EXCLUSIVE: Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli arrested on charges of securities fraud https://t.co/Kwz4jw4bPA pic.twitter.com/hzn9C1IknR
— Bloomberg Business (@business) December 17, 2015
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by David Anderson| 117 Comments
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Glibertarianism, Assholes, Go Fuck Yourself
EXCLUSIVE: Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli arrested on charges of securities fraud https://t.co/Kwz4jw4bPA pic.twitter.com/hzn9C1IknR
— Bloomberg Business (@business) December 17, 2015
Comments are closed.
Elizabelle
No bail, please. This guy’s a flight risk, is he not?
Christmas coming early. Deplorable little twerp. Sociopath.
debbie
All you need to know.
kindness
Don’t drop the soap dude.
Elizabelle
From the Bloomberg story:
Punchy
This has got to be in response to whats he’s done with KBIO. Check out that stock’s 2 month history. About damn time.
Richard Mayhew
@kindness: I don’t wish rape on anyone and hope that this community can just enjoy schradenfreude without rape references.
Crusty Dem
@Punchy:
Right? He’s been trying to manipulate stock prices on twitter for months.. He clearly learned something working with Cramer…
NorthLeft12
The poster boy for right wing libertarians everywhere.
I am sure there will be some that will howl about him being persecuted because he is an embarrassment to the real corporate/financial titans who are working the system in more subtle ways for their immense personal gain.
This is a twofer; throws a bone to the pissed off peons and serves as a warning to other young aggressive titans in training to mind their manners.
Hmmmmmm, actually this sounds like a damn good theory.
BruceFromOhio
I do not wish violence on anyone, though a nice stint in the stockade may serve as a warning to other Cramer interns to Not Do This.
RollSound
You’re supposed to leave the tweeting to Blue Horseshoe. #damnkids
Joel
What’s the maximum potential sentence he can face?
JDM
So the crook is also a criminal. To quote Yves Smith, quelle surprise.
Mustang Bobby
@kindness: I hope he ends up married to the guy who bought him with the most cigarettes.
Lurking Canadian
Never mind jail. Is there a chance they can confiscate all he’s got, under RICO or something? Six months in white collar prison is no punishment besides sentencing the douchebag to thirty-five years of part-time, zero-benefits work. I think he (and others like him) would learn a better lesson.
Elizabelle
Unlike a lot of other corporate predators and their schemes, you can explain this guy’s ethos and business model on a postage stamp. Jury gonna love this boy.
WereBear
I’m sure he’s astonished someone can get arrested for financial crimes.
JPL
Free Enterprise allowed this to happen. Unfortunately, his greed kills people.
MattF
Pleased and, yes, surprised. A reprise of the lesson that sociopaths are always liars.
Tokyokie
Damn, when I read “punchable face,” I thought “Ted Cruz.” But putting this asshole out of circulation is a good thing as well. And folks, if he winds up in the slammer, he’s not going to the SuperMax outside Denver, he’ll go someplace filled with other one-time respectable businessmen. But we can still hope for his being reduced to penury and having a felony conviction hung around his neck. Although his sharing a cellblock with a few prisoners with HIV would be sweet irony.
OzarkHillbilly
@Richard Mayhew: @BruceFromOhio: Obviously, you don’t know some of the people I have known.
JPL
Besides making us all feel good, what does this do to change the system, that allowed the increase in drug prices?
WereBear
@JPL: Nothing.
Punchy
@JPL: I think this bastard demonstrated to The Olds (consumers of mad meds) just how easy and simple it is to completely ~eliminate~ a drug from the market (via obscene prices no insurance would pay). That gets their hearts aflutter, and after taking their BP medicine to control the flutter, they call their Reps. In droves. I expect Congress will fix this in less than 4 months.
dedc79
@JPL: and what does it do to stop global warming?
raven
@dedc79: And dronzzzee!
BGinCHI
Where is Trump to advocate wiping out this guy’s whole family?
Alain the site fixer
Quick mobile site update for those users: I’ll be updating the mobile theme today to remove the left “Reply” link and to insert comment number and time. And perhaps a few other minor tweaks. So it may seem a bit off as I try something and then test it. Be patient.
Also, for the early morning crew, tomorrow when I wake, anywhere from 5-7, I’ll briefly enable the debug mode for the website to check some hidden error messages. This means that should you go the site and see a bunch of cryptic errors, take a breath or two, and then try again. It’s literally a “enable debug mode, show errors, disable debug mode” so like 30 seconds and then the site will be back to normal.
