right thing to do. A nice couple like them wouldn't actually STEAL some of it, would they? Really? A TV comic actor would STEAL? And re-shovel some of those USbux to his friends? Well, just look at those secret documents, will you?

But how would you and I know? Reportage has been censored. We know only what the Ukrainian warhawks want us to know.

Our own absolutely incompetent military warhawks, (never forget Afghanistan!) want us to think this is at least an OK war. A war worth fighting because it is a proxy war against RUSSIA! And no Americans are dying, of course. And it's just money, after all.

Gentle reminder: Vietnam was a righteous proxy war, too. So is Lebanon. 

Shoulder your money shovels, gentle readers. There's righteous money to shovel. Just don't look in the hole.

 It's hardly a drop in the bucket!

I mentioned on Jan. 12 that another $3bil for Ukraine is almost too small for us to notice, on top of the $100bil we already handed out. And, apparently, no one did notice. Three is such a small number.

Today, it's only $1.3 bil. But that's just today. I told you then, "this month is still young." It's still only middle-aged. Do you think this will be the last "tranche" for Ukraine? No, it won't be. You'll give more, sucker, and soon.

What are you getting for your money? "Well, it's RUSSIA!" our war hawks insist, as if that excuses everything. 

News flash: The US is getting NOTHING for all our money! It's the Hunter Biden Story in realpolitik, something for nothing but the chicks ain't free. Hey, if Obama could do it in Iran, free money, that is, what would make Joe think he couldn't do it in Ukraine.

I've been in Russia twice during the Putin reign. No one there wanted war. They still don't. Americans are the same. Conscription is near-universal in Russia unless your dad is someone special. Like it used to be in the US. Neighboring countries are overrun with draft refugees. You remember Canada, don't you?

Joe Biden salutes at the top of the stairs of Air Force 1. Someone had to teach him how. He's had a career in government service but never had to spend a day in uniform so he didn't learn saluting the way everyone else had to. Here, Joe, hold your hand like this, and look serious.

Hunter thought he'd better get some military experience if he had real political ambitions, like his dad. That's what his handlers told him. Why NOT be an incompetent president just like dad? You don't have to know anything and you already know how to get bunches of cash from China.

Got lots of money and not in jail? Doesn't seem to take much more that that to be a candidate. But no, Hunter was kicked out of the Navy shortly after he received his commission. And how hard did he work for that? Hint: Not as hard as your son did. Cocaine, y'know. Busted. That's gonna bruise his chances at the presidency. 

But nothing is impossible for SuperHunter. Drugs, hookers, bribery, corruption? Youthful indiscretions, that's all. And at least his dad was untouched by it all. Snicker.

 McNamara's 100,000, Redux

"During the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara began a program called Project 100,000.

The program brought over 300,000 men to Vietnam who failed to meet minimum criteria for militarty service, both physically and mentally.

• Project 100,000 recruits were killed in disproportionate numbers and fared worse after their military service than their civilian peers, making the program one of the biggest—and possibly cruelest—mistakes of the Vietnam War." 

©Big Think, lifted entirely from writers better than I.

***

THEY'RE DOING IT AGAIN!

You'll only remember this terrible failed program if you were there or if one of them was your son or if you're a studious historian of the war. I was there, though, and I had one of them in my aircraft maintenance platoon. Harry.

Harry was a misfit in every sense of the word. He had a decidedly lower-than-average IQ. He had no idea of the work-for-pay contract he had made with the Army. He didn't understand that the Army, and society in general, had expectations of him.

Plus, he was a heroin addict. Heroin was as cheap as whiskey. I was in no way a criminal investigator and never wanted to be. Nevertheless, I busted two large heroin stashes. One included holding my .45 at a soldier/drug dealer's head.

All of that is to be expected when you announce that you're going to induct 100,000 men who didn't meet Army standards yesterday but they do today. They tended to be disruptive and needy and under educated. They were shoved through some kind of basic training and shipped off to war as replacements for experienced war fighters who were going home. 

Imagine Harry playing pin the tail on the donkey in the middle of a firefight. He was hopeless. Commanders needed to get rid of men like Harry for the safety of the other men in their units. So, of course, they sent them to "the rear." Commanders in the rear were forced to find jobs for them. You can't be a soldier in a war zone without a job.

Harry was my parts clerk. His job was to store and account for our myriad collection of helicopter parts and order more when we were running out. Store them in an orderly fashion and let my platoon sergeant know when our stocks were running low. That's it, that was his job. 

He didn't understand it. He put boxes of just-arrived parts on the floor of our CONEX, or on a shelf, and walk away. Out of sight, out of mind. We had the parts somewhere. Maybe.

We had indigenous workers, men and women, doing menial work for our company. The most menial was, and please forgive me here, "Shit burner." They pulled the half-barrels out from under our latrines, poured diesel fuel on them and set the mess on fire. An ugly job but someone had to do it, as ugly as the thick black smoke rising from the fires.

