Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden
usatoday.com
Even though this would be a win for all Americans – and humanity – it apparently did not outweigh the politics of making a Democrat look good. This is the definition of party over country.
I'm a doctor.So is my mother. When she got cancer, I realized how little that mattered.
Republicans have stated budget cuts need to be made with an ever-growing debt. But where was this attitude when tax cuts for the wealthy were on the table in 2017? They don’t have to look at patients in the eye and break the devastating news that they have cancer. They don’t have to treat cancers that block intestines or drown a patient’s lungs in fluid.
reminds me of when trump disbanded the government's pandemic response team
for no other reason than obama created it.and then covid happened...edit: pandemic response team was created by bush, then expanded by obama.
trump gutted it
Or Bush/Cheney got rid of experts on Al-Qaeda and bin Laden upon taking over the office because of whatever reasons.
Because the Bush family had always been close to the house of saud. Of which Bin Laden was a member. On September 11th before anything was even clear. They had gone through and evacuated every member of the House of saud from the US. The majority of the attackers being from Saudi Arabia and also funded by Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was also trained and armed by his father and Ronald Reagan. Their history goes way back.
Ah, yes, back when "enemy of my enemy is my friend" was used.
What do you mean the group we funded to fight off the imperialistic superpower that we were in a Cold War against is now against us and our interference in the region? /s
This is not a past tense thing with US foreign policy by any measure.
A true leopard's ate my face moment.
"I didn't think my enemy would attack us when we supported them in attacking our enemies!"
They smothered NASA too
… But that was a Bush thing.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/george-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-late-prepare/story?id=69979013
Like, Regeneron and Moderna were direct US DARPA funding that came out because Bush was certain a new flu pandemic was enroute any day now.
It's a bit jarring to remember the era when Republicans weren't purely cartoonishly evil.
oops--editing
Trump wants to disband most beneficial government agencies because it’s a win win for him. Fascists need enemies, and his corporate mistresses will benefit from deregulation
Republicans have a lot of blood on their hands and we should stop treating them as reasonable adults.
We said that in 1992 and 2000, and 2004, and 2008, and 2020, and
2012 too, man. Congress shut down the government under Obama because "fuck you, that's why!"
The secret reason was racism
And it's more true than ever.
And we'll say it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and....
As long as there is a population of ultra wealthy individuals there will always be an asshole party entirely dedicated to those people... :(
That could be said about every American though.
Where are you from, let's analyze the horors of your nations past and why you should be ashamed of it even though you had nothing to do with it.
America. 😎
I think the big difference for some countries is their atrocities are in the past while the United States is committing them right now and has been doing so consistently for the last few decades.
But yeah, totally the same.
the stupidity in both of these statements, mine (rhetorical) and OPs is regardless of the atrocities, its not the average person's fault. To imply that ALL Americans have blood on their hands, and ALL Americans should be ashamed of their nation's atrocities is just stupid. The average person has no connection to or ability to stop said atrocities. We were just born here man, sins of the father and all that shit.
That's legit, I see your point and agree.
No one likes a tankie
Failing to ruin your life by going first at a revolution with zero coordination is basically the same thing as voting for cancer.
Doubt
Harris needs to shout this from the rooftops
Yep, can't get a better line than: "Republicans voted against curing cancer!"
People still voting Republican absolutely don't give a fuck. Cruelty is the point.
I think they just might, though. There's a unifying experience with cancer that transcends party lines. Not a single person in this country has not been affected themselves or know someone affected by cancer.
Democrats really need to drive this point home. They need to make this personal for every voter, not partisan. Blatantly say that cancer doesn't give a fuck if you're Republican, Democrat, wealthy, or poor. Or can come for anyone, even those that have spent their life trying to live healthily.
What they've done it's akin to an alien invasion movie where instead of defending the planet, Congress decides to do nothing because it might give someone they don't like a political win. It baffles my mind how inhumane Republicans and the mega wealthy are.
