Amy Hunt retweeted
I read JD Vance's post on this site yesterday and at first I was shocked. The Vice President all but admitted that his own administration made a mistake going to war with Iran. I can't think of a sitting VP breaking with his President this publicly in my lifetime.
And at first glance his analysis seems spot on. His first prescription is to end the war. A war that he and the President, until this week, refused to even call a war.
It's hard to disagree with him. But like everything MAGA, the thread of truth is there to hide the larger truth. And the larger truth is this.
Tuesday was the greatest repudiation of a sitting President by voters in the history of this country.
Not a repudiation of a policy. A repudiation of a man.
The message was not only about Iran or Israel or slogans or even the price at the pump. The message was simple.
WE ARE DONE WITH DONALD TRUMP.
We are done with his lies. We are done with the corruption and the gaslighting. We are done with the insanity. We are done with the cruelty.
The message from Mississippi to Iowa, from Kansas to Maine, from North Carolina to Texas, young and old, North and South, East and West, was the same.
Fuck Donald Trump.
This country desperately needs a healthy Republican Party. A party with room for Mitt Romney and Thomas Massie, for Chris Christie and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Marjorie Taylor Greene. A party that puts this constitutional republic above the interests of one man. A party that knows the difference between a Ken Paxton and a John Cornyn, between a Vivek Ramaswamy and a Mike DeWine.
That is the message voters sent on Tuesday, with more ballots cast than in any midterm in American history.
WE ARE DONE WITH DONALD TRUMP.
The sooner the brave members of whatever remains of the Republican Party understand that, the sooner we can begin to heal.
I hope Democrats in Congress heard it too. Voters sent the same message in 2020, and we failed to make it stick. I for one don't think this country can afford 26 more months of this madness before we do the one thing voters just demanded in historic numbers.
Trump needs to leave, and he needs to leave now.
All it would take this January is eleven Republican senators willing to acknowledge the existential threat this lawless President poses to the country and the world. Eleven brave Republicans need to stand up and end this madness. Save their party. Save the country.
It's up to all of us to give them the courage to do what's right.
Amy Hunt retweeted
Writing this in my personal capacity, but I have been flying these types of aircraft for more than 20 years, with over 8,000 hours, and have reasonable familiarity with how the charter world operates. I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls.
That last part is what I find most troubling. She was the second-in-command (SIC), and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die. I have heard final calls from friends, from military pilots with thousands of hours in fighter aircraft, and they are just as heartbreaking because they know the end is approaching.
I understand the public interest given the footage and audio. But you do not know the aircraft’s maintenance history, whether there was a structural failure, if any failure was induced by turbulence, overspeed, or overcontrol, or everything happening in that cockpit. I am sure weather will be part of the investigation, but beyond that, it is speculation. The charter industry routinely hires commercial pilots very early in their careers to gain experience alongside an ATP-qualified captain before they move up to the airlines. She would still have the appropriate training, qualifications, and checkouts by an FAA examiner or designee.
Let people investigate, learn, and share the facts. Be respectful to those who perished and the families who carry their memories. God bless them and their loved ones.
Amy Hunt retweeted
US policy toward Russia & Ukraine is, in a word, shameful. Trump continues to do things FOR Russia & TO Ukraine. But where are the others, from @SecRubio to Republican senators? Do they really want to be seen by history as accomplices to appeasement? richardhaass.substack.com/p/…
Amy Hunt retweeted
With the evolving Cornell University story, I have been reflecting on my fourth and final year at St. Thomas University in 2015 in Fredericton.
One of my professors, Jan Wong, wanted some of our class to work on an investigative series on rape on campus.
After practicing law for a couple of hours, moved the cattle over a few pastures. A friend is getting married and wants longhorns in the background. Got my exercise in for the day.
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Amy Hunt retweeted
Share this with your governor. Share this with every politician you know. It will cut the healthcare costs in your state.
We started Cost Plus Drugs because the prescription drug market is too complicated, too opaque and too expensive.
Our model is simple: we show what we pay for a drug, add a transparent markup and pharmacy fee, and show the customer the price.
No games. No hidden spread.
And a large percentage of our customers already have insurance.
They come to us because our cash price is often lower than what their insurance plan asks them to pay.
That tells you something is wrong.
Here are five things Texas can do about it.
1. Let patients shop for cheaper drugs
If someone's insurance says a prescription costs $500, but they can buy the exact same drug for $100 cash, let them buy it for $100.
Then credit that $100 toward their deductible and out-of-pocket maximum wherever Texas has authority to do so.
Patients should be rewarded for saving themselves and their health plan money.
They shouldn't be punished for it.
That's how you create something healthcare desperately needs:
Price competition.
2. Standardize PBM and TPA contracts
Texas should require the state, cities, counties and school districts to use standardized model contracts and mandatory terms for PBMs and TPAs.
I've reviewed these contracts.
They routinely run hundreds of pages.
I've seen contracting packages longer than a thousand pages.
