Author: condor

Bitsy Is Just Mad That We Will Be Able To Achieve Same Ends, Despite “Supreme Six’s” Unhinged Decisions.

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Of greatest import, these same Supremes upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, in three momentous decisions in the last month.

That preserves Black and brown voting power.

And that, coupled to the fact that whytes — as a group — are soon to be a numerical minority in the states… means the die is already cast.

It may take a decade to play out, but her vaunted pro-whyte, exclusionary policies… will die out.

Bitsy knows it. She also knows that without racist appeals to “whyte replacement” theory, the GOP cannot win elections, even in the present day.

So hers is impotent bleating.

And as we’ve shown, all these pernicious decisions (except perhaps the anti-LBGTQ+ ones) are capable of ready work-arounds.

Ms. Stauffer is silent on it, but the 1965 Act authorizes the student loan forgiveness restart — which Mr. Biden adopted last night.

Harvard and UNC made plain (consistent with Roberts’ own statements in his opinion) they and all others will use essay content to score toward a diversity-infused student body. The Supremes well-know they cannot prevent that. All nine know it.

So while the Luddites ruling the Court are an ugly, unfortunate hangover from Tangerine… they amount to very little, in the bigger picture.

And via Dobbs and the anti-gay opinions, the Luddites continue to energize a strong, young “backlash voting bloc” — against repressive hard right GOP… BS.

Net, net… the Supremes have actually hurt the GOP more than aided it.

So… Cheers, Bits!

Tonight, The State Of Tenn. Has Appealed Its Complete Loss — On The Utterly Unconstitutional Anti-Drag Law

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Well… we did say it would come — and now it has.

Gov. Bill Lee cannot stand that his hypocritical brand of x-tianity makes him a laughing stock in front of the all those people in this nation blessed with working forebrains. So he… appeals.

Here’s the notice that it has been appealed, nominally by the local DA, in Memphis.

This appeal… is a dead bang loser.

Now you know.

Earlier Today, CMS Issued Some Revisions — Including On Confidentiality — To The Policies For Coming Drug Price Negotiations…

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Some trade publications have already suggested that the changes in policies are the direct result of pressures exerted in the federal suits filed. I think that unlikely. [In fact, almost all the changes were drafted before the first suit was filed.]

The simpler, and likely more accurate explanation is that the government wants to maximize the chances that both drug-makers see fair prices, and the public sees… meaningfully reduced, or at least flattened, prices… on many older but widely prescribed drugs. Here’s a bit from the factsheet, and the new guidance itself (of nearly 200 pages):

…Negotiation Process: CMS revised section 60.4.3 to clarify that CMS will respond in writing no later than 30 days after receipt of a manufacturer’s counteroffer regardless of whether CMS accepts or rejects the counteroffer. CMS has clarified that, to effectuate any MFP agreed upon by CMS and the Primary Manufacturer, both CMS and the Primary Manufacturer must sign and execute an Addendum to the Agreement. CMS also clarified in section 60.4.4 of the revised guidance that if an agreement on an MFP is not reached by the statutory end of the negotiation period, the Primary Manufacturer will enter a period during which an excise tax potentially may be assessed. The Primary Manufacturer can end this period by agreeing to an MFP or sending a notice terminating all of its applicable agreements under the Medicare and Medicaid programs and establishing that none of the Primary Manufacturer’s drugs are covered by an agreement under section 1860D-14A or section 1860D-14C of the Act….

Publication of MFPs for Selected Drugs: CMS clarified in section 60.6 of the revised guidance that CMS will publish the following on the CMS website by September 1, 2024 for all initial price applicability year 2026 selected drugs where an MFP was agreed upon: the selected drug, the initial price applicability year, and the MFP pricing file (which would be updated annually to show the inflation-adjusted MFP for a selected drug). CMS will strive to publish the explanation of the MFP earlier than March 1, 2025, if feasible….

More on all this, as it develops — but the suits were and are… losers. The larger point would be that Americans are likely to see hundreds of billions of dollars in annual savings, on government spending for drugs. And that is something the Supreme Six cannot stop.

Smile.

