Big PhRMA vs. Big Insurance = Big Irony & Big Lessons

-by emorejahongkong




The insurance industry is focused on Big PhRMA leader Merck & Co., which:

estimated... $870 million in damages [from] crippled Merck’s production facilities [by malware]... dubbed NotPetya [and] according to Western intelligence agencies... the creation of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency

This caused Merck to learn how many PhRMA consumers feel:

stunned when most of its 30 insurers and reinsurers denied coverage... [as an] excluded... act of war.

But this was not a Russia-declared war on Merck. Instead, NotPetya was reportedly deployed in an undeclared war between Russia and:

Ukraine, [where]... the malware rocketed through government agencies, banks, power stations-- even the Chernobyl radiation monitoring system. Merck was apparently collateral damage. NotPetya contaminated Merck via a server in its Ukraine office... [and] hopped from computer to computer, from country to country. It hit FedEx, the shipping giant, Maersk, the global confectioner, Mondelēz International, the advertising firm, WPP, and hundreds of other companies.





"War" needs an updated definition, because:

Nation-states for years have been developing digital tools to create chaos... But increasingly those tools are being used in forms of conflict that defy categorization [whether as "war," "terrorism," "vandalism," "extortion," or "accident"]

Moreover. Anyone who says they have a firm grasp on this kind of risk, [Warren Buffett] said, "is kidding themselves." The start of a solution can be found in this buried lede:

A few years before NotPetya, China’s military and intelligence agencies were stealing the secrets of global corporations at an alarming rate, giving a boost to the cyber-security business. Most experts agree that threat has abated in the wake of a 2015 U.S.-China cyber-security agreement and a reorganization of the Chinese military.

In other words, the first big step to reducing cyber-risk is cyber-security agreements between all nations that have high-level 'cyber-warfare' capabilities. And what’s to prevent all those Russian, ex-Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian and other secretive and dishonest foreign governments from quietly and deniably enabling non-state actors?

Could the answer lie in the old (USSR-era) concept of peacekeeping through 'mutual assured destruction?' This seems likely to occur when more malware follows the example of NotPetya, which so easily:

“hopped from computer to computer, from country to country.”

But what about rogue non-state groups or individuals, analogous to the under-employed ex-Soviet nuclear weapon technicians whom we heard so much about in the 1990s? What seems necessary is maximum incentives for all state actors to cooperate in reducing risks towards everybody. There is an old concept designed for this type of purpose: Risk-pooling and cost-spreading through insurance.

In other words, Merck and its peers are finally being forced to appreciate why those of us who lack sufficient financial resources to 'self-insure' against biological bugs and viruses, and those whose greater resources still cannot prevent them from contagion, all need the biggest possible risk pooling and cost-spreading through national and eventually global insurance, with costs further reduced and minimized through shared responsibility for funding single payer.

Also experts, at hopping from country to country, are the riskier biological bugs and viruses and other consequences of Climate Change, including extreme weather and rising seas, which are even bigger emerging nightmares for insurers, and which will eventually cause an even bigger redefinition of "risk pool."

"British Secret Police" Have Entered the Ecuador Embassy and Arrested Julian Assange. What Kind of War Will It Start?

Waiting the fate of Julian Assange

by Thomas Neuburger

The news, Julian Assange has been arrested at last:

"Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of -- like it or not -- award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books," the whistleblower said on Twitter.

Confirmation here, via the Guardian. Apparently, they did this on behalf of the U.S. government:

And there it is. https://t.co/jEhIRM0Sj4

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 11, 2019

("British secret police" in the title is Edward Snowden's term, by the way.)

I think this will start a war, and not the usual kind. If the US government succeeds in prosecuting, torturing, and perhaps even killing Assange, look for a global response, and look for that response to be ... unconventional. The response to this response could change the world.

Our Eager and Shared Illusions

Here's what Patrick Lawrence has to say about Julian Assange, the hegemonic American state, and our eager and shared illusions:

Cú Chulainn asks readers to consider a casual harvest of developments drawn simply from the last week’s news. I was on a television shout fest the other day when someone made mention of Washington’s view of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Apparently the running perspective is that it’s “a vanity project.” That takes care of that: Nothing more to do or say or think about. Sure thing.

