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Katie Porter and Big Pharma and OT January 30, 2021

The Progressive Wing Posted on January 30, 2021 by polarbear4January 30, 2021

Our report is clear: Consolidation destroys scientific cultures that once celebrated creativity and transforms them into places that cater to the whims of shortsighted shareholders.

But our investigation also shows how we can chart a new path forward ⬇️https://t.co/1jxtK9J6rh

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) January 29, 2021


New Report From Rep. Katie Porter Reveals How Big Pharma Pursues ‘Killer Profits’ at the Expense of Americans’ Health

The report calls M&As “just the tip of the iceberg of pharmaceutical companies’ anti-competitive, profit-driven behaviors”:

Pharmaceutical companies often claim that lowering the prices of prescription drugs in the United States would devastate innovation. Yet, as prices have skyrocketed over the last few decades, these same companies’ investment in research and development have failed to match this same pace. Instead, they’ve dedicated more and more of their funds to enrich shareholders or to purchase other companies to eliminate competition.

“In 2018, the year that [former President] Donald Trump’s tax giveaway to the wealthy went into effect, 12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development,” the report notes.

Some key findings from the report:

Big pharmaceutical companies are not responsible for most major breakthroughs in new drugs. Rather, innovation is driven in small firms, which are often spun off of taxpayer-funded academic research. These small labs are then purchased by giant firms after they’ve assumed the risk needed to develop a blockbuster drug;
Instead of producing lifesaving drugs for diseases with few or no cures, large pharmaceutical companies often focus on small, incremental changes to existing drugs in order to kill off generic threats to their government-granted monopoly patents; and
Mergers in the pharmaceutical industry have had an overall negative effect on innovation, taking what little competition existed in the industry and completely destroying it.
“Competition is central to capitalism,” Porter said in a press release introducing the report. “As our report shows, Big Pharma has little incentive to invest in new, critically needed drugs. Instead, pharmaceutical giants are free to devote their resources to acquiring smaller companies that might otherwise force them to compete.”

“Lives are on the line; it’s clear the federal government needs to reform how it evaluates healthcare mergers and patent abuses,” Porter added.

To that end, Porter’s report recommends the following actions:

Removing incentives that prioritize investors and Wall Street over patients;
Reevaluating the standards used by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for healthcare mergers;
Altering the presumption that most mergers and acquisitions are legal unless contested by an individual or group;
Lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Congress should pass legislation that reins in skyrocketing costs. This can begin with drug price negotiation legislation, such as the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, but must extend to include a larger class of drugs and cover all payers and the uninsured; and
Preventing anti-competitive abuses of the drug patenting system. Congress should pass legislation, such as the such as the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Through Promoting Competition Act, and the Stop STALLING Act, to stop abuses of the regulatory process.
“It’s time we reevaluate the standards for approving these mergers,” the report concludes. “It’s time we pass legislation to lower drug prices. And it’s time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies. Together, these strategies can help us bring more innovative, and critically needed, cures and treatments to market.”

More at the link, short article.

Porter might make a formidable presidential candidate, if she can keep a high profile with her reports and dogged determination. She reminds me of a certain other Senator who fights for the 99%, even though she is not as progressive. The MSM might find it harder to ignore and dismiss her.

Posted in Uncategorized | 79 Replies

Martin Luther King, Union Man and OT Jan. 18

The Progressive Wing Posted on January 18, 2021 by polarbear4January 18, 2021

Photo: King speaks at Local 10 in San Francisco, September 1967. ILWU Archives, Author provided

In 1934, San Francisco longshoremen – who were non-union since employers had crushed their union in 1919 – reorganized and led a coast-wide “Big Strike.”

In the throes of the Great Depression, these increasingly militant and radicalized dockworkers walked off the job. After 83 days on strike, they won a huge victory: wage increases, a coast-wide contract and union-controlled hiring halls.

