LEVER WEEKLY: Affordable Medicine Is Locked Up In The Ivory Tower

What The Lever Published This Week:

• LEVER TIME: Democrats Will Not Tolerate Dissent — As part of a revamped and expanded weekly podcast series, David Sirota explores how the DNC crushed 2024 primary challengers — and might have hurt Biden’s reelection chances.

• Universities Are Making Billions Gatekeeping Your Meds — The University of California has raked in a previously undisclosed $1.6 billion from Xtandi sales and now doesn’t want the government lowering exorbitant drug costs.

• Handing Taxpayers The Climate Cleanup Bill — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic legislative leaders nix a landmark proposal that would have made Hochul’s fossil fuel donors pay for their pollution.

• The Defense Industry's Inside Man In The Pacific Arms Race — A Biden envoy shaped defense policy in the Pacific islands while consulting for a private firm with major interests in the region.

• SIROTA’S SIGNALS: The Dem States Embracing Anti-Tax Zealotry — Plus, the obscure court circuit trying to repeal the 20th century, how your utility bill funds climate denial, the real reason conservatives oppose student debt relief.

• YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Friends Of The Court Could Lose Their Benefits — Plus, a pipeline company is caught trespassing, corporations face heat for shady stock deals, and law enforcement’s pseudoscience doesn’t hold up.

The Lever In The News:

• Breaking Points — David Sirota joined Krystal Ball to discuss the launch of the new Lever Time podcast and to elaborate on the topic of the first episode, released on Friday.

• DealBook — The New York Times’ Dealbook newsletter highlighted Helen Santoro’s excellent reporting in this week’s story about universities making billions of dollars through gatekeeping medications.