A couple of days later I read that, nearly two decades after the Bush II administration’s assault on international law and common decency, the American military is still arguing about whether evidence of the torture our sadistic spooks let loose in their “black sites” should be brought into the light. It was Barack Obama who made this kind of dodge possible, let us not forget, rather swiftly after he took office. (And said spooks include the current director of the CIA—in effect, another gift from Obama.)

In the very same news cycle (and in the very same newspaper) came a report that the U.S. has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, “because of her attempts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that may have been committed by American forces.” These reports can be found here and here respectively. I always love The Times for its habit of publishing stories such as these in the same edition and never any hint that there is a connection between the two. Heaven forbid knowledge might lead to understanding—the very last thing our press wants to encourage.

Why do these apparently disparate bits of news warrant mention together? Why does the Celtic giant take them up in a Journal entry that has to do with Julian Assange? Because they are all instances of our mass self-illusioning, if you will tolerate the awkward term. The Assange case is thoroughly embedded in this culture of illusion. I do not think it can be fully understood without this context. We are a nation hiding from who we are and how we conduct ourselves and how we view and treat the immense Other beyond our shores. We are dedicated to fooling ourselves while missing the fact that we fool only ourselves. Anyone who thinks this is a constructive and productive way to proceed into the 21st century is fooling himself or herself twice over. It is nothing more than our style of self-determined decline. It is in this context we must consider Assange’s sin as defined above. (emphasis added)

Not every change is analog, a continuous move from one microscopic level to the next, like points that move tick by tick on a stock market chart, bounded by well-defined ranges above and below.

Some change comes suddenly and alters the world ... forever. The world before the French Revolution was nothing like what came after, and all attempts to return to the old world failed, each one ending in blood. Because a building fell to a mob in France, a threshold that kings had been pushing against for decades was crossed forever, and nothing in Europe was ever the same again.

World War One destroyed completely the stable world that spawned it. As the soldiers marched out to fight, their nations believed they'd be home in a couple of months. Eight million corpses later, that world was gone, politically and socially wrecked, never to be return.

We sit today near another of those thresholds, one as little recognized now as the others were then. The hegemonic American state is not more popular than it used to be — far from it. Resistance to America the destroyer, inside the country and out, grows by the day. We're sick of our wars, and the sisters and brothers of the murdered are done with us waging them. The anger of the world, however, stays mainly offshore ... so far. 

At home, the cruel and pathological predation of the wealthy is not only more hated as each year passes to the next, it's also more recognized, identified, named out loud — even and especially by MAGA-hatted masses, and especially by the Bernie-birdie crowds that swell his appearances. Every time he says "billionaires," they cheer his anger and what they imagine will be his redress for decades of legalized crime. The MAGA hats want their own revenge as well.

Can all that anger against the hubris and predation of the mighty be kept in electoral bounds, especially if it's consistently denied electoral release and its candidates sidelined? Perhaps. Maybe a "return to normal" — the world of Obama, in which protection predators is tribally defended — can stem the tide for a while.

But enter a new player, a "masked avenger" perhaps, and maybe all bets are off. What chaos will be released if American finds itself at war with a non-state cyber warrior — let's call it Anonymous, though I doubt this foe will have even the minimum organization of a mob — an actor that moves in  resonance with the bipartisan, done-with-it-all discontent already alive in our society?

The Bastille fell and Europe changed forever, bleeding many times in the process. Something tipped, then tipped over, and the only way out was forward. Will a war of revenge waged by Anonymous, and the eager and angry counter-war it provokes, unite Americans behind its increasingly militarized state, or more deeply and further divide them from what purports to rule them? If the latter, what does that next new world look like?

If Assange is tried and cyber warriors attack, will the nation respond cohesively, or will all hell break loose? 

No one knows, so my advice is this: Tread lightly, you who'd love to see Julian Assange in shackles, or chained to a wall in a country no one can spell. No one, including myself, wants to live in the world your hubris may provoke.

There are some structures that, once they break, stay broken. You may be looking, with over-eager eyes, at one of them. 
 

