In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*promote


thanks buckaroo!

>> ^chingalera:

..there's the entire list of big(all)-pharma companies who need thier CEO's, K-Oed heads on pitons on their respective, well-groomed corporate grounds for all to see...
..drag a few of the bigger wigs through the streets for an added reminder of their crimes against humanity.


like the way your noggin works my friend...

Don't do the Crime, if you can't Pay the Fine.

otherwise... game on for profits!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiasso_financial_smuggling_case

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9089268/Italian-police-seize-6-trillion-of-fake-US-bonds-in-Switzerland.html

http://www.cfr.org/uk/understanding-libor-scandal/p28729

http://www.businesspundit.com/the-25-most-vicious-iraq-war-profiteers/

and those above are just the ones we KNOW were out to screw us... the veil has been lifted on big pharma... and we're all to sick to do anything about it so we buy more pills! yay cycles of despair

accept science and legalize cannabis, in conclusion. anytime now... would be great... thx DEA

>> ^kevingrr:

@criticalthud All those drugs have both good and bad applications. Same for pot/thc because quite simply it is a drug.
I'm for full legalization, but that doesn't mean I'll use a single ounce. I'll just be happy that police aren't wasting time busting pot dealers, users, & growers. Plus the tax dollars it generates should be pretty nice.
I'm kind of tired of healthy people advocating so strongly for pot. Quote all the studies you want but inhaling smoke of any kind into my body (including burning wood around a fire pit) has never seemed like the healthiest thing to do.
-Kg


yes but interestingly, pot has much much less going on in terms of side effects. In fact, no other drug with as wide a variety of medical uses has as few side effects. it's really not even close.
Nothing big pharma puts out can really compete in terms of variety of uses and total lack of negative side effects (and of course, cost).
this is a fact that very much surprised me after many years of dissing medical pot myself.
but honestly, compared to adderol, prozac, and ambien, it's a smarter alternative and lots of people use it to chill out and focus, as an anti-depressant, and as a sleep aid.

at this point, i use pot, mostly for it's psychoactive properties. no pharmies tho...that shit is wack.

I feel this rant that I didn't read needs to be quoted.
>> ^RFlagg:

