July 31, 2021

Alabama Coal Miners Bring Strike to BlackRock Offices in NYC

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Miners from West Virginia, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Ohio are in New York City, striking against investors of Warrior Met Coal.

Miners in Alabama have been on strike since April 1.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) says miners gave about $1.1 billion in concessions during the last five years while the company emerged from their 2016 bankruptcy -- with the expectation to get those benefits back.

They also say that the company has refused negotiations while the company made $3.4 billion in that same time period.

The miners took the protest to the Big Apple to speak out against Blackrock, one of the largest family of investment funds in the world, which owns 14 percent of Warrior Met Stock.

More than 600 people attended the protest, with buses from West Virginia coming from Charleston, Fairmont, and Wheeling.

https://www.wsaz.com/2021/07/30/miners-appalachia-protest-investment-firm-new-york-city/

July 29, 2021

Charles Booker @Booker4KY: Rand Paul was just busted and fined by the FEC

https://twitter.com/Booker4KY/status/1420784962924580874












Rand Paul is one of the worst.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article253112668.html

July 28, 2021

My 2-Year-Old Daughter Was Murdered by Her Father

( No words )


Warrior mom Jacqueline Franchetti is working to change the family court system and protect other children from the same fate

Jun 09, 2021

By Stephanie Thurrott


Jacqueline Franchetti remembers her 2-year-old daughter Kyra’s favorite things. Kyra liked to “go fast” down the slide, and she liked Mickey Mouse, bubbles and independence. “Everything was, ‘I do it, Mama,’” Franchetti says.

Franchetti doesn’t know what Kyra would like today. That’s because in 2016 Kyra was murdered by her father who shot her in the back twice, then doused his home in gasoline and set it on fire, killing himself in a murder-suicide.



Kyra would have turned 7 this year. “I miss her every single second of every day,” Franchetti says. “When I go to visit her grave, I don’t even know what to bring or leave behind. What do 7-year-old girls like?”

No Escape from Abuse

Franchetti did everything legally possible to keep Kyra safe from the day she was born. Franchetti had left the relationship with Kyra’s abusive father, but she allowed him to visit her and Kyra in the hospital. He was angry, and Jaqueline was so fearful for Kyra’s safety that she got out of bed with Kyra in her arms, even though she was recovering from a C-section.

Franchetti was served with papers when Kyra was a few weeks old, and her case continued in family court until Kyra was murdered. “The first time I entered Nassau County Family Court, I thought Kyra would be protected. I quickly learned our courts do not protect the children; they protect the abuser. Kyra’s entire life, we were in family court,” she says. “When you end up in family court, the abuse doesn’t stop.”

https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/true-survivor-stories/my-2-year-old-daughter-was-murdered-by-her-father

July 28, 2021

Poor People's Campaign draws attention to voting rights with four-day Texas March

https://twitter.com/BRepairers/status/1420426340176646147

https://twitter.com/RevDrBarber/status/1420407041118593024










Rev. Barber, one of the most exceptional human beings alive, never gives up, never.

July 28, 2021

Pfizer, Mylan escape another EpiPen lawsuit after judge scraps pharmacy chain's antitrust complaints

by Fraiser Kansteiner | Jul 27, 2021 9:41am


Mylan and Pfizer have spent years defending their marketing of the popular epinephrine injector EpiPen. After a busy couple of months in court, the partners have now wiped their hands of another lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree granted Mylan's motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit against itself and Pfizer. Specifically, the Kansas District Court tossed out a second amended class-action complaint from KPH Healthcare Services alleging Mylan and Pfizer used anticompetitive tactics to maintain their epinephrine "monopoly," forged exclusive prescribing deals and maligned the merits of an EpiPen competitor.

Viatris, which was born through the combination of Mylan and Pfizer's Upjohn unit, said in a statement it's "pleased" with the court's decision. The company maintains that its actions were "completely lawful and pro-competitive."


KPH, which operates brick-and-mortar and online pharmacies, accused Pfizer and Mylan of engaging in a "multi-faceted, overarching conspiracy to monopolize" the epinephrine autoinjector market. The plaintiff said the companies used Mylan's discounted EpiPen program to exclusively stock the autoinjector in schools and "falsely" suggested the EpiPen competitor Auvi-Q was not bioequivalent to Pfizer and Mylan's drug

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-mylan-break-free-epipen-antitrust-suit-after-judge-scraps-kph-s-complaint

July 28, 2021

'Tiger of the House' claws his way through infrastructure talks

( A very good man. )

Peter DeFazio has made his life's work about transportation. Now, at a pivotal moment, the Democratic committee chair's being boxed out.

House Transportation Committee Chair Peter DeFazio is on the verge of getting rolled. And he’s not going quietly.

After a 34-year congressional career devoted to transportation and environment issues, the Oregon Democrat could soon be forced to watch his life’s work shunted to the side if Senate negotiators secure a deal this week on a massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure package — largely without House input.

In a fiery tirade to fellow Democrats during a closed-door meeting Tuesday, DeFazio called the bill “crap.” He blasted the White House and Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who he referred to as the three “Republicans” crafting the Senate deal.


“I could give a damn about the White House. We’re an independent branch of government,” DeFazio said in a brief interview afterwards. “They cut this deal. I didn’t sign off on it.”

As the third most senior Democrat in the House and a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, DeFazio is the rare battleground incumbent who could hardly be confused for a moderate.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/27/peter-defazio-infrastructure-talks-501008

July 27, 2021

She Blew The Whistle On Military Sexual Assault, Then Came Under Investigation

Amy Braley-Franck, who has a hearing this week on her two-year suspension, says more needs to be done for victims.