The Trumpezoic Era

Sidd Bikkannavar

One of my friends is a senior VP at one of the major American investment firms. A couple of years ago her company took all the senior officers for a convention in China. They were instructed to leave their cell phones and computers at home and were all give clean electronics with no data. That seemed extreme to me. I recently spent a day in the Beijing airport. A friend of mine from one of the big Silicon Valley tech firms warned me to not turn on my phone unless I didn't mind all the data being compromised instantly. So I kept it powered down; never turned it on for a second. About a month later I got a bill for over $100 for calls from Beijing. I explained to my service provider that I never even turned the phone on in Beijing and after almost an hour of arguing with a couple of agents, they wiped the $100 off the bill. But they refused to discuss how the charges got there.

Who wants to live in a country like that? Have you heard about Sidd Bikkannavar? Although the name might give him a problem, Bikkannavar is entitled to run for president of the U.S. Unlike Ted Cruz, he was born in the U.S. He's an optics technology scientist working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Last month he was in Chile racing solar-powered cars in Patagonia. But when he tried returning home, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport apparently didn't like his South Indian last name. They detained him and demanded he hand over his phone's access PIN. The phone is NASA property and included sensitive data so he was reluctant to turn it over. The agents informed him they could detain him until he complied with their request which he eventually did. They took his phone (and PIN) away and returned it after getting whatever they wanted from it.

As The Verge reported, Bikkannavar is enrolled in Global Entry-- a Customs and Border Patrol program that allows individuals who have undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country and made a strong case that there was no other reason to detain and search him other than illegal ethnic profiling.

“I asked a question, ‘Why was I chosen?’ And he wouldn’t tell me,” he says.

The officer also presented Bikkannavar with a document titled “Inspection of Electronic Devices” and explained that CBP had authority to search his phone. Bikkannavar did not want to hand over the device, because it was given to him by JPL and is technically NASA property. He even showed the officer the JPL barcode on the back of phone. Nonetheless, CBP asked for the phone and the access PIN. “I was cautiously telling him I wasn’t allowed to give it out, because I didn’t want to seem like I was not cooperating,” says Bikkannavar. “I told him I’m not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it.”

Courts have upheld customs agents' power to manually search devices at the border, but any searches made solely on the basis of race or national origin are still illegal. More importantly, travelers are not legally required to unlock their devices, although agents can detain them for significant periods of time if they do not. “In each incident that I’ve seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that they’re obligated to unlock the phone, which isn’t true,” Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of CAIR Florida, told The Verge. “They’re not obligated to unlock the phone.”

Nevertheless, Bikkannavar was not allowed to leave until he gave CBP his PIN. The officer insisted that CBP had the authority to search the phone. The document given to Bikkannavar listed a series of consequences for failure to offer information that would allow CBP to copy the contents of the device. “I didn’t really want to explore all those consequences,” he says. “It mentioned detention and seizure.” Ultimately, he agreed to hand over the phone and PIN. The officer left with the device and didn’t return for another 30 minutes.

Eventually, the phone was returned to Bikkannavar, though he’s not sure what happened during the time it was in the officer’s possession. When it was returned he immediately turned it off because he knew he had to take it straight to the IT department at JPL. Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he went to NASA and told his superiors what had happened. Bikkannavar can’t comment on what may or may not have been on the phone, but he says the cybersecurity team at JPL was not happy about the breach. Bikkannavar had his phone on hand while he was traveling in case there was a problem at work that needed his attention, but NASA employees are obligated to protect work-related information, no matter how minuscule.

Yesterday Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to John Kelly, Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security about the incidents forcing Americans to unlock their phones. "These reports are deeply troubling, particularly in light of your recent comments suggesting that (Customs and Border Protection) might begin demanding social media passwords from visitors to the United States. With those passwords, CBP may then be able to log in to accounts and access data that they would otherwise only be able to get from Internet companies with a warrant. Circumventing the normal protections for such private information is simply unacceptable... In addition to violating the privacy and civil liberties of travelers, these digital dragnet border search practices weaken our national and economic security. Indiscriminate digital searches distract CBP from its core mission and needlessly divert agency resources away from those who truly threaten our nation. Likewise, if businesses fear that their data can be seized when employees cross the border, they may reduce non-essential employee international travel, or deploy technical countermeasures, like 'burner' laptops and mobile devices, which some firms already use when employees visit nations like China." Wyden's letter makes it clear that he is about to introduce legislation that will ensure that the "4th Amendment is respected at the border."