Honestly, if tRump was president and there was a chance to cure cancer for good, I'd be 100% fine giving him that win. I'd send him a personal fucking thank you letter.
Fuck cancer and fuck Republicans!
Sean Hannity: As usual the Demonrats are LYING about how our brave Congress stood up to the elites that were demanding that you give your hard earned tax money to democrat pharma companies! They aren't looking to cure cancer, they're LYING!
and every maga moron will believe it.
There is no true reality to be agreed upon when propaganda is allowed to run so rampant. I FULLY believe 1000000% that the BIGGEST problem we have is propaganda. Solve that and we can actually start making progress.
How do you stop propaganda when the first amendment is freedom of speech?
That's why we haven't solved it. I really don't know what the answer is to be honest.
The closest I can think of is enforcing some regulations about news media. Fox and anyone else should NOT be allowed to have their opinion shows where they lie with impunity on the same network/channel as their actual journalistic programs.
Ask any Magoo what they think of Sean Hannity (opinion host) and then ask them what they thought of Shepard Smith (actual news anchor) they were both on fox and you'll see the result.
My father: Shepard Smith is too opinionated that's why I trust Hannity more.
We've been trampling over the first amendment for decades. Not saying it's a good thing, but there's absolutely precedent.
we will always have stupid, hateful, regressive people in our society, and we will always have those that cater to them to make a buck. it's easier and better to instead try and work around them to advance society anyway. they'll complain about anything and everything no matter what we do. might as well do good.
maga morons don't matter. when will people understand, winning for democrats is not about deprogramming cult members. it's about winning the undecided and energizing their base so they actually get their ass to the voting machines.
conservatives are and always have been a minority. the reason they keep winning is that they vote. and they do everything in their power to prevent others from voting.
I hate that I read this in his voice.
It’s all part of the
tax dodgersLord’s plan.GOP is completely irrational and hostile. They’re dragging us to hell with them. Assholes.
Nooooo, see, what you don't get is that they're all special! They're not dragging us to hell WITH them, since they all get a free pass and go straight to heaven. They're just dragging us to hell.
I'm kinda glad we're going to different places. Heaven sounds awfully full of assholes
"Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."
Pushing you down so they can stand on your head.
All just to own the libs
Americans, where the fuck did you stray off the beaten path? I hate this timeline
Arguably all the way back to Nixon, but definitely by Reagan.
This. Reagan in particular just lovedb nothing more than knocking the supports out from under bridges. Fucking old bastard.
I’d say when FDR replaced Henry Wallace with the more right-leaning Truman.
Wallace wanted to pass a civil rights bill.
Truman dropped nuclear bombs on 2 civilian cities and was more interested in kick-starting the red scare than expanding upon the programs and policies FDR clearly laid out in his last days on literal record as president with things like a proposed 2nd Bill of Rights.
You can also assign some more blame to FDR for not having the masterminds of the Business Plot hanged.
WW2 was all about bombing civilian cities.
London, Dresden, they were all targets. Bombs and war were much less precise then. Taking out manufacturing capability was a valid tactic and part of that meant killing workers.
The stuff passed during Nixon's presidency was mostly not bad, because he had a progressive congress and knew it was good for his public image if he went along with their stuff (and took credit for their successes), but Nixon realized Southern Strategy, and his presidency perhaps marked the start of descent into incivility and absurdity in politics. He was a piece of shit in every regard imaginable, but he wasn't an obstructionist afaik.
Reagan is where policy took a SHARP dive, straight into the ground. He was the next step which was allowed by Nixon turning national politics into a rapid-fire shit-spewing competition.
I won’t necessarily speaking on policy, but more-so as a time-frame of when certain lines were crossed.
With Nixon, the Nixon Goes to China moment could be argued was the point in time which ultimately lead to massive off-shoring/out-sourcing that gutted America’s manufacturing industries and set the middle-class on its downward spiral.
Then there was his prolonging of the Vietnam War for his political benefit, at the cost of needless soldiers lives.
