Pharmaceutical giant Galena Biopharma agreed today in an out-of-court settlement to pay nearly $8 million in fines relating to a scheme to push Opioid drugs. Galena is currently the subject of various other lawsuits, mostly dealing with stock-market violations during the time in question.
Galena formerly marketed a drug called Abstral, which is composed of the Opioid derivative, Fentanyl. Fentanyl is one of the most dangerous Opioids when 'misused'. It is highly addictive and even slight overdoses can be fatal. Fentanyl was even banned in China earlier this year, after their Ministry of Health determined that the drug's potential side-effects outweighed its medicinal benefits.
Federal prosecutors allege that Galena paid a variety of bribes and kickbacks to corrupt physicians to induce them to prescribe Abstral. These included paying 'speaking fees' and paid-vacations to Galena-hosted events; free meals to doctors and staff based on the numbers of prescriptions they wrote; and paying doctors to refer patients to Galena's customer-database. In one case, Galena paid $92,000 in 'rebates' to a physician-owned clinic to induce prescriptions.
In May, two physicians were sentenced to over 20 years in prison for their part in this same scandal. The two operated a pill-mill and even bought $1.6 million in Galena stocks. According to FDA guidelines, Abstral prescriptions are limited to "breakthrough cancer pain in opioid-tolerant adults." These two worthies, however, prescribed it for joint, neck, and back pain, according to the indictment. Even the Obama Administration once investigated them because---for three straight fiscal quarters---they had the first and second highest number of Fentanyl prescriptions in the US. According a shareholders' suit filed against Galena, 9 of every 10 prescriptions from these doctors were for Fentanyl-based drugs.
How many unsuspecting patients became opioid-addicts because of these activities? No one knows for certain. The fines that Galena paid today are only related to their violations of the Medicare False Claims Act. If it were up to us, these kinds of companies would be liquidated and, after their outstanding debts were satisfied, any money left over would go into drug-rehabilitation clinics. Galena has not officially admitted to guilt in any of these proceedings.
This is the kind of corruption that has to be stamped out. Thankfully, the new Administration is committed to draining swamps of these kind. And an honorable mention needs to go to whistleblower Lynne Dougherty of California who exposed the scheme, and won over $1 million as part of the settlement.
There was interesting article a few days ago on the discussion forum Metabunk dealing with a 1962 meeting between William F. Buckley and GOP leaders on how to deal with the John Birch Society---the Red Pill/Alt-RINOs of their day---who were spreading absurd conspiracy theories about contemporary political figures. Since, as regular readers know, we're huge fans of the late W.F. Buckley, the article naturally caught our attention.
Mick West, the author, had several quotes from Buckley, including one important one we'd forgotten. When asked about conspiracy theories, Buckley replied:
"The logical fallacy involved is that one can infer subjective intention from objective consequence. For example: we lost China to the Communists; therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished a Communist takeover in China."
Buckley called this type of reasoning The Objective Fallacy. It's good to keep this definition in mind---especially at times like the 9/11 Anniversary. The difference between genuine conspiracies and conspiracy theories often hinge upon the very inference that Buckley describes. And, of course, it's not only the Far Right who engage in this type of thinking: the Radical Left practically thrives on it.
Contrary to what Media nitwits tell us, large-scale criminal conspiracies are vulnerable to detection because keeping activities secret is much more difficult in a large organization. This is especially true in a relatively transparent society like the US; a little more complicated in groups like Al-Qaeda, where terror and fanaticism are employed to prevent such disclosures. But even so, it's not impossible to infiltrate such groups. Fanatics are known to shift loyalties easily, and there are always a few who'll bend principles for a price.
On 9/11, Al-Qaeda followed the classic pattern of criminal conspiracies everywhere: motive + intention + opportunity = action. Their motive was to end US support for the Saudi Regime which was an obstacle to their goal of a Wahhabi coup in that country. The intention was to cause an incident that would break the US-Saudi Alliance. The opportunity was that the Bush Administration was new and hadn't corrected the security deficiencies of the Clinton Administration. 9/11 was the result.
But when employing the Objective Fallacy, we have to assume that the Bush Administration both executed 9/11 and successfully kept their involvement a secret from political opponents, foreign governments, and a hostile Media. Or else believe that their opponents were really their confederates. Aside from the impossibility of this; every theory about Bush involvement in 9/11 fails the classic pattern of conspiracies referenced above. While opportunity is a given, due to their positions in government, intention and motive are far less clear.
