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"The report — released Thursday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, ahead of a hearing focused on drug prices — found that companies that signed drug pricing deals with Trump have raised the cost of hundreds of medications and launched new ones at an average price of $353,000 a year."

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/drugmakers-raised-prices-hundreds-drugs-trump-deals-senate-democrats-r-rcna332036

#healthcare #PrescriptionDrugs #DrugPrices #CostsOfCare #UScongress #USpol

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World news | The Guardian » 🤖 🌐 2026-04-15
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‘Vought cuts kill people’: Aids activists interrupt Trump budget chief hearing https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/15/russ-vought-budget-hearing #TrumpAdministration #UsNews #UsForeignPolicy #AidsAndHiv #Society #UsPolitics #WorldNews #HouseOfRepresentatives #UsCongress #Usaid

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World news | The Guardian » 🤖 🌐 2026-04-14
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National majority vote for president a step closer as Virginia signs bill into law https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/14/majority-vote-for-president-us-constitution #UsPolitics #UsCongress #HouseOfRepresentatives #UsNews #Democrats #UsSenate #WorldNews #Virginia

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Democrat Ro Khanna to introduce bill to stop US exports of gas amid Iran war https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/14/ro-khanna-bill-stop-gas-exports-iran-war #UsPolitics #Gas #Gas #Commodities #Energy #FossilFuels #Business #UsCongress #Democrats #UsisraelWarOnIran #UsNews

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Anthony » 🌐 2024-06-22 / 2024-06-22
@abucci@buc.ci

Anyone concerned with the present dangers of #AI deployment should listen to @emilymbender@dair-community.social and @alex@dair-community.social deconstruct Driving US Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States in their excellent podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/15280581-episode-34-senate-dot-roadmap-dot-final-dot-no-really-dot-docx-june-3-2024

"Automated Immiseration" is how I read, at a coarse level, what's being proposed. Austerity politics handed down by machines.

The endgame of austerity economics has historically been some variation of fascism. Clara Mattei's meticulously-researched book The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism is a deep dive into how this has played out, especially after WWI. Mattei brings receipts: she has direct quotes indicating economists at the time knew full well what they were doing. The purpose of austerity measures, as spelled out explicitly by the people who invented them, is to discipline citizens and laborers--to keep them from getting any ideas about receiving too many benefits from government--and to re-affirm the position of capital holders at the top of the pecking order.

One comment I had about the "reskilling"/"upskiling" part of the conversation: I don't have the references on hand, but I believe it's been amply documented that "upskilling" almost never happens. It's a word that's thrown around as a salve, to reduce alarm about intended market destruction and job loss.

If upskilling were a serious part of this so-called roadmap, there'd be more specific plans for whose jobs will be displaced, which colleges and universities will educate these displaced folks, how that education will be funded, and which jobs are waiting for them on the other side. The upskilling plans, if serious, would be as detailed and spelled out as the AI/corporate plans are. If the upskilling plans were serious, the presidents of Ivy League and state universities, vocational institutions like coding bootcamps, and other educational institutions would have been present to share their insights and views, especially as regards the realism of re-training as many people as this roadmap and the rhetoric of #AI boosters suggests might be displaced. It'd be wise to include high school educators as well, since such a significant shift in the workforce affects students in high school as well. I didn't read the backgrounds on all 150-ish participants in these Senate forums, but I didn't see or hear about a large contingent of educators among them. As it stands the roadmap document only vaguely refers to "legislation" that doesn't yet exist.

Frankly, I see little that sounds serious in this "roadmap" aside from the danger it represents. It reads like a whitepaper a corporate middle manager would pound out (using #ChatGPT probably) in an afternoon. Emily and Alex referred to Chuck Schumer as "an #Elon #Musk fanboy", and I think that's what this document reflects. This is The Boring Company of government policy proposals.

#GenAI #AI #AGI #USSenate #USCongress #Senate #Congress #USPol #tech