GOP has become a 'de facto criminal organization': analyst

Matthew Chapman
September 1, 2023

Under former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party has become a "de facto criminal organization" with him sitting on top as the crime boss, wrote analyst Chauncey DeVega for Salon.

Indeed, he argued, it's like the mob in virtually every way — even in terms of violence, with Trump using "threats of violence and intimidation to keep control and to punish his enemies" — with the only difference being that the oath they take is "administered in public."

This comes as the former president is facing four different indictments totaling over 90 charges, including an election racketeering case in Georgia that includes 18 co-defendants like his own lawyers and state Republican operatives. But despite all of that, DeVega noted, six out of eight of his rivals at the Wisconsin primary debate said they would back him as the nominee even if he is convicted of a crime.

What further compounds on this, DeVega continued, is that Trump engaged in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in broad daylight, and is "unapologetic in his criminality and proud of his evil behavior – and promises to get revenge on him and his fascist MAGA movement's 'enemies' when/if he takes back the White House in 2025." Traditional GOP think tanks are even helping him organize a plan to purge the civil service and replace the workforce of the federal government top to bottom with loyalists.

None of this is a problem for the Republican electorate; a recent poll by POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos shows 60 percent of Republicans think Trump didn't even commit crimes at all, and 85 percent believe he shouldn't face punishment even if he did.

The rest of the country, said DeVega, needs not just to defeat and imprison Trump, but to take serious steps to put down the movement propping him up once that happens.

"American neofascism and the type of criminogenic politics it encouraged and was born of did not come into being over the course of less than a decade, such elements where present long before the Age of Trump," concluded DeVega. However, he said, it is vital once Trump has been removed from the picture that "pro-democracy forces" step up to move the country forward.

U$A
CPAC slapped with $55 million 'racial discrimination and defamation' lawsuit
Brandon Gage, Alternet
September 2, 2023, 

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 20: American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill September 20, 2022 in Washington, DC. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) discussed her legislation named the Protect Childrens Innocence Act, which would prohibit gender-affirming healthcare to transgender people under the age of 18

. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The Conservative Political Action Committee and its chairman Matt Schlapp have been accused of "racial discrimination and defamation" by a former female employee, The Washington Post's Maegan Vazquez and Beth Reinhard report.

"Regina Bratton, who worked as a communications and marketing supervisor in 2021 and 2022, said in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Virginia on Friday that she was the only African American employee out of about 30 employees, interns and volunteers across CPAC. She claims she faced hostility up and down the chain of command," Vazquez and Reinhard write.

Bratton, who "seeks $55 million in damages," alleges that CPAC's leaders "conspired to and embarked upon a systematic, concerted effort to create a hostile work environment," the Post explains. "The lawsuit also names as defendants CPAC's parent organization, the American Conservative Union, and its foundation arm. Schlapp, a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump; Schlapp's wife and CPAC senior fellow Mercedes Schlapp; and general counsel David Safavian are also listed as defendants."

Per the Post, Bratton's complaint states that "the culture at CPAC was terrible, as Matt Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, ran the organization as if they were the King and Queen — like a dictatorship which ignored rules, laws, and basic decency when dealing with employees."

The ACU responded on Friday, stating that it "will vigorously defend against this suit, which was filed by a disgruntled former employee," adding, "As CPAC continues to expand both in the US and internationally, we will weather these attacks and stay focused on the mission (of) fighting for America and Freedom."

Vazquez and Reinhard note that Bratton's lawsuit "threatens to compound CPAC's mounting legal expenses. Earlier this year, Republican operative Carlton Huffman sued Schlapp, accusing him of sexual battery and defamation in a suit seeking $9.4 million in damages. Schlapp has staunchly denied any wrongdoing."

Nonetheless, Vazquez and Reinhard continue:

Bratton alleges a subordinate was repeatedly hostile and defiant toward her and told her that he didn't like 'working with or for women.' Bratton also said that as she tried to hire a diverse group of freelancers, the staffer complained that CPAC was 'not an affirmative action employer.'

