Jordan, Comer and Steil, in their Saturday letter, set a new deadline of March 31 for a swath of documents they are requesting regarding Bragg’s office, including any related to potential federal funding of or involvement in his work. They also doubled down on their request for Bragg to provide testimony behind closed doors.
Those requests are currently voluntary since Republicans haven’t issued a subpoena for either the documents or an interview with Bragg. The GOP chairs haven’t ruled out trying to compel him and, in their letter, they appear to briefly argue that a subpoena would meet the bar for having legal legs.
“Your reply letter did not dispute the central allegations at issue—that you, under political pressure from left-wing activists and former prosecutors in your office, are reportedly planning to use an alleged federal campaign finance violation … [to] indict for the first time in history a former President of the United States,” Jordan, Comer and Steil wrote in their letter.
Bragg is reportedly preparing for the possibility that the former president will be indicted on charges related to alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Bragg, in his statement on Saturday night, hit back at the accusation of playing politics, saying that his office evaluates “cases in our jurisdiction based on the facts, the law and the evidence.”
“This unprecedented inquiry by federal elected officials into an ongoing matter serves only to hinder, disrupt and undermine the legitimate work of our dedicated prosecutors. As always, we will continue to follow the facts and be guided by the rule of law in everything we do,” Bragg added.
Bragg’s office didn’t immediately respond to questions about if they would be sending a separate, formal response to House Republicans responding to their latest letter.
The investigation by House Republicans is raising questions about the scope of Congress’ jurisdiction over state and local criminal matters. Leslie Dubeck, Bragg’s general counsel, wrote in a letter to House Republicans earlier this week that Bragg’s office would submit a letter describing its use of federal funds, while emphasizing that questions about the office’s use of federal funds does not justify a congressional attempt to unearth nonpublic information about the ongoing probe.
The GOP lawmakers, in their letter, argued that they weren’t overstepping jurisdictional boundaries because they could use Bragg’s testimony and the documents to pass potential legislation. The letter provides new details on what House Republicans could pursue in response to the investigation into Trump, including legislation to “insulate current and former presidents from such improper state and local prosecutions,” reforms to special counsel authorities, changes to the Federal Election Campaign Act and to how Congress dishes out public safety funds.
“We believe that we now must consider whether Congress should take legislative action to protect former and/or current Presidents from politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials, and if so, how those protections should be structured,” the GOP chairs added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Matthew Karnitschnig is POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent.
BERLIN — Europe’s worst-kept secret is that the Germans ultimately decide everything.
“I’ll never forget how all the other member states held back in anticipation, waiting to see what the Germans would do,” a senior U.K. official, recalling his time in Brussels, recently told a private dinner of MPs and other German officials in Berlin.
The recollection was meant as a compliment, one the official hoped would ingratiate him with the Germans around the table.
Sad thing is it worked.
The second worst-kept secret in Brussels is that for all the “peace project” kumbaya, the Germans actually enjoy dominating the place. That said, even stalwart veterans of the EU bubble were hard-pressed in recent days to cite a more blatant example of toxic Germanity than Berlin’s last-minute intervention to save the internal combustion engine.
To recap: Last week, EU countries were expected to rubber-stamp a package of measures aimed at ridding Europe’s roads of fuel-burning autos. Under the plan, the EU would prohibit new registrations of cars powered by internal combustion engines beginning in 2035. The sweeping deal, the culmination of years of painstaking negotiations in Brussels and European capitals, is a pillar of the EU’s ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Berlin’s 11th-hour intervention on a deal everyone believed was done and dusted not only left the EU’s environmental policy in limbo, it also laid bare the bloc’s power vertical in all its dubious Teutonic glory. The message: Germany is no longer even trying to hide its power.
Enter France.
“For the French, the situation also represents an opportunity and they are never ones to waste a good crisis,” an EU diplomat said. “The more they can contribute to the idea that Germany goes it alone, the more it strengthens the view that the Germans are an unreliable partner in Europe.”
Germany’s unprecedented move has given rise to fears that other countries will try to follow its example and hold EU reforms hostage by threatening a last-minute veto to win concessions, in effect rewriting the rules of engagement.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them.
That’s why the real significance of the standoff has less to do with CO2 emissions than how Brussels works. One big concern among EU insiders is that the coalition Germany has assembled to save the car, which includes the likes of Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, will go rogue as a bloc on other fronts, with or without German support.
Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035 | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
It’s easy to mock the circuitous nature of EU decision-making, the push and pull between the European Commission, Parliament and Council, communicated in the opaque dialect of Brussels’ earnest eurocrats.
Boring as it may be, the alchemy produces bona fide results that legitimize and sustain the EU.