@bobknight33 I never said to tax the rich out their ass or take all corporate revenue. I think another 3% isn't going to hurt to hurt the top 1% or even the top 2% of wage earners (most of whom are not job creators anyhow, but lawyers and surgeons and the like, not a single real small business owner among them), and punishing the people who can't make a living wage isn't the solution, but it is the only one the conservatives consider. As @KnivesOut pointed out, and as I noted in the part you didn't quote, there is a huge military spending that the Republicans refuse to cut spending on. I don't know if I would cut 70%, but at the very least 50%. Last figures I saw we were spending more than the next 19 countries combined, and most of them are allies or neutral, that leaves China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and perhaps Brazil... Cutting out budget in half still leaves us spending more than the next 6 combined, and again, most are allies. Even as a percentage of GDP, we are far above and beyond what most countries spend, we'd probably have to get down to that 70% mark to get even close to the average of the top 20. Conservatives love to complain about NASA wasting money, but NASA's entire budget for a year is less than what we spend on air conditioning our troops in Afghanistan alone.
My only comparison to other countries had nothing to do with their finances, but with the fact that the US was the only industrialized country in the world that wasn't communist or Islamic to not let gays server openly.
How is Obama a liberal? What has he done that is remotely liberal? Did he give us the health care plan he promised, which was a single payer health insurance? No. We ended up with what the Republicans would allow, which was Mittcare on a national level. A program that favors Big Pharma and the Insurance Companies and while it does help some people, it does no where near as good for the vast majority of Americans that the single payer would have been. Sure the insurance companies would have gone from making hundreds of billions of dollars off people's suffering to just tens of billions or hundreds of millions at worst, and big pharma the same, but aside from that, for everyday people, they would be better off.
How did we turn our back on Israel? And even if we did, who cares? We should just leave the middle east alone. It isn't our business. That is why they hate us you know, not our so called freedoms that we gave up after the attacks, or any other such BS, it is because we interfear with their business.
As to Obamacare... I already stated, it isn't Obamacare. Obamacare would have been a nationalized health insurance, what we got is Mittcare on a national level which is a mandate to buy insurance from a for-profit insurance company. The only positives is that they can no longer deny people based on pre-existing conditions, extended coverage for children... this compares to what Obamacare would have done had it passed, which would create an insurance that is cheaper and just as good as and in many if not most cases better than the private insurance that most Americans had. It would have been cheaper, meaning far less money taken out of their paychecks and more money to spend. Millions of uninsured and under-insured workers would have finally have access to affordable health care, not just have to show up at the ER when things reach a level that could have been prevented had they been able to see a regular doctor and been able to cover any lab fees...they then end up not being able to pay said ER visits, which raises the cost of health care for everyone else, and many others file bankruptcy to get out of medical bills, which in the US is the number one reason for bankruptcy for individuals, which again adds to overall medical costs for everyone. Conservatives like to blame lawsuits, which do raise the cost of surgery, and is an issue, but the real cause of high medical costs, beyond greed, is the fact that so many people end up not being able to pay for what services they got the medical community then passes those costs on.
One of the primary reasons I am not a Christian anymore is because so many Christians spoke out against taking care of the sick and the needy. Even though Jesus' main commandment was love. Most Christians are full of hate for those who they don't like. They hate the gays and want to revoke the free-will god gave them, and not let them get married. They don't want to help the sick and the poor and want to give the money those sick and poor people earned and turn it over to the money lenders. They basically want to be the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. It is like Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Obama hasn't been allowed to put his economic policies in effect becaouse the Republicans have refused. What we have is a continuation of Bush's economic policies because the Republicans promised they would never negotiate and do everything they can to make his Presidency a failure. We have been running a Republican budget for years now... and we've been foolishly thinking it will trickle down for over 30 years now. The rich keep getting richer and richer at a faster and faster pace, while the poor get poorer and the middle class dissolves to the poor. Yet the Republicans still keep saying it will work. Yeah, it works for 2%, while everyone else suffers for it.
Know why jobs aren't being created? Because the rich don't care. They don't want to make jobs, they want private jets and mansions and will fuck over everyone to do it. The place I used to work at, in 2010 fired 350 people and then told everyone else they weren't getting raises because they said the cost of living went down. He then went out and purchased a private jet and another mansion in an exclusive gated community in town, already have the second largest there wasn't enough apparently... he could have closed his Miami Beach office, which is literally on the beach, he walks out the door he is on the beach, and there is only one employee there, but no, he destroyed the lives of 350 families and basically everyone else who worked for him to get his stuff. The next year, 250 more fired, and still no raises. This year, 350 more and still no raises, and just recently another 100 or so more fired. So over 1000 families put out, and those still working for him haven't had raises for 3 years just so he can have his stuff. He could have kept those people on and not have got that stuff, he could have closed the Miami Beach office and let one person go, he could have made other cuts (like not buying a $5 Million software that as I understand it after 4 years of work still doesn't work as promised, it wasn't working when I left and it was already 2 years of that money spent and was no where near working) but no, he chose to sacrifice the lives of people under his care. The so called job creators haven't been in the business of creating jobs simply because they choose to outsource, they choose to take for themselves rather than care for those under them. It isn't Obama's fault... hell it isn't even Bush's or Reagan's fault. It is the rich's fault. They could create jobs, but they choose not to. They choose to widen the gap between the haves and the have not's at a rate nobody has ever seen anywhere. The CEO of Wal-Mart could be given a total package of $250,000, then with that as the top line, drawing from the minimum wage workers (so the line would look like "/") and spending the same amount of money on all salary, HR expenses, compensation and all that jazz hire hundreds of thousands more, or give everyone more to live on, or actually provide health insurance... but no, they and nearly every company in America is setup to have a salary structure that looks like "˩". I firmly believe the owner should make a fair salary above and beyond everyone else, but it shouldn't be so far out of proportion to everyone else in the company that they sacrifice people under their care just so they can get ahead. The fact Republicans think that is okay is what is sickening. The fact Christians think that is okay is sickening.