Bratton said she was under pressure to perform personal tasks for the Schlapps outside of her job description. She was asked to style Mercedes Schlapp's hair and promote Matt Schlapp’s book, which she says was a personal project, according to the lawsuit.

Bratton said she complained to her bosses about a number of workplace issues and raised concerns about racial bias but was retaliated against. She also claims she was fired for having another job even though she had disclosed to the Schlapps that she was working for a media company that operates as the Washington news bureau of the Chinese government outlet CCTV. Bratton alleges she later learned that the Schlapps and Safavian suggested she was fired for being 'an agent for China.'

'Weirdest thing I'd seen': CPAC sources describe Matt Schlapp holding 'exorcism' in his office

Brad Reed
September 1, 2023

Linda Blair in Warner Bros.' 'The Exorcist' [MovieClips.com]

Multiple sources have told The Daily Beast that scandal-plagued CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp held an "exorcism" in his office to rid it of potential "evil spirits" left behind by staff members who quit their jobs after their requests for raises were denied.

The publication writes that both Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, decided that the exorcism ritual would be the best way to cleanse the office from the negative energies left behind by the staffers.

"On an afternoon in spring 2022, CPAC employees at their offices in Alexandria, Virginia — about eight miles from the fabled staircase featured in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist — found themselves suddenly in the presence of a Catholic priest," writes The Daily Beast. "The priest, sources said, sprinkled holy water around the CPAC premises and blessed all the staff, regardless of their faith. As part of the rite, according to these people, the priest placed a medallion above doors in the offices and explained that it would help ward off evil spirits."

One source who witnessed the ritual told The Daily Beast that it was "the weirdest thing I'd seen" during their tenure working under Schlapp.

"I had no idea what was going on," the source added.

The Schlapps earlier this week lashed out at The Daily Beast and described it as "Satan's publication," although it's not clear whether their attacks were related to the publication's story about their exorcism ritual.

Matt Schlapp is currently under scrutiny amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made by three different men.

U$A
Defund the Supreme Court: legal analyst poses solution to ethics problems
Sarah K. Burris
August 31, 2023, 7:19 PM ET

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Photo by Preston Keres/USDA)

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' drama continued to unfold as he announced Thursday that he "forgot" to disclose two of his trips from a GOP megadonor. Now, one legal analyst has found a solution.

Speaking to Dr. Jason Johnson, in for Ari Melber, "The Nation's" Elie Mystal devised a solution: defund the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts has been criticized for refusing to curb the problem by setting strict standards or penalties for filing disclosures. He also refused to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the matter when called.

The two men discussed a video in which Clarence Thomas talked about his favorite vacations -- the ones where he goes RVing around from Walmart to Walmart.

"The RV that Thomas was in in that video was paid for by a Republican donor," quipped Mystal. "Of course that means the public has less confidence, but from where I sit, that confidence is still too high. The Supreme Court is at 40 percent approval rating. That should be in the 20s. That should be the lowest historically ever, because if you have these people who are not only lying about where they're getting their money from. But [they] are specifically getting their money from people who have an interest in things going on at the Supreme Court. It doesn't just matter if, like, they're the name on the RV in the document."

He noted that this term the Supreme Court will decide whether corporate taxation is governed by the 16th Amendment. It's an issue that all large donors would likely have an interest in.

"You think Harlan Crow doesn't have an opinion on that?" Mystal asked. "Where do you think Crow's been spending his money this summer talking to Clarence Thomas about it? The other big issue here is one of Thomas' things, I think you mentioned, is that he needed to do this for private security. The security in the upcoming budget has requested $783 million in extra security funds because people have noticed how ridiculous they are, right? So if Thomas is saying he needs to take private planes to have increased security. My question, so Thomas, can we have that money back then? Because surely $783 million, we can use that money to provide, I don't know, student debt relief to people who don't have rich Republican donors buying their mother's house and paying tuition for their secret sons, right?"