Soon, these “wharf rats,” among the region’s poorest and most exploited workers, became “lords of the docks,” commanding the highest wages and best conditions of any blue-collar worker in the region.

At its inception, Local 10’s membership was 99 percent white. But Harry Bridges, the union’s charismatic leader, joined with fellow union radicals to commit to racial equality in its ranks.

Originally from Australia, Bridges started working on the San Francisco waterfront in the early 1920s. It was during the Big Strike that he emerged as a leader.

Bridges coordinated during the strike with C.L. Dellums, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area, and made sure the handful of black dockworkers would not cross picket lines as replacement workers. Bridges promised they would get a fair deal in the new union. One of the union’s first moves after the strike was integrating work gangs that previously had been segregated.

Local 10 overcame pervasive discrimination
Cleophas Williams, a black man originally from Arkansas, was among those who got into Local 10 in 1944. He belonged to a wave of African-Americans who, due to the massive labor shortage caused by World War II, fled the racism and discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow South for better lives – and better jobs – outside of it. Hundreds of thousands of blacks moved to the Bay Area, and tens of thousands found jobs in the booming shipbuilding industry.

Black workers in shipbuilding experienced pervasive discrimination. Employers shunted them off into less attractive jobs and paid them less. Similarly, the main shipbuilders’ union proved hostile to black workers who, when allowed in, were placed in segregated locals.

A few thousand black men, including Williams, were hired as longshoremen during the war. He later recalled to historian Harvey Schwartz: “When I first came on the waterfront, many black workers felt that Local 10 was a utopia.”

During the war, when white foremen and military officers hurled racist epithets at black longshoremen, this union defended them. Black members received equal pay and were dispatched the same as all others.

A gang of welders at the Marinship yard, Sausalito, California, in around 1943. National Park Service
For Williams, this union was a revelation. Literally the first white people he ever met who opposed white supremacy belonged to Local 10. These longshoremen were not simply anti-racists, they were communists and socialists.

Leftist unions like the ILWU embraced black workers because, reflecting their ideology, they contended workers were stronger when united. They also knew that, countless times, employers had broken strikes and destroyed unions by playing workers of different ethnicities, genders, nationalities and races against each other. For instance, when 350,000 workers went out during the mammoth Steel Strike of 1919, employers brought in tens of thousands of African-Americans to work as replacements.

Some black dockworkers also were socialists. Paul Robeson, the globally famous singer, actor and left-wing activist had several friends, fellow socialists, in Local 10. Robeson was made an honorary ILWU member during WWII.

In 1967, King walked in Robeson’s footsteps when he was inducted into Local 10 as an honorary member, the same year Williams became the first black person elected president of Local 10. By that year, roughly half of its members were African-American.

King addressed these dockworkers, declaring, “I don’t feel like a stranger here in the midst of the ILWU. We have been strengthened and energized by the support you have given to our struggles. … We’ve learned from labor the meaning of power.”

Many years later, Williams discussed King’s speech with me: “He talked about the economics of discrimination. … What he said is what Bridges had been saying all along,” about workers benefiting by attacking racism and forming interracial unions.

Eight months later, in Memphis to organize a union, King was assassinated.

The day after his death, longshoremen shut down the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, as they still do when one of their own dies on the job. Nine ILWU members attended King’s funeral in Atlanta, including Bridges and Williams, honoring the man who called unions “the first anti-poverty program.”

More at the link. https://theconversation.com/martin-luther-king-jr-union-man-110004

Martin Luther King had grit and depth, and knew whose side he was on. He would be like Jesus with the Pharisees if he could see how much farther his country has fallen.

I want to think that we will not give up and we will honor his life every day in our struggle to transform the world.

