Friday, August 01, 2025

Lee Fang worries about medical decisionmaking in Trumpworld being victim to lobbying power. I worry about who was an insider trading the stock.

Fang's post: https://www.leefang.com/p/big-pharma-fingerprints-behind-ousting -- title:

Big Pharma Fingerprints Behind Ouster Of MAHA-Aligned FDA Official
Dr. Vinay Prasad scrutinized a potentially dangerous drug. Then came the public attacks. Behind the scenes, pharma hired lobbyists and paid think tanks.

The Fang detailing of lobbying influence beyond a reasonable level is its own story, within which Fang includes a stock chart -

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Jciz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8ef2ef5f-275c-4bc7-b24f-cc43d6c22f23_1235x834.png

There were many who on July 28 knew what was up, and buy low, sell high is good advice, even if you're trading on insider knowledge but expecting to not get caught.

Who should get caught? It is not easy to smoke out insider dealings, but go figure.

If it smells off to you, you have an IQ over 70, but these profiteers off non-public knowledge almost never get caught. Influential names, represent an even lesser likelihood of being caught, and if caughtx, being lightly punished, if punished at all.

Elon is Elon, his money is put where it is despite any dustup he has, real or otherwise, with Trump.

Politico:

Elon Musk gave $5 million to Donald Trump’s super PAC during a dramatic and bitter falling out with the president, new filings show.

The donation to MAGA Inc. was made a month after Musk said he had “done enough” political spending, and he also gave $10 million that same day to help Republicans keep control of Congress.

The contributions came weeks into Musk’s public feud with Trump, as the tech billionaire was slamming Republicans for voting for the megabill that he argued would blow up the deficit. Still, the SpaceX CEO donated $5 million each to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc. on June 27, according to the groups’ filings with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. Those are the top super PACs supporting the House and Senate Republicans and the Trump political operation.

The next week, the world’s richest man said he would start his own political party.

Musk, who spent $290 million of his own money to boost Trump and other Republicans last year, led the cost-cutting efforts of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in the first few months of the Trump administration. When he left that role in May, he also suggested he was done with political giving for the time being: “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don’t currently see a reason,” he said at the Qatar Economic Forum.

The $5 million donation to the Trump-linked super PAC MAGA Inc. came weeks after Musk had torched Trump on social media, first over policy differences surrounding the president’s megabill, but also in escalating personal attacks. Musk later deleted some posts, but resumed his criticism of Trump, including his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, in July.

and -

Elon Musk spent millions on Republican candidates despite feud with Donald Trump

Donations during public spat cast doubt on billionaire’s proposal to start a rival party

Elon Musk donated $5mn each to the two main Super Pacs backing House and Senate Republican candidates on June 27, according to documents filed to the US Federal Election Commission, just days before he floated the idea of building a rival party © Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Joe Miller and Alex Rogers in Washington - Published - July 31 2025

GOP House and Senate funding.

Well, hoping readers can view the item without being "paywalled" out, Strib posts an Op-Ed item worth noting.

https://www.startribune.com/opinion-democrats-just-might-find-democratic-socialism-refreshing/601446676

The item has this headline and opening image:

Opinion | Democrats just might find democratic socialism refreshing
It isn’t so different from the progressive populism of the 20th century. Which worked for them.
August 1, 2025 at 6:00AM

"In a climate of political turbulence and fading trust in America’s two major parties, self-described democratic socialists are demonstrating renewed acceptance of progressive populism," Ron Way writes. Supporters of Zohran Mamdani cheer election results as his victory is announced at a Democratic Socialists of America watch party at Brooklyn Masonic Hall in Brooklyn, June 24. (VICTOR J. BLUE/The New York Times)

That image does show cheered young people, and the future of the Democratic Party is in their hands, with Nancy Pelosi a dinosaur who has been instrumental in our nation not having Pharma reform, or Medicare for All. Go with the trend, the trend is your friend. And, yes, the web is full of naysayers.

The naysayers -- What's their alternate agenda, and who's the source of income they rely upon?

Question pundits.

And the URL for that image of joy -

https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/KO573ID6HVHZ7ODAWWTVSK4UGY.JPG

________________UPDATE_____________

LINK.

Epstein matters still seems to be atop a large fraction of web postings. Here, for example, is the latest from DWT.

Link.

.............................................

Also, as an UPDATE, a slightly older DWT post, by a few hours:

When Self-Dealing Is A Job Description: Trump, Rick Scott, & The GOP Standing Up For Insider Trading

PLUS: A day ago DWT kept after the anti-PEOPLE bill Trump's people (AND MY REP EMMER) call big/beautiful. Please do read that item.

And, speaking of EMMER, there is this weeks ago about him and news. It's not as powerful a story as others listed above, but it does have an EMMER image.

Finally, a DWT item from early last month (July 9) that deserved earlier comment, with this lead image:

BOTTOM LINE: Just keep up with DWT posting, it is well worth your time.

https://www.downwithtyranny.com/downwithtyranny

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday likened the Trump accounts created by Republicans’ massive new domestic policy law to “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security.” Democrats are already launching political attacks. Bessent was discussing the Trump accounts at a Breitbart policy panel.