He noted that perhaps if Crow is willing to do it for Thomas, he might be able to extend the same courtesy to other justices, "and not just his pets."

At some point, he said, the public, which is paying for the Supreme Court, "need to demand that money back if they can engross themselves through Republican donors. And again, that comes back to Congress and that comes back to Congress pulling their funding until the Supreme Court submits to basic ethics reform."


See the full conversation in the video below or at the link here.

U$A

Guaranteed Rate continues layoffs as housing market slowdown persists
2023/08/30

Victor Ciardelli, founder of Guaranteed Rate, at the company's headquarters on April 8, 2014.

 - Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Chicago-based mortgage company Guaranteed Rate has been quietly laying off employees across the country for more than a year, according to former and current Guaranteed Rate employees.

The Tribune spoke with more than a dozencurrent and former employees, and many told the Tribune that layoffs have happened several times in recent weeks, withentire teams wiped out. More layoffs are potentially on the horizon, and company morale is “in the toilet,” as one current employee put it.

“We’ve had progressive layoffs since early 2022 in an effort to right-size for the volume that existed in the industry,” said John Palmiotto, Guaranteed Rate’s chief of retail production until his resignation last week. “In fairness, we probably hired more people in the earlier years during COVID than other companies. We staffed up significantly to meet the demands that we had at that time,” adding that the company “probably did” overstaff.

The layoffs come at a time when the hot pandemic-era housing market has turned on its head, with the average for a 30-year fixed loan skyrocketing to more than 7% on more than one occasion, keeping would-be sellers in their homes, buyers without homes to purchase and a mortgage industry with a lot fewer loans to close.

In a statement to the Tribune, CEO and founder of Guaranteed Rate Victor Ciardelli acknowledged the layoffs and said they happened for two reasons: high mortgage rates led to a decrease in loan volume and a need to “right-size the business and create more efficiencies,” as well as the development of new technology by the company in an effort to streamline its processes, which “dramatically reduced the people and time needed to fund a loan.”

“While these actions were difficult, they were necessary to continue to provide a best-in-class experience to consumers in the new rate environment,” Ciardelli said.

Guaranteed Rate, whose name has adorned the home of the Chicago White Sox since 2016, is the country’s second largest retail mortgage lending company, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a subscription-based industry news and data provider.As a retail mortgage lender, Guaranteed Rate works directly with consumers, while other mortgage lenders work through intermediaries such as real estate brokers. Some lenders use both models.

Inside Mortgage Finance finds business is down nearly 60% for Guaranteed Rate in the first three months of this year compared with 2022, with other mortgage companies seeing similar harsh declines.

Guaranteed Rate did not make Ciardelli available for an interview, nor did the company answer questions regarding how many positions have been eliminated, the processes surrounding the layoffs or the state of morale at the company.

Andrew Pohlmann, chief marketing officer, said in an email, “Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on the process of our reductions or how we communicated to employees.”

Pohlmann declined to say how many people work at the company. Different parts of the company’s website cite the total number of employees ranging from more than 9,000 to more than 15,000. Current and former employees told the Tribune in recent days this number is down well below 10,000.

Palmiotto, 57, said layoffs likely numbered in the thousands, with the company having around 8,000-9,000 employees prior to the layoffs in 2022. Furloughs also took place last year, Palmiotto and other employees said.

“We tried to maintain staff as much as we could, hoping that business would bounce back or that conditions would change,” Palmiotto said. “They didn’t really improve.”

Real estate industry news outlet HousingWire first reported on August layoffs at the company last week.

There have been no Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification layoffs — the type of job cuts that require notifying the state when mass layoffs are issued or a plant is shuttered — at Guaranteed Rate from 2021 until now, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

After six years with Guaranteed Rate, Palmiotto now works at The Money Store, a subsidiary of MLD Mortgage, based in New Jersey. He said he switched jobs because “I felt going to a smaller organization, I would have more influence and more of an ability to be more involved in strategic direction and decisions.”