That Germany is willing to tinker with this delicate balance betrays either ignorance in the current regime of how the EU works, ambivalence, or both.
One could argue with justification that Germany was never going to kill the golden goose. Invented and perfected in Germany over more than a century by the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi, the internal combustion engine has been the wellspring of German pride and prosperity for generations.
The image of a piston-fired Porsche 911 zooming down the autobahn is as core to German identity as sex is to the French.
Take that away, what’s left (aside from beer and bratwurst)?
Indeed, considering that the country’s automakers haven’t proved particularly adept at manufacturing electric cars (or more specifically the batteries at the heart of the vehicles), there was a strong case for Germany to develop low-emission synthetic fuels that would keep the internal combustion engine alive.
Berlin had at least a decade to do so.
Thing is, it didn’t, choosing instead to pour billions into subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles and the infrastructure to recharge them (full disclosure: the author is a beneficiary of such a subsidy).
What’s more, Germany also encouraged other European countries to follow suit. In fact, Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035. The cluster of countries that have served as the workbench for those companies, from Slovakia to Hungary and Austria, all agreed to go along.
That’s why the German insistence this month that the EU carve out an exception to the engine ban for cars powered by synthetic, so-called e-fuels has caught the rest of Europe flat-footed.
Why now? In a word, politics.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them | John Thys/AFP
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have dropped below 20 percent in a number of recent polls, putting them more than 10 percentage points behind the first-place Christian Democrats.
Scholz’s smallest coalition partner, the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP), are in even worse shape. The party fared miserably in a string of recent regional elections and in national polls, it is teetering perilously close to the 5 percent threshold parties need to surpass for entry into parliament.
Party leader Christian Lindner, who used to drive souped-up Porsches around the storied Nürburgring race track, has vowed to save the engine from the clutches of the Green lobby.
Scholz, keenly aware that his party’s base also remains attached to “das Auto,” has been happy to let him try and has so far not stepped in to intervene.
About 1 million Germans work in the auto industry and many of those jobs — especially at suppliers — would be lost if the engine is killed for the simple reason that electric cars have far fewer (and different) parts than traditional automobiles.
The real mystery is why the Greens, the other party in Germany’s governing triumvirate, have not done more to resolve the crisis. Not only has the environmental party championed the engine ban for years, but it is also the most pro-European party in the government and would normally be at pains to keep Berlin from even appearing to undermine Brussels.
Yet Green Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has largely been silent on the issue. Far from the fray in Europe, he was last spotted in the Amazon having his face painted by an indigenous girl during a swing through the region.
In a bid to defuse the standoff ahead of next week’s EU leaders’ summit, the German government sent a letter to the Commission on Wednesday, spelling out what it wants in return for lifting its blockade. Its chief demand — a broad exception for e-fuels — was already rejected by the Parliament and other institutions during the original negotiations over the package.
Reversing that would require the deal to be reopened.
The French are sure to cry foul.
And then Germany will push ahead anyway.
Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
ICBA is gearing up to make the case that the smallest, “community” banks shouldn’t have to pay for the rescue of bank depositors and that the largest lenders deserve stricter oversight from regulators. The group entered the fray early Monday with this message to reporters covering the crisis: “Silicon Valley Bank and the Nation’s Largest Banks Are Not Community Banks.”
“There’s a great deal of anger” among small banks, said Cam Fine, ICBA’s former leader. “They do feel like they’re being lumped in with a bunch of high-flying, high-risk takers.”
The conflict — which is starting to look like a similar small bank vs. big bank lobbying fight in the wake of the 2008 crisis — underscores what’s at stake for players across the industry as Washington revamps fundamental banking policy and looks for accountability.
“From a lobbying policy disagreement point of view, it’s 2008 all over again,” Fine said.
ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in an interview that community banks shouldn’t have to pay any special assessments “to cover the sins of the largest and riskiest institutions.” It’s a live issue now that the government has promised to backstop all deposits at two failed lenders, with individual banks potentially on the hook for fees to cover the cost of replenishing the deposit insurance fund.
Looking ahead, Romero Rainey said Congress and the regulators need to consider strengthening rules for the largest banks.
Everyone is still assessing the situation, but bank capital regulations are part of the discussion, she said. Bank capital rules set standards for funding that lenders must maintain to absorb losses during economic downturns and spare taxpayers from having to bail them out.
“As we saw the systemic impact that failure would have, we have to learn from that and avoid it in the future,” Romero Rainey said.
It’s a message that’s already starting to annoy bigger players in the industry.
“When you see deposits flooding out of small banks to large ones, it gets really tough to claim that large banks need more capital or liquidity,” said one large bank representative, granted anonymity to respond candidly. “But salmon swim upstream, so perhaps the ICBA thinks it can too.”