Posted in Activism, grassroots, News, Open Thread | Tagged MLK | 152 Replies

DACA wins, as do we all and OT 12/05 & 12/06

The Progressive Wing Posted on December 5, 2020 by polarbear4December 6, 2020

Federal Judge Delivers ‘Huge Victory’ for Immigrants, Ordering Trump Administration to Fully Restore DACA

Immigrant rights defenders celebrated Friday after a federal judge delivered yet another blow to the Trump administration’s drawn-out effort to kill Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that protects certain undocumented residents who were brought to the United States as children from deportation.

Building on his November ruling that was similarly welcomed by right groups, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Brooklyn ordered (pdf) the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to post a public notice by Monday that it is accepting new applications for DACA, which enables Dreamers to legally live and work in the country.

Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, also reiterated a determination he made in his ruling last month: Chad Wolf was not legally serving as acting secretary of DHS when he issued a July memo restricting DACA to those already enrolled in the program and limiting renewals and work permits to just a year rather than two.

I agree with jcitybone, that maybe some politicians and judges will be more likely to stand up for what’s right now, after Bernie’s campaign and Trump’s disastrous regime.

Wolf’s memo had come after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June that the Trump administration cannot end DACA, which has benefited about 800,000 young undocumented immigrants. According to advocates, Garaufis’ order to fully restore the program could soon benefit hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

“This is a really big day for DACA recipients and immigrant young people,” Karen Tumlin, director of the Justice Action Center, who litigated the class-action case, told the New York Times. “It opens the door for more than a million immigrant youth who have been unfairly denied their chance to apply for DACA.”

More and tweets at the link.

I’m watching Carnival Row on Amazon Prime, where the Fae are the immigrants and there is a lot of the same kind of treatment. I love it when an exciting show works in social justice. Of course, the flying fae and other creatures don’t hurt, either. I’ll be departing soon for a bit, but please carry on, birdies!

Posted in News, Open Thread | Tagged DACA | 123 Replies

People’s Party Time! and OT 08/30/20

The Progressive Wing Posted on August 30, 2020 by polarbear4August 30, 2020

https://youtu.be/BbONOBrX6UU

Continue reading →
Posted in Uncategorized

OT 08/23/2020

The Progressive Wing Posted on August 23, 2020 by polarbear4August 23, 2020

a little space for a little weekend left :0) here’s mads There, I caught up with Madalena McNeil, aka @utahmads, whose recent arrest for allegedly purchasing the red paint that spilled outside the DA’s office, made international headlines pic.twitter.com/zXGz6FXFsd — Enrique Limón 🏳️‍🌈 (@EnriqueLimon) August 23, 2020

Continue reading →
Posted in Uncategorized

Please sign onto the complaint in defense of Stephen Donziger, the lawyer so viciously attacked by Chevron and the judicial system. Thank you.

The Progressive Wing Posted on August 6, 2020 by polarbear4August 7, 2020

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMVafPa4Bj78L38QQoMDyNzX2E1tX15nKpXKsaYbu0xRzjrg/viewform

This above link should take you to the signature page. If not, I hope I bolded the link below. Here’s the email. Lauren is a local whom i have volunteered under and with many times. Lauren Regan CLDC.

Please excuse the length.

On Aug 6, 2020, at 1:30 PM, Lauren Regan wrote:

Dear colleagues in the public interest plaintiff bar—I (Lauren Regan, Civil Liberties Defense Center) am one of the lead trial lawyers defending Steven Donziger pro bono. As you may know, human rights lawyer Steven Donziger has been SLAPP’d by Chevron after winning a 9 billion dollar judgment against the fossil fuel tyrant for poisoning the Ecuadorian Amazon. That SLAPP suit, which included outrageous RICO charges, bribes to witnesses by Chevron, and a district judge who is a former tobacco industry defense lawyer who just hates plaintiff do-gooders has been going on for years.