There is no human being—or group of human beings—on this planet who can stay awake and understand every provision in contracts that complicated.
I don't care how much coffee they drink.
I call it contractual terrorism.
The vendor only has to sneak a couple of tricks through hundreds of pages.
The employer has to find every one.
It can't.
I've developed a model PBM contract designed to eliminate the major tricks and hidden economics we've identified.
Texas can have it for free.
Use mine. Improve it. Open source it.
I don't care.
Just stop making every government entity negotiate these contracts from scratch.
3. Make the economics public
If taxpayers are paying the bill, taxpayers should know the price.
Pricing. Fees. Rebates. Guarantees. Pharmacy reimbursement. Affiliate compensation. Audit rights.
Make them public.
I'm not talking about patient information or legitimate security information.
I'm talking about the money.
You cannot have an efficient market without price discovery.
Without price discovery, you get information asymmetry.
And when one side knows dramatically more than the other, guess who wins?
Not taxpayers.
Not employers.
Not patients.
Open the contracts up and let competitors see what they have to beat.
That giant sucking sound you hear will be money moving away from healthcare conglomerates that are too big to care and back toward taxpayers, employers and patients.
In the immortal words of Charles Barkley:
I guarantee it.
4. Kill the gag clauses
PBM contracts are like Fight Club.
The number one rule of Fight Club is that you can't talk about Fight Club.
The number one rule of many PBM contracts seems to be that you can't talk about your PBM contract.
That's insane.
Let employers compare pricing, rebates, fees, guarantees and reimbursement terms.
Markets work better when buyers know what other buyers are paying.
5. Make enforcement hurt
If a healthcare company commits a serious violation, give them one mulligan.
But after a second material federal or Texas enforcement action within a defined period, make them ineligible for new Texas government contracts for a period of time.
Two strikes.
You're out.
Today, some of these companies can make billions, get caught, pay a fine and write it off more easily than I wrote off an NBA fine.
That's not deterrence.
That's a cost of doing business.
And Texas should spend more on enforcement.
If Texas spends $10 million auditing contracts and analyzing claims and prevents $100 million in unnecessary spending, that's not overhead.
That's a 10x return on investment
Amy Hunt retweeted
When my son died, I couldn’t sleep at night. So each night I would wake up in the middle of the night and write on my cellphone. After two months, I had written my book on capturing the raw emotion and pain of losing a child. I think it is a powerful and important read for
Amy Hunt retweeted
My testimony today at the Texas State capital
I’m the co-founder of CostPlusDrugs.com.
We started Cost Plus Drugs because the prescription drug market is too complicated, too opaque and too expensive.
Our model is simple: we show what we pay for a drug, add a transparent markup and pharmacy fee, and show the customer the price.
No games. No hidden spread.
And a large percentage of our customers already have insurance.
They come to us because our cash price is often lower than what their insurance plan asks them to pay.
That tells you something is wrong.
Here are five things Texas can do about it.
1. Let patients shop for cheaper drugs
If someone's insurance says a prescription costs $500, but they can buy the exact same drug for $100 cash, let them buy it for $100.
Then credit that $100 toward their deductible and out-of-pocket maximum wherever Texas has authority to do so.
Patients should be rewarded for saving themselves and their health plan money.
They shouldn't be punished for it.
That's how you create something healthcare desperately needs:
Price competition.
2. Standardize PBM and TPA contracts
Texas should require the state, cities, counties and school districts to use standardized model contracts and mandatory terms for PBMs and TPAs.
I've reviewed these contracts.
They routinely run hundreds of pages.
I've seen contracting packages longer than a thousand pages.
There is no human being—or group of human beings—on this planet who can stay awake and understand every provision in contracts that complicated.
I don't care how much coffee they drink.
I call it contractual terrorism.
The vendor only has to sneak a couple of tricks through hundreds of pages.
The employer has to find every one.
It can't.
I've developed a model PBM contract designed to eliminate the major tricks and hidden economics we've identified.
Texas can have it for free.
Use mine. Improve it. Open source it.
I don't care.
Just stop making every government entity negotiate these contracts from scratch.
3. Make the economics public
If taxpayers are paying the bill, taxpayers should know the price.
Pricing. Fees. Rebates. Guarantees. Pharmacy reimbursement. Affiliate compensation. Audit rights.
Make them public.
I'm not talking about patient information or legitimate security information.
I'm talking about the money.
You cannot have an efficient market without price discovery.
Without price discovery, you get information asymmetry.
And when one side knows dramatically more than the other, guess who wins?
Not taxpayers.
Not employers.
Not patients.
Open the contracts up and let competitors see what they have to beat.
That giant sucking sound you hear will be money moving away from healthcare conglomerates that are too big to care and back toward taxpayers, employers and patients.
In the immortal words of Charles Barkley:
I guarantee it.
4. Kill the gag clauses
PBM contracts are like Fight Club.
The number one rule of Fight Club is that you can't talk about Fight Club.
