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For Immediate Release
January, 10 2022, 01:59pm EDT
Contact:
Linda Benesch, lbenesch@socialsecurityworks.
We Must Let Medicare Negotiate Lower Drug Prices to Stop Massive Premium Increases
WASHINGTON
The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, on today's announcement that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will order Medicare to reconsider plans to increase premiums:
"Today's announcement from Secretary Becerra is good news for seniors. Older Americans should not have to pay $22 more for Medicare every month to cover the outrageous prices of prescription drugs.
Medicare will likely avoid such a large increase for one reason: Public pressure recently forced the pharmaceutical company Biogen to cut the price of Aduhelm, a controversial new Alzheimer's drug, in half.
But we can never rely on pharmaceutical corporations to do the right thing. Pharma corporations cynically anticipate public anger at high launch prices and so plan for 'voluntary' price reductions. Biogen priced it at $56,000 so they could cut the price in half and make $28,000 look 'reasonable' by comparison. They are trying to make fools of politicians and the public, and we can't let that happen.
To permanently lower drug prices and keep corporate greed in check, we need to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices. That starts with passing the Build Back Better Act into law immediately."
Social Security Works' mission is to: Protect and improve the economic security of disadvantaged and at-risk populations; Safeguard the economic security of those dependent, now or in the future, on Social Security; and Maintain Social Security as a vehicle of social justice.
LATEST NEWS
'Trump Is Trying to End Our Democracy': Alarm as President Attacks Elections Ahead of Midterms
"He’s reviving conspiracy theories about mail voting, pushing voter suppression, and laying the groundwork for an unprecedented federal takeover of our elections."
Jul 17, 2026
Four months out from the critical November midterms, President Donald Trump delivered a primetime address on Thursday night attempting to sow doubt about the integrity of US elections, repeating well-worn lies about the 2020 contest that he lost and claiming to have uncovered a sprawling Chinese plot to meddle in the voting process.
Trump, who has said his administration should "take over" US elections that are currently run by states, asserted in his speech that the American voting system was "left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen" by his political enemies and accused China of "illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files" in an effort to undermine him. Trump's speech coincided with the declassification of intelligence purportedly revealing China's "sinister" scheme to disrupt US elections as well as attempts by "members of the Deep State" to "suppress and downplay" the scheme.
Experts and critics of the president said his speech cherrypicked intelligence agency findings to concoct a false, self-serving narrative about the vulnerability of US elections and the need for legislation such as the SAVE America Act, a voter suppression bill that Trump has obsessively worked to push through Congress.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement that Trump "selectively declassified intelligence to try to rewrite the history of an election he lost."
"Even his own document release does not support his claim that the 2020 election was stolen. It confirms what we’ve long known: Foreign adversaries targeted our democracy, but there is no evidence they changed a single vote or altered the casting or counting of ballots," said Krishnamoorthi. "President Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square. If he cared about election security, he wouldn’t be putting unqualified political loyalists in charge of our intelligence agencies or weakening the agencies responsible for protecting our elections from foreign threats."
"Instead," Krishnamoorthi added, "he’s reviving conspiracy theories about mail voting, pushing voter suppression, and laying the groundwork for an unprecedented federal takeover of our elections—all while ignoring the real challenges facing American families.”
During his speech, Trump lashed out at major TV news networks for declining to broadcast his speech live and in full, accusing media outlets of being "part of the plot" and calling for the "revocation" of NBC and ABC's broadcast licenses.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called Trump's threat "insane."
"At a time when millions of Americans are finding it harder to pay for groceries, housing, and healthcare, when the climate crisis is causing record heatwaves and forest fires, Donald Trump felt it appropriate tonight to spew conspiracy theories about the 2020 election," said Sanders. "Pathetically, in true authoritarian fashion, he even threatened to revoke the licenses of ABC and NBC because they would not cover his speech."
"All of us, regardless of our political views, must stand together against this dangerous president who is seeking to undermine our Constitution and our basic freedoms," Sanders added.
"Trump is laying the groundwork to dismantle our elections, overturn results he does not like, cancel the will of the people, and hold onto power by any means necessary."
Trump's address cited "raw intelligence" that he said shows an attempt by China "to manufacture illegal ballots" for former President Joe Biden. The president claimed, without evidence, that the intelligence was maliciously "buried by rogue bureaucrats."
But, as The Washington Post observed, "raw intelligence reports are often wrong, incomplete, or contradictory, and spy agencies rely on judgments by expert analysts to vet and piece together the information to make conclusions with different levels of confidence."
"Officials in 2020 disagreed about whether China wanted Trump to lose and about whether Beijing took any steps to undermine him—a controversy noted in a declassified 2021 report. That report described consensus on the conclusion that neither China nor any other foreign actors had tampered with any votes," the Post noted. "The hundreds of pages of documents released online by the White House during Trump’s speech did not appear to support Trump’s contention that China interfered in the 2020 election to try to defeat him or that US intelligence officials deliberately hid information about Beijing’s intentions from him."
