Trump Tweets: It’s Open Thread Wednesday

July 31, 2019 12:12 pm EDT Tiff Trump Tweets (Open Thread) 1
Trump Tweets Logo. Image by Lenny Ghoul.

It’s Wednesday.

The President, after 15 hours of Twitter silence, has tweeted 6 times so far.

Courthouse News reporter Adam Klasfeld reported on Tuesday night just ahead of the Democratic Debate, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit, that alleged that “the Trump campaign, the Russian Federation, WikiLeaks and others of interfering in the 2016 elections.”

The President weighed-in on the cases dismissal via Twitter prior to the start of the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate. Klasfeld responded.

U.S. District Court Judge John Koeltl writes on page 35-36 of his 81 page ruling.

Court Ruling 7/30/19 pg. 35.
Court Ruling 7/30/19 pg. 36.

This is one of those tweets that simply can’t be vetted or placed in context, because we truly have no way of knowing, what a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like as far as the economy goes.

I assume it’s safe to say, she would not have enacted blanket tariffs, but even that is simply an assumption.

The economy is slugging along, we all know that, we also are aware that the bubble is real, job growth is slowing, wages aren’t increasing, and goods and services are rising in expense.

We also know that regardless of how much the President brags on the economy he is also pressuring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and resume Quantitative Easing.

The lesser of two birds is still a bird?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday that, “HHS and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are publishing a Safe Importation Action Plan – PDF* that outlines two potential pathways that would lay the foundation for the safe importation of certain drugs originally intended for foreign markets.”

HHS Secretary Alex Azar said, “Today’s announcement outlines the pathways the Administration intends to explore to allow safe importation of certain prescription drugs to lower prices and reduce out of pocket costs for American patients. This is the next important step in the Administration’s work to end foreign freeloading and put American patients first.” 

The Safe Importation Act Plan PDF describes two paths to provide lower prescription drug costs to consumers.

Path 1.

Under Pathway 1, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) would rely on the authority in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FD&C Act”) section 804 to authorizw demonstration projects to allow importation of drugs from Canada. The NPRM would include conditions to ensure the importation poses no additional risk to the public’s health and safety and that it will achieve significant cost savings to the American consumer.

HHS Plan 7/31/19.

Path 2.

Under Pathway 2, manufacturers could import versions of FDA-approved drug products that they sell in foreign countries that are the same as the U.S. versions. Under this pathway, manufacturers would use a new National Drug Code (NDC) for those products, potentially allowing them to offer a lower price than what their current distribution contracts require.

HHS Plan 7/31/19.

In Path 1 the non-eligible drugs.

The NPRM would restate the exclusions listed in section 804(a)(3);
namely, controlled substances, biological products, infused drugs, intravenously injected drugs, drugs inhaled during surgery, and certain parenteral drugs would be excluded from this pathway. The NPRM would additionally exclude any drug with a REMS.

HHS Plan 7/31/19.

As the New York Times reports, the four-page plan was limited in nature.

As noted “the proposed rule would not apply to high-priced drugs like insulin or biologic drugs like Humira, because of exceptions included in earlier legislation. And the F.D.A. guidance would only permit importation of drugs, including insulin, if the drug makers agreed to take part in the plan.”

It is also worth mentioning that as HHS notes this is a proposal and some elements in the final proposal may differ than what is described.

Don Lemon asked what would you say to those Trump voters, that place the economy ahead of Trump’s bigotry?

The reason Don Lemon, a black man, asked the question was based on tweets that President has issued over the last few weeks that attack minorities.

The last round of “is he a racist, a bigot, or does he think his supporters are,” came about when on Sunday, as the News Blender reported on Monday, tweeted out attacks on House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore.

“Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

“dangerous & filthy place.”

“No human being would want to live there.”

Pro-tip if you do not want to be accused of bigotry, racism, or of courting those that you feel are bigots and racists, it’s a good idea not to call a city of 600,000 people where the majority is black, with a median income of $61,000 annually, “rat infested,” and say “no human being would want to live there.”

On Monday defending his tweets, the President went on to say that residents in Baltimore were living in hell.

On Tuesday Task & Purpose reported that a week after Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, “members of the U.S. government team that prosecuted him were awarded medals for their “superb results” and “expert litigation,” according to legal filings obtained by Task & Purpose.”

The Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jereal Dorsey confirmed that the medals were given to Task & Purpose stating, “I can confirm, however, that an awards ceremony occurred where letters of commendation and Navy Achievement Medals were presented to individuals on the prosecution team who were deemed, by their immediate superiors, to have performed above their normal duties.”

The article published Tuesday afternoon was picked up by the Washington Examiner by late Tuesday evening.

As the News Blender reported Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell held a press conference after the Feds concluded a two-day meeting, to explain the rate-cut.

During his opening statement Powell called a mid-cycle adjustment. Powell fell short of predicting more rate cuts in the future.

CNBC News explains that wall street took Powell’s comments, “to be less dovish than anticipated, prompting a sharp sell-off on Wall Street that pushed the Dow industrials briefly down by about 470 points.”

As noted this is the first cut to the Feds benchmark funds rate since the 2008 finical crisis.

This post will be update within reason.

This is an Open Thread.

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About Tiff 2558 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.

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