President Biden at the JFK library on 60th anniversary of “moonshot” speech: “Cancer does not discriminate red and blue. It doesn’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Beating cancer is something we can do together.”
— Monica Alba (@albamonica) September 12, 2022
U.S. President Joe Biden signed orders to push more government dollars to the U.S. biotechnology industry, as he promoted his ‘Cancer Moonshot’ initiative to create new life-saving cancer treatments https://t.co/LonKMx3Gvp pic.twitter.com/l3x1bpILUn
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 13, 2022
the hope of electing democrats is that they will cure cancer but the reality is that they will only reduce cancer deaths by 50% and turn terminal cancer into a chronic disease which can be managed with medication https://t.co/Pfrt78Ccva
— biharmonic eigenface (@revhowardarson) September 13, 2022
Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba has been sworn in as U.S. Treasurer. She's the first Native American to serve in the post. Her signature will now appear on U.S. currency alongside Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. https://t.co/AfCvJMP1gs
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 13, 2022
Here’s ?@MaryPeltola? at the Capitol, doing interviews outside the DY office that will soon be hers. She gets sworn in tomorrow. So for now, no keys! pic.twitter.com/W38fLihGmV
— Liz Ruskin-AK public radio reporter (@lruskin) September 12, 2022
Meanwhile, the Republicans are throwing *all* their spaghetti against the wall, looking for something that might stick:
I think they do have an inkling since they're gonna force a vote on it https://t.co/L8d1XZF05A
— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) September 13, 2022
Yeah, it's absolutely awesome that the American people collectively own hundreds of millions of acres of land, which we've decided to sustainably manage to provide benefits to the American people in perpetuity. It's an honor and privilege to do that work. https://t.co/hYhlAPOA1P
— Travis Mason-Bushman (@polarscribe) September 12, 2022
There's good reason to think Trump is not on the ballot this year, but reporters covering polling averages and not the fucking news is turning me into a "the only poll that matters is election day" guy. https://t.co/iwueBJbS1e
— Pomodoro (Dad Joke Era) (@ilpomodoro2) September 12, 2022
This might be rattling them more than Trump losing. https://t.co/NHaJs0CFfh
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 12, 2022
Funny how a whole lot of Republicans are turning toward Moscow today and asking “How high?”
— Cave Johnson (@Mad_Chortler) September 12, 2022
zhena gogolia
How could the administration have a plan to end the war when it’s not our war?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: They think Ukraine is doing Biden’s bidding.
Old School
Until today, I had no idea the US Treasurer position was vacant for 972 days. The previous one (Jovita Carranza) was moved by Trump to head the SBA in January 2020.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m so old I remember when Biden was getting slammed for not making it our war.
Matt McIrvin
One of the latest troll commenters on LGM is this ostensibly lefty anti-Biden person who just keeps posting all these smears about Biden, and one of the things they led with was literally blaming him for his “moonshot” not having already cured cancer.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
WTF is Biden doing with his Green Lantern ring anyway?
The Moar You Know
When you’re in an environment where Twitter is blocked, the Balloon Juice front page literally no longer makes any sense.
Just wanted to throw that out there.
Matt McIrvin
That complaint about federal lands is, of course, an attempt to hit it big by playing the oldies from the Reagan era. The “Sagebrush Rebellion” that helped hold the West for the Republicans was all about that. But judging from everything that’s happened in the West since the 1990s, it seems to be gradually losing potency (which is probably why the reaction gets more and more unhinged and violent).
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I’m reminded of Michael Bérubé’s observation that when it comes to intractable health and disability issues, “Race for the Cure” looks better on a T-shirt than “Race for the Reasonable Accommodation”.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
Is there a Murc’s Law for International Relations?
Anyway
Haven’t we been fighting cancer forever? I don’t get the big deal. Every administration
throwspromises billions of dollars to find a cure — what’s new here?Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Sure, but that confuses ultimate objectives with intermediate steps.