During Tet, locals were locked out of the base. The latrines began to overflow. Someone had to do that job, but who? Why, Harry, of course. He's not good for anything else but anyone can burn shit, right? BTW, this was NOT my decision. Blame our first sergeant.

Harry pulled the first half-barrel out from under the latrine and poured gasoline into it. Sadly, he leaned over with his lighter and set it on fire. Explosion, burning shit everywhere, Harry screaming "Put me out!" Gasoline is not like diesel. Minor burns everywhere, hospital, sent home to "Recover." End of the experiment for Harry.

We're doing it again. Our military has had such problems recruiting that they have lowered their standards. They have programs to bring potential recruits up to their new, lowered standards.

McNamara tried that before. It failed. SecDef is trying it again today. Is it so hard to see that it's going to fail again? 

Certainly, a few will rise above their plights to become useful soldiers. Always have, always will. But at what cost?

We have nothing against people who suffer with illnesses, physical or mental. Theirs are hard roads and they need and deserve every break we can give them.

But PLEASE, don't put them in the Army and send them into combat. Let this story be a reminder. They will cause people to die who otherwise might have survived.

This new effort is an old package with a new ribbon. I've been there. I once had a recruit who ran around my Ft. Ord barracks all day, asking people, "Have you seen the white rabbit?" No, I haven't, but I've seen the result of lower standards for recruits.

Only Three $Bil

 Three Billion Dollars

It's only three billion dollars this time. So small it's hardly worth mentioning and, for the most part, no one does. Going for Bradley armored fighting vehicles and lesser armor for Ukraine this time. Barely noticeable. Three is such a small number.

It's not $100 bil like it was last time but the last time was only LAST MONTH! And this month is still young. Well, approaching middle age.

If you stretch out a whole lotta money into payments we begin to think we can afford it. Big retailers discovered this slight-of-wallet truth long ago. They don't tell us, "Hey, you're gonna have to pay the whole thing eventually, plus the outrageous interest rate we tacked on. Good luck if you lose your job."

Why are we sponsoring this war? Is it because Biden picked the government in 2014 when he was VP? Yes, it is, and he's making a ton of money. Hint: He didn't get rich by working hard. 

He was so deeply and meticulously involved that he picked the prosecutors who would have prosecuted his son. But didn't. Because of him. Because of money.

We are sponsoring a Nazi re-play in the Azov organization. Not neo-Nazi, real 21st-century Nazis, almost obscured by the fact that their president is a Jew. Pogroms aren't next, they're happening now. If you're in the way and annoying or needy, off to the camps for you.

Didn't great-grandpa sacrifice a leg in his mission to rid the world of Nazi fascism? Tut-tut. It was only one leg and it was a long time ago. It's different today. It's RUSSIA! So shut up, plebs. We're doing it for the children. Just ignore that we started the whole damn thing.

The Same Lies by the Same Liars

 I trust you had a happy new year. I know I did, peaceful and loving and friendly.

But the new year has to start somewhere. I offer to you Glenn Greenwald's Jan. 3 Substack show transcript at 

https://systemupdate.substack.com/p/media-rewrites-ukraines-dark-history?

utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

It's long and it also includes an insightful interview at the end about gummint censorship of the COVID debate. 

But it's the first part I want to highly recommmend to anyone who favors increased aid to Ukraine for fighting its Russian invaders, without deep thought about what it is we're doing to make that war possible.

Please, please, please read that part. The article is called "Erasing Inconvenient Truths." It is, at least in part, about the media's control of our thoughts and beliefs regarding our nearly unquestioned US support of the war in Ukraine. To the tune of $100bil and counting. Stand by, there will be more money, deaths and corruption.

Thanks to Biden, ("10% for the Big Guy,"),we took over the country and installed our own government (puppets included). We regaled new perceived friends, the Zelensky crowd of puppets. 

We stood by while they stole, are stealing, massive amounts of money and as they crushed dissent. A nation-wide Neo-Nazi group, the Azov Group, leads much of the military resistance to Russia. The same way that the original Nazis purged Ukraine of its national character and soul.

My basic message is that we've been lied to again, about almost everything, by the same people who have lied to us so often and egregiously in the past, about the same things they've lied to us before.

Damn, that's insulting. I've talked about gummint lying recently. Is nothing true that they tell us? More than ever, it seems that way. The border crisis, the budget, inflation, elections. They tell us what they want us to think is, "the truth."

Many gummint lies are about US conflict overseas. Wars. That's because wars offer the military-industrial complex the most opportunity for ginormous (an actual word) profits. Why wouldn't they lie? Remember that Ike warned us about them? We embraced them instead.

The profit margin on $100bil is really, really big. Say 50%, maybe, or another number that makes sense to you. And the more the pad, the more they can siphon off to the war sponsors to create more wars.

Poor us.