Palmiotto said he was one of around 10 people who reported to Ciardelli.

Khadijah Parks, 27, worked for Guaranteed Rate as a remote employee based out of New Jersey before she was laid off from a technology team in October 2022. She was brought on during the hiring boom to be on a new team that helped support other mortgage companies Guaranteed Rate was acquiring and creating. Now, she said, her team and other tech teams have been decimated.

Parks worked for the company for about 11 months and was laid off right before her severance package would have increased significantly if she had made the one-year mark, she said.

“It was terrible,” Parks said, who had come back from vacation the day of her layoff. “They had the nerve to even say I could feel free to finish up the work I was doing.”

Parks remains unemployed.

Current and former employees including Parks said that there was a lack of communication from upper management about layoffs.

Palmiotto said he doesn’t know why messaging wasn’t better, but there were conversations around it. He also said he wasn’t privy to what morale was like given that he was a remote employee not based in Chicago.

“I feel like everybody handled it the best they could,” Palmiotto said, adding that he didn’t think the layoffs could have been prevented and that layoffs were not unique to Guaranteed Rate.

Other mortgage companies including Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage and Better.com have also faced layoffs and buyouts because of the slowdown in the housing market.

Mindy Marchetti, 47, was a manager on a technology team like Parks’ for Guaranteed Rate. She started in August 2021 as a remote employee and voluntarily left the company in March of this year after she witnessed the layoffs.

“When I was hired, we were in a mortgage boom, so things were amazing. We had all kinds of resources, and company morale was excellent …” Marchetti said. “As the rates started to increase, layoffs came. And I am a single mom, and I had to make sure that I had some career stability, so that is why I chose to look elsewhere.”

Marchetti said Ciardelli and Nik Athanasiou, COO of Guaranteed Rate, mentioned the need for layoffs due to the market downturn at some weekly calls with team managers and loan officers.

By the time she left, Marchetti said there were layoffs every two weeks, resources were waning on her team, morale was “very low” and there was a feeling of “instability.”

“It just felt like your number could be called next,” Marchetti said.

© Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO

Steppenwolf Theatre announces major layoffs: ‘We’re not too big to fail’
2023/08/31

The atrium lobby for Steppenwolf's theater-in-the-round, part of its campus on Halsted Street, on Oct. 25, 2021, in Chicago.

 - E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — Steppenwolf Theatre Company, one of Chicago’s most storied arts institutions and long a crucial part of the city’s identity, said Thursday that it was laying off 12% of its staff, effectively immediately.

Thirteen current employees have been let go, with seven open positions eliminated.

Steppenwolf executive director Brooke Flanagan said in an interview that the theater’s subscription base had fallen from about 10,000 subscribers in pre-pandemic 2019 to about 6,000 today. She also said that single-ticket sales were down 31%, even as expenses were up 19% over the same term. (Steppenwolf is currently negotiating with its front-of-house staff, which has formed a union and is not part of the layoffs.)

Those are sobering numbers at one of the city’s marquee cultural attractions.

Steppenwolf already has reduced its mainstage shows from eight productions to six in a season, as previously reported in the Tribune. Flanagan said those shorter seasons likely would continue for at least three years, or until the theater, which still has debt from the physical expansion of its Lincoln Park home, can find a more stable financial footing. The current plan reduces the theater’s overall annual budget from about $20 million to about $16 million.

Flanagan also said that the theater had chosen to focus on three core platforms: new work centering on its famous ensemble of artists, a commitment to teens and educators through its educational programs, and its ability to host other theaters, maintaining the broader theater ecology.

But there are to be cuts outside those areas. For example, the popular Front Bar on Halsted Street now will only open around performances, rather than most nights.

Although shocking for a theater that has expanded for so long, Steppenwolf’s cuts are not out of line with the nonprofit theater sector across the country, which has seen a staggering drop-off in audience demand and a rise in costs. The causes and solutions are both debated and contested, but Flanagan pointed to the upcoming 50th anniversary of Steppenwolf in 2026 as an opportunity for the city to reflect on the importance of a company that has taken Chicago shows and talent across the world.