Fine said the “salmon” comparison, which first appeared in a POLITICO newsletter Tuesday morning, was an “unprofessional insult to a class of banks that make up 98 percent of all insured banks.”
Small bank representatives “are ripped about that quote, and they’re ready to go both to the regulatory agencies and to Capitol Hill and make their case that they’re anything but salmon swimming upstream,” he said.
Underscoring the dispute are real-world competitive tensions between small and large banks as depositors rethink where they park cash. A Bloomberg headline Tuesday read: “Too-Big-to-Fail Lenders Rake In Deposits After Three Banks Fail.” The biggest of the big banks — known in regulatory parlance as global systemically important financial institutions — also want to put some distance between themselves and regional banks like SVB and Signature.
Financial Services Forum spokesperson Barbara Hagenbaugh said the U.S. “broadly benefits from a strong and resilient system of banks of all sizes to meet the many and diverse needs of our economy.” The group represents eight of the largest U.S. banks.
“As we saw during the pandemic and we are seeing now, the eight Forum members are strong and diversified, acting as a source of support for the economy,” she said.
Romero Rainey said part of her challenge is ensuring “differentiation” as larger banks use the uncertainty to win over customers from smaller lenders.
“I hate to see folks taking advantage of this situation to portray a different scenario or a lack of strength,” Romero Rainey said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: After Seattle in the United States, the caste battle has now reached Toronto in Canada where the two sides — one favouring a ban on caste-based discrimination and the other opposing any such move — have started fighting it out in a district school.
Last month, Seattle became the first US city to outlaw caste discrimination after its local council overwhelmingly passed a resolution moved by an Indian-American politician and economist to add caste to its non-discrimination policy.
The resolution moved by Kshama Sawant, an upper-caste Hindu, was approved by the Seattle City Council by six to one vote. The results of the vote could have far-reaching implications on the issue of caste discrimination in the US.
Proponents of caste discrimination were successful in bringing the motion for consideration before the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). The board at its meeting on March 8, referred it to the Ontario Human Rights Commission as a neutral observer to study and assess the issue. In doing so, the board noted that it does not have enough expertise on this issue.
The TDSB’s move comes after the February 21 vote by the Seattle City Council which passed an ordinance banning caste-based discrimination in the city. This made Seattle the first city outside India to do so.
“A ‘Yes’ vote on this proposal is what is in the best interests of all public school students in Toronto. Students can experience caste discrimination in many forms in an educational environment, including by being subject to casteist slurs, discrimination in social and online settings and exclusion from dominant-caste spaces,” Seattle City Councillor Sawant said in a letter to the TDSB members.
On the other hand, the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), which has been running a campaign against it, said that singling out one community on these otherwise broad markers, had resulted in significant opposition from the Canadian South Asian diaspora.
CoHNA Canada helped the community send more than 21,000 emails and make numerous phone calls to the trustees to make their voices heard. The TDSB office in North York also witnessed large stand-in protests while the voting was underway, with community residents braving the freezing weather for hours to ensure they were heard, a media release here said.
CoHNA said the demand from caste discrimination activists for South Asians to be assigned a “collective guilt” based entirely on unverifiable personal anecdotes would be considered bigoted, xenophobic and outright racist if it were applied to almost any other group.
“This is just colonialism all over again where lawmakers who are supposed to be impartial, make casually Hinduphobic remarks and and echo outrageous propaganda put out by hate groups,” said Nikunj Trivedi, president of CoHNA. “There should be no tolerance for attempts to profile a vulnerable minority group,” he said.
This way of thinking in a Republican primary is something new. Once upon a time, pretty much every Republican wanted to be a Reagan Republican. If the Trump camp gets its way, Reaganism will have gone from passé in 2016 to an affirmative vulnerability in 2024.
There are layers to this intra-Republican debate. It is certainly true that conservatives became overly obsessed with identifying themselves with Ronald Reagan. By the time something becomes an -ism, it is likely to be simplified and ossified, and so it was.
Then, there’s the sheer passage of time. Reagan left office 34 years ago. As of 2020, more than half of Americans were under age 40, meaning they have no real memory of Reagan. Trying to run again on a version of the Reagan platform would be like doing the same thing with Abraham Lincoln’s program in 1899, or someone being a devoted acolyte of Joe Biden in the 2050s.
Neither the pro- or anti-Reagan side tends to do justice to the real, historical political figure, instead creating an uncomplicated archetype to be embraced or rejected. Reagan was right on much, wrong on some things (immigration), and flexible and practical the way a successful practical politician needs to be.