@bobknight33 I never said to tax the rich out their ass or take all corporate revenue. I think another 3% isn't going to hurt to hurt the top 1% or even the top 2% of wage earners (most of whom are not job creators anyhow, but lawyers and surgeons and the like, not a single real small business owner among them), and punishing the people who can't make a living wage isn't the solution, but it is the only one the conservatives consider. As @KnivesOut pointed out, and as I noted in the part you didn't quote, there is a huge military spending that the Republicans refuse to cut spending on. I don't know if I would cut 70%, but at the very least 50%. Last figures I saw we were spending more than the next 19 countries combined, and most of them are allies or neutral, that leaves China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and perhaps Brazil... Cutting out budget in half still leaves us spending more than the next 6 combined, and again, most are allies. Even as a percentage of GDP, we are far above and beyond what most countries spend, we'd probably have to get down to that 70% mark to get even close to the average of the top 20. Conservatives love to complain about NASA wasting money, but NASA's entire budget for a year is less than what we spend on air conditioning our troops in Afghanistan alone.

My only comparison to other countries had nothing to do with their finances, but with the fact that the US was the only industrialized country in the world that wasn't communist or Islamic to not let gays server openly.

How is Obama a liberal? What has he done that is remotely liberal? Did he give us the health care plan he promised, which was a single payer health insurance? No. We ended up with what the Republicans would allow, which was Mittcare on a national level. A program that favors Big Pharma and the Insurance Companies and while it does help some people, it does no where near as good for the vast majority of Americans that the single payer would have been. Sure the insurance companies would have gone from making hundreds of billions of dollars off people's suffering to just tens of billions or hundreds of millions at worst, and big pharma the same, but aside from that, for everyday people, they would be better off.

How did we turn our back on Israel? And even if we did, who cares? We should just leave the middle east alone. It isn't our business. That is why they hate us you know, not our so called freedoms that we gave up after the attacks, or any other such BS, it is because we interfear with their business.

As to Obamacare... I already stated, it isn't Obamacare. Obamacare would have been a nationalized health insurance, what we got is Mittcare on a national level which is a mandate to buy insurance from a for-profit insurance company. The only positives is that they can no longer deny people based on pre-existing conditions, extended coverage for children... this compares to what Obamacare would have done had it passed, which would create an insurance that is cheaper and just as good as and in many if not most cases better than the private insurance that most Americans had. It would have been cheaper, meaning far less money taken out of their paychecks and more money to spend. Millions of uninsured and under-insured workers would have finally have access to affordable health care, not just have to show up at the ER when things reach a level that could have been prevented had they been able to see a regular doctor and been able to cover any lab fees...they then end up not being able to pay said ER visits, which raises the cost of health care for everyone else, and many others file bankruptcy to get out of medical bills, which in the US is the number one reason for bankruptcy for individuals, which again adds to overall medical costs for everyone. Conservatives like to blame lawsuits, which do raise the cost of surgery, and is an issue, but the real cause of high medical costs, beyond greed, is the fact that so many people end up not being able to pay for what services they got the medical community then passes those costs on.

One of the primary reasons I am not a Christian anymore is because so many Christians spoke out against taking care of the sick and the needy. Even though Jesus' main commandment was love. Most Christians are full of hate for those who they don't like. They hate the gays and want to revoke the free-will god gave them, and not let them get married. They don't want to help the sick and the poor and want to give the money those sick and poor people earned and turn it over to the money lenders. They basically want to be the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. It is like Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Obama hasn't been allowed to put his economic policies in effect becaouse the Republicans have refused. What we have is a continuation of Bush's economic policies because the Republicans promised they would never negotiate and do everything they can to make his Presidency a failure. We have been running a Republican budget for years now... and we've been foolishly thinking it will trickle down for over 30 years now. The rich keep getting richer and richer at a faster and faster pace, while the poor get poorer and the middle class dissolves to the poor. Yet the Republicans still keep saying it will work. Yeah, it works for 2%, while everyone else suffers for it.