Robert Weissman, co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, characterized Trump's speech as an attempt to divert public attention from his administration's "catastrophic policy failures and plummeting approval ratings."
"Trump is waging an illegal, unconstitutional, and utterly pointless war that continues to put American and Iranian lives in jeopardy and drive up gas prices. Corporations are setting prices out of reach for people being paid too little," said Weissman. "Trump rammed through tax cuts for the rich, paid for by cutting healthcare and food assistance for millions and millions of people. An out-of-control paramilitary force is kidnapping people off our streets and killing them at shocking rates. Trump’s delusional rantings tonight are a transparent effort to distract from these realities."
Living United for Change in Arizona, a pro-democracy organization, warned that "Trump is trying to end our democracy in front of our very eyes."
"Tonight Donald Trump stood before the nation and attempted to rewrite history, erase the will of the voters, and prepare the country for his next assault on American democracy," the group said. "We must call this what it is. Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to dismantle our elections, overturn results he does not like, cancel the will of the people, and hold onto power by any means necessary."
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Out-of-Control Canadian Wildfires Prompt Calls for 'Nuremberg Trials for Big Oil'
“Climate change isn’t a tragedy, it’s a crime. The fossil fuel industry are arsonists at a global scale. It’s their pollution that’s fueling these horrific wildfires," one climate advocate told Common Dreams.
Jul 16, 2026
As wildfires raged across Canada on Thursday, sending dangerous smoke across the border into major US cities, climate advocates called for accountability for the fossil fuel industry, which knew for decades that its products were largely responsible for the climate crisis, yet chose to push climate denial instead.
While fire is a natural part of the lifecycle of Canada's boreal forests, the heating of the atmosphere due to the burning of oil, gas, and coal has made fires more frequent and extreme.
"We need Nuremberg trials for Big Oil," the youth-led Sunrise Movement wrote on social media in response to the fires.
We need Nuremberg trials for Big Oil. https://t.co/nHhbDXB06X
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) July 16, 2026
Climate Defiance agreed, posting, "Nuremberg-style trials are in order for the fossil fuel executives who knew what they were doing to our children’s futures and did anyway."
There were 884 fires burning in Canada on Thursday, with 124 out of control, according to the country's national wildland fire summary. Over 100 fires were raging in Ontario alone, where they have forced the evacuation of at least 15 rural communities; destroyed homes in the Indigenous community of Collins First Nation, or Namaygoosisagagun; and polluted the skies over parts of the upper Midwest and Northeastern US.
As of Thursday evening Eastern time, the four cities with the worst air quality in the world were Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Toronto, according to IQAir.
People have shared dramatic footage of the fires on social media. One video shows a train moving through a blaze near Armstrong, Ontario. Thankfully, all crew members were evacuated safely, The Guardian reported.
This is near Armstrong, Ontario.
When will the Canadian National Railway Company make a statement about this incident? pic.twitter.com/6bKJYugeR0
— Sol Mamakwa (@solmamakwa) July 14, 2026
Indigenous photographer Nadya Kwandibens shared images of flames rising over a lake with the words, "“My family hometown, Collins Ontario, is GONE."
Residents of the community fled the blaze in boats before the flames damaged and destroyed several homes and other structures, according to CBC News.
“Collins has burned to the ground. This is a tragedy and we are grateful that everyone got out safely,” Lise Vaugeois, the provincial representative for the region, said, as The Guardian reported. “Fires are part of a natural cycle, but the extreme temperatures we are experiencing across the county and the growing severity of weather events are indicators of climate change.”
Laura Chasmer, a professor of geography and the environment at the University of Western Ontario, noted that fires in Canada like the ones raging across Ontario have increased since 2015.
"This is associated with some of the extreme climate warming that we've been seeing, and the atmospheric drying of the surface," she told BBC News.
Brandi Morin, a Cree-Iroquois-French journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, noted in her Substack that Canada was warming at twice the global average. Despite this, the Canadian government has made progress on three major fossil fuel pipelines this July.
"Every barrel these new pipelines are built to move adds to the exact warming that’s turning our boreal forests into tinder," Morin wrote.
On the other side of the border, Michigan regulators late Wednesday approved important permits from the controversial Enbridge Line 5 pipeline.
Political leaders and climate advocates responded to the fires and smoke with calls to abandon fossil fuel projects, transition to renewable energy, and hold oil and gas companies accountable for the harms they have caused.
"We have the technology and the policy roadmap to replace fossil fuels with green energy extremely rapidly. The only thing stopping us is a handful of billionaires getting rich while our world burns," the Sunrise Movement said.