Ken
Applying Cleek’s law, I predict that within a week Republicans will be attacking cancer treatments as interfering with God’s plan, and encouraging people to smoke unfiltered cigarettes, snort benzene and radon, and install asbestos ceiling tiles in their homes.
(This may answer Anyway‘s question, if you assume a little 11-dimensional chess by Biden.)
Elizabelle
They keep looking at 2020, when they should be looking at the 2018 midterms.
BUT: it don’t fit their narrative. Because Democrats did very nicely there. And Roevember is likely even more motivating.
And screw Maggie Haberman. Also Nick Cohn, who also did a “danger, Democrats, you’re still losers” column yesterday.
Anyway
OT – spotted in Newcastle county, DE – large “Dr. Oz for Senate” sign. I knew his candidacy straddled NJ/PA it appears he has tri-state support! (It’s primary day in DE and lots of signs appeared around intersections over the weekend.)
WaterGirl
@The Moar You Know: Can you send me a screen capture?
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
“no long-term plan for ending the war” Is the concept of “push Russian troops back across Russian border” unclear to Republicans? Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bush’s Iraq, yeah, no definition of success (except the greeting with flowers and candy and handing over the oil bit).
Ukraine’s goal is as cut-and-dry as they come. These are the same fools who didn’t want us to leave Afghanistan after 20 years.
trollhattan
@Anyway:
Yesterday I saw a “Beto!” yard sign. In California.
Ohio Mom
I guess this cancer moonshot stuff sells. I’m all for cancer research and treatment advances but the truth is, cancer is never going to be cured.
It’s built into us, cells do weird things. Sometimes those weird things are beneficial and you have an evolutionary advancement, sometimes your immune system heads things off at the pass, and other times that cell doing something weird runs amok and you have cancer.
So what should be inspiring, that we are boosting medical research, using our great wealth for good, ends up sounding to me like an empty promise.
trollhattan
Per “guy Silverman sometimes quotes” the ring road around Moscow has been shut down by national guard.
https://twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/1569684401134632963?cxt=HHwWhoDQsa7p0cgrAAAA
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom: I remember Nixon’s “war on cancer.”
TBF we’ve learned a lot in the intervening half century. e.g., they’ve figured out the mechanism air pollution causes cancer differs from what had been presumed.
IMO lumping cancers into One Big Disease has made us mis-believing it can be slain with One Big Cure.
trollhattan
Lindsay Graham, man of
thefew people drops any pretense.rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@trollhattan:
The PPCUCLTAA?
What happened to the party to coined the PATRIOT Act?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If you see “upsetment” trending on twitter…
As twitter Nixon would put it, Mr Clark was graduated from Harvard College.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He has a PhD in Upsetology.
Ohio Mom
@trollhattan:
You are right about the mistake of lumping all cancers together. The opposite is true: as we learn more, we see how diverse and multifaceted cancer is
ETA: that’s a very intesting article you linked to
OzarkHillbilly
Hmmmm… that sounds familiar. Didn’t we just have this fight?
President Johnny Gentle (Famous Crooner)
@Ken: “New Fox New poll shows that Republicans give cancer a 76% favorability rating, up from 1% the week before Biden’s speech…”
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As the WH attorney with the weird panda painting said, he needs to STFU and wait for us to call when there is a oil spill.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: I just sent out a feeler.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Eric Herschmann. Except I believe it was Assistant Attorney General Richard Donoghue who said that.
ETA: Make that Acting Assistant Attorney General
eclare
@zhena gogolia: I just googled, you’re right. I guess it seems like something Herschmann would say.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: “How does Biden plan to push Russia back across the border” is a pretty weird question, yeah.
The better and actually honest question is “how long do we plan on supporting Ukraine in their effort to push Russia back to the borders”, which is reasonable. The answer should be “so long as there’s a hot war”
Jeffro
the trumpies don’t know what to think about Ukraine anymore…it would seem to be a no-brainer to support the heroic underdog-fledgling-democracy-gifted leader standing tall against a merciless-invader-hostile-foreign-power BUT that would mean agreeing with Dems (and defying Tucker!)
sucks to be them, I guess…that level of cognitive dissonance has gotta hurt!