Nick Turse
July 26 2021, 5:30 p.m.

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION has made combating sexual assault in the military a major policy goal. In January, as his first directive in office, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum calling on senior Pentagon leaders and top generals to “battle enemies within the ranks” with the aim of wiping out the “scourge of sexual assault.”

From 2013 to 2019, that was also Amy Braley-Franck’s mission — advocating for victims of sexual crimes within the military. A day after she informed a top general about widespread mishandling of sexual assault cases, however, she was suspended from duty and has been ever since.

“The military is its own society, as stated by Justice William Rehnquist, and those that speak outside the approved narrative are shunned,” Braley-Franck told The Intercept.

Braley-Franck has been a high-profile whistleblower, bringing the issue of sexual assault and command abuses to public attention, from the Senate Armed Services Committee to “CBS This Morning.” She even played a role in the Biden administration’s signature effort at curbing sexual misconduct in the armed forces: a recent report that recommends radical reform of the military justice system.

For close to two years, though, Braley-Franck has been suspended from her role as an Army sexual assault prevention and response victim advocate. She sees the suspension, at the hands of a general she was serving under, as a clear case of retaliation. On Tuesday, she has a hearing about a grievance she filed with the Army to resolve the issue.

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/26/military-sexual-assault-whistleblower-suspension/

July 26, 2021

The Harms of Infrastructure Privatization: A Step Backward in Progressive Policymaking

JULY 26, 2021

By Joseph Stiglitz

This week, the White House and congressional negotiators are working to hammer out a bipartisan infrastructure framework—one component of the Biden administration’s laser focus on upgrading crumbling infrastructure and making essential, long-overdue public investments that would be of enormous benefit to the country.

As always, however, the devil is in the details.

Specifically, the bipartisan framework lists several items as “proposed financing sources for new investment,” including public-private partnerships (P3s) and asset recycling. These proposals should be a cause for concern.

In many cases, such measures are back doors to privatization—with public funds paying for projects controlled by unaccountable private firms whose primary motive is to increase their own profits.

These kinds of proposals represent a misguided reversion to a neoliberal framework that has, for decades, widened economic inequality, prioritized extractive corporate power over people, and hollowed out our public capacity.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2021/07/26/the-harms-of-infrastructure-privatization-a-step-backward-in-progressive-policymaking/

Brief Biography of Joseph E. Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. A recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), he is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001 and received that university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. In 2011 Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz's work focuses on income distribution, risk, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics and globalization. He is the author of numerous books, and several bestsellers. His most recent titles are People, Power, and Profits, Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited, The Euro and Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy.

https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/bio

July 24, 2021

Legal Brief From Mississippi AG Calls for Supreme Court to Undo Abortion Rights

( grrrrrrrrr )

BY
Chris Walker, Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 23, 2021

The state of Mississippi, in an upcoming legal battle over a restrictive abortion law it passed just a few years ago, is formally asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn its ruling in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected the right to access abortion services across the entirety of the country.

The Court is set to hear arguments in the fall over the legality of the state’s 15-week abortion ban, which lower courts have ruled unconstitutional. Mississippi Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch, in filing a legal brief for the case this week, is urging justices to overrule the nearly-50-year precedent that protects abortion rights.

Roe v. Wade, along with other Supreme Court opinions protecting abortion access, “are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law — and, in doing so, harmed this Court,” Fitch’s legal brief reads.

“Mississippi has stunningly asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe and every other abortion rights decision in the last five decades,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement responding to the legal filing made on Thursday. “Today’s brief reveals the extreme and regressive strategy, not just of this law, but of the avalanche of abortion bans and restrictions that are being passed across the country. Their goal is for the Supreme Court to take away our right to control our own bodies and our own futures — not just in Mississippi, but everywhere.”

https://truthout.org/articles/legal-brief-from-mississippi-ag-calls-for-supreme-court-to-undo-abortion-rights/

July 24, 2021

The Upside-Down Doctor

( Fraud is not a crime? )


June 2021

Joe Mercola is a doctor at war with medicine. His take on the pandemic is a lucrative, conspiratorial fever dream

Dr. Joe Mercola, an osteopathic physician who has made an impressive fortune selling supplements through his online store, has a new book out about the COVID-19 pandemic, a book which he co-authored with Ronnie Cummins, an organic food crusader. This book, as well as Mercola’s decades of peddling health misinformation on the Internet, exemplifies the dangerous blind spot of the wellness movement. Health gurus are not in the business of public health; they rise to fame by framing health as a personal choice and by selling immune boosters that have earned, they wrongfully claim, a scientific seal of approval.

Mercola’s conspiratorial take on COVID-19 is monumentally wrong, but the upside-down world he paints with his alarming words is based on real concerns. Mercola invites the already leery reader to follow him down a very deep rabbit hole.


The book’s black cover, devoid of imagery, is used as a minimalist canvas for its interminable title: The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal: Why We Must Unite in a Global Movement for Health and Freedom. Amazon currently lists it as the #1 best-seller in its “Political Freedom” category.

Summarizing the book is, in effect, summarizing the misinformation surrounding COVID-19. In short, Mercola and Cummins argue that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and its escape was capitalized on by every cabal, government, and corporation you can think of to scare people into looking away while they stole most of the world’s financial resources for themselves. None of the diagnostic tests, treatments, or public health measures can be trusted; rather, the disease is mild and protection is afforded to smart people who have no health conditions, eat the right food, and load themselves up with the right supplements.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health-pseudoscience/upside-down-doctor