Tsukune
So while this moron is locked away, it will be the perfect time for Bill Murray and the Wu-Tang Clan to complete the perfect heist.
BGinCHI
@Tsukune: I’d watch that.
The Other Bob
I friend who was a decent trader had a simple rule. When Cramer said buy something my buddy held, he sold. At the point Cramer knew something, it was old news.
Germy
Is that his mugshot? He looks like he’s singing to the photographer.
Brown Moods (perfect album to listen to on this rainy day)
David Koch
Welcome to Obama’s America, where brave job creators are arrested by Chicago thugs
WereBear
Charging whatever one wants for drugs is a protected right of the pharmaceutical companies in the US. Time and time again the ability to negotiate to lower prices does not pass.
It is why the exact same drug is so much cheaper in Canada.
Yes, Big Pharma has a sweet racket. For instance, statins like Lipitor are handed out like candy to anyone of middle age, and they are over a grand a month. Yet, only middle aged men who have already have a heart attack show any benefit, and it is a slight one.
Wonky cholesterol is a sign of inflammation, and cutting edge cardiologists treat that instead. Statins lower cholesterol but at a very high price in side effects. A fiendish collection that mimics old age: aches and pains, fatigue, memory problems, tremor, mood swings, increased susceptibility to cancer.
It’s the greatest con ever perpetrated. And it is completely legal.
Gimlet
From the article
With the onslaught of federal charges and looming regulatory actions, Shkreli could be banned from running a public company, which could put the future of KaloBios into question. Shares of the firm fell 50 percent in pre-market trading. It’s less clear what the impact could be on Turing, which is privately held.
The other Max
I feel bad how good this makes me feel.
Germy
@WereBear: Interesting piece on inflammation in the NewYorker magazine. It’s a delicate balance. Inflammation plays a role in healing, but when it gets out of control it becomes a big problem:
For centuries, scientists have debated whether inflammation is good or bad for us. Now we believe that it’s both: too little, and microbes fester and spread in the body, or wounds fail to heal; too much, and nearby healthy tissue can be degraded or destroyed.
debbie
@Gimlet:
Regulatory actions are for little people.
BGinCHI
@The other Max: If only there was a German word for that.
Ben Cisco
Xin loi, mofo.
raven
@Ben Cisco: There it is!
Satby
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re moving pretty fast today for a gimp, I can’t keep up with you! How’s the ankle?
Paul in KY
@Richard Mayhew: You’re a kinder man than I, Richard. there’s some I do wish it upon. Not sure if this guy would qualify, but I would eat popcorn & rewind multiple times to see Darth Cheney get it good & hard (as an example).
a different chris
@BGinCHI: What?? President Trump would grant the douchebag a full pardon on Day One, right in the middle of the inauguration after-party. He’ll call it in from the amazingly classy Princess phone beside the amazingly classy gold-plated Oval Office jacuzzi.
PaulW
IO SATURNALIA!
Gimlet
@Paul in KY:
We could watch Michael Mukasey scratching his chin as he watches trying to decide if it’s really rape.
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
The scope is pretty limited, though. The only drugs he was able to do this with were drugs for orphan diseases where there wasn’t much demand, and only then by selling them from a small company that didn’t have to worry about bad publicity for the rest of its drugs. It’s not going to work for something in heavy demand or, especially, when it’s a common enough condition for there to be multiple drugs available.
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
Nah. Cheney deserves to be disappeared to Gitmo where he would be held without charges for the rest of his miserable life.
different-church-lady
@a different chris: two words: Surgeon General
NonyNony
@The Other Bob:
I would actually not be shocked to find out that Cramer followed a similar rule on occasion. After all, if he’s telling people to buy there are a whole buncha gullible suckers listening to him out there running up the price – a perfect time to sell and make a tidy profit.
ThresherK (GPad)
@The Other Bob: Cramer’s cameos on Arrested Development were all the signal anyone should need.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Love this news!
OzarkHillbilly
@Satby: It sucks donkey dik this morn. Saw the Doc yesterday and the break is staying in place so no surgery unless something horrible happens. Asked him about the foot as the swelling there is about 3 times as bad as the ankle and he just laughed and said that swelling won’t go away for months. Guess when I finally get the go ahead to walk, I’ll need a new boot, as in one, single, new boot, for a while. Go back to see him again in 2 weeks. Had the horrible realization this morn while laying in bed that this damn thing puts the kibosh on the Christmas poteca because there is just no way on earth I can make my way around the table to pull the dough. It’s the only holiday tradition I still bother with since Ma died. Gonna be some disappointed family members this year.