Link.

Yeah, that may be news, but hey, look at Blanche - Maxwell and related podcasts. Nothing to hide, but you know, Trump's name is in the Epstein files.

--------------------------------------------------

Also, try a web search=social security new pin number

Is this something DOGE cooked up, a "protection number" or what?

The situation was not researched by Crabgrass, but online, there is this.

Tariff day, the start of August, 2025. (There is Trumpworld news besides Epstein.)

US announces new tariff rates for countries in escalation of Trump's trade war, India faces 25% - Full list here

__UPDATE_

Websearch = percentage of world trade U.S. vs BRICS

Example stories, here and here.

(News besides Epstein does exist)

New leech in town.

MSN carry of a Strib item, without any paywall, about a leech pit:

Amid financial turmoil, UnitedHealth Group brings in new chief financial officer
Story by Christopher Snowbeck, Star Tribune
•

Germany in the '40s always found somebody to run the trains to Auschwitz, although that's an unrelated fact. Clearly.

UnitedHealth does not run trains. (Warren Buffet does that although his trains are good trains.)

Luigi is headed toward trial. Jurors will have to balance emotions in that one. He kept a journal.

I'd acquit him, but I'm far from any seat on that jury. Geographically. Attitudinally too. The prosecutors want his head on a platter.. He lacked a pest exterminator's license, of that I'd convict.

UPDATE: Related news. Fraud on top of failed rapaciousness?

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Men in Black

Yes, Jensen, we both are exceptional at recruiting smart people. Your guys make great chips and my guys are building those chips in a Memphis place into Colossus, 200,000 chips in scaling planning and able to grow beyond that. You build the chips and I build the device capable of rigging the crypto market. And you know what happened in Memphis. Your chips can go into linking and aiding the world's banking hegemony to eliminate corruption, while my Colossaus can service the money launderers. We've got finance by both ends, like the alimentary canal.

From Women's March - 10-2-2021 - imagery speaks

Image is cropped from one of a series of Buzzfeed images. Click the image to access the Buzzfeed coverage of that march. This was a major event in Washington, D.C., and it happened mid-way after Trump had been fired by voters in the 2020 election, and before the one approaching. To assert as MN GOP politicians have that abortion is not an issue is an insensitive fiction concocted in some smoke filled GOP backroom. Do not let a GOP intent to deceive misleed your vote. The issue IS ON THE BALLOT. Women deserve dominion over their bodies, we all deserve privacy in our lifetime decision making.

Cracker fear and loathing toward Critical Race Theory has its precedent.

The precedent - Integration dodging intent behind segregated "non-profit" private schools, after the Brown decision was issued. Leading a twisted mind, Paul Weyrich, to issue-monger.

Politico in 2014 posted the true history of the ginned up propagandized opposition to abortion among the nation's hordes of Evangelicals as the "Weyrich solution" to energize the base. Leading to grave mischief. Evangel-Jesus-jockeys, with fellow travelers, (many of whom are surveyed as not as worked up about Roe as Alito would want you to falsely believe). Some, "foaming-at-the-mouth" rabid, however -

This is for you, Gipper and crowd.

Click that Wikipedia image, get THE STORY (and a link to the enlarged image, copyright info and all). GET: Online info leading into a new year via some pre-1947 new "old thoughts." New to many first time voters - this cycle. Not the thoughts, but the history. A history not to be found in Gipper speech transcripts, nor the Gipper's presidential library papers. Hello, Joe, Dem Party history, so pay attention. Pre-Clinton, Pre-Obama, but Dem party new-old nostalgia. Good old ways. Show the guts to walk that talk.

War Crime - Crime Against Humanity - Today, Now.

Let's go Brandon?

Yes, it relates to a NASCAR event, NASCAR attendees making a statement. But given how fifteen bucks got disappeared, and now Build Back Inconsequentially is pending, shouldn't we all chant? Trust whoever you care to, but wouldn't you like to see trust earned? Actions speak louder than words, while inaction when action is needed speaks loudest? Truthfully so? Pharma prices if anything have gone upward since Trump left while Manchin's daughter's a part of it via her grotesque EpiPen market manipulation and price gouging (a/k/a contract, combination, conspiracy in restraint of trade to gain market segment monopolization). Who might they want to fool? Biden's Justice Department appearing to not be looking at EpiPen under antitrust criminal law? Student debt relief is an aim of many, yet Biden has made no move to be helpful. Never mind Medicare for All sidetracked - Not even cosmetic change is being made to Obama's Romneycare? Taking progressives for a buggy ride? DC redux? Money talks? A Congress of old owned lackeys? Let's go Brandon?

copyright notice -

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MYOGA - Make Yacht Owners Gain Again

A RIGHT - not a privilege - EVERYBODY'S RIGHT - no limits

JOE BIDEN DOES NOT SUPPORT MEDICARE FOR ALL. That is because Biden's billionaires want to keep every last one of the people beholden, manageable that way, willing to compromise and to worry about the next paycheck and the mortgage, rather than worrying abstractly over the grossly unfair distribution of wealth and power in our nation. Reform of that situation is needed. HOWEVER, with the Biden White House team, we must wait for HOPE and CHANGE. He owes, as a career politician now a millionaire himself, after NOT ever biting a feeding hand. We need Bernie.