In an interview Thursday, the City of Chicago’s cultural commissioner Erin Harkey (appointed during Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration) said that Mayor Brandon Johnson was aware of the crisis among nonprofit theaters and recently had convened a group that included tourism, business development officials and representatives from the city’s theaters. The goal, she said, was to assess the situation and develop a plan.

“This will have to be an all-hands-on-deck effort involving the city, the philanthropic community and the theaters,” Harkey said, also noting that the situation varied from institution to institution, with some being in better fiscal shape than others. She also said that the city’s Choose Chicago tourism arm plans a fall campaign designed to boost the city’s theater companies, the kind of effort that Flanagan said was essential for the sector’s recovery.

“We are not too big to fail,” Flanagan said. “Steppenwolf is an important part of the fabric of what makes this a great American city. This is a crucial time for philanthropists to give with seriousness and for audiences to rediscover the joy of live theater.”

© Chicago Tribune

NJ Transit engineers vote to strike but assure riders with won’t happen on Labor Day
2023/08/31

Off-duty NJ Transit engineers in May protested the agency's decision to lease new offices in a pricey complex but, according to the union, not to move forward on negotiations on a new labor agreement. Engineers voted to strike if federal mediation and negotiation requirements fail to produce a new contract.

Union NJ Transit locomotive engineers and trainmen voted Thursday to strike, an action that union officials assured riders wouldn’t happen until federal mediation and negotiation requirements are exhausted.

Roughly 81% of the 494 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen returned ballots, and of those, almost all were in favor of a future strike against NJ Transit if negotiations fail to produce a new contract for its members, BLE&T officials said. Of 399 ballots returned, 397 were cast for strike authorization and two were ruled invalid.

Union officials reiterated earlier statements that a strike would not be called immediately, but could happen at the end of various negotiation and mediation processes required by federal law governing railroad employees. The deadline for returning ballots was noon Thursday.

“NJT’s locomotive engineers have spoken loud and clear,” said Eddie Hall, National BLE&T president. “(NJ Transit) would rather litigate than negotiate. We would prefer to reach a voluntary settlement, but make no mistake, with this vote the clock is now ticking. The process to be granted release from the National Mediation Board has begun. As soon as it is lawful for us to act, we will.”

The last strike against NJ Transit was in March 1983 and lasted for 34 days.

“We are still actively engaged in mediation with the union and a strike is not permissible while mediation is ongoing – that would be a violation of the Railway Labor Act, said Jim Smith, a spokesperson for NJ Transit.

The BLE&T is the last of 15 rail unions to reach a contract with NJ Transit and announced earlier this month it would take a strike vote of its members. The union has been without a new contract for three years.

“There is a long (mediation) process that goes well into 2024,” Kevin Corbett, NJ Transit president and CEO, said in an earlier interview with NJ Advance Media.

The federal Railway Labor Act spells out the process for when federal negotiators get involved, and other required steps before a strike is allowed, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The act also provides mandatory dispute resolution procedures that include use of a federal mediator through the National Mediation Board. That is the step NJ Transit and the union are in now, Corbett said.

In past interviews, NJ Transit officials said it has offered similar contracts and wage increases that 14 other rail unions agreed to under a process called pattern bargaining.

The strike vote sent the union and NJ Transit to court on Aug. 17 after the agency contended the vote and union statements violated a June 2022 court order against any wildcat job actions and sought a contempt of court ruling. NJ Transit attorneys argued the union planned to strike on a day after the vote on Sept. 1.

The judge dismissed NJ Transit ‘s motion but did issue an order that required the union to email members they were not to strike after the vote to comply with the June 2022 order, court documents said.

National BLE&T union officials repeated earlier statements that it would follow the Railway Labor Act.

The June 2022 court order was issued after engineers staged a sick out during the Juneteenth 2022 holiday, which other unions that settled contracts were paid for but engineers who were working under the old contract, did not. That job action resulted in hundreds of canceled trains and suspension of service on the evening of June 17.