WereBear
@Germy: A big part of my illness was waaaaay too much. Easing it has done many wonders.
And no, I don’t take statins, and neither does Mr WereBear. I think they are dangerous and giving them to women is malpractice.
Germy
@WereBear: I agree about statins. I have way too much inflammation as well (I think it’s hereditary; my father had R. Arthritis) and it’s done some damage. I watch my diet and keep up moderate exercise and movement. And laughing at funny balloon-juice comments helps.
Our cat purrs for me. She is the doctor in our house; the purring helps.
Satby
@OzarkHillbilly: aww, that sux. Sorry. But they’d rather have you getting better than the poteca, I’m pretty sure.
Can you direct while you have a minion walk around and pull it? Not your lovely bride, but maybe one of the kids?
Zandar
As Steve M. says, the only reason Marty McFried here is getting anything close to justice is because in his orgy of greed here he jacked the only class of people that matters in America.
Hint: that class ain’t a single person we know.
Satby
@WereBear: @Germy: A good friend of mine with heredity heart problems was put on statins to lower her cholesterol decades ago, and now has diabetes too. She’s had 3 bypasses, so not sure the course may have gone differently but to have that after so much other stuff probably as a result of the statins is just an extra kick in the teeth.
Oatler.
This guy might be Treasurer for some president in the future. We’ll have all forgotten this “misstep.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Satby: Yeah, but it is a very time consuming all day process and one that takes years to learn to do properly. (it still tastes wonderful, just looks kinda funky) If somebody volunteers, I’ll be more than happy to walk them thru it, but I won’t ask, it really is too much to ask.
Belafon
Paraphrasing a comment I saw elsewhere: He should be sentenced to five months and then have it expand to 20 years.
Germy
@Satby: If statins were helpful it’d be one thing. But to take them and be sickened by them, and then be told “new studies reveal they aren’t THAT effective” is a slap in the face.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Look at the long term dude, you’ll be fine.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/16/15
New clues about mysterious buyer of Nevada’s largest newspaper
Jon Ralston, host of Ralston Live on PBS in Nevada, talks with Rachel Maddow about what clues indicate that Sheldon Adelson is part of the secretive purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and how Adelson might use Nevada’s largest newspaper to assert political influence.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/new-clues-as-to-powerful-papers-secret-owner-587366467816
Poopyman
@OzarkHillbilly: Use a lazy susan, table-size if necessary. You sit.
Keep that tradition going!
WereBear
@Satby: Sigh. Statins increase the chances of diabetes, especially in women.
I’m so sorry for your friend. She deserves better medical care.
Elizabelle
@Belafon:
That’s brilliant. May it happen.
I think Bernie for sure, and maybe Hillary too, should make a punching bag of this guy and the system that allows him to do this. He’s a sociopath, but he should not be able to pull the business strategies he has.
Go Bernie.
ALSO: listening to the “wisdom” coming out of Trump’s supporters mouths: I am wondering if Bernie might be able to pick off a lot of them, once the brighter bulbs get past the Soci a list! screen and start listening to what he’s actually saying.
Bernie has a lot to say about and to the fleeting middle class, which is probably why he’s a ghost on network and cable TV and amid NY Times coverage — he’s got a powerful message and it does not sit well with corporate media owners’ interests.
They’re going for the bombast of Trump for now, but are they really going to flock to Cruz or Rubio (for dog’s sake)? Bernie is an independent, and for those for whom embracing the dreaded (multicultural!) Democrats is too far a stretch, maybe Bernie could be a bridge. (Also: gun rights. Methinks Bernie thought harder about his campaign and the 2016 electorate than average observers give him credit for.)
All this said, I will do everything I can to elect a Democrat president. Hillary or Bernie or whoever makes it to the finish line. No dog in this fight, just musing.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like the exertion wouldn’t be a good thing for you right now, anyway. Exertion is no good when you are healing.
Mr WereBear, the herbalist, recommends Peppermint tea for help with that inflammation. Get the real stuff and a teaball; makes all the difference in the world.
And I know I sound like a cranky New Ager, but I’m not. I’m taking something for nerve pain thanks to the shingles; but I researched it, discussed it with my doctor, and he’s closely monitoring. That’s the way everyone should do it.
gene108
@BGinCHI:
Why would Trump worry about a loser, who got arrested for securities fraud. Trump’s a winner. When he wants to defraud investors he does it above board in bankruptcy court.