Know why jobs aren't being created? Because the rich don't care. They don't want to make jobs, they want private jets and mansions and will fuck over everyone to do it. The place I used to work at, in 2010 fired 350 people and then told everyone else they weren't getting raises because they said the cost of living went down. He then went out and purchased a private jet and another mansion in an exclusive gated community in town, already have the second largest there wasn't enough apparently... he could have closed his Miami Beach office, which is literally on the beach, he walks out the door he is on the beach, and there is only one employee there, but no, he destroyed the lives of 350 families and basically everyone else who worked for him to get his stuff. The next year, 250 more fired, and still no raises. This year, 350 more and still no raises, and just recently another 100 or so more fired. So over 1000 families put out, and those still working for him haven't had raises for 3 years just so he can have his stuff. He could have kept those people on and not have got that stuff, he could have closed the Miami Beach office and let one person go, he could have made other cuts (like not buying a $5 Million software that as I understand it after 4 years of work still doesn't work as promised, it wasn't working when I left and it was already 2 years of that money spent and was no where near working) but no, he chose to sacrifice the lives of people under his care. The so called job creators haven't been in the business of creating jobs simply because they choose to outsource, they choose to take for themselves rather than care for those under them. It isn't Obama's fault... hell it isn't even Bush's or Reagan's fault. It is the rich's fault. They could create jobs, but they choose not to. They choose to widen the gap between the haves and the have not's at a rate nobody has ever seen anywhere. The CEO of Wal-Mart could be given a total package of $250,000, then with that as the top line, drawing from the minimum wage workers (so the line would look like "/") and spending the same amount of money on all salary, HR expenses, compensation and all that jazz hire hundreds of thousands more, or give everyone more to live on, or actually provide health insurance... but no, they and nearly every company in America is setup to have a salary structure that looks like "˩". I firmly believe the owner should make a fair salary above and beyond everyone else, but it shouldn't be so far out of proportion to everyone else in the company that they sacrifice people under their care just so they can get ahead. The fact Republicans think that is okay is what is sickening. The fact Christians think that is okay is sickening.

She is answering as someone who has been not coached as to, how to answer, but more so, "how not to answer." I can only assume some big Pharma company has it's hand in this. (Or some corporate entity)

I sense corruption in her blatant stupidity.

>> ^schlub:

Fuck this fuckin' hypocrite. How come he can't have a fair and balanced argument about vaccines?


The difference is that there are many objective reasons to distrust the insurance/Big Pharma/Government cartel.

I don't agree with Maher's position on vaccines but being paranoid about them doesn't strike me as being inconsistent with logic (Tuskegee syphilis experiment).

It's definitely a blind spot for Maher and I bet he'll admit it eventually.

i agree with everything you just said, but i think you might be over estimating how much of it is science.
it's a great deal business. at least in the US. where medicine is mostly for profit. for huge huge profits.
medical RESEARCH is in fact, science. and i have faith in it. the dispensing of medicine is however, a business.

i'm saying this as someone who has degrees in health science fields. spent 8 years as a health care professional. spent 1/3 of that time doing administrative work. and now owns a business as a CAM practitioner.... which btw, is also a good bit business.

i'd also like to stick up for alternative medicine here.
a good deal of it is bullshit. any results are simply the placebo effect. but i don't think we should discount the placebo effect. it's an amazing mechanism. if you feel less depressed because someone hit you with a tuning fork and you didn't have to take any pills or go to a counselor, then okay. that's awesome. i still think you probably need counseling, but whatever. i also think you should take a good hard look at your diet and how much exercise you're doing. but how much does it cost in the US to go to a counselor, go to a doctor, get your anti-depressants and have a nutritionist and a phsyical trainer help you learn how to excercise and eat right? it's probably cheaper to pay someone $80 to hit you with that tuning fork and convince yourself it's going to work.

