Daily Caller
Toronto International Film Festival To Screen October 7 Doc After Backlash For Initial Ridiculous Excuse

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Ellie Fromm
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced it would navigate legal concerns around a showing of a film documenting the rescue of hostages on Oct. 7, 2023.
TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey stated via social media Wednesday evening that they would work with the filmmaker of “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue” to proceed with the screening. The move comes after TIFF pulled the film from the line-up due to legal concerns that the film did not receive legal permission from Hamas to use footage of the terrorists.
“I want to be clear: claims that the film was rejected due to censorship are unequivocally false,” Bailey said in the statement. “I remain committed to working with the filmmaker to meet TIFF’s screening requirements to allow the film to be screened at this year’s festival. I have asked our legal team to work with the filmmaker on considering all options available.”
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Wendy Sachs, who directed a documentary about the explosion of antisemitism after Hamas’ October 7 attacks, claimed via Instagram that TIFF employee’s hijacked the film’s showing and forced executives to pull it from the schedule.
“The truth is that TIFF staffers refused to work if this film about a grandfather rescuing his family on October 7th was shown at the Toronto Film Festival,” Sachs said on Instagram. “We’ve had similar issues with my film @october8thefilm being protested or rejected because staffers threatened to quit if they showed or worked on the film. It’s outrageous.”
Hamas’ October 7 attacks were some of the deadliest attacks committed against Israel in history, launching approximately 5,000 rockets and sending armed militants into Israeli territory. Over 240 hostages were taken, 1,200 civilians were murdered and many women were sexually assaulted by Hamas that day.
“First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere apologies for any pain this situation may have caused,” Bailey said in the statement. “It was never my intention to offend or alienate anyone. At TIFF, we believe in the transformative power of film to foster understanding and dialogue, especially during challenging times.”
Bailey claimed he originally invited the film to show at TIFF because he believed it was important for a large scale of different stories and perspectives to be shown at the festival, according to his statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said his forces aim to “liberate” the Gaza Strip from Hamas and then give control of the strip to Arab forces, with Israeli forces having only temporary control of the strip.
Business
Pfizer Bows to Trump in ‘Historic’ Drug Price-Cutting Deal

Under the agreement, New York-based Pfizer will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and guarantee that pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.
In a landmark announcement, President Trump revealed a deal with Pfizer that slashes drug prices for Americans on Medicaid on a massive scale.
Under this agreement, Pfizer will offer its medications to Medicaid at “most favored nation’s prices.”
Under the agreement, New York-based Pfizer will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and guarantee that pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.
“It’s going to have a huge impact on bringing Medicaid costs down like nothing else,” the president said.
“I can’t tell you how big this is,” he added.
The conference opened with Trump telling Pfizer CEO to his face that he is “surprised” he is agreeing to massive price cuts to his company’s drugs.
Albert Bourla smiled and stood silently as Trump announced devastating news for his company’s profits in America.
RFK Jr. heaped praise on President Trump for several minutes after he struck a deal that other politicians said was impossible.
Kennedy called it something “Democrats have wanted for 20 years, Republicans have wanted for 20 years,” but said no president had ever been able to make it happen until Trump pushed drug companies to the table.
“All we could see was all the reasons this couldn’t happen. Everybody tried. Nobody could make it happen. And it was President Trump alone who, with his doggedness and persistence, saw this clearly in a way that none of us [did],” Kennedy said.
“I can’t think of any other president in the United States that could have done this in our history.”
Dr. Oz couldn’t hide how proud he is to work for the White House — calling it a “cool place to work” after Trump did the impossible in a “historic” deal that forced pharmaceutical giants to stop ripping Americans off on drug prices.
He said the team had been working “24/7 nonstop with industry, with Albert [Bourla], with his great team at Pfizer” to get them to sell prescription drugs to Medicaid at the lowest global rate.
“We’re going to finally deliver on the fair drug prices that President Trump has been speaking about for two terms. We’re going to celebrate this historic day. I predict this historic day [will have a positive impact] in the medical field for generations to come,” Dr. Oz declared.
When Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla got his chance to speak, he revealed that President Trump made four specific requests to lower drug prices in America — and Pfizer’s deal today meets ALL of them.
Bourla admitted America was in an “unfair situation” while “other rich nations refused to pay their fair share for the medical innovation.”
That’s changing. Under the new agreement, Medicaid sale prices will drop significantly. Meanwhile, other countries that have long paid rock-bottom prices will see modest increases.
The big winner in this deal, Bourla said, was “the American patient.”
“Who else is a winner here?” he asked. “It is American innovation and American economy.”
Trump suggested that the breakthrough on drug prices could also translate to lowering health insurance.
In terms of real-world results, Trump called it “massive.” He explained how a drug that sells for $137 in America will drop to just $15 to $18.
In other countries, the same drug is sold for only $10, and they will now have to raise the price slightly.
But America is no longer footing the bill, so the rest of the world can get cheap drugs. And finally — in a move once thought impossible — Americans on Medicaid will be paying a fair price.
Daily Caller
Shale Execs Complain Of ‘Broken’ Prospects In New Survey