Bernie ran for President. Who cares?

Bernie Sanders early 2019 crowds from before the Democratic Party oligarchs did him in, Clyburn, Bloomberg, Biden - the usual suspects. What resonated with those crowds - a candidate for justice and fairness, finally and for us all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7DRwz0cAt0 Joe Biden could have a Lincolnian legacy, if he cuts and runs from the big donor class he has so far courted, makes his platform the heart of that speech and delivers on the promises. If there is the will, there is the way.

More meddlesome in U.S. of A. politics. More money spent over Russians? Does that compute?

click here for image source plus NYTimes coverage.

Will there be blowback? There seems to be a disproportionate sense to DC's media-mania focus. Russians seem to make better theater, while Israelis generate movement on a scale Putin could only dream of? Essays and books could be written . . . However, in 2012 Romney and Bibi preceded Donald and Vlad mischief, in attempted outsider bias of U.S. national elections. Donald never visited Vlad in Russia. Romney did visit and schmooze Bibi, in Israel. "Double standard?" Go figure.

Doug Wardlow's police pal, Bob Kroll.

POLICE ENDORSED has to have a meaning, a context, and a discernible personality. G.R.Anderson writing over a decade ago, in a CityPages item, puts in a context, Bob Kroll, further fleshed out, here. It behooves the public to know who the supporters of a politician are, (photo above), since that reflects on the politician. "Rule of Law" must have a meaning to Kroll, one which few would share. Why is Mainstream Media not asking about POLICE ENDORSED, a Wardlow tout point?

IN ADDITION: In this image, isn't it Bob Kroll standing to the right hand of friend Wardlow? Looks like him. Paired Ellison haters? Anti-Muslim cohorts? How far back does the pairing go? And how has the pairing grown over time or evolved, from what start? Is there some Dobson joinder? The press should inquire.

Douglas Gary Wardlow did not merely throw the first stone . . .

He unleashed an ADF salvo, earning his ADF paycheck. Read about it, here, here and here. Outlawyered on appeal, Wardlow now apparently has no ADF paycheck. Others for ADF are pressing on. ADF appears to be a win-or-go-home team. James Dobson's team, so walk the line. Whatever you think you want, trust me, you do not want James Dobson anywhere near our attorney general office. A Berniecrat is the other choice, and is a good choice because Bernie's policies are the only future the Democratic Party has whether they accept that or not. Aimee Stephens is as human as I am, as human as Wardlow and Dobson and Hillstrom and Pelikan, the latter two seeming to have gone silent. Ms. Stevens should not be bedeviled in this Twenty-first Century. She merely wanted to be herself, do her job, and get her share. That is what each of us wants for ourselves. Evolution of politics is overdue. Ellison got piled on; is getting piled on. Click the above image.

Sell 'em Prosperity Gospel and feed 'em beans. Some never catch on.

What is Prosperity Gospel? It is: Channeling the mind of a brick into GOP and related dogma. Read this Minnesota story. Click the image to read its fine print. (image source: Bluestem Prairie) The image shows a part of the "mind" of a 30 yr. and still-going Prosperity Gospel faithful attendee. A Dev Crabgrass post fleshes things out. Islamaphobia is but one dimension of a larger "GOP base" stupidity. Stupidity you can bank on. HINT: Follow links in items linked here. Questions will get answered. And --- There's more -

DINO NEWS: Democrats in Name Only; they exist as a problem.

a DINO with an up-top money slot

This link. Al Franken in the linked WashTimes item is quoted:
“There are a lot of Minnesotans who are Franken-Trump voters. You have to go and talk to them, and you have to listen. That’s what we need to do. We need to listen.”
Al knows the score better. Al knows Sanders-Franken voter numbers dwarf that Trump-Franken segment, as to where Al needs to pay most attention, "to listen."

Al, in no uncertain terms, should be telling Tom Perez and the beltway money-bunnies of a new fresh smell in the air. Recognizing (in kind wording) one DINO foundation-family's drift, now, into irrelevancy is far from admitting what's relevant and moving full speed to the Bernie side of the force.

Dinosaurs, DINO ways and means, must and will be extinct (can you say "Primary Joe Manchin and Clair McCaskill"). As Al in the item says; listen. Hear Bernie sounding like a giant asteroid strike upon a DINO status quo. Indeed, primary the poster DINO-bunny of artful misdirection and status quo actions, Cory Booker. Gain attention from that, successful or not. Ideally, send Cory to work with Eric Cantor on Wall Street, where his heart is.