Negotiations are stalled because the BLE&T and NJ Transit disagree over salaries.

BLE&T officials want salaries similar to what engineers are paid on other regional passenger railroads such as Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road. They argued that engineers have to meet higher training and qualification standards than other rail employees do, which should be worth a higher wage.

The disagreement flared up during a May demonstration outside NJ Transit’s Newark headquarters where off duty engineers picketed and criticized the agency for spending $440 million to lease new office space at 2 Gateway Center for the next 25 years. The agency faces an approaching budget gap predicted to hit $957 million in mid-2026.

“Our members at NJT are furious that the agency has millions for penthouse views, but not a dime for train crews who kept the trains running throughout the worst days of the pandemic and haven’t had a raise since 2019,” Hall said in a statement.

Following Labor Day, BLE&T officials will begin a public information and advertising campaign to educate both commuters and New Jersey’s voters about the status of contract talks and the transit agency’s decision to spend funds for “lavish office space rather than wages for the people who keep the trains moving,” officials said.

In 2016, locomotive engineers and conductors were the last two unions to settle with NJ Transit and officials announced contingency plans in the event of a strike, Under those plans, agency buses could only move 40,000 of the 105,000 daily commuters to and from New York. Both unions ratified a second contract offer in July 2016.

NJ Transit commuters aren’t the only ones facing a potential strike in their future.

Metro North commuters in Connecticut could face a strike this fall after two Transportation Worker Union locals took a strike vote after officials of those unions said negotiations before the National Mediation Board were at an impasse, CT Insider reported.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.

© Advance Local Media LLC.

'Morality police': Fox News hosts freak out after Canada warns LGBTQ travelers about dangers of visiting US

David Badash,

 The New Civil Rights Movement
August 31, 2023

Fox News screengrab.

Claiming Canada’s new warning to its LGBTQ people is a “political” attack on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and not an “actual concern,” several Fox News hosts on Thursday delivered caustic commentary against the Canadian government and U.S. cities including LGBTQ-friendly San Francisco and New York.

“Well, they’re talking about Florida, right? They’re aiming this at Ron DeSantis, and the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which is one of the most ridiculous interpretations of that bill that I’ve ever seen,” declared Fox News guest host Michele Tafoya, the former NBC Sports reporter who kicked off her political career with a “controversial stand on race relations.”

After mentioning that the NAACP had issued a travel warning for LGBTQ people thinking of visiting Florida, Tafoya insisted, “this is all very much, this is very political, and it’s misdirected.”

“I think they need to be a little more concerned about countries in the Middle East who throw LGBTQ types off buildings and disrupt weddings and don’t even allow us to think about it,” she continued. “So this is, it’s rich coming from Canada, that banned certain people from thinking and talking certain ways to suggest that you might be in danger here.”

“I can’t think of a single law that has anyone in danger for being part of the LGBTQ community,” Tafoya, who holds a masters in business administration, added.

The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona, who posted the videos, pointed to an ACLU report titled: “Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures.” It notes the civil rights organization “is tracking 496 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S.” The report lists 10 anti-LGBTQ bills in Florida, including four that have already passed into law, one of which is being fought in court.

As the discussion continued, Fox News host Dagen McDowell claimed Canada is “clearly worried about people’s feelings and not their physical safety. Because there are other countries, New Zealand, Australia, and France, have warned their citizens about violent crimes and shootings in our cities. That’s an actual concern.”

“If Canada was worried about anybody coming to the United States, say, ‘Hey, be careful if you go to places that have historically been friendly to the, and I gotta get this right because Canada again, turned it around, 2SLGBTQI+, San Francisco, New York City, you will get injured if you come here. So they rather than caring about again, safety, that should be in the warning and you mentioned yep, Canada is your, Jordan Peterson has to go through some social media reeducation, which is like Soviet Union Gulag-era nonsense. Well done. Oh, when you can only have two beers a week.”

