October 30 2017 – Click here to listen
I was talking to a friend of mine about the Everglades and how they are literally dying due to lack of water with some 90 per cent of wading birds no longer there and the eco system rapidly disappearing. The problem is a large sugar cane company in south Florida is responsible for diverting the water from Lake Okeechobee out the St. Lucie River instead of allowing it to naturally flow into the Everglades. This is being done to make them tons of money on their sugar cane production.
So why doesn’t the government do something about it? Because this company pours tons of money into Republican and Democrat legislator’s pockets to buy them off and have done so for decades. It is an ecological disaster that was/is entirely preventable. Big money is spread around and there are always those there who have their hands out waiting for it and the Everglades can just be damned.
So last night I watched a prerecorded 60 Minutes episode from last week and they ran a special on the pharmaceutical industry including their distributor’s and the retail drug store lobby’s massive payoff to legislators in the United States Congress to ensure that opioid prescriptions continue unabated along with its consequence some 142 deaths per day and rising.
Senator Marsha Blackburn and Sen. Tom Marino introduced legislation to essentially stop the enforcement of the DEA to prosecute these greedy heartless corporations. The bill was laughingly called the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act. Its primary purpose was to neuter the DEA’s ability to crack down on obviously farcical opioid distribution, (60 Minutes cited one instance where some 9 million opioid pills were sent to one tiny drugstore in a small town in West Virginia with a population of just 5000.) The bill sailed through Congress with hardly any debate and was passed under “Unanimous Consent” in both chambers and President Barack Obama signed it.
So, the deaths continue. The Trump administration nominated Sen. Marino to the post of drug czar until what had transpired with this bill became public. Thank God, he retracted the offer. 60 Minutes went on to detail how many former DEA prosecutors and investigators are now working for the big pharma groups and distributors. They have switched sides in order to . . . yeah, you guessed it, make more money.
Money, money, money – Is there nothing sacred? God help this greedy country. I heard a preacher, Dr. David Jeremiah, say this weekend that it is ironic that our country is so melancholy while living in the midst of so much abundance. Abundance doesn’t melt away melancholy, the love of our Lord and doing the right thing does. Don’t be obsessed with making more and more money. It is like watching sand run through your fingers. It is here today and will be burned up and gone tomorrow.
Eccl. 5:10
Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.