As a final sad note on the U.S. Senate vote this week on Canadian drug reimportation, here’s an analysis by David Sirota:

These people still haven’t answered the very simple question Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) asked in 2005: “Why allow bad beef to enter the U.S. from Canada and not allow safe medicine?”

The answer, of course, is simple: Because in 2006, agribusiness gave lawmakers $44 million in campaign contributions to pose as a “free” traders when doing so supports their efforts to destroy domestic family farming, and the drug industry kicked in another $19 million to get the same lawmakers to be the corporate protectionists they really are, whether they are voting to ban importation or to create price-inflating patent protections in our trade policies.

We ordinary citizens — the John Q. Publics — have to stand up and fight this! Let me check my pockets:

A quarter.

Some lint.

A button that fell off my shirt earlier.

A safety pin.

Oh, well. Maybe next year…