Especially this is so at the originating point of motive. Nearly every motive given by 9/11 'truthers' could have been achieved without the 9/11 attacks---and in fact achieved more easily. Bush wanted a pretext for war? Just two years earlier, Clinton gulled the American people into a war in Kosovo without any false-flags. Bush wanted a pretext to seize absolute power? Obviously, that never happened so it couldn't have been his intention. Bush wanted to steal foreign oil? Venezuela is closer to the US than Iraq, has more oil, and we had a better reason for invading it. There were things inside the WTC that Bush wished destroyed? The government has plenty of Black Ops capable of stealing such things without detection. And so on.
This is another problem with the Objective Fallacy---one has to reverse the formula for conspiracies and reason from action to motive instead of the other way around. In real life, professional investigators always start at 'who had a motive?' It's fairly clear that on 9/11 Al-Qaeda had a motive; Bush's motives---not so much.
The purpose here is not to fight 9/11 all over again, but to keep Buckley's maxim in mind when we hear similar stories. There's enough real criminal activity going on both within and without the Government to keep us busy without chasing after phantoms.
The Leftist leadership in California have long been in denial about the severity of the narcotics epidemic in their state. The Northern part of the state has been particularly hard-hit. However, when President Trump recently allocated a $485 million program to fight this national problem, California was earmarked for almost 10% of the total budget. Two reports from Federal authorities illustrate why.
The FDA issued a report this week on Opioid prescription abuse in California. Five counties in the north actually had more Opioid prescriptions than county residents. Fourteen others had per capita prescription rates higher than the State average.
According to the Sacramento Bee, there were 1,925 Opioid overdose fatalities in California last year. Almost 15% of Californians are taking Opioid prescriptions, and the numbers are almost twice that in the most badly-affected counties.
The CDC states that Opioids are the second-most abused narcotic in the US, with Marijuana in first place. Marijuana is legally cultivated in California, but there are illegal operations all over the state. The FBI estimates that 90% of illegal marijuana comes from California. Regulated Marijuana has strict quality-control standards; that sold on the Black Market is often adulterated with other narcotics, or contains toxic levels of pesticides, or both.
In Northern California, drug pushers often take advantage of the vast state and national forests to conceal their operations. The EPA this week issued a report showing that water pollution in the region has reached critical levels. Local ranchers and farmers have reported livestock illnesses have increased from drinking contaminated water; and last month, two policemen and a police dog were hospitalized after coming in contact with a cesspool from an illegal Marijuana operation.
Mourad Gabriel, who inspected raided operations with the EPA told reporters that the waters and grounds are saturated with chemical pesticides such as Carbofuran and Diazinol, Both are banned in the United States for food and tobacco crops, and banned completely by the European Union. If in ingested or inhaled through smoking, both can cause symptoms similar to botulism and death/coma in sufficient dosages.
Gabriel noted that residuals in the ground are almost impossible to remove and may stay present in waters and soil for years before nature takes its course. Forest Service Rangers have pointed out that sportsmen who kill wild game face safety issues---not only from eating contaminated meat and fish, but because of the potential of encountering heavily-armed thugs in the deep woods.
It's clear from these two reports that California has a serious problem; and the first step to solving it is acknowledging its existence. The State Government really cannot deny the problem any longer and they should start cooperating with the Trump Administration to resolve it. But instead, the State Attorney-General announced on Friday that he planned to sue the Administration over DACA; and anti-Trump riots broke out in the Bay Area and Sacramento once again. Given that these are two of the worst-hit cities by the narcotics epidemic, the motives for their opposition to Trump is self-evident.
President Trump's nominee for a federal judgeship met with hostile anti-Catholic rhetoric when appearing before a Senate Confirmation Hearing on Wednesday. Amy Barrett, the nominee, is a law professor at Notre Dame and former law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia died under mysterious circumstances on a Texas ranch in 2016.
Senator Diane Feinstein ambushed Mrs. Barrett---who incidentally is a mother of seven children---by accusing her of putting "dogma over law".
"You are controversial," Feinstein sneered, "because many of us who have really lived our lives as women recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems...when I read your speeches, the conclusion I draw is that Dogma lives loudly within you, and that is of concern."
What a place we've come to in America when living one's faith is 'cause for concern' among American Senators. Never mind that feminist crackpots like Feinstein have made the right to choose practically a dogma from which no woman dares dissent. But maybe we should expect this from Feinstein. She used to be an official in a city that looks like this:
Such are specimens of Feinstein's constituency. No wonder they hate and fear the Church.
