Politics and Power of a Tweet Depends on Who You Are

With all the crap, trump has said in tweeting over 4 years which equates to > 20,000 tweets  via “Wiki,” I find it to be infantile and a double standard for Manchin, Collins, and Romney to call Neera Tandern out for her tweets. Where were they over the last 4 years of trump, hiding from him perhaps?

Joe Manchin has a bone to pick with Neera Tanden

And its personal. The background;

“Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden previously sent a tweet taking issue with the salary of former (retired in 2020) CEO of the pharmaceutical company Mylan, Heather Bresch, who is the daughter of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).”

In August 2016, Neera Tanden shared a screengrab of an article about Bresch which focused on a significant rise in her pay while at Mylan. It highlighted that the company’s board said this was justified as she had “contributed significantly to the company’s growth in recent years.”

“The idea that only CEO contributes to a company’s growth and not all employees is really pernicious.”

The company headlines may be correct. A little background from an earlier 2019 post of mine :

The new Pittsburgh – based unnamed company is expected to be among the world’s largest sellers of generic and off-patent medicines with more than $19 billion in yearly sales. Pfizer Shareholders will own 57% of the new company and Mylan shareholders would the rest. Pfizer would be paid $12 billion raised from new debt acquired from the joint venture. Upjohn would return to the US from its corporate base in Shanghai, a reversal of its earlier inversion.

To me, this is a strategic move along the lines of Pfizer selling off the marketing of EpiPen to Mylan and keeping the manufacturing of it. Pfizer owned Meridian Medical Technologies manufactured EpiPen for Mylan and it will now be a part of the sale to Mylan. EpiPen was a huge success story for Mylan. A quadrant strategy of milking of a cash cow to fund new ventures.

Including EpiPen, “Mylan’s operating profit for its Specialty segment grew from about 35% in 2012 to roughly 60% in the second quarter of 2016.” Most of this can be traced back to the change in design of the EpiPen (cap), exclusivity of it due to design changes which was covered by patents, and the rejection of Teva’s generic by the FDA due to a difference in application as compared to Mylan’s EpiPen.

Because of a mechanical application change and no competition, Mylan was able to charge as much as $600 per pair of EpiPens for a device which ranged in cost of mechanical parts of $10 to $20. So, Heather Bresch probably deserves the salary increase for such a simple change. On the other hand, at what cost to the public? It is no secret healthcare companies use the new and improved or increased value through associating new uses to garner higher prices. Perhaps a different and targeted approach to Bresch’s picking the pocket of patients in need would have been better? I suspect she certainly did not come up with a new design.

If Joe had no relatives (daughter) involved, his complaint would have better merit. This whine by Senator Manchin appears to be more of I will get even for your remarks about my daughter.

Susan Collins:

Susan Collins takes issue with Nera Tanden also and for her tweets.

Neera Tandem: “Susan Collins’ terrible treatment of Dr. Ford should haunt Collins the rest of her days.”

“I hardly understand this stuff in the yearbooks. (What’s a little old lady like me supposed to do?)”

She is no “Nell” tied to any railroad track shouting “save me, save me.” In a vote “yes” in committee and “no” on the floor, Collins knows how to carefully extricate herself from an issue in a less direct and political manner.  No one can hold her to what she said and would have to call her out for what she has a history of not having the forthrightness to say.

After 4 years of trump and ~20,000 lies, I guess I could understand she might be a little addled by the comments of Neera Tanden, not!  

Senators Collins and Murkowski had no problem calling Al Franken out and asking him to resign. They sure as hell had little to say to trump over the last 4-years on any topic.

Mitt?

Then there is Mitt Romney, who up till the end was pretty much about trump. He did vote to convict trump on one charge during the 1st impeachment. A lot of bravado by Romney; but then, who is going to challenge Romney in a heavily populated (62%) Mormon Utah?

“It’s hard to return to comity and respect with a nominee who has issued a thousand mean tweets.”

Not bad, not bad . . . in comparison to trump’s 20,000 or more tweets, this was weak tea at best. From January 2020 till trump was banned January 2021, trump had 12,000 tweets and mostly bad.

Overall?

Just a whole lot of hypocrisy, taking advantage of a situation, and cowardly behavior. Who is going to challenge Manchin? Oh, for lack of one or two more Dems in the Senate like the party thought they would gain.

One of those Dems seats was supposed to be Collin’s. Dem party came on like big city-folk and Sara Gideon did not separate from them.

And like I said before, Mitt Romney is safe in Utah.

It does not appear like Nera Tanden ever considered her political life. She sank herself also. The Dems have their work cut out for themselves. these next four years.