In fact today (Thursday) will mark the one year date of his pretrial home detention for the criminal contempt charge he faces as a result of appealing a decision made by Judge Kaplan ordering him to turn over his attorney client privileged documents and records that would imperil his indigenous clients and give his litigation strategy to Chevron. Steven did the right thing by informing the court that he disagreed with the order and was going to follow the proper process of filing an appeal of the decision to the 2nd circuit b/c you can’t ‘unring the bell’ once the info was turned over. Normally that would have been the end of the story. But this was is not normal, and the judge himself drafted criminal contempt charges and brought them to the US Attorneys office for prosecution. The US Attorneys refused to prosecute so Kaplan appointed a private law firm to be a private prosecutor instead. And several months ago we uncovered that the private firm, Seward & Kissel has Chevron and Chevron affiliates as clients. The audacity of this fossil fuel giant goes on and on….see links below for more details

It is important to remember—if they come after one of us, they come after all of us. And as Martin Niemoller once said:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Please sign on to this letter below:
and feel free to reach out to me if you would like.
In solidarity,
Lauren

Dear All,

On August 6, 2020, environmental human rights Lawyer Steven Donziger will have spent one year under house arrest facing charges of criminal contempt initiated by Chevron Corporation and ordered by Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York. The charges stem from Mr. Donziger’s objections to an order to turn over all of his electronic devices to Chevron Corporation, revealing all of his communications, including privileged communications. His objections are on constitutional and freedom of association grounds. This order is a culmination of a ten year battle by Chevron to discredit the Ecuadorian judgment to provide funds to clean up the oil pollution of Chevron’s predecessor, Texaco, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron’s attack on this judgment is to discredit the lawyers who brought it, particularly Mr. Donziger. This is a dangerous precedent, chilling legal representation.

In response, a dedicated group of human rights lawyers, initiated by the National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, reviewed the record in the case and came to believe Judge Lewis A. Kaplan violated the Canons of Judicial Conduct in his handling of the case and facilitating Chevron’s attacks on Mr. Donziger and the Ecuadorian judgment and that his actions with respect to the criminal contempt charges are evidence of his misconduct.

The way Judge Kaplan has instituted and allowed lawyers who represent Chevron and the oil and gas industry to prosecute Mr. Donziger, has been criticized by two retired federal judges, Nancy Gertner and Mark Bennett as excessive. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ac2615b8f5130fda4340fcb/t/5f0dc3fd6a8632767c2de633/1594737663061/2020-07-13-law360-gertner-bennett.pdf

Complaints of judicial misconduct may be filed by anyone concerned with this conduct. Your signature on this complaint will assist in making the reviewing judges realize the importance of this case to the community of lawyers and lawyer/jurist/bar associations. This complaint is five pages and can be read at the attached link. This complaint is supported by a long Appendix and exhibits supporting the allegations in the complaint. It is available upon request.

View the full text of the complaint at this link: https://bit.ly/donzigerjudicialcomplaint

To sign on to the complaint, please visit this link: https://bit.ly/judicialcomplaintkaplan

The judicial complaint alleges that the “statements and actions of Judge Kaplan over the last ten years show him to have taken on the role of counsel for Chevron in these cases rather than that of a judge adjudicating a live controversy before him. By these actions, he has violated his duty of impartiality under the canons of judicial conduct.” It alleges that Judge Kaplan’s misconduct in this case has violated the Judicial Canons of Conduct and calls for the Second Circuit Court to appoint a special investigation committee and/or transfer the case to another circuit for further proceedings.

> We are asking for your support for this important judicial complaint. All legal and human rights organizations, lawyers, legal workers, and law students in the United States and internationally are invited to sign on to add your support for the complaint, which will be submitted to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

We ask for your signatures by 5:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, August 10, 2020.