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
In his remarks at this week’s U.N. Climate Week conference, President Donald Trump reminded the U.N. general assembly that “we have an expression, ‘drill, baby, drill.’ You know, that’s what we’re doing.”
But according to almost 80% of the dozens of shale oil executives who responded to the third quarter survey of oil and gas companies by the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve, that’s all about to come to an end thanks in large part to the President’s focus on cutting oil prices as a means of controlling inflation.
“The uncertainty from the administration’s policies has put a damper on all investment in the oilpatch,” one executive said. Another warns that “drilling is going to disappear.”
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One upstream company executive was especially angry at the administration, writing that the business “has been gutted by political hostility and economic ignorance. The previous administration vilified the industry, buried it in regulation and cheered the flight of capital under the environmental, social and governance banner…Now the current administration is finishing the job.”
The confidential format of the Dallas Fed’s quarterly surveys encourages the executives to speak bluntly in their responses, and the airing of such grievances is often the result. Most would no doubt temper their language in a meeting with the President or his senior officials, and other respondents did just that, noting that their industry and companies have been buffeted this year by an array of factors, both domestically and internationally.
“There are a variety of issues affecting our business,” one respondent points out. “First, excess in the global oil market is restraining oil prices near term. Second, there is continued uncertainty from OPEC+ unwinding production cuts. Third, trade and tariff changes and the resulting geopolitical tensions.”
He or she isn’t wrong. While shale drillers and producers have no doubt been frustrated by the constantly shifting tariff situation as the White House works out trade deals with dozens of countries, there are other major market factors well beyond any U.S. president’s control. The uncertainty around tariffs has without question increased industry costs, especially as they relate to tubular goods and other steel and aluminum products that are integral to their operations. But at the same time, there can be little doubt that the monthly machinations of the OPEC+ cartel have created a much larger impact on driving down the price of crude oil and thus, driving down company profits.
As for the geopolitical tensions the responder mentions above, Joe Biden’s four years in office were chock-full of such issues, many of which were left behind for Mr. Trump to deal with and resolve. The simple truth is that there has never been a time during its 166-year history that the U.S. oil and gas industry didn’t have to deal with such complications.
The oil business is an infamously cyclical one, as anyone who has been in it for more than a year understands. I spent more than 40 years in the industry and would need to use fingers on more than one hand to total up the number of boom-and-bust cycles that took place during that span.
The fact is that drilling levels in the United States have been on a steady decline since late 2018 in response to prevailing market factors far more than to the policies of the Biden or Trump administrations. As I pointed out shortly after last November’s election, the maturity of every major shale play meant that there would be no revival of “drill, baby, drill” in a second Trump presidency regardless of the administration’s policy direction. It just was never going to be in the cards.
The grievances and frustrations aired by these executives are entirely understandable: It’s a tough business that is impacted for better or worse by public policies. But pointing the finger of blame at Trump is a simplistic reaction to a highly complex set of circumstances.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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