Reagan was a free marketeer, but wasn’t doctrinaire. He accepted the fact of the New Deal.
He was a free-trader, yet acted to protect American auto makers and Harley Davison from Japanese imports.
If he was hawkish on foreign policy, he was always prudent. The defense budget grew, and he was insistent on deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. He pursued missile defense over fierce opposition. He was unsparing in his anti-Soviet rhetoric and armed anti-Soviet guerrillas. He forcefully promoted human rights.
On the other hand, he was cautious about deploying U.S. troops overseas, and pulled back from Lebanon after the devastating attack at the Marine barracks in Beirut. Despite calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” he was willing to talk to Mikhail Gorbachev and even contemplated eliminating nuclear weapons at a summit with Gorbachev in Reykjavik.
Some populist nationalists tend to think of pre-Trump conservatism as being complacent on social issues. But Reagan allied with the religious right and wrote an anti-abortion book when he was in office. He banned the use of federal funds for abortions overseas. He wanted a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in schools and said, “the truth is, politics and morality are inseparable.”
If Reagan eventually came to define conventional Republicanism, he took on his party’s liberal establishment and brought a populist voice to issues like the Panama Canal and crime.
So he is more complex than advertised, but the so-called Zombie Reaganism that the populists inveigh against is a real phenomenon.
This thoughtless version of Reaganism doesn’t take sufficient account of how circumstances in the country have changed over the last 30 years. Take taxes. The burden of federal income taxes isn’t nearly as heavy on middle-class families as it was in the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation pushed them into ever-higher tax brackets. And Republicans have cut taxes so many times, any positive economic effect of further reductions is limited.
Nonetheless, for the longest time, the standard Republican approach to domestic policy, with some differences in emphasis, was to cut taxes and reduce the debt, with everything else fading to the background. As it happens, Trump also ran on these two priorities in 2016, although he was only serious about the tax cuts. Not schooled in Republican orthodoxies, Trump mixed in new policies and attitudes, on the border, entitlements, trade and foreign policy. He expanded the Overton window well beyond what most people would have thought possible.
Other Republicans should be similarly coming up with an agenda to meet the challenges of today, not those of the 1970s (although the problems of inflation and crime are common to both eras).
All that said, Reagan’s achievements are momentous and should be acknowledged as such by all Republican factions. He set the predicate for winning the Cold War without firing a shot. He slayed inflation, both by sticking by Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, despite considerable political pressure to buckle, and by pursuing pro-growth policies that created more supply in the economy. He ended the energy crisis. His administration gave a boost to the nascent conservative legal movement. He brought a new constituency into the Republican Party, the so-called Reagan Democrats (an analogue of Democrats who would vote for Trump), and forced a turn to the center by the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton. He changed the mood of the country.
As a sheer political matter, it doesn’t make any sense for Trump to assail Reagan by name, given his standing in the party.
A Pew Research survey in December 2020 found that 42 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents picked Reagan when asked which president had done the best job of the last four decades, and 37 percent picked Trump.
Even the Trump partisans feel warmly toward Reagan: 73 percent make him their second choice.
At the end of the day, Reagan can’t be separated from the Cold War context that so defined him and the conservative movement of his era. There’s no substitute for the coherence brought by that long-running conflict, a truly existential struggle that activated all elements of the Republican coalition: The defense hawks, obviously, but also social conservatives, who opposed godless communism, and free-marketeers determined to see capitalism triumph over unchecked statism.
There’s been a fracturing in Republican politics ever since. The famous Reaganite three-legged “stool” is rickety but is still standing. Freedom is a major theme for both DeSantis and Nikki Haley, and the House Freedom Caucus is going to put spending cuts front and center this year; the crusade against all things “woke” can be seen as another front in the party’s long-standing fight for traditional values; and the GOP’s withering reaction to Biden’s Afghan withdrawal and its support for aid to Ukraine — for now — show its reflex is still toward strength in foreign affairs.
Meanwhile, the example of Reagan, like that of all talented and accomplished statesmen, offers broad-gauge lessons that can be continually drawn on — about how to balance prudence and principle, how to affect a broad political vision, how to deplore what ails the country without giving in to despair, and how to build coalitions.
The last may be most useful to Ron DeSantis once he enters the nomination battle. Trump wants to tempt DeSantis to try follow him in his “Maga More Than Ever” messaging, but the governor can only go so far down this path. He’s not going to peel off enough Trump voters to beat Trump. To win the nomination, DeSantis is going to need to win over a segment of Trump populists at the same time he locks down Republican voters who like Reagan more than Trump. (He presumably reached these type of voters with his speech to a packed auditorium at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library while Trump was at CPAC.)