Trump has nothing to fear from losers like this weasel and he’ll make sure Americans have nothing to fear from losers either because he’ll make America a winner again, because he’s a winner. He’ll make America great again.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’ve been thru this kind of thing before, too many times to count including a couple times I should’ve been dead, but I ain’t dead yet. I used to be very stoic, but anymore if somebody asks I’m gonna tell ’em, I figure if I’m in pain by god SOMEBODY’S gonna know about it.
a different chris
@different-church-lady: Or Secretary of HHS.
Or maybe he’d create a whole new depratment for him. Secretary of Takin’ Care of Bidness. “I know Martin. Great guy. Really great guy. Let me tell you, this guy, he knows how to T.C.B. like you wouldn’t believe. He’s gonna do so much great stuff. You know those great pills he makes? Really great stuff. He’s saving lives with those pills! You should try some, they’re really great. And what’s wrong with making money? You want to live, you buy the pills. Easy! You won’t believe how quick you get unsick, let me tell you.”
Sherparick
@WereBear: Well, he apparently stole from other rich people. If he had kept it at the “widows and orphans” level, probably “crickets.”
rikyrah
The google doodle from today – love it.
Paul in KY
@Gimlet: Would make for a good op-ed.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I could live with that.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t blame you, I asked for input about my friend who is having a cancer reoccurrence and I got some good information. Maybe someone here will have a tip that will help you do what you want.
Punchy
@Roger Moore: Yes, but shekels to cronuts The Olds don’t understand that. All they hear, via their patented and failsafe Old People Email System, i.e. the Foward Function, is that The Youngs are threatening the availability of their 68 different twice-daily meds.
Dork
OT:
NWA just made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I repeat: a pioneering rap group is now in the R&R HOF. Something doesn’t compute.
debbie
@WereBear:
About halfway through this broadcast, they talk about a new statin-type drug that has no diabetes-type issues. Of course, it won’t be ready for 10-20 years.
http://radio.wosu.org/post/wellness-wednesday-workplace-intervention-high-cholesterol-teen-health-programs
WereBear
@Sherparick: I utterly agree. In fact, I was toying with a fiction scenario where shadowy types in very chic trenchcoats plot a hit because he’s screwing with their gig!
Scamp Dog
The link is broken–here’s a corrected one.
SFAW
@rikyrah:
Yeah, it was pretty good. I saw it earlier, but didn’t click on it until your comment.
THANKS!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PaulW: Optimo dierum!
scav
Live by publicity, seek it out by whatever means (ahem) possible and glory in both, oh lookie, head above the parapet, and so easy, yea! attractive! a target. whoops. What? Reality wasn’t supposed to work this way? It was supposed to be the tv gig and the campaign whistlestop net? oh dearie
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: Man, I wish you a speedy recovery. Don’t try to do too much until it is healed.
RaflW
Just saw this news on Bloomberg and had to rush over here to point, laugh, and electronically punch the f*ker on the nose. He sounds like an absolutely epic a-hole. And quite probably a certifiable sociopath.
Rot in jail, Martin.
Paul in KY
@gene108: Excellent, except needed 2 more ‘winners’ in there. Keep it up!
Paul in KY
@Dork: Rap/Hip-Hop is an aspect of ‘rock and roll’, IMO. Overdue induction for them.
gelfling545
@Lurking Canadian: You forget that any minor inconvenience to one so superbly entitled is as bad as 20 years in solitary is to us poors.
Felanius Kootea
Was so happy when I saw this in the New York Times. Who would have guessed that someone who jacks up the price of orphan drugs would also defraud the investor class? I’m kind of sad that’s the only reason he got arrested but I’ll take it.
gene108
@Dork:
Rock and Roll HOF should be renamed the American popular and influential music Hall of Fame.
They aren’t the first rap act to be inducted.
gelfling545
@Punchy: Who are these “Olds” of whom you speak? I never pull the “in my day” garbage on those younger & feel I should not be subjected to blanket derision due to age.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: Trump supporters aren’t supporting Trump on the basis of “listening.” It has nothing to do with class or worry about the modern American economy. They hate Those People, they hate Obama, and want someone to make fun of the people they hate and kick their asses. That will never ever ever ever ever ever ever turn around to become support for Bernie Sanders. They’re not evaluating what candidates say. They’re hateful and horrible and will be that way forever. Mostly we need to keep them away from guns and wait for them to die off.