Then there’s the whole Watergate fiasco, which directly led to the founding of Fox News.
Calling opening relations with China as a negative is a bad take.
The companies that sold out the skeleton of the USA, by screwing the employees to pay shareholders and executives, are to blame for the current situation.
Was the EPA also a negative move to you?
Reagan led the charge but there was also folks like Gingrich and Armey doing stuff like the Contract with America (Heritage Foundation endorsed) and pushing to never let the dems have a win, and always oppose whatever they do.
I'm of the opinion that sunshine laws also fucked things up but that's a whole other discussion.
I apologize for steering the conversation toward another discussion, but I'm unfamiliar with the Sunshine Laws so I did a quick search:
Again, I'm not familiar but, I'm not seeing a problem with transparency and advance notice to ensure transparency. What particular issues do you have with Sunshine Laws?
Sunshine laws for congress (Such as the Legislative Restoration Act of 1970, and the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976) mandated transparent voting and meetings. I think you can readily imagine the issues that could come about if your own vote was public, in the case of congressional voting some things change but importantly it means that a lobbyist can nearly guarantee a return on investment. It should come as no surprise that the amount of lobbying groups and money in lobbying has massively increased since the various Sunshine laws passed. It also has led to increased partisan voting since now the parties can give the boot to someone crossing the aisle.
https://congressionalresearch.org/Citations.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20150506161647/https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/03/28/buying-government-with-lobbying-money-2/
Nixon, Reagan, HW Bush, W Bush, Trump. Did I miss one?
I think the JFK assasination pretty clearly shows the MIC/CIA et al has been firmly in control since the 50s.
We fought ourselves over slaves. Think stuff like this has always been in our blood. The world wars just made us look good for a while.
Is this what happens when Germany stays out of trouble for a couple of decades?
We love blaming others, so yea. It's all your fault.
😆
I think this hits the nail right on the head.
For a while now I've been pondering this very thing. I can't prove it conclusively, but I honestly think this goes all the way back.
$0.02: The USA was started as a bunch of colonies, and we're co-cohabiting with lunatics that think this still is one. Over time, territory expanded westward up to and through the Civil War. This was done by the kind of people that came to a foreign land, saw it was full of people already, and decided to completely upend that whole situation for their own benefit. You know, the whole "screw them, got mine" world outlook. This is also an ethos that is completely compatible (if not required) with owning people (slavery), secession to maintain that ability, spilling blood over it, and continuing to punch down on "people not like us" for a 150 years since losing that fight. In a sense, we're up against colonists, the values they espoused, their great-great-great-offspring, and people in their community that keep those values alive.
And when you FUCKING WON you did the thing I would never do. The South would have been a smoldering pit of cinders in my timeline. I'd have decorated the halls of the white house with the hides of the plantation owners.
You've learned nothing in all these years except how to be polite to the scum you beat until they inched their way back on top of you. It's truly one of the most vile tales in human history.
This is why I celebrate the legacy of John Brown. One of the greatest American heroes of all time, considered a terrorist by our government for murdering slave owners freeing their slaves and then arming those slaves to go free more.
John Brown is my hero. We need more of him today.
Ooo, ooo, ooo... Can I have one of those "hides"?
July 4th 1776
Why an American went to Cuba for cancer care
Really shows how ass backwards the US really is.
Cuba, a country that the US has tried to destroy for over 60 years now with economic sanctions, has better healthcare than the US, aka the richest nation on the planet.
There is no excuse for the state of healthcare in the US. We really have some evil, greedy people deciding to let people die so they can have more money.
Also Cuba didn't really do anything? They only truly alligned themselves with the communist block after the united states decided to start being shitty to them out of nothing but paranoia. Classic tyrant looking everywhere for conspiracies and causing some to appear moment.
Cuba has three sides of the coin: one for foreigners, another for citizens and finally for politicians.
What?
From now on, anyone who loses someone to cancer will not have to wonder what happened or how it could have been prevented. Death to cancer no longer has anonymity. The mask will forever be removed. We can now lay future loses and pain due to this horrible fate at the feet of Republicans and their partisan horseshit.