The term "Trumpezoic Era" comes from Alan Grayson. It's his idea. It came in a note to his supporters yesterday, a note about how, specifically, he would have made a difference in the Senate had the corrupt and stupid DSCC-- he blames Reid; I blame Schumer-- not sabotaged his campaign on behalf of yappy blue chihuahua, Patrick Murphy, Wall Street's favorite candidate of 2016 (FL- $2,161,722). Grayson, who once told me to expect that all the phone calls between him and I are monitored, wrote that he has a favorite drinking game-- "not taking a drink every time Donald Trump makes a fool of himself. That would make me an alcoholic overnight. The game is noting each time I would have altered the outcome if I had been elected to the Senate last year. So far, in Month One of the Trumpezoic Era, I count three instances."

Number One (Jan. 6):

When the Presidential electoral votes are counted, there is an opportunity to object in writing, and demand a House vote on the objection. By statute (3 USC 15), the objection can be on any grounds. There is only one catch: the objection has to be signed by at least one Congressman and one Senator. (FWIW, this is the only time I know when this particular 1+1 can do anything in our government.) There was no shortage of gutsy Representatives on the day of the Trump electoral vote count: Reps. McGovern, Raskin, Jayapal, Lee, Jackson-Lee, Grijalva and Waters all objected. (Waters also objected in 2000, to George W. Bush’s coronation.) Waters declared, pointedly, "I wish to ask: Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter of objection?” The 48 Democratic Senators sat stone-silent.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have objected to the investiture of Donald Trump.  You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Two (Jan. 4):

Senators normally require sixty votes to clear their throats, blow their noses, etc., but there are a few exceptions. One of them is called “reconciliation,” The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 limited Senate debate on the annual budget bill to “only” twenty hours-- 20 very boring hours. A filibuster, in contrast, means unlimited Senate debate, terminable only by sixty Senate votes. Since the Congressional Budget Act limits Senate debate automatically, it prevents a filibuster for certain budget bills, known as reconciliation bills. Knowing this, right after the new Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3, the Senate GOP wasted no time and put a budget resolution to repeal Obamacare to a vote on Jan. 4. But on Jan. 4, the President was named “Obama,” and the Veep was named “Biden.” There were 52 GOP Senators on Jan. 4, but Rand Paul (R-KY) voted against the resolution. If a certain Senator Grayson had been there in lieu of a certain Senator Rubio, there would have been only 50 votes to begin the repeal of Obamacare, and the 50-50 tie would have been broken by Vice President Biden, sending the resolution to repeal Obamacare down in flames.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have voted to prevent the repeal of Obamacare, just as I did on 63 occasions in the House. You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Three (Feb. 7):

It irks me that Betsy DeVos testified that student loans increased by 980% during the past eight years, while Sen. Franken pegged the actual figure at 118%. Percentages-- isn’t that something that you learn by fifth grade? However, if gross inaccuracy doesn’t disqualify you to be President-- let us pray for the victims of Muslim terrorism in Sweden, amen!-- then why should it disqualify you from being Education Secretary? No, what really chaps my lips is the point that Sen. Sanders made about DeVos, which is that she can wear this t-shirt with pride:

“My Family Gave $200 Million to the GOP, and All I Got Was This Lousy Cabinet Post.”

DeVos paid good money for that cabinet position.

Which begs the question: America, oligarchy or plutocracy? We report, you decide. Because I remain uncomfortable with the concept that public office can be bought, I would have voted against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. (I reserve judgment as to whether I would vote for her for Secretary of Religion, which probably is the gig she really wants.) And with Senator Grayson serving in lieu of Senator Rubio, Betsy DeVos would have lost. That would have taught her a lesson.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have defeated the nomination of Betsy DeVos. You bet your patootie I would have.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of nominees, I sure wouldn’t have opened the 115th Congress with those first few appeasement votes we saw on Trump nominees, until rank-and-file Democrats evinced their displeasure with that approach. I would have put the screws to every one of them.