rikyrah
Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment
By Valerie Wilson | December 17, 2015
The black unemployment rate is nearly or more than twice the white unemployment rate regardless of educational attainment. It is, and always has been, about twice the white unemployment rate; however, the depth of this racial inequality in the labor market rarely makes the headlines.
http://www.epi.org/publication/black-unemployment-educational-attainment/
gelfling545
@Satby: I’d say stop taking the statins. I’d tell anybody not to start taking statins. After horrible experiences with my Mother, Father & 2 brothers on them (all of them now deceased), my sister and I have sworn an oath never to take them and to speak against them at every opportunity. My PCP still tries every so often to get me to take something for my not too terribly high cholesterol. I think she’s required to. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Steve in the ATL
@gelfling545:
What about people with terribly high cholesterol?
Asking for a friend.
Marc
Statins really do help a lot of people. The issue is that there are always exceptions, people who don’t fit the usual profiles, and for them medicines that help 97% of the people can actively harm them. As someone who is in that category (I have a combination of coronary blockage and low blood pressure) I can attest to the frustration with one size fits all medical approaches; but the benefits from lower bad cholesterol are real.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/heart/prevention/risk-factors/cholesterol/statin-medications-heart-disease
is a good overview.
Shell
Yes, apologies to th e Season of Good will, but crank up the schradenfreude.
But does this have any effect on those two drugs he jacked up?
Ajabu
@gelfling545:
Co-sign. I have the same attitudes and philosophies I held in my 20s (at least politically) and, some might say, I’ve succeeded at growing old without ever growing up. Perhaps 50 years in the music business does that.
Incidentally, my mentor & hero, Randy Weston – the last living genius of jazz piano – is still going strong & on the road at 89. Age is just a number. You don’t become an asshole because you’re old. It’s genetic.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t think that is true for all Trump supporters. Some yes, but not all. It’s a comforting thought for those here, but I think it’s a stereotype and be careful.
I’m hearing of peeps who are amazed their sister or their non-wingnut relatives are listening to Trump. (We are not talking my sister; more what I’m hearing and seeing around.) Lot of economic insecurity mixed in there. Those are the ones Bernie or Elizabeth Warren could appeal to, and maybe even Hillary, once she’s campaigning, if they can lower the repel-screens.
I don’t know that these people would vote for Trump in a primary, but they’re listening. Seems to me they could listen to Bernie too.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Ozark — so sorry.
Is there a younger family member who might enjoy learning the poteca tradition? Perhaps you could instruct and they could prepare?
It’s how my family came by my grandmother’s amazing old world German nut bread recipe — she broke her arm one year, and my mother actually measured the “handful of this, a bit of that” recipe. It would be gone, otherwise.
Elizabelle
Andy Borowitz weighs in.
Serve the f*cker right.
The Golux
@Tokyokie:
Networking, in other words.
Germy
Esquire has Martin’s timeline
RaflW
@Dork: So you are sayin’ you’re an Old, then?
MCA1
@Lurking Canadian: Agree wholeheartedly, and it touches a broader point that’s been bugging me for awhile now. Spending a year or two in a high class penalty box isn’t going to change this guy. He’ll come out, move back into whatever penthouse he bought with his ill-gotten billions, start another company and find a way to go pull more out of the system. And because, in our nation of 320 million, with a fractured, updated every nanosecond media and social network environment, our old public shaming mechanisms no longer work, by that time no one will remember him or his transgressions. Hell, I’d bet 75% of Americans don’t know who he is right now, today, after the breaking of this story. I don’t want to go all Scarlet Letter here, but we’re definitely in need of some new tools to better signal public mores, and alternative sentencing might be one. Instead of a cushy prison, make him work 40 hours a week for the SEC, spend his free time doing handyman jobs for people scammed by Bernie Madoff, and post a video explaining his misdeeds on his Facebook page and leave it up for a decade or something.
Either that, or I’d rather see him financially ruined, since that’s obviously what he really cares about. And prohibited not just from running a public company, but from operating anywhere near the financial markets. If the trumpeters for entrepreneurship and market-based solutions this and job creators that wanted to actually put their money where their mouths were, they could start treating engagement in business ownership or stock as a privilege instead of a right, and push for a legal structure that operates accordingly. If you puke all over the country club ballroom in a drunken rampage, you should expect get kicked out of the club permanently. There could be issues of constitutionality to consider, but we don’t give convicted drug felons pharmaceutical licenses, do we?
Betty Cracker
Gawker has the perp-walk photo!