“I also find it rich, Kennedy, that the morality police emanating from Canada don’t turn them around,” added yet another host.

Pharma-funded Republicans go to bat for drug industry as Medicare moves to negotiate prices

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
August 31, 2023

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) (Photo: X)

"Did a Big Pharma CEO write these talking points for you on the back of a campaign check?" one critic asked Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn.

Polling data released this week shows that nearly 90% of Republican voters support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.

But congressional Republicans—many of whom receive substantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry—have staked out the opposite position, bashing the Biden administration's rollout of the initial list of medications that will be subject to price negotiations and parroting drugmakers' arguments against the popular reforms.

"The Inflation Reduction Act's socialist drug price controls will stunt the development of lifesaving treatments and cures while granting the government more unnecessary control over Americans' lives," Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote on social media, invoking the well-worn and misleading narrative that curbing medicine costs would stifle innovation.

Blackburn received $215,500 in campaign donations from pharma and other health product PACs between 2017 and 2022, according to OpenSecrets.

"Did a Big Pharma CEO write these talking points for you on the back of a campaign check?" Tennessee State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-90) wrote in response to Blackburn. (Johnson is currently exploring a U.S. Senate run against the Republican.)

Every GOP lawmaker in the U.S. House and Senate voted against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which requires Medicare to negotiate the prices of a subset of high-cost prescription drugs. After the legislation passed, Republicans swiftly began working to roll it back, taking specific aim at Medicare's new authority to negotiate drug prices, which are far higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy nations.

Republican presidential candidates—including former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination—have also vocally criticized the law and suggested they would work to repeal it if they win in 2024.

Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services listed the first 10 drugs it plans to negotiate, drawing predictable backlash from the pharmaceutical industry, which lobbied against the IRA's passage and is now suing over the drug pricing provisions. Several of the drugs included on the initial list were already set to face generic competition in the coming years.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the IRA's drug pricing reforms will save Medicare $160 billion over the next decade.

"Any effort by far-right Republicans to paint lowering the costs of prescription drug prices for Americans as a bad thing is laughable."

With President Joe Biden looking to make the drug price negotiations a centerpiece of his 2024 reelection campaign, Republican strategists are urging the GOP to aggressively counter the White House with messaging that mirrors industry claims about the IRA's potential impact on innovation—claims that advocates have long dismissed as false and self-serving.

"Republicans have to figure out how to go after it," Joe Grogan, a Republican strategist who served as a domestic policy adviser for Trump, toldPolitico. "They go after it by taking it head on: it is killing clinical programs, fundamentally restricting the amount of treatments."

Some GOP lawmakers are taking just that approach.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose campaign received $253,400 from pharma and health product PACs between 2017 and 2022, said in a statement Tuesday that Medicare price negotiations "risk reversing decades of progress on bringing lifesaving treatments and medical breakthroughs to American patients."

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who has received donations from drug companies that are suing the Biden administration over the price negotiations, added that "the Biden administration is trying to take a victory lap while at the same time they are pricing seniors out of their healthcare and ensuring future cures never reach those who need them."

A 2021 report by Patients for Affordable Drugs concluded that "Big Pharma's innovation argument just does not stand up to scrutiny," noting that "the money that U.S.-based drug companies make by charging Americans high prices is 76% greater than what's needed to fund their entire global research and development expenditures."

Democrats have vowed to combat attempts by the pharmaceutical industry and Republicans to sabotage or repeal the IRA, which represents a modest effort to rein in drugmakers' power to drive up prices.

"The products that will now be subject to negotiation are used by millions of seniors in Medicare each year, costing each of them thousands of dollars," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee. "I will be following the negotiation process closely and will fight any attempt by Big Pharma to undo or undermine the progress that's been made."

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) argued Wednesday that "any effort by far-right Republicans to paint lowering the costs of prescription drug prices for Americans as a bad thing is laughable."