Alas, I haven’t had that opportunity, because the corrupt Democratic Party leadership (first name, Harry) was enchanted, mesmerized, spellbound, bewitched and enthralled by the promise by my primary opponent’s father to provide $10 million for his vicious, vacuous campaign. (In the end, his father gave $500,000, not $10 million, and it sure was much-fun to watch my beclowned party cancel those TV buy reservations, week by week, waiting for Daddy’s money to show up.) I would say that the rest is history, but actually, the Trumpocalyptic history still unfolds, moment by moment, vote by vote, and drink by drink.

Cutting Up The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau... Bipartisan Affair?

Sinema

Thanks to a tiny gaggle of reactionary Blue Dogs, Boehner's latest attempt to gut the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection can be called "bipartisan." H.R.1195 passed yesterday, 235-183, with 5 Republicans voting for the interests of their constituents and 4 faux-Democrats crossing the aisle in the other direction and voting with Wall Street and the GOP. The bill was sponsored by Bob Pittenger (R-NC), and among the co-sponsors was right-wing Arizona Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema. The bill itself wasn't that controversial, but it includes an amendment that would cut the CFPB's budget by $45 million over the next five years and $100 million over the next decade. The Democrats who voted with the GOP yesterday:

• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)

2016 will see aggressive DCCC efforts to raise money for the Democrats who vote with the GOP and have managed to alienate Democratic base voters. Brad Ashford, Kyrsten Sinema and other faithless Blue Dogs and New Dems will get millions of dollars from the DCCC, much of it from progressives who are unaware that the DCCC distributes their money to Democrats who vote as badly as some Republicans! If you want to contribute to progressives running for the House, never give to the DCCC. Always contribute directly to progressive candidates you'll find endorsed by Blue America, PCCC, DFA and like-minded organizations.

The other notable House vote yesterday was passage, 307-116, of a controversial new cyber info-sharing bill, H.R. 1650. Devin Nunes sponsored the bill, although a bunch of New Dems-- Patrick Murphy (FL), Jim Himes (CT), Terri Sewell (AL), Adam Schiff (CA) and Mike Quigley (IL)-- signed on as co-sponsors. Generally speaking, the progressives Blue America endorses and supports were the ones who voted against it, like:

• Xavier Becerra (CA)
• Matt Cartwright (PA)
• Judy Chu (CA)
• Donna Edwards (MD)
• Keith Ellison (MN)
• Alan Grayson (FL)
• Raul Grijalva (AZ)
• Mike Honda (CA)
• Barbara Lee (CA)
• Ted Lieu (CA)
• Beto O'Rourke (TX)
• Mark Pocan (WI)
• Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ)

The above are all members whom Blue America backed and who all voted against the latest unconstitutional domestic spying bill (the 79 Democrats who voted "no" were joined by 37 Republicans). The bad Democrats we warned you about before the election include:

• Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA)
• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
• Brendan Boyle (New Dem-PA)
• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)
• Tammy Duckworth (IL)
• Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL)
• Steve Israel (Blue Dog-NY)
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Donald Norcross (NJ)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)

Privacy advocates blasted the legislation. "These bills do little to protect the Internet, but rather reward companies who undermine the privacy of their customers," said Nathan White, senior legislative manager at the advocacy group Access Now, in a statement. The Blue America-endorsed candidates stand strong for Net Neutrality and cyber-privacy, and last night Alex Law wasn't surprised when he saw Norcross voting with the conservatives-- again. 

"Yet again," Law told us, "we have a clear difference between myself and my opponent in the Democratic primary in NJ-01. Today, Donald Norcross voted in support of the Protecting Cyber Networks Act, a bill that is a surveillance bill disguising itself as a cyber-security bill. This bill gives companies a significant expansion in their ability to monitor customers' online activities. It allows them to share vaguely defined 'cyber threat indicators,' which then automatically go to the NSA. The NSA is then authorized broad law enforcement rights that could stretch beyond cyber-security.This chain of events is a slippery slope. I totally disagree with the structure of this bill. We must stand up for individual privacy. What we have in this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and if I were in Congress, I would have voted against it like other progressives such as Alan Grayson and Judy Chu."

If you'd like to help make sure progressives like Alex do get into Congress in 2016, please consider contributing here.