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Oct 22

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to plead to 3 criminal charges -

The deal does not release any of the company’s executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ongoing. Family members said they acted “ethically and lawfully,” but some state attorneys general said the agreement fails to hold the Sacklers accountable.
The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said, and the agreement will be detailed in a bankruptcy court filing in federal court.
The Sacklers will lose all control over their company, a move already in the works, and Purdue will become a public benefit company, meaning it will be governed by a trust that has to balance the trust’s interests against those of the American public and public health, officials said.
The settlement is the highest-profile display yet of the federal government seeking to hold a major drugmaker responsible for an opioid addiction and overdose crisis linked to more than 470,000 deaths in the country since 2000.
It comes less than two weeks before a presidential election where the opioid epidemic has taken a political back seat to the coronavirus pandemic and other issues, and gives President Donald Trump’s administration an example of action on the addiction crisis, which he promised early on in his term.
Ed Bisch, who lost his 18-year-old son to an overdose nearly 20 years ago, said he wants to see people associated with Purdue prosecuted and was glad the Sackler family wasn’t granted immunity.
He blames the company and Sacklers for thousands for deaths. “If it was sold for severe pain only from the beginning, none of this would have happened,” said Bisch, who now lives in Westampton, New Jersey. “But they got greedy.”
Brooke Feldman, a 39-year-old Philadelphia resident who is in recovery from opioid use disorder and is a social worker, said she is glad to see Purdue admit wrongdoing. She said the company had acted for years as “a drug cartel.”
Democratic attorneys general criticized the agreement as a “mere mirage” of justice for victims.
“The federal government had the power here to put the Sacklers in jail, and they didn’t,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “Instead, they took fines and penalties that Purdue likely will never fully pay.”
But members of the Sackler family, once listed as one of the nation’s wealthiest by Forbes magazine, said they had acted “ethically and lawfully” and that company documents required under the settlement to be made public will show that.
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(via shad0ww0rdpain)

Lungs of Earth on fire again as parts of Brazil the size of Britain burn -

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Areas of land as big as the UK burned in Brazil this year, analysis reveals.
Nearly 90,000 square miles were destroyed, even more than last year.
Greenpeace says the world’s largest wetland region also suffered unprecedented fires.
Data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research shows that despite Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro claiming he would ban burning in July, logging has continued.
The logging causes fires to spread more quickly.
The charity has launched a video campaign to highlight the “devastating” impact of industrial meat production on the Amazon.
It says meat is the single biggest driver of deforestation worldwide, with the push for space to produce beef and animal feed crops like soya a key reason for South American forest clearance.
There’s a Monster in my Kitchen tells the story of a young boy who learns of the heartbreaking reality of rampant deforestation.
It is backed by Sir Paul McCartney, who said: “The world’s forests are truly irreplaceable. These forests are being cleared at a shocking rate to farm more industrial meat and dairy. This is why reducing our meat is so important.
“But that alone isn’t enough… we need supermarkets and fast food restaurants to… make the switch to less destructive, plant-based alternatives.”
The wetland fires have endangered 600 of the Pantanal wetland region’s 2,000 jaguars.
The forest destruction is also catastrophic for indigenous peoples.
Greenpeace is urging supermarkets and fast food chains to “commit to replacing half their meat with healthy plant-based options by 2025”.

(via shad0ww0rdpain)

Unqualified Impunity: Amy Coney Barrett Once Ruled That a Cop Wasn't Responsible for a Black Teenager's Death Because Breathing Isn't a Constitutional Right -

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She does not believe George Floyd had a right to breathe. She doesn’t believe that screaming the n-word is necessarily “hostile.”
She does believe in Jesus, though.
While Judge Barrett has displayed a Mitch McConnell-like ability to evade direct questions about her legal opinions on a woman’s right to control her own body, whether or not poor people deserve to die if they can’t afford healthcare, or if Social Security is constitutional, we already know Barrett’s judicial positions in one important area of the law. As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeal’s Seventh Circuit, the right-wing star of the literal handmaid’s tale has repeatedly joined her fellow conservative bench mates in asserting the right of police to do whatever they want—the Constitution be damned.
When it comes to police brutality, one does not have to speculate or engage in conjecture to know the opinion of the woman set to take Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on America’s highest court. Barrett may be able to duck and dodge questions about her well-documented anti-choice stance or her pro-death healthcare views, but her judicial record makes one thing obvious:
Amy Coney Barrett clearly does not believe Black lives matter.
He Couldn’t Breathe
On Sept. 26, 2015, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to a call after a loss prevention officer alleged that eighteen-year-old Terrell Day had stolen a watch from the Burlington Coat Factory at Indianapolis’ Washington Square Mall. Day ran out of the mall, followed by a police officer and a security guard who said that Day was carrying a gun, according to the Indianapolis Star.
When the discount outlet watch recovery team caught up with Day, he had collapsed on a grassy slope across the street. IMPD officer Randall Denny arrived on the scene and noticed that the 312-pound teenager had defecated on himself and was “sweating and breathing heavily.” Officer Denny handcuffed Day, told him to take a few deep breaths and sat the teen in an “upright seated position.” But Day, still out of breath, kept laying down and eventually rolled down the slope with his hands cuffed behind his back. “At this point, the gun was no longer on Day’s person but was lying in the grass a few feet away and out of his reach,” according to the Seventh Circuit ruling.
Then Sgt. Franklin Wooten arrived.
“Day complained to Sergeant Wooten that he could not breathe,” reads the circuit court opinion. “Sergeant Wooten was skeptical of these complaints because Day also claimed to have done nothing wrong and was asking to be released. All the same, Sergeant Wooten called for an ambulance to evaluate Day approximately five minutes after Day was initially detained. After paramedics said Day didn’t go to the hospital, Wooten signed a form that said Day refused treatment,” placed another set of handcuffs on Day and called for a police wagon to transport Day to jail. When the wagon arrived, the officers tried to lift Day, but he was unresponsive. The driver called a second ambulance.
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(via shad0ww0rdpain)