The Trump forces are going to try to make DeSantis’ roots in the party of Reagan disqualifying. Instead, played correctly, it can be a strength.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The law, enacted in December, eliminated a requirement that practitioners go through time-consuming training to prescribe buprenorphine, which helps patients wean themselves from dangerous opioids like fentanyl or heroin. It also lifted restrictions on the number of patients doctors could treat with the drug.
But buprenorphine is itself an opioid, and access to it is controlled by the DEA.
Doctors in several states told POLITICO that they have trouble getting patients’ buprenorphine prescriptions filled, as pharmacies and drug distributors try to avoid running afoul of the DEA system that tracks suspicious orders of controlled substances. Pharmacies and distributors are also anxious about legal jeopardy; members of their industries have already agreed to pay billions to settle allegations that their businesses fueled the national opioid crisis.
The DEA supports the new law and wants to see medication-assisted treatment accessible to everyone in the country who needs it, an agency spokesperson told POLITICO.
The spokesperson said the DEA is both reaching out to pharmacies and making public statements to encourage the prescribing of buprenorphine, and it is working to identify bottlenecks in the distribution chain.
At a White House event in January, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram called the new law “a game changer,” but acknowledged that “there is more for us to do together.”
The White House also said it is working on removing patients’ barriers to accessing buprenorphine. “Now that every prescriber of controlled substances can treat their patients who have opioid use disorder with buprenorphine, we are working with our federal partners to make sure people can access this lifesaving medication when they need it,” said Alex Barriger, a spokesperson with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
More than 20 practitioners experienced in treating opioid addiction told POLITICO there are obstacles beyond the DEA’s rules. Many doctors still don’t know that the training requirement to prescribe buprenorphine, known as the X waiver, is gone. Prescribing opioids and opioid use disorder are still stigmatized. There are snags with insurance coverage. Some states impose their own requirements for doctors to prescribe the drug, and treatment advocates fear others might impose new requirements.
“Every barrier that someone faces trying to get a lifesaving medicine must be removed, including the waiver,” said Stephen Martin, head of research and education at Boulder Care, a treatment clinic. “Their medicine is literally on the other side of the counter, and the pharmacist is saying no.”
Buprenorphine is one of the most effective tools providers have to treat opioid use disorder — research has shown it reduces the risk of an opioid overdose death by about 40 percent — but not everyone likes the idea of prescribing an opioid to keep patients off more powerful drugs.
Though the risk of patients overdosing on buprenorphine is low, particularly as it’s often sold in combination with naloxone, which reverses opioid overdose, it can still cause dependency, and is used illegally.
When the X waiver was eliminated, only 130,000 practitioners in the country had received it; about 40 percent of counties in the country did not have a waivered provider in 2018.
Now that the waiver is gone, any practitioner registered with the DEA to prescribe controlled substances — currently about 1.8 million people — can prescribe it to patients.
Lawmakers, advocates and doctors who lobbied to get rid of the waiver are hopeful that change will ultimately save lives — but say more needs to be done.
“I worked across the aisle to eliminate burdensome hurdles that had prevented doctors and nurses from prescribing this treatment to people who need it,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who introduced the first version of the bill in 2019 that was ultimately passed in December.
Congress, in a report preceding passage, noted patients’ problems filling buprenorphine prescriptions and asked the DEA to clarify how it regulates the drug. Now, Hassan said, she is pushing the administration to “ensure that doctors and nurses are prescribing this proven treatment and that people can get their medication at their local pharmacy.”
‘We’re at the edge of the abyss’
One Friday in late January, Lynch, the doctor in Pittsburgh, was helping a patient from rural Pennsylvania who was trying to get off opioids again.
The patient’s prescription for buprenorphine was sent to a pharmacy, which said it didn’t stock the drug. A second prescription went to another pharmacy, which said it wasn’t allowed to fill any more buprenorphine prescriptions because it had met its distributor’s limit. So Lynch and his co-workers tried a third, which said the patient lived too far away.
It’s a scenario playing out in several parts of the country — and one that pharmacists, distributors, and physicians say could get worse as more practitioners start to prescribe buprenorphine.
Distributors, the companies that sell drugs to pharmacies, are obligated to report any pharmacy’s suspicious order of a controlled substance — including buprenorphine — to the DEA. Neither the Controlled Substances Act nor DEA regulations specify what amount of the drug constitutes a “suspicious order;” it’s up to distributors to come up with in-house formulas based on research each company conducts on their pharmacy customers.
If a pharmacy places an order that strays too far from its usual size, frequency, or pattern, it gets flagged, and under the national opioid settlement, any flagged order must be immediately reported to the state and, in some cases, to the DEA.