Elizabelle
Somehow he looks less menacing in a hoodie. Pulling on the Obamacareboy jammies string.
Weird, that.
Applejinx
@Elizabelle: That is very much my hope. It’s not enough just to set records (like, the other day Bernie made it past two million individual donations from voters, way beyond what’s ever been done before: good luck hearing about that on the news! Media blackout still in progress, still not mattering)
No, the point of running Bernie is to peel off every single Trump voter who isn’t actually a racist knuckledragging maniac, every one that’s a protest vote and an expression of hatred for the establishment, every single ‘burn it all the hell down’ vote prepared to trash the country out of spite.
It’s a ‘feel that way? Fine, here: elect a guy who’s been a working politician for decades and STILL didn’t sell out and become a corporate whore. Elect the guy the MSM obviously just hates, the guy who is going to do the unthinkable of going not all the way back to Eisenhower grade redistribution! The guy who’s going to put people to work building roads and bridges faster than they fall apart. The guy who didn’t fall for the Iraq boondoggle, even at the time.
Then you can burn down the establishment and make THEM cry and the country will be fine.
It’s not an unreasonable suggestion, it’s just unreasonable enough to face total war from the Establishment. And Trump people, too, face total war from the Establishment. They’re totally going to become up for grabs when Bernie wins the primaries. Bernie is just as ‘honest’ and ‘upfront’ as Trump, but he’s nice and he knows what he’s talking about, it’s just heresy to the establishment. And Trump is actively priming his people to be down with that kind of heresy. Trump shits on the wealthy and corrupt all the time as long as they’re not him…
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I know that story’s fake, because NPR snarked that they would have asked his lawyer for a comment, but the lawyer was arrested as an accomplice.
Mike E
Apparently, herd immunity against affluenza is a thing.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Tis Borowitz. Tis a parody.
@Applejinx: Good points. At the moment, Trump has momentum because he draws eyeballs and is cheap cheap cheap reality show programming. “News” executives must be orgasming. Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
People will start focusing in closer to the primaries. Bernie already has a lot of buzz among friends. Hillary, too, proved herself as Sec o State and will garner a lot more affection and support than she did in 2008. The Democrats have better candidates, which is why corporate media has to skeer, skeer, skeer and titillate us.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Did you notice how every news outlet had a picture of him being taken out this morning? Were they waiting outside his building just by chance?
Somebody leaked something about the arrest, now just to find out who and why.
Heliopause
He wasn’t busted for gouging money out of the sick and dying, he was busted for defrauding the investor class. Shows you where our collective priorities still lie.
Sherparick
@WereBear: Zandar and perhaps you I think beat my post on this topic, and Zandar references the Steve M post at “No More Mister Nice Blog” that our hero apparently “f***ed the wrong people.
The last lines are perfect to:
“…However, I expect him to play the “troubled white guy” card, in court and possibly in the media. All the “bad boy” nonsense — the incessant boasting, the taunting tweets, the $2 million purchase of that one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan CD, the claim that he seeks to bail out imprisoned rapper Bobby Shmurda and also might pursue a rap career of his own — I predict is going to be presented in court as a textbook case of bipolar disorder, or some condition on the autistic spectrum, that impairs Shkreli’s judgment and renders him less than fully liable for his own acts.
We know that blacks arrested for violent crimes are always “thugs” and Muslims are always “terrorists,” whereas even white guys who commit mass murder are “loners,” “troubled” and “misunderstood.” Will Shrkeli try to play the “troubled” card? It might not work, but that’s what I’m betting on.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I know. I just found reality even funnier in this particular case.
;-)
@Sherparick:
I ran across a story yesterday that the original “affluenza” guy has a warrant out for his arrest. Apparently his parole officer said he failed to report and now the guy and his mother have vanished.
There is some serious, serious dysfunction in that family. I’m assuming that Mommy and Buster high-tailed it for Europe, but it’s possible there is a more tragic explanation.
PurpleGirl
@rikyrah: Oh, that was fun. I didn’t see the doodle earlier today — I watch the kitten cams on Google Chrome. Time for me to play the YouTube of Japanese 10,000 persons performance of the Ode to Joy. (It became a Japanese thing sometime in the early 1900s.)
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
Your hope will be spoiled. This is like that moment when people were saying that the Tea Party and Occupy had so many interesting points of overlap. They don’t. Trump = Tea Party = Palin = hatred. That’s all it is. The number of people supporting Trump because of economic insecurity is zero people. At “best,” economic insecurity is making their preexisting hatefulness come to the surface.