Fuck, I hate those fuckers, now as much as I hate cancer!
Since they've aligned themselves with cancer, I submit that transitive property is a thing. Ergo, they now are cancer.
And you know what we do to cancer, right kids? Fire, lasers, poison and radiation.
and stop smoking whatever shit theyre peddling.
This has been the GQP party line for quite some time now, make the national debt only matter when they aren't the ruling party. It's their only way to look good, they know Democrats won't hold US citizens hostage so they can stuff bills with whatever they want and still get them passed because Democrats won't let US citizens suffer. Meanwhile all they do is just nuke legislation when they aren't in power because they couldn't care less. They don't appeal to the same voters, just those they can brainwash, and they hedge their bets so those voters matter more.
So this is Biden/Harris fault!
Republican voter, probably.
Fox will spin it that way, or, more likely they just won't talk about it.
Need to be putting this on billboards in red states. Let everybody who has lost family or has family battling cancer know what they have done.
"The GOP just protected you from another vaccine"
Not this time. Cancer isn't communicative and there is no one alive who has not known someone battling or lost from cancer. It's not a personal failing of the individual and it doesn't give a shit who you are or how you live. It just might be the first time that a Republican voter could tangibly see how the wealthy and Republicans look to keep them dead, rather than do something nonpartisan.
Fuck a "win for Joe." They just blocked a win for humanity. We all know that in the end, you bet your ass the wealthy will have no problem getting their hands on this no matter the price or extremes they have to go to as soon as they are personally affected.
Seriously, buy ads on every type of public media display possible. It could read:
F#k a win for Joe!* Republicans in Congress just voted to let you and anyone you love die in the name of letting you and anyone you care about die from cancer!
Call your local representative and demand they put their partisanship aside, because I'm sick of seeing good people lose their lives to something that we now have the power to stop for the benefit of all of humanity!
I don't know. Maybe throw out shit about how even beloved pets get cancer and die even sooner than we expect because of this shit. Maybe show a picture of a sickly dog shining down from a glowing halo. I'm just spit-balling here. You all get it!
No, but it IS environmental. And we've been flooding our air, sea, and soil with toxic waste for decades.
That makes us a Hippie Green Issue, so Republicans oppose it.
How very on-brand for these Republican jerks.
Also, ever notice how often things are attributed to "Congress" in headlines like this? I mean, given the mention of Biden you could infer that it's most likely the REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS, not "Congress", from the headline since it mentions blocking a win for Biden, but....still. Seems to happen a lot. It must be more about that "objective journalism" and the "balance", etc...
And it stands to benefit those Republican congressmen who run back to their jurisdictions and say "Washington isn't doing anything about your needs. Send me back and I'll obstruct them from doing the things that aren't helping you"
Its a huge fucking scam
Dems in power: Oh, won’t somebody think of the deficit!!!
Republicans in power: Cut taxes, double the military, cut more taxes (only the corporations this time).
Lmfao the GOP raised taxes on the middle class with Trump, what the fuck are you talking about
Pretty sure he lowered taxes on everybody. It benefited the rich and corporations the most, but he definitely didn’t raise taxes on anybody…
He also set these non corporate tax cuts to expire after he left office…
Edit: to everybody downvoting me, Trump did not raise taxes! Quit being dishonest when there are so many truthful arguments against the POS.
As I understand it, he cut taxes for everyone but they set those cuts to expire for the middle class. This is set to happen at the end of 2025: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver
Right. He did not raise taxes as the other comment said.
Not that what he did was good, but we should get the facts straight at least…
Arguably taxes were raised for high tax, high cost of living states. For me, the major change was no longer being able to deduct all the property tax I pay, much less state income tax.
While yes I make a good income, it doesn’t stretch as far where I live. More importantly, my house is an 80+ year old starter home - I’m not crying into my avocado toast from some McMansion in a gated suburb with HOA.