To sign on to the complaint, please visit this link: https://bit.ly/judicialcomplaintkaplan

For further background on the Donziger case, please see:
· 475 international lawyers and human rights organizations support Steven Donziger in Chevron case: https://iadllaw.org/2020/05/over-475-lawyers-legal-organizations-and-human-rights-defenders-support-lawyer-steven-donziger/
· Amicus brief filed by the NLG and IADL in Steven Donziger’s mandamus case: https://iadllaw.org/2020/06/iadl-and-nlg-file-amicus-brief-in-donziger-case-highlighting-corporate-impunity-and-human-rights-violations/
· Article by distinguished retired federal judges Hons. Nancy Gertner (D. Mass.) and Mark Bennett (S.D. Iowa), “Criminal Contempt Charges In Donziger Case Are Excessive:” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ac2615b8f5130fda4340fcb/t/5f0dc3fd6a8632767c2de633/1594737663061/2020-07-13-law360-gertner-bennett.pdf

Thank you for your consideration on this important matter.

“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change,” Reverend Martin Luther King, 1968.

Posted in Uncategorized

Action for Teachers July 19 OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on July 19, 2020 by polarbear4July 19, 2020

Sending $$$$ to charter schools?

Tell Congress: Don't Redirect Coronavirus Relief Funds to Vouchers for Private Schools

Send your email right now!

NPE Action makes it easy to send your email with one click – go here https://t.co/wCZygQmhGB

— NPE Action (@NPEaction) July 13, 2020

#AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal Push to reopen OC schools tied to charter school backers ⁦@DianeRavitch⁩ ⁦@carolburris⁩ ⁦@AnthonyCody⁩ ⁦@ProfessorJVH⁩ ⁦@brothajitu⁩ ⁦@tmareace⁩ ⁦@leoniehaimson⁩ ⁦@YohuruWilliams https://t.co/ZtcVDO9k05

— NPE Action (@NPEaction) July 19, 2020

Short and sweet today.

Posted in Activism, Open Thread, Uncategorized

July 18 OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on July 18, 2020 by polarbear4July 18, 2020

Portland events are very disturbing for those concerned about a toothless Congressional branch and Executive power reaching much further than our Constitution allows, regardless of statutes and Supreme Court decisions.

I don’t have my school paper that I did on this very subject and I cannot find my copy of “how would a patriot act“ by Glenn Greenwald, but for now, I found an article on how Obama stretched his power with the Tuesday “kill lists.” They used baseball cards with candidates in them to help them decide.

The Portland snatchings could not happen without years and years of lesser evilism. I am not advocating any particular vote here, I’m just stating what I consider to be fact.

Our government is at war with us over some federal property.

What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch – with no checks or oversight of any kind – but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president’s underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president – at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as “Terror Tuesday” – then chooses from “baseball cards” and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark.

In fact, The Most Transparent Administration Ever™ has been so fixated on secrecy that they have refused even to disclose the legal memoranda prepared by Obama lawyers setting forth their legal rationale for why the president has this power. During the Bush years, when Bush refused to disclose the memoranda from his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that legally authorized torture, rendition, warrantless eavesdropping and the like, leading Democratic lawyers such as Dawn Johnsen (Obama’s first choice to lead the OLC) vehemently denounced this practice as a grave threat, warning that “the Bush Administration’s excessive reliance on ‘secret law’ threatens the effective functioning of American democracy” and “the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the [OLC] upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government.”

But when it comes to Obama’s assassination power, this is exactly what his administration has done. It has repeatedly refused to disclose the principal legal memoranda prepared by Obama OLC lawyers that justified his kill list. It is, right now, vigorously resisting lawsuits from the New York Times and the ACLU to obtain that OLC memorandum. In sum, Obama not only claims he has the power to order US citizens killed with no transparency, but that even the documents explaining the legal rationale for this power are to be concealed. He’s maintaining secret law on the most extremist power he can assert.

Last night, NBC News’ Michael Isikoff released a 16-page “white paper” prepared by the Obama DOJ that purports to justify Obama’s power to target even Americans for assassination without due process (the memo is embedded in full below). This is not the primary OLC memo justifying Obama’s kill list – that is still concealed – but it appears to track the reasoning of that memo as anonymously described to the New York Times in October 2011.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo

Posted in Activism, News, Open Thread, Uncategorized

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