I make a decent living practicing complementary health care. but i don't tell anyone they need to be hit with a tuning fork or have someone throw energy beams out of their hands at them. i tell people they need to stretch, and i teach them how. i tell people they need to sleep properly, and i help them do it. i tell people they need to find an effective way to deal with stress, and i give them that. i tell people they need to find a form of exercise that's right for their bodies and lifestyles, and i help them find it. a lot of people just need someone to trust and someone to talk to. and that's why they call me a "therapist". i never tell people to go against their doctor's orders. i never tell anyone to stop taking their medicine or not to be vaccinated. and that's why what i do is COMPLEMENTARY.

we're too quick to dismiss a different approach when it comes to health care.
the same people are also very quick to be able to recognize the problems with our for profit health care systems when it comes to political discussions. the profit motive hasn't just tainted medicine in terms of disparity. it's tainted it in terms of effectiveness. this is where a holistic approach is good. it's not effect to only treat the symptom. if someone is overweight, has high blood pressure, their stress is out of control and they have diabetes. prescribing them pills, while necessary in the short term, is not at all where the "care" should end. i know doctors will also tell their patients to eat right and exercise but they do not teach them how to do it. because for profit health care doesn't think that is profitable. a for profit system does not want you healthy.

soooo... the market has opened up. if the way we practice medicine and viewed health in this country was working, people wouldn't pay to get hit with tuning forks. oh and half of this is a problem with our education system.
>> ^dag:

^Yes, how dare anyone question the all-knowing oracles of medical knowledge.
I think the reason that many geeky type people always toe the main-stream medical line is because they conflate medicine with science (which we all love). Yes, it's almost the same, but if I had to draw it as a venn diagram, there would be a crescent of over-hang. Medicine to me is 80% science and then the rest is filled in with dogma, patriarchy and business ($$).
That crescent of non-science is the part that makes me squirm. I don't think it's that wrong to question medical programs like vaccinations- with the idea that it may be being pushed non-scientifically by the medical industrial complex. (big pharma).
Bill Maher is not a kook.

yeah Really. These statics are wrong.
I know that some vaccines are good, but I also know them some of these imperfect mixtures are toxic mistakes. i'm not convinced that all the vaccicnes that are pushed onto the kids are a good thing. I remember that a few years ago that you mentioned that you have a personal stake in this fight, I know you are more educated than me about this subject, but I still have my fears. And this video doesnt do anything to to soothe my fears. This guy says things like they are facts . they are not facts! He tries to be funny and he isnt. Watch again, hes not funny , and his story is lame( historicly and mathmaticly), this is a bad video IMO.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Really?>> ^csnel3:
Nice advertising for big pharma.
Shouldnt this also be in the Fear channel?
Who paid for this?

Really?>> ^csnel3:

Nice advertising for big pharma.
Shouldnt this also be in the Fear channel?
Who paid for this?

Nice advertising for big pharma.
Shouldnt this also be in the Fear channel?
Who paid for this?

I sure hope Romney wins. Thats really what America needs, is having corporately owned millionaires in control of everything. They talk about defunding all these programs like it is a bad thing, but that means more money to pump into defense and big pharma, which will keep us all safe from scary foreigners, and help to level all our uneven temperaments with a steady supply of government approved antidepressents.

>> ^notarobot:

At the very least, shouldn't a change in tax rules for operating business move forward from the point the laws change instead of retroactively?


Tax law is excruciatingly hard because in addition to being guilty before being innocent, in many cases, they seize your assets and force you to defend yourself...now with no money. Tax cases don't even go through the main courts, they have all their own courts where the judges are, you guessed it, all mostly old IRS agents....sounds fair. When in tax trouble, you're basically screwed as a normal person or small business. Only those who can hire the best lawyers stand a chance of not getting exploited. It is a sad state of affairs, and one of the main reasons I support a simpler tax. We can even keep all the progressive stuff that I don't agree with, for now, just get rid of this monster!

big pharma no like home farmah