Are you saying that you would have paid less in taxes on the previous tax code? Either way, this probably affected a relatively small percentage of people.
The blanket statement that “Trump raised taxes on the middle class” is false.
Yes I believe I would have paid less taxes before the “tax cut”, but admittedly it’s tough to directly compare
At the very least, the cap on state and local taxes exemptions was unfair to high tax, high cost of living states. This clause predominantly affects “blue” states, and there’s a good chance it affects “most” homeowners in some areas. This is not just the rich.
Trump raised taxes on middle class homeowners living near cities in Blue states
"Are we the baddies?"
"Pro-cancer" is the prerable term.
"Anti-anything-nice"
I'm not saying I hope they get cancer...
I just hope cancer gets them.
Nothing some good horse dewormer won't fix.
They need to run on this. Put it in every ad, talk about it on every appearance
Smells like republican corruption.
The US is feeling really “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” lately
If no one can See, I might be Jason Momoa, amirite?
USA wants everyone else blind so they can use their technology tosee and be the only one that can.
They will absolutely not exploit or bully anyone this time.
They double pinky promised.
Fuck Republicans, Congress and everything in between
It doesn't make sense to say a cure for cancer...
the 'pro life' party. asshats
So what needs to happen, since we seem to let heads of state address Congress, is to have a mandatory session where cancer patients all come out, addressing their concerns directly.
Since it's apparently no longer enough to speak at the ballot box, thinking that the person you're voting for might actually have your good will in mind.
Let the patients speak. Show the room their pic lines. Let them explain about how shitty they feel most days and read names of those in their families who have died from the same cancer they're carrying now.
Let them say directly to those who put bias and politics first how disgusted they are with the men and women who are supposed to be the ones fighting for them. Not against them like it's some highschool pissing match.
It would work if these politicians had empathy, but they don't. Otherwise, the world wouldn't become the shithole that it is now and massive efforts would be put towards greenhouse gases reduction.
Thoughts and prayers as they say.
It'll work like the 9/11 Responder's Bill (eventually) worked: Representatives got shamed into voting for it. Maybe Jon Stewart can do it again...
But no, it won't be because they actually give a shit, they will only act when they realize not acting will make it worse.
Weird.
Super fucking weird
Right? And they are sooo old too - so you think they wouldn't be so weird by now, but they are just, man... so weird
Not surprising they'd block it considering the Republican party is cancer.
Yes, they do this. Won't you hold them accountable?
No. Unfortunately.
MAGA republicans will just deny cancer exists, like they did with COVID.
Democrats: "We need to pass this bill or the entirety of America will be nuked and everyone will DIE!"
Republicans: "NO."
Yeah that tracks.
Apparently no one has told Republicans about how many innocent unborn babies get cancer. That seems to motivate them, let's get some billboards going.
Congress: Go Team-Cancer!
If they found a cure for cancer, there wouldn’t be enough capacity to process all the dead republicans.
The GOP should be banned by decree and being conservative should be illegal.
This is just what MAGA wants, but reversed...
You're not going to fix Fascism by making wrongthink a crime.
That would not be democratic. It would be the exact same thing the GOP wants to do. Left branded totalitarianism would still be totalitarianism.
Between left-branded totalitarianism and GOP I choose left-branded totalitarianism. An eye for an eye.
A fan of the USSR I see...
Totalitarianism is bad, period. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It would not be any better in the long run.
You know what? Don't give a shit at this point. I'm tired of conservative and right-wing stooges fucking everything up, and I think it's time we give them their own medicine. Ban their medias, ban their parties and if they dare lift a finger send the whole fucking National Guard against them.
Oh I'm dead tired of it too, I can assure you, but banning a party is not an actionable solution; heavy regulation for polititians and political parties is:
in terms of the donations they can and can't receive, the behaviour they need not to engage in, requiring a perfectly clean record (that includes corruption as well) and so on. Decisions should be backed by science and not ideology, religious discourse that isn't about inclusion should be banned. Oh and no more lobbying for crying out loud.