Alabama  GOP AG pushes 'criminal conspiracy' charges for people who help abortion-seeking women flee state

Brad Reed
August 31, 2023, 

Attorney General of Alabama Steve Marshall speaks to members of the press after the oral argument of the Merrill v. Milligan case at the U.S. Supreme Court on October 4, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court heard oral argument of the case that challenge whether the new congressional map of Alabama violates the Voting Rights Act.

 (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall thinks that people who help abortion-seeking women flee his state should face potential criminal charges.

CNN reports that Marshall made a court filing this week in which he argued that "providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a 'criminal conspiracy.'"

Marshall made his filing in response to legal complaints filed by abortion rights group the Yellowhammer Fund, as well as two women's health centers, who argued that the Alabama AG had absolutely no right to regulate efforts to help women get abortions in states outside of his own.

Marshall, however, is arguing that helping women obtain abortions in states where it is still legal should be prosecuted if such a "conspiracy" originated in Alabama.

"The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs,” Marshall argued in this week's filing. “That conduct is Alabama-based and is within Alabama’s power to prohibit.”

Alabama currently has one of the nation's strictest abortion laws, making it far more likely than in other states that women seeking abortions will try to leave it to get care in other states.

Marshall has also suggested that he would not only prosecute anyone who helps pregnant women travel out of state but he would also prosecute women who take abortion pills.

How climate change boosts hurricanes
Agence France-Presse
August 31, 2023, 

Satellite data illustrates the heat signature of Hurricane Maria above warm surface water in 2017. NASA

Scientists are sounding the alarm on human-caused climate change's impact on hurricanes such as Idalia, which rapidly intensified over a warm Gulf of Mexico before making landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

Record-warm oceans counter El Nino

Back in May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a "near normal" Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

That was in large part because of the El Nino global weather pattern, which causes a higher than average "vertical wind shear" in the Atlantic, which in turn suppresses hurricane activity.

"If you have big changes in the wind with height, that tends to import dry, lower-energy air into the core of a tropical cyclone and prevent it from strengthening," Allison Wing, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University, told AFP.

But come August, NOAA increased its forecast prediction for the season to "above normal," based on ocean and atmospheric conditions "such as record-warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures" that "are likely to counterbalance the usually limiting atmospheric conditions associated with the ongoing El Nino event."

"It's been a sort of tricky year in terms of thinking about the whole seasonal forecast because we have these two opposing factors," said Wing.


- What is known about climate change -

One-eye catching example: on July 24 a buoy off the southern tip of Florida recorded an alarming peak temperature of 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit (38.4 Celsius), readings more commonly associated with hot tubs, and a possible new world record.

"Warm waters, both at the surface of the ocean and beneath, provide the fuel that intensifies tropical storms and hurricanes," said Michael Mann, a climatologist at University of Pennsylvania. "That allows them to both intensify faster and attain higher maximum intensities."


You still need the right conditions to lead to hurricane formation -- but when they come along, storms will take advantage of warming oceans to generate fiercer winds and cause bigger storm surges.

"You can think of climate change as sort of like loading the dice," added Wing. "There's still a variety of different possible outcomes for any individual storm, but you have a greater chance of having those high-intensity storms."

Apart from affecting the maximum intensity of hurricanes, climate change can also increase the amount of rain they are able to dump, Andrew Kruczkiewicz, an atmospheric scientist and researcher at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, told AFP.


"The warmer the atmosphere is, the greater the capacity for water," he said. "This can mean increased intense precipitation events."

Kruczkiewicz added he was personally worried people who had moved inland to escape Idalia could find themselves caught nonetheless in extreme weather.

Last year, climate change boosted Hurricane Ian's rainfall by at least 10 percent, according to recent research.


- Seasons getting longer -

There's increasing evidence that the storm season itself is getting longer, as the window during which ocean surface temperatures support tropical storm formation begins sooner and ends later, said Mann -- a relationship that appears to hold true in both the Atlantic hurricane basin and the Bay of Bengal.

While there is ample research that climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous, whether it is also making them more frequent is much less certain and more study is required.