The system, designed to discourage bad actors from ordering drugs, has made many pharmacies anxious about getting dragged into a federal probe. “Everybody wants to take care of the patients, but neither party — distributor nor pharmacy — wants to be in hot water with the DEA,” said Kurt Proctor, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at the National Community Pharmacists Association.
For some, the simplest way to avoid trouble is not to carry the drug. A 2020-2021 survey of thousands of pharmacies in 11 states found nearly half did not carry the buprenorphine/naloxone combination, a commonly prescribed version of the drug for opioid addiction.
Pharmacies that do stock the drug are left trying to anticipate when and if they are going to cross an unknown limit. The distributors who agreed to the national opioid settlement — and who have not admitted to any wrongdoing — are prohibited from telling pharmacies what their individual thresholds are.
Walgreens and Walmart did not respond to requests for comment for this story. A spokesperson from CVS said that the company was “not experiencing an issue with buprenorphine supply.”
The dynamic routinely leaves physicians who work on the opioid crisis hitting the phones, trying to find pharmacies that will fill their patients’ prescriptions.
Eric Ketcham, an addiction medicine specialist and emergency physician for the Presbyterian Healthcare System in New Mexico, has spent years training other providers on how to prescribe buprenorphine.
“The more that we train people how to use buprenorphine, the more we’re running into shortage after shortage after shortage,” Ketcham said. He also worked to eliminate the X waiver, but now, he said, with more people set to start prescribing the drug, that problem is set to get worse. “We’re at the edge of the abyss.”
Distributors are also worried. They say they need clear guidance from the government, particularly on what a reasonable increase in prescriptions might look like now that more physicians are prescribing the drug.
McKesson, one of the three largest distributors in the nation, did not respond to a request for comment. Cardinal Health, another, directed POLITICO to the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a trade group that represents it.
“Everybody wants to do the right thing. It’s just a question of how we get that done if everybody is left to determine what the right thing is in their own eyes,” said Patrick Kelly, HDA’s executive vice president of government affairs.
AmerisourceBergen, the other large distributor, echoed the HDA’s call for clear federal guidance. “Distributors like AmerisourceBergen have been asked to walk a legal and ethical tightrope,” the company said in a statement.
A DEA spokesperson said the agency is considering all options when it comes to expanding access to medication-assisted treatment.
‘Everyone’s got to be on the same page’
The supply-and-demand quagmire is only part of why nearly 90 percent of Americans with opioid use disorder don’t get medication to treat their disease.
After decades of tight controls, many doctors and pharmacists still don’t know how buprenorphine works, mistaking it for more dangerous opioids. Brian Hurley, president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine board of directors, said the X waiver made clinicians feel like prescribing it was “difficult or complicated or not safe.”
In other cases, it’s the disease itself that’s the problem.
Some doctors don’t want patients grappling with drug addiction in their waiting rooms, said Bobby Mukkamala, the chair of the American Medical Association’s substance use and pain care task force, “because of their own personal feelings about it or the disruption in the office.”
Martin of Boulder Care said the country’s primary care system isn’t ready to handle routine treatment for opioid use disorder. “This is being paid for as though I’m seeing someone with high blood pressure,” Martin said. “It’s completely incommensurate with the knowledge and time and complexity that it deserves.”
Advocates and medical societies, such as the AMA and American Academy of Physician Associates, said they are planning education campaigns to make more doctors aware of the waiver’s end. But they acknowledge that the process will take time.
To stop more overdose deaths, “everyone’s really got to be on the same page,” said Joshua Lynch, an associate professor of emergency and addiction medicine at the University of Buffalo.
Doctors have to be willing to prescribe the drug. Patients need insurance that covers it. Pharmacists have to feel comfortable dispensing it to more patients, and distributors have to feel comfortable sending more of it to pharmacies.
“If any one of those pieces doesn’t work,” Lynch said, “patients will go back to buy drugs on the street.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are the only presidential candidates bridging the two gatherings, though the lesser-known Ramaswamy is not yet registering on public polling of the potential 2024 field.
Despite being a nearby resident in Palm Beach, Trump was not invited to the Club’s retreat this week at The Breakers luxury resort. The conservative group has been open in its desire to move beyond Trump, who has responded with harsh criticism for the organization.
But other potential 2024 candidates are attending Club for Growth’s retreat are former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, POLITICO has confirmed. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who are not signaling interest in a presidential run next year, are also set to speak to donors.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will speak at CPAC, a conference that over the past five years has increasingly aligned itself with Trump and Trumpism. Pompeo and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin were invited to attend the Club for Growth retreat, but a person familiar with their schedules said they had scheduling conflicts.