नमस्ते

[U] Over The Fourth, Let’s Reflect Back In Time, To President Johnson’s “Great Society” Congressional Victories, In 1965… This Too, Is What Patriotism Looks Like.

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Updated @ 6 pm EDT — Mr. Biden is already underway on exactly the plan I mentioned below, as proposed to and then by, Sen. Warren. Flawless. And he’s added another year of no payments, effective immediately for people of limited means. [All of which means Scott Johnson’s of this morning is going to turn out to be… ultimately, impotent blather.] End update.

So — as promised — the work-around, from when most of America felt we all have/had a duty to lift one another up.

Please do go read the Higher Education Act of 1965, as signed by President Johnson. It would also pretty plainly allow Mr. Biden to simply re-issue his student loans forgiveness executive order, relying on that older, and never before challenged statute.

I will quote just a bit from a Harvard Law memo, to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, here:

. . .Amongst the general powers conferred by Congress to the Secretary in the HEA is the power to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(a)(6) (emphasis added). This compromise authority was contained in the HEA from its initial enactment. Any exercise of this compromise authority “shall be final and conclusive upon all accounting and other officers of the Government.” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(b). The only statutory limitation on this authority is the requirement that the Secretary “may not enter into any settlement of any claim under [Title IV] that exceeds $1,000,000” without requesting “a review of the proposed settlement of such claim by the Attorney General,” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(b).

In 1988, the Secretary finalized a regulation, 34 C.F.R. § 30.70, which explains how the Secretary exercises discretion to compromise a debt. . . .

The Secretary has the authority to modify a loan to zero, and exercise this authority even in the absence of any implementing regulations.

Such modification (and, likewise, any act to compromise existing student loans), is permissible under the budgetary standards that govern Title IV programs. . . .

Again, these six Supremes were just offering political fund-raising theater to the GOP this morning. This work-around is well within existing federal statutory authority — stretching back over 60 years, now. To a more optimistic time — in our Nation. Be excellent to one another. I’m… off for a mountain bike ride, by the cool lake waters [knowing I’m taking a risk — one akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes, today (so not me — smoking?! never.) with the skies so gray from the smoke plumes]. Smile.

नमस्ते

Something To Ponder, As We Celebrate Our Freedoms This Long Weekend… Please Be Informed By Real Science — Not Small Minded Flat Earth Theories.

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NASA is increasingly taking a leadership role, in highlighting climate science. And I am… thrilled.

So, as we wander off for the long weekend, and most of us in the middle of the nation breathe bad air (from forest fires not just coincidentally made worse — by well-documented relatively-recent global climate shifts)… do consider this:

…Understanding the Earth gives us the means to better protect it. Join NASA, as we monitor, study, and observe our planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — to learn more and to protect and improve life on Earth….

Smiling at a welcome sojourner’s appearance, here this morning, at 9:32 am. Be well, one and all!

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Is Right About One Thing, Here…

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He writes — regarding the coming 2024 national elections — “the federal courts will likely be an issue that helps Democrats rather than Republicans….”

He also acknowledges that even Rasmussen polling now shows a very potent “back-lash vote”, going into 2024 — as a result of the Supremes’ activism in Dobbs. We saw it in the 2022 mid-terms.

And ominously for the GOP, it is the college educated, deep suburban/exurb whyte married housewives’ vote that utterly eradicated the GOP candidates who claimed strong “pro-life” ties.

Welcome to the law of… “elections have… consequences“; so too, do Supremes’ radical hard right activist decisions, there John!

Out.

I Guess It Depends On What “Waive” And “Modify” Might Mean — Ridiculous.

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The word means only what I say it means, Alice….” [I guess I got this one wrong because I foolishly assumed the six Supremes could read the Oxford English Dictionary. Yikes.]

