The Joe Cunningham Show airs 3-4 p.m. every weekday on NewsTalk 96.5 KPEL. The daily show notes offer you a look into the topics of the day and the links to the top stories and Joe's own writings on the state of politics in Louisiana and around the country. Follow Joe on Twitter at @JoePCunningham and Like the Joe Cunningham Show on Facebook. You can also subscribe to the Joe Cunningham Show podcast on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or Amazon.
The House GOP Will Help Americans… By Investigating Hunter
Look, I get that the Hunter Biden stuff is something the base really likes, and there is a lot of stuff there that the feds should investigate (and are investigating!). But to announce today, before the new Congress is even sworn in, that the House Oversight Committee is going to focus on Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s shady business practices.
The problem is… the base turned out for Republicans in the midterms. Those aren’t the people you need to make happy right now. The GOP lost center-right, Trump-skeptical Republicans and independents. To turn around and ignore them when they still deeply care about economic issues, crime, and those kitchen table issues is to tell them they were right to not trust you in the first place. If you want oversight, look into the Justice Department. Look into the FBI. Don’t sit there and talk about stuff we already largely know because it makes the base happy.
Big Pharma Still Screwing Rural Hospitals
Pharmaceutical companies, who continue to boast multi-billion dollar profits, have been declaring they will not offer discounts on medications under handpicked circumstances since the summer of 2020. The move came just as Big Pharma increasingly aligned itself with progressives, who have been vastly more supportive of policies like vaccine mandates and hormonal interventions that tend to benefit the companies. Where progressives used to be highly skeptical of Big Pharma, now all of a sudden they cannot seem to stop extolling their virtues. Obviously, prescription drugs save lives, and that consistently buys drugmakers a lot of goodwill. But it’s important to remember that like a lot of sectors, industries and individual corporate players these days, a lot of these companies’ agenda runs directly counter to that of Republican voters.
Rural hospitals closing is a troubling trend that unlawful end runs around drug pricing rules that have been on the books for decades is likely to exacerbate. The AHA study makes it clear that there's a problem here worthy of attention.
The Washington Post Admits Trump Wasn’t Trying to Sell Secrets
One of the biggest anti-Trump bits of rhetoric since the Mar-a-Lago raid was idea that Trump had all of these secrets and may have been trying to sell them to foreign adversaries. Like so many other claims, this was a silly claim when you actually think about who Trump is. He isn’t going to sell the remnants of his time in office. Those were trophies, and the sources who were leaking all these theories and thoughts about Trump and those documents are only now leaking that, well, maybe he was just keeping trophies and not being an active threat to the United States.
Headlines of the Day
Three Border Patrol Agents Shot, One Killed, in Shootout With Drug Smugglers Off Puerto Rico Coast (RedState)
Key Allies Are Inching Away From Trump (New York Times)
DeSantis draws contrast with Trump as party hunts for 2024 alternative (Politico)
Average 401(k) balances plunged 23% year-over-year due to market volatility, Fidelity says (CNBC)
Europe faces ‘cancer epidemic’ after estimated 1m cases missed during Covid (The Guardian)