Hopefully the new supreme court reform gets the US one step further towards that.
I with all this also was a purely American issue, but alas... Europe has to deal with all this crap as well...
Nope, too fucking slow. Banhammer it is.
Also, I am European and I would apply the same solution to our continent too.
this is what they want. Raising taxes on rich people and capping tax exemptions for large religious institutions are the things they're afraid of.
Again, the solution is: ban those religious and conservative institutions.
That makes as much sense as a cure for cancer does.
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Why can't DEMOCRATS reach across the Aisle to Deliver for the American People?
Because the only things the other side of the aisle wants to deliver are stillborn.
"Why won't Obama lead?" /s
was it the 117th cure to be funded?
Do you think Big Pharma wants a cure for cancer? Me neither. That might be the real reason it was voted down.
Do you really think the CEOs of big pharma don't know they themselves have a 20% chance to die of cancer? (Not to speak of their relatives). Would the selfish and rich big pharma company leader not do everything to prevent its early death?
It's not like their effort would reduce that number to 0%. Id expect something more in line with a reduction from 20% to 18% at best.
And I have no problem believing that CEOs of huge corporations would give up a few percent of their chance to survive an eventual cancer to ensure that their wealth continues to grow greedily.
Yes, obviously there isn't one cancer, but about every cancer is different. So yeah I give you that. Now, my other argument is you can make the same or more money with one time, possible curative therapies than with live prolonging one. See for example Kymriah. Sure, big and small pharma invest most in development were they can expect a high revenue. Either were there is a big patient population or a small population which have a high medical need. (And therefore are willing to pay a high price).
Yea, you have a point there. My cynical streak got the better of me there for a bit.
There are many cancers. And many cancers already have cure. And many don't.
Let's be real here: American debt is so big, that it holds entire world economy hostage.
it's not american debt, but american loot and interference in other economies which holds the world hostage. No one would care for american debt if all countries were trading in their own currencies. Except, maybe, some if the americans themselves.
It is "if you owe bank trillion, it's bank's problem" on country scale.
Unless you're spending all your money on cancer research, you can always spend more on it. At some point, you have to draw a line and someone will accuse you of deliberately refusing to cure cancer no matter where you draw that line. It's plausible to me that the line should be where the Democrats rather than the Republicans want it, and it's even plausible that Republicans are acting in bad faith. However, this article presents no evidence for either claim.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the $1T we spend on national security annually. Somehow, we're always able to justify more than the year before.
But $2.8B over ten years on an effort to improve health care treatments for one of the most deadly maladies in the US? My god! That's over 3% of our Ukraine military aid budget! We need to draw a line somewhere!
I think that's a pretty reasonable response. Maybe not so much that cancer in general is over funded but I'd be willing to bet a breast cancer cure probably isn't any closer now than it would be with another billion. It's definitely a bad look for the GOP though. I see a lot of We the people... bs bumper stickers with the f*** cancer! stickers.
Spending one billion on breast cancer drug discovery/ development would probably lead to one more drug which increases survival by 10-20%. Or if spend on fundamental research it would lead to a lot of additional knowledge. Which might lead in about 10 years (and a few billions more) to a few drugs which increase survival a further 30-40 %.
Yeah. When we fully fund holistic health care, that's a win. Piecemeal isn't a solution, and keeps people in desperation.
Yikes
If this cure involved animal testing then good it was blocked. Stop all animal testing
Look, you either kill rats or kill people. I love animals, it's unfortunate we need to experiment on them, but it's also naive to think we can make progress without doing it. At best one could make an argument for death row inmates to be experimented on, but that would be quickly shut down as unethical and there wouldn't be enough anyway. There is no way around animal testing, we can only keep it to a minimum.
Inside you there are two wolves.
It doesn't seem like this program has anything to do with "curing" cancer. It's just about preventing, treating, and researching. It doesn't explicity mention animal testing on the whitehouse.gov page. I'd say its a program with good goals.