Jeffro
@trollhattan:
@MisterForkbeard:
The most honest question to ask here, is of course, “Why does the media insist on moving the goal posts re: President Biden and Ukraine on an hourly basis?”
Fair Economist
@trollhattan: That report is another example of horse racism. Does it matter to voters whether this is “politically risky”? No, it doesn’t. The reporting should be on how many abortions would be stopped, how many women would die, how many children would be born with crippling or lethal defects, and how much poverty would increase. Real information people could use.
But seems the media doesn’t do that anymore.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: There were a lot of zingers by various people. I watched the whole series twice so I have a pretty good recall of who said what.
Baud
@Fair Economist:
I’m biased against Arabians myself.
frosty fred
@Baud: I have occasionally wondered when knowing too much about Arabian horses will become a risk factor.
Balconesfault
@WaterGirl: and by “they”, this also includes an awful lot of people on the left of the political spectrum.
FridayNext
@trollhattan:
The phrase “moon shot for cancer” was also used by Nixon and so many others as to be a useless concept.
Might as well say there is “light at the end of the tunnel” on cancer.
Eunicecycle
@zhena gogolia: isn’t Herschman the one who told someone (Eastman maybe?) “You’d better get an effing lawyer.”
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: Yes. Only in stronger terms than even that. :-)
zhena gogolia
@Eunicecycle: Yeah. Something like “the best effing defense lawyer you can find, because you’re going to effing need one.” I guess it was Eastman but I’m not absolutely sure about that.
sdhays
I know this is a dead thread, but I just have to say that the Biden Administration doesn’t need a “long term plan” for helping Ukraine to end the war. Ukraine has demonstrated that short to medium term should be more than enough.
Not a prediction, but Russia could conceivably be out of every part of Ukraine except Crimea, perhaps, in a month or two. They’re teetering. If we can keep the wind at Ukraine’s back, they won’t need to fight this war that much longer.
cain
We need to stop saying red and blue – it’s us and MAGA. We need to keep focusing on MAGA people.
Dupe1970
@The Moar You Know:
Yep. I copy twitter links and paste them in an email to myself and read them from my phone.
Subsole
@Jeffro: Ehhh…I imagine once all the ridges on their brains have been sanded down by unrelenting propaganda, the dissonance just slides right off.
Subsole
@Fair Economist: That would require a media that gives a shit about normal people.
These folks care about getting the right kind of invite from the right kind of people. Normals like us? We can get fucked if it adds a zero to their latest book deal.
JoyceH
@Ohio Mom:
Oh, I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a liquid or pill that your pharmacy stocks that is the universal cancer cure, because there are so dang many types of cancer. But some time ago, I saw an article positing that with mrna technology, it should soon be possible to quickly tailor a ‘bespoke’ cure for each individual’s very specific cancer.
I would love to think that there’s such a ‘universal because individually created’ cure right on the horizon, and Biden is just quickly jumping out in front of the bandwagon, to run on “We Cured Cancer!” in 2024. But alas, more likely that he thinks it’s a good cause that will gain bipartisan support. And these days, anything a Democrat is for immediately becomes partisan and something for Republicans to oppose. Heck, I remember a time when Newt Gingrich did a climate change PSA with Nancy Pelosi! Those days are gone.
StringOnAStick
@JoyceH: I’m counting on a bespoke cure for my husband’s CLL, currently just a background thing that requires no treatment at this time, and I’d like it to stay that way. There has been some gene therapy work that has actually cured people, but it is very early days. I do know that the main target for mmRNA research before Covid was for just this sort of blood cancer, and it was just darned handy to have this platform already well developed when Covid showed up.
Matt McIrvin
Some years ago I recall a news story in which some actual cancer experts opined that there wasn’t going to be any single magic bullet for cancer, that this was the slow boring of hard boards, a game of a thousand small interventions.
The comments were almost all “the doctors know the cure already, it’s a big old conspiracy to support Big Cancer”.
Madame Bupkis
@Jeffro: Let’s hope so.