Punchy-Faced Drug Man Martin Shkreli Too Awesome To Talk To Losers In Congress

How much would you pay to wipe that smirk off his face?

So you might have noticed that professional douchebag/hip-hop enthusiast Martin Shkreli was all over your Internet this morning being even more of a preening little twerp than normal. Why was this? Because there was a Congressional hearing that surprisingly was NOT about Benghazi, and Shkreli was the smirking star of the show. (The careful reader will note that this hearing is not about Martin's other bad habit, which is running a massive shell game and robbing Peter to pay Paul in some complicated investment schemes that turned out -- whoops! -- to actually be crimes. )

Seems that Congress -- particularly Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz -- wanted to chat with Martin about his bad habit of buying up lifesaving drugs that have a small user base and then jacking them up to completely unreachable levels and then bragging about it.

Members of Congress launched into fiery lectures directed at Shkreli, whose previous company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, came under scrutiny when it raised the price of Daraprim more than 5,000%.

"Drug company executives are lining their pockets at the expense of some of the most vulnerable families in our nation," U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said. "It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying and they're getting sicker and sicker."

You will be unsurprised to learn that Shkreli spent the entire hearing pleading the Fifth. Probably a smart move, since people are mad enough about his drug price hikes that they will likely find a way to charge him with something . You will also be unsurprised to learn that he somehow managed to turn asserting his right against self-incrimination into a sneering eye-rolling performance that conveyed the depth of his boredom with the little people bothering him.

Though he pleaded the Fifth at the hearing, he decided to taunt lawmakers via Twitter afterwards.

You'd think such a tough guy could have managed to tweak the nose of Congress while he was standing right in front of them. Although, to be fair, his lawyer might have just cockpunched him right then and there if he did.

In fact, his new lawyer has said he agreed to represent Shkreli on one condition: The 32-year-old had to stop granting interviews with the press.

Please note that this is not the lawyer who was arrested for conspiring with Martin. You really can judge a man by the dickbag crime-ing company he keeps, can't you?

Look, Martin. We know you think you're some sort of cool supervillain -- almost Trump-esque in your bluster and appeal. SPOILER ALERT: You're not. Literally no one likes you. REPUBLICANS hate you, and they typically love people who screw over the poor, particularly the poor with AIDS and pregnant ladies. You're a preening little psychopath with a face that is almost as punchable as that of Ted Cruz. Pretty much the entire world wants to take you down a peg, and it's only a matter of time. We can't wait.

[ NPR / USA Today ]