Senator Richard Durbin, a 'Cafeteria Catholic' from Illinois chimed in as well. "I'm the product of 19 years of Catholic education. And every once in awhile, Holy Mother the Church does not agree with a vote of mine." (Actually, this happens quite frequently); "You use a term in that article that I've never heard before. You refer to 'orthodox Catholics'. What is an orthodox Catholic? Do you consider yourself one?"
Durbin is another multimillionaire politician whose wife works for a political consulting firm. Most of his top campaign donors are legal firms that specialize in suing hospitals and filing class-action lawsuits; as well as insurers who cover abortions. His Catholic education did him little good if he doesn't know what orthodoxy refers to. He represents a state with a growing White Supremacist, anti-Catholic population.
The antics of these two drew denunciations from Catholic leaders, including John Garvey, Chancellor at Catholic University of America, who once worked with Mrs. Barrett. And indeed it is an egregious example of some of the worst Catholic-baiting since President Kennedy ran for election in 1960.
Senators Feinstein and Durbin should be reprimanded by the Senate and forced to abstain from voting on future Catholic nominees. But whether the RINOs in the Senate will go that far is doubtful.
It has been a rough last month for Red Pill Cult leader Vox Day. First, Castalia House, his outsourced publishing front organization was humiliated at the Hugo Awards; finishing below the 'None of the Above' option on all ballots. Then, after building up the Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally, he did backflips trying to escape culpability for the disaster.
Vox is having another online tantrum, this time over some comments posted about him on Gab. Gab is a site much like Twitter; and is billed as an alternative site with minimal restrictions on content. Alt-RINO trolls who get kicked off Twitter frequently go to Gab; and Vox has been a huge advocate of the site.
But recently Vox himself has become a target of online trolls: apparently the handiwork of former confederates of his who've become disgruntled at Vox' poltroonery in the Charlottesville controversy. Here are three posts that have him outraged, part of a conversation between Gab members Silverdawn and Fabius Maximus PRO:
"Everyone stay away from Vox Day. He is a faggot Talmudic half-Jew, half-Mexican pedophile pretending to be white."
"I heard that Vox Day is a known pedophile who's viewed more prepubescent boys online than viewers to his own site. Sad."
"Why do you follow a pedophile? Are you a pedophile too?"
Vox indignantly denied these allegations, but he went even further. He demanded that Gab not only take down the alleged slanders, but also to turn over to him account information on the principals involved. Given Vox' own long history of doxxing, trolling, and harassing enemies of his, Gab refused to comply.
Upon discovering that Gab wouldn't do for him what he criticized Twitter for doing---and treating him like any other Gab customer---Vox flew into a heated rage and began scribbling off a few anti-Gab posts liberally salted with threats of legal action.
It's interesting that just a few days ago, Vox had an online battle with a supporter of Antifa. Vox was accused of spreading fake memes falsely attributed to Antifa. On Twitter, the Antifa people pointed out that the memes were forgeries; but Vox continued to post them because "the most effective rhetoric communicates truth without being literally truthful in the details." This is a sophistry that essentially means that Truth is a morally relative and subjective concept: something that the Cultural Marxists also believe.
And now that Vox is getting a dose of his own medicine, he's bellowing like a bull with a bad case of colic. It shows again that the Alt-RINOs only care about Freedom when it benefits them.
Simon Radecki is sitting in a Pennsylvania jail after threatening to kidnap Senator Pat Toomey's daughter during a Town Hall meeting. Radecki is another radicalized, alienated male who worked sporadically in the video-game industry and drifted about embracing radical Left-Wing causes.
During a question-and-answer session at the Town Hall, Radecki arose with a vicious look on his face and asked Senator Toomey the following:
"We've been here for awhile, so you probably haven't seen the news. Can you confirm whether or not your daughter Bridget has been kidnapped?"
The stunned audience, reporters, police, and Senator Toomey himself began wondering if this nutcase had actually harmed the Senator's family. The police whisked Radecki away as the Anarchist screamed incoherently about DACA, President Trump, and Republicans in general. The General Manager of PBS-39 TV, who hosted the event, stated it was "one of the scariest things I've ever seen."
Fortunately, the Senator's daughter was unharmed; although doubtless police and likely the FBI are investigating the potential of a larger plot. Radecki is currently being held for Disorderly Conduct.