To be certain, there are multiple work-arounds to make this decision…

so much sturm and drang. From Justice Kagan’s very wise dissent, then, a bit:

…One prior action, nowhere counted by the majority, is the suspension of loan payments and interest accrual begun in COVID’s first days. That action cost the Federal Government over $100 billion, and benefited many more borrowers than the forgiveness plan at issue. See supra, at 21. And second, it’s all relative. Past actions were more modest because the precipitating emergencies were more modest. (The COVID emergency generated, all told, over $5 trillion in Government relief spending.) In providing more significant relief for a more significant emergency — or call it unprecedented relief for an unprecedented emergency — the Secretary did what the HEROES Act contemplates. Imagine asking the enacting Congress: Can the Secretary use his powers to give borrowers more relief when an emergency has inflicted greater harm? can’t believe the majority really thinks Congress would have answered “no.”

In any event, the statute Congress passed does not say “no.” Delegations like the HEROES Act are designed to enable agencies to “adapt their rules and policies to the demands of changing circumstances.” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 157 (2000). Congress allows, and indeed expects, agencies to take more serious measures in response to more serious problems….

That’s all I’ll say, for now.

But the phrase “major questions” appears nowhere in the Constitution. Out.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker: Compare/Contrast Claims Of Crimes.

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Tonight, Hinderaker casually admits (see the last sentence of his fifth paragraph) what every lawyer looking at it knows: whatever GOP Rep. Comer might say Mr. Biden might have done or not done… there will be no way to prove any part of it wasn’t all legitimate policy. In other words, there is no chance of proving any corrupt motive.

And John knows this whole pile of garbage… goes nowhere good for the GOP.

All it will do (Comer’s utter lack of proof) is serve to remind all thinking and independent voters that they’ve heard Trump in his own voice, on tape sharing stolen top secrets with a PAC operative for political gain against Mr. Biden and his sitting party while President.

He was swapping treason level (or at least espionage level secrets he personally STOLE!) with political allies to damage Democrats, while the latter were in office.

Duly… elected office. By the people.

A more corrupt motive (and from his own mouth!) can scarcely be imagined.

The GOP is… DOA for 2024, John.

Updated Friday morning — for fun, consider EW’s chart comparing Manafort to Huner:

Out.

Now Thrice — In Under Ten Days?! Hayward Quotes The Dead Unabomber — With Approval. He Needs… An Intervention.

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This evening, because he is angry that the Supremes didn’t give him all he wanted in the Harvard/UNC decision, he pointedly brings up the now dead Unabomber to say that sociopath well-understood “the left”. [At base — he’s mad because “the left” knows the ruling he wanted is… Unconstitutional — and Chief Justice Roberts well knows it.]

This is — at best — a poor look, for a frothy hard right law and order guy, like Steve. [See also, the first one in Steve’s weird series.]

And it seems to point to an underlying and unhealthy fascination… with terrorist serial killers.

Bomb makers, insanely bent on destroying modern post industrial America.

A guy who spent at least the last 15 years of his life… in a SuperMax prison.

Steve — I think you should see a good shrink — and listen to what s/he says. It is very disconcerting, that you are unable to find better sources critical of what you think of as liberal thought.

Seriously, man. Get help. Or up the Ketamine doses. Either way… I’m easy.

This is a very disturbing line of argument. No kidding.

Wow.

UPDATE: Coming Motion Deadlines, In The Ill-Starred Merck (DC Federal Courts) Suit Against The Feds — To Keep Older, Mature Retail US Drug Prices “Nice And High”…

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We check in once more, this afternoon — before the time off-grid again in the mountains… to offer what all was decided last night, by the able USDC Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in terms of the immediate schedule in this ill-starred suit we’ve started covering, in DC.

Here is the meat of it — and the full PDF:

…1. [Merck] shall file its motion for summary judgment and memorandum in support thereof by July 11, 2023 [Condor sez that is a very tight and abrupt turn-around time-table, given most of next week is off-grid with the holiday!];

2. [HHS and CMS; federal government agencies] shall file a single memorandum in support of their cross-motion for summary judgment and opposing Plaintiff’s motion by September 11, 2023;

3. Plaintiff shall file a combined reply in support of its motion and opposition to Defendants’ cross-motion by October 19, 2023;

4. Defendant shall file a reply in support of their cross-motion by November 21, 2023….

Now you know… grin. This will be a good one for turgid, overwrought and colorful prose, from Merck’s lawyers. Heh.

नमस्ते