All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[TheManInBlack]

It also lets off pharmacists who don't want to prescribe medications necessary for any of those procedures, and probably will lead to them trying to allow doctors and the rest to refuse to treat those they morally object to at all.

Are there any actual examples of this happening? I haven't heard of any. And if it actually did happen in one unlikely instance, why couldn't the customer simply go to another pharmacy or ask for a different pharmacist on staff? This strikes me as fear-mongering.

[jetengine]

Are there any actual examples of this happening? I haven't heard of any. And if it actually did happen in one unlikely instance, why couldn't the customer simply go to another pharmacy or ask for a different pharmacist on staff? This strikes me as fear-mongering.

Why should you allow someone the ability to withhold medication?

[TheManInBlack]

Why should you allow someone the ability to withhold medication?

That's not what I asked. I asked a very specific question.

Also, why was Xheight banned all of a sudden? I mean, he wasn't the best at debating, but I'm not seeing any reasons given.

[jetengine]

That's not what I asked. I asked a very specific question.

Also, why was Xheight banned all of a sudden? I mean, he wasn't the best at debating, but I'm not seeing any reasons given.

Because he was a troll ?

As for your question, its inevitable. What is the reason for its existence beyind allowing people to do so ? None.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

That's not what I asked. I asked a very specific question.

Also, why was Xheight banned all of a sudden? I mean, he wasn't the best at debating, but I'm not seeing any reasons given.

I just noticed that. I wonder what happened?

[shooshoomanjoe]

Are there any actual examples of this happening? I haven't heard of any. And if it actually did happen in one unlikely instance, why couldn't the customer simply go to another pharmacy or ask for a different pharmacist on staff? This strikes me as fear-mongering.

There's the conscience clause that exist for some reason.

[TheManInBlack]

There's the conscience clause that exist for some reason.

I understand. I was just looking for real-world examples where people have been denied their prescriptions due to this.

The conscience clause isn't really a bad thing. It's designed, at least in part, for a pharmacist to, if concerned about a patient's health, not fill a prescription until they talk to the prescriber. It's also designed to allow a pharmacist to refuse a sketchy looking or not legal order until they receive confirmation of its authenticity.

Source: https://www.drugtopics.com/legal-new...cience-clauses

The most prominent example I could find of a person being refused was back in 2002, and the court ruled that the pharmacist had the right to refuse, BUT they had to transfer the prescription to another pharmacist and were not in any way allowed to impede the customer. A conscience clause being used this