As CPAC has remained closely aligned with Trump — the conservative outfit has celebrated Trump’s success in its straw polls while having him return to events throughout the year — the Club for Growth has largely severed ties with the former president.
And while the Club has opened its donor retreat to a slate of prospective candidates not named Trump, the anti-tax organization appears to be putting much of its weight behind DeSantis. The day before Trump announced his presidential campaign in November, the Club for Growth released polling showing the Florida governor leading over Trump by double-digits in early nominating states.
The Club and its president, David McIntosh, have endured a tumultuous relationship with the former president, first opposing him in 2016 before embracing Trump as an ally in the years to follow. McIntosh influenced some of Trump’s high-profile endorsements in the 2022 midterms, though the two men clashed over contentious Senate primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Alabama.
Trump earlier this month referred to the organization as “The Club For NO Growth” and suggested he was fine without their support, posting on his Truth Social website that the group was “an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers.”
“They said I couldn’t win, I did, and won even bigger in 2020, with millions of more votes than ‘16,” Trump continued, then claiming, without evidence, that the “Election was Rigged & Stolen.”
Club for Growth donated last year to DeSantis’ reelection bid, as well as to a super PAC supporting Tim Scott, another potential Trump rival in a 2024 Republican presidential primary.
Haley has also found herself in a complicated relationship with Trump, who appointed her as U.N. ambassador after initially criticizing Trump’s 2016 candidacy. Since then, Haley has cycled through criticism and praise for Trump. She previously said she would not run if Trump sought reelection, though ultimately changed course and has called for a new, younger generation of conservative leadership without directly attacking Trump’s policies.
By making an appearance at both events, Haley and Ramaswamy are attempting to make in-roads with both the pro- and anti-Trump conservative movements as they seek to bolster their name recognition and support ahead of a potentially crowded field in the coming months.
Nachama Soloveichik, an adviser to Haley, said the former South Carolina’s choice to attend both events shows she’s “decisive” and “bringing her message all across the country.” “When others sit on the sidelines, Nikki Haley puts in the work, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, at conservative gatherings,” Soloveichik said in a statement.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Shillong: After the high-pitched election campaigning, Meghalaya is all set to decide its political fate in the Assembly polls that are to be held on Monday.
Polling will be held at 3,419 polling stations across 59 Assembly constituencies in the state. The voting will begin at 7 am and continue till 4 pm on Monday.
Of the 60 Assembly constituencies in Meghalaya, 36 constituencies fall in Khasi, Jaintia Hills region while 24 are in Garo Hills region.
Significantly, however, polling for the Sohiong Assembly constituency was postponed following the demise of the state’s former Home Minister and United Democratic Party (UDP) candidate from the seat HDR Lyngdoh.
There are over 21 lakh electorates (21,75,236) of which 10.99 lakh are women and 10.68 lakh are male voters. In Meghalaya, the woman voters are in higher numbers than their male counterparts. There are about 81,000 first-time voters in the state.
As many as 369 candidates are in the fray of which 36 are women.
Of the total 3,419 polling stations, 120 will be all women-managed polling stations, 60 are model polling stations and another 60 will be PWD polling stations.
The Election Commission has deployed 119 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in Meghalaya.
Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya FR Kharkongor said 640 polling stations are identified as ‘vulnerable’, 323 are ‘critical’ and 84 are identified as both.
The poll panel on Saturday ordered the sealing of Meghalaya’s International border with Bangladesh till March 2.
Meghalaya shares a 443 km border with Bangladesh and 885 km with Assam.
Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya FR Kharkongor, told ANI that, Meghalaya’s International border with Meghalaya and the state border with Assam have been sealed.
“We have taken preventive measures to ensure a free and fair election in the State. Section 144 of CrPC has been imposed along the international bordering areas in the state,” Kharkongor said.
Meanwhile, the district magistrate of East Khasi Hills district on Friday issued an order that movement of individuals will remain strictly prohibited within a one km radius of the India-Bangladesh border of East Khasi Hills district between February 24 and March 2.
The district administration of East Khasi Hills district has also imposed Section 144 of CrPC along the bordering areas.
To ensure a free and fair election, Election Commission has banned publication of exit poll projections in Meghalaya from 7 am on Friday to 7 pm on the polling day — February 27.
The current term of the 60-seat Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will conclude on March 15.
The majority mark to form government in the state is 31.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) got 19 seats, Congress bagged 21 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to win two seats. The United Democratic Party (UDP) grabbed six seats.
Though Congress emerged as the single largest party, the government was formed by the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) with support from UDP, BJP and other regional parties.