The Corporate Media naturally is downplaying the incident, without mentioning that Senator Toomey has been the targets of multiple threats recently. Not to mention also that barely a few weeks ago, House Majority Whip John Scalise was shot by an Anarchist attempting to assassinate the GOP Congressional leadership.
As is true of many perpetrators of these incidents, Radecki is not even from Pennsylvania. He is a native of Minnesota and a former campaign worker for arch-Leftist Senator Al Franken. Radecki is also likely a homosexual; he was one of the organizers of the militant National LGBTQ Task Force. He was also involved in several anti-2nd Amendment groups.
At least Radecki is now in a place where can do no further damage to society. Threatening to kidnap political opponents' children sounds like something from the Italian Red Brigade or the Baader-Meinhof Gang in 1970s Europe. It doesn't belong in America.
I don't recall much of Jeff Sessions' career as a US Senator, but he is certainly in his element as US Attorney-General. Sessions today released a two-page statement giving his thoughts on President Trump's decision to repeal DACA. The statement shows that Sessions is a man possessed of an above-average legal mind; and thus far it is the best defense of the President's policy produced.
Sessions presents three facts about DACA: all buried by the Corporate Media. The first of these is that DACA was illegally implemented by President Obama in 2012:
"The DACA Program was implemented in 2012 and essentially provided a legal status including work authorization and other benefits including Social Security to 800,000 mostly adult illegal aliens. The policy was implemented unilaterally amid great controversy and legal concern after Congress rejected Legislative proposals to extend similar benefits, on numerous occasions, to this same group of illegal aliens. In other words, the Executive Branch, through DACA, deliberately sought to achieve what the Legislative Branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions."
The Corporate Media, of course, is leaving out that little detail. Now Sessions cites several legal opinions to the effect of DACA's unconstitutional implementation, but the important precedent here is that the Trump Administration is striking a blow at what has been termed The Imperial Presidency.
The Imperial Presidency refers to a tendency manifested in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries of the Executive Branch ruling outside our constitutional system of Checks-and-Balances. Presidents and the federal bureaucrats in his Cabinet simply made policies with little or no Congressional input. Frequently the Courts were called upon to uphold or deny such policies and give their rulings the force of actual law. Needless to say, this tendency was a huge advantage to the Deep State. Trump and Sessions are signaling here that this policy is at an end and that Congress is coming back to rightful position as a law-making body.
The second point Sessions makes about DACA is that the policy itself was badly flawed and that legal challenges to it were already underway:
"It is with these duties and principles in mind, and in light of imminent litigation, that we reviewed the Obama Administration's DACA policy. Our collective wisdom is that the DACA policy is vulnerable to the same legal and constitutional challenges that the Courts recognized with the DAPA Program; which was enjoined on a nationwide basis in a decision upheld by the US 5th Circuit Court. The 5th Circuit specifically concluded that DACA had not been implemented in a fashion that allowed sufficient discretion, and that DAPA was foreclosed by 'Congress' careful plan.' In other words, it was inconsistent with constitutional Separation of Powers. That decision was affirmed by the US Supreme Court."
Thus it happens that, even if Trump favored DACA, impending Court challenges would have forbidden him to implement it. The Justice Department was evidently reviewing the case and found it legally indefensible. Did the Corporate Media tell us anything about 'imminent litigation'? No---they have spun the story to accuse Trump falsely of doing what Obama actually did: acting unilaterally.
And we can also deduce from this that the usual pack of State Attorneys-General who are threatening to challenge Trump's decision are engaging in nothing but a publicity stunt; because the Courts are already decided on the issue.
Sessions also addresses the well-meaning organizations who have legitimate concerns about those affected by DACA's repeal. He reminds them that DACA itself started the crisis.
"The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the Southern Border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences."
In fact in 2012, the United Nations, the foreign press, and human-rights groups---in short, everybody except the US Media and the Obama Administration---were calling the situation a humanitarian disaster. Outside of the regions directly impacted, few Americans knew that thousands of children and legal minors literally were being dumped at the US-Mexico border with no provision for placing or caring for them. These children and minors were being warehoused anywhere and everywhere space was available. It was a disaster indeed, several of the youngsters died either en route to the US or even while here.
But the Corporate Media didn't criticize Obama then, just as they haven't brought up the crisis now. By repealing DACA, Trump is ending one of the major blunders of the Obama Administration before further damage is done. As Sessions says, this is what we elected Trump to do. As for the Corporate Media, nobody elected them to do anything.