We have the technology and the policy roadmap to replace fossil fuels with green energy extremely rapidly.
The only thing stopping us is a handful of billionaires getting rich while our world burns. https://t.co/6oqGxoC8m3
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) July 16, 2026
As smoke drifted over Boston on Wednesday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote on social media: "Look outside in Massachusetts right now. The climate crisis is here. Wildfire smoke is suffocating our communities and our children are breathing dirty air. We need a Green New Deal."
Look outside in Massachusetts right now. The climate crisis is here. Wildfire smoke is suffocating our communities and our children are breathing dirty air. We need a Green New Deal. https://t.co/pXo5XOOt0q
— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) July 15, 2026
“Climate change isn’t a tragedy, it’s a crime. The fossil fuel industry are arsonists at a global scale. It’s their pollution that’s fueling these horrific wildfires," Jamie Henn, the director of Fossil Free Media, told Common Dreams. "Instead of approving new pipelines, the Canadian government should be holding the industry accountable and using their record profits to help communities on the frontlines of this crisis.”
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With No Sense of Irony, Trump Rep Calls Teleprompter Operator's Alleged Insider Trading on Speeches a 'Disgrace'
"Public Citizen again calls on the CFTC to wake up and do its job of overseeing the prediction market industry and enforcing the insider trading laws," said the watchdog's government affairs lobbyist.
Jul 16, 2026
As Kalshi confirmed Thursday that it referred a White House teleprompter operator to federal regulators for flagged bets on its prediction market, President Donald Trump's press secretary denounced the suspended staffer's reported actions—without addressing any of the mounting outrage over how her boss has cashed in on his return to the Oval Office.
Citing unnamed sources, ABC News reported that Gabriel Perez, who has been one of Trump's teleprompter operators since his first presidential campaign, is in talks with federal regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) "to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000."
"Of all Trump's closest aides, sources say Perez typically has the final eyes on nearly all of the president's prepared remarks—and is often known to take last-minute edits from Trump himself," the outlet detailed. Federal investigators reportedly found that Perez bet on words or topics mentioned by Trump in more than a dozen speeches.
While the CFTC declined to comment, Robert DeNault, Kalshi's head of enforcement, told multiple media outlets that "our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation. We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral."
Asked about the insider trading allegations on Thursday—just hours before Trump was set to deliver a prime-time address on election security—White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Perez has been put on unpaid administrative leave, at the direction of the president himself, and called his reported behavior a "disgrace."
"The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this," Leavitt also claimed.
As National Public Radio detailed Thursday:
In March, White House staff received a memo warning against using nonpublic government information to place bets on Kalshi and its biggest competitor, Polymarket.
The memo, which was reviewed by NPR, stated that it is a criminal offense for anyone inside the White House to "buy" or "sell" on the sites. Prediction markets offer "yes" or "no" contracts that change in price based on the speculation of bettors. Aides in the White House were told in the memo that misusing government information "is a very serious offense and will not be tolerated."
The US Department of Justice this year has charged at least two people for their use of Polymarket: US Army special forces soldier who allegedly gambled on the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and a Google software engineer accused of using internal company information to place bets; they've both pleaded not guilty.
However, in the case of Perez, "the CFTC alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who declined to open a criminal investigation," according to ABC News. Instead, he's discussing a potential settlement that would require him "to give back his profits and refrain from making similar trades."
Responding to the reporting in a Thursday statement, Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at the watchdog group Public Citizen, noted that "betting on political events on the prediction markets has become highly profitable for a small handful of anonymous bettors."
"Ever since the American invasion of Venezuela and Iran, a few people have been placing very large bets moments before the events take place, and scoring millions in profits," he emphasized. "The timing and accuracy of these bets strongly suggest insider trading, probably by a few individuals in the know within the Trump administration."
The reported behavior by Perez "is further evidence of illegal insider trading on the prediction markets—an industry that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has let operate like the Wild West," Holman continued. "Public Citizen again calls on the CFTC to wake up and do its job of overseeing the prediction market industry and enforcing the insider trading laws."
The New York Times reported in May that the Trump administration has stacked CFTC with industry insiders who have systematically "mowed down" staffers interested in providing oversight on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi.
Meanwhile, according to recently unveiled annual financial disclosures, Trump made an unprecedented $2.2 billion—more than half of it from his family's cryptocurrency exploits—during his first year back in the White House.
Based on those disclosures, Trump may have finally "crossed a line that even the presidency cannot erase, violating the nation's insider trading laws," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—who helped write those laws—highlighted in a Wednesday blog post.
Trump—who infamously bankrupted multiple Atlantic City casinos—also has plans to get into prediction markets. His social media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, said last October that it would soon launch a prediction betting marketplace on Truth Social.
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