This time, the BJP and NPP have not stitched any prepoll alliance and are going solo. BJP and Congress have fielded candidates in all the seats. The Trinamool Congress (TMC), which became the main opposition party in Meghalaya in 2021 following the defection of 12 Congress MLAs, became a formidable force, especially after former chief minister Mukul Sangma joined its ranks. The TMC has fielded candidates in 58 seats.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma is contesting from South Tura constituency. BJP fielded Bernard N Marak against the NPP chief. In Dadenggre, Congress candidate Chesterfield Sangma is contesting against NPP’s James Sangma.
Former CM Mukul Sangma is contesting from two seats — Tikrikilla and Songsak on Trinamool’s ticket. UDP leader Metbah Lyngdoh is contesting from Mairang. Further, NPP pitted Prestone Tynsong from Pynursla. UDP candidate Titosstar Well Chyne is contesting from Sohra.
TMC fielded Charles Pyngrope from Nongthymmai. BJP fielded Sanbor Shullai in South Shillong and Ernest Mawrie in West Shillong. Mazel Ampareen Lyngdoh is NPP’s candidate from East Shillong.
In Pynthorumkhrah, BJP fielded Alexander Laloo Hek. UDP leader Lahkmen Rymbui is contesting from Amlarem. In Sutnga Saipung, Congress fielded Vincent H Pala. UDP candidate Kyrmen Shylla is contesting from Khliehriat.
The campaigning for Meghalaya polls ended on Saturday.
From NPP to BJP and Congress to Trinamool, parties showcased all might when it comes to campaigning. Be it poll promises or attacking contending forces with slogans, the contesting parties lost no chance to have a go at each other during the campaign phase.
The BJP showed its strength, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party president JP Nadda and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma holding rallies. PM Modi also held a roadshow in Shillong on Friday.
Rahul Gandhi, who was missing from the campaign scene in Tripura, held a rally in Shillong. Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee held public meetings in Meghalaya. TMC MP Mahua Moitra also canvassed for party candidates in the state.
“I can’t tell you how I’ll rule in any case, but throughout this race, I’ve been clear about what my values are,” Protasiewicz said during her victory speech, pointing to her support for abortion access, voting rights and public safety.
The eventual winner will help decide major cases that are likely to come before the court. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and state Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to overturn a more than century-old state law banning most abortions, which could make its way to the state Supreme Court later this year. The court may also be poised to have a say on election laws, as it has in the past.
The race — a down-ballot contest in an off-year — brought in millions of dollars. From the beginning of the year through the primary election, ad spending reached over $9 million on television, digital and radio, per AdImpact. The top spender was Fair Courts America, a super PAC linked to GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, which has put in around $2.8 million in support of Kelly. Last year, the group said it intended to spend “millions of dollars” on Kelly’s candidacy.
Not far behind Fair Courts America was Protasiewicz, who aired a robust ad blitz backed by a $2.3 million spend. She raised more than $725,000 from the beginning of the year through Feb. 6 — more than all of her opponents’ combined fundraising in that period. Her campaign said it raised more than $2 million since she entered the race in May, a record-breaking sum for a spring primary candidate in Wisconsin.
A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund — the same group that spent close to $4 million on the governor’s race in support of Evers last election — spent $2.2 million on advertisements hitting Dorow. Dorow spent over $600,000, and outside groups made up the rest of the spending.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Hyderabad: Tollywood actor Nandamuri Taraka Ratna on Saturday night breathed his last at Bengaluru’s Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences, where he was admitted on January 27 after he collapsed during a padyatra of TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh in Kuppam town of Andhra Pradesh. He was 39.
Taraka Ratna is survived by his wife Alekhya Reddy and a daughter.
Taraka Ratna was the grandson of TDP founder, legendary actor and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao. He was the cousin of Junior NTR, Kalyan Ram and Lokesh.
The body is likely to be brought to Hyderabad on Saturday night.
The young actor collapsed after he suffered a massive heart attack during Lokesh’s padyatra in Kuppam in Chittoor district. He was immediately rushed to a hospital in Kuppam where he was given PCR. His heart had reportedly stopped functioning.
A few hours later, he was shifted to Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Bengaluru, where his condition remained critical. The management of the hospital had brought few cardiology specialists from the US.
He was reportedly treated with Balloon Angioplasty, Intra Balloon Pump and vasoactive support. His condition turned very critical on Friday and he finally succumbed on Saturday.
Taraka Ratna made his film debut in 2002 with ‘Okato Number Kurraadu’ under the direction of K. Raghavendra Rao. He acted in about a dozen movies and web series.
He was reportedly keen to contest next year’s Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh on TDP ticket and had joined Lokesh on the first day of padyatra.3
Taraka Ratna’s father Nandamuri Mohan Krishna is a cinematographer in Tollywood and son of N. T. Rama Rao.
