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- It's Legalized Bribery
I came across the most extraordinary paragraph in an article in today’s New York Times. The article was about Trump’s Administration “pausing” (a euphemism for “ending”) a Medicare policy covering a specific type of bandage.
From the article:
“Oliver Burckhardt came prepared for the dinner that President Trump hosted for a small group of major donors at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida on March 1.
A week earlier, one of Mr. Burckhardt’s biotech companies had donated $5 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political committee, that paved the way for him to attend the event…
…About one month later, the Trump administration announced it would delay until next year the Biden administration plan to limit Medicare’s coverage of the bandages, known as skin substitutes, saying that it was reviewing its policies.”
Ok. that’s bad enough, right? But it’s the next paragraph that stunned me in multiple ways:
It was the culmination of an expensive influence campaign by Extremity Care that underscored Mr. Trump’s willingness to grant access and preferential treatment to people and companies that fill the coffers of his political groups.
First, that last paragraph is actually the textbook definition of bribery. Merriam-Webster defines a bribe as “money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.” If only the NY Times had access to a dictionary, perhaps then they might be able to call this act what it is instead of twisting itself into knots trying not to say what… it is.
Second, mister mix alluded to this in an earlier post, but the legacy mainstream media, while doing some great reporting on difficult issues, has wholly failed us when it comes to objective reporting on political matters (as an aside, when I was running for office, I did an interview with the AP on the budget/deficit. The reporter called my incumbent opponent a “fiscal conservative”. When I asked why the reporter gave her that label when my opponent had voted to explode the deficit/debt while lowering taxes on the wealthiest, the reporter replied, “That’s how she refers to herself.” Stenography for the win!).
Third, as I’ve been saying for years, we actually do have a political system that relies on legalized bribery. Not sure if what Trump did per this article is legal, but a) no one has the cajones to enforce it anyway, and b) allowing corporate and Super PAC donations to candidates who desperately need money to run a campaign is a prescription for unfettered bribery.
Again, we need to elect Dems who agree to pull out all stops to end Citizens United (and the money chase) however they can.
I know, you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one…
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