The number one rule of many PBM contracts seems to be that you can't talk about your PBM contract.
That's insane.
Let employers compare pricing, rebates, fees, guarantees and reimbursement terms.
Markets work better when buyers know what other buyers are paying.
5. Make enforcement hurt
If a healthcare company commits a serious violation, give them one mulligan.
But after a second material federal or Texas enforcement action within a defined period, make them ineligible for new Texas government contracts for a period of time.
Two strikes.
You're out.
Today, some of these companies can make billions, get caught, pay a fine and write it off more easily than I wrote off an NBA fine.
That's not deterrence.
That's a cost of doing business.
And Texas should spend more on enforcement.
If Texas spends $10 million auditing contracts and analyzing claims and prevents $100 million in unnecessary spending, that's not overhead.
That's a 10x return on investmen
Amy Hunt retweeted
A brand new bridge between Detroit and Canada is finished and ready to open. It would speed up traffic for millions of trucks, cut delays for American businesses, and help the auto industry that employs people in every state. There is just one problem.
Donald Trump won’t let it open.
Here is why.
The family that owns the old bridge stands to lose business when the new one opens. So in January, they gave one million dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Weeks later they met with Trump’s Commerce Secretary.
He called Trump.
Hours after that, Trump announced he would block the new bridge. The opening was set for June 12. It got canceled the day before. The bridge sits there finished and empty.
Now here is the part that should make every taxpayer angry.
Canada paid for the entire bridge.
Every dollar. And the United States already owns half of it for free. Trump is holding up a bridge we got for nothing, to protect a donor who wrote him a check, while picking a fight with our closest ally and biggest trading partner.
This is corruption in plain sight.
A billionaire pays, and the President delivers. American workers and businesses pay the price.
Open the bridge. A government should work for the people, not for whoever writes the biggest check.
nytimes.com/2026/02/20/us/po…
Amy Hunt retweeted
Trump is negotiating to settle his lawsuit against his own IRS, and one of the remedies being floated (along with almost 2 billion dollars) is the IRS dropping all audits of Trump, his family, and his businesses.
Just absolutely staggering corruption.
Amy Hunt retweeted
This claim keeps circulating no matter how many times it’s debunked, so let’s try again.
The Shrestha et al Cleveland Clinic preprint found vaccinated employees had 27% higher flu rates. Sounds damning until you learn vaccinated employees were also tested at 27% higher rates. UPenn biostatistician @jsm2334 showed that when you correct for this testing bias, test positivity was actually ~20% lower in the vaccinated group. The “negative effectiveness” is an artifact of who got swabbed, not who got sick.
This is a preprint, not peer-reviewed, from one healthcare workforce in one season. Meanwhile, observational data across millions of people consistently show flu vaccines reduce hospitalizations by 40-60% depending on strain match.
And while we’re here: flu shots cannot cause the flu. The injected vaccine contains no live virus. When people say “I got the flu shot and then got sick,” they either caught something else (it’s cold season), experienced a normal immune response (mild fatigue, sore arm), or were already incubating an infection before the vaccine took effect.
MAJOR Cleveland Clinic study (n=53,402) finds flu shots DO NOT work — and actually INCREASE your risk of flu by +27%.
RFK Jr. is right: the fewer people injecting infection promotors, the better.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The study being cited is a preprint without peer review.
When you look at the study, you'll note that the vaccinated population was also tested at a higher rate. When you control for that, the unvaccinated group had a higher illness rate vs the vaccinated group
x.com/i/status/20105…
Amy Hunt retweeted
Sheriff Chris Swanson, the elected Sheriff of Genesee County, Michigan, is a career law-enforcement officer, not a pundit. He became nationally known in 2020 for prioritizing de-escalation during protests. What he says about the Minneapolis shooting directly exposes how bad MAGA-era policing policies fail.
Swanson calls the shooting tragic but predictable. Masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles confronted a 37-year-old woman, gave unclear commands, and then fired three shots as her car was backing up and turning away. The agent who fired was not hit, not run over, and not in the vehicle’s path. Two shots were fired as the car was already driving away.
That is not lawful deadly force. That is bad policy producing bad outcomes.
Swanson is blunt about the force continuum. You do not shoot people who are fleeing. You do not shoot when you are not in danger. “Tough on crime” slogans do not override use-of-force standards, no matter how loudly MAGA politicians repeat them.
What follows is worse. After the woman was shot and crashed, Swanson saw no attempt at life-saving aid. No urgency. No trauma response. He contrasts this with his own deputies, who once returned fire on a suspect who had already killed two people, then immediately tried to save his life anyway. That is professional policing. What happened in Minneapolis was not.
He also points to missing body cams and officers leaving the scene instead of securing it for investigation. These are not accidents. They are the results of policies that reward aggression and optics over training and accountability.
Swanson makes one thing clear. Calling this out is not anti-police. Blind loyalty is what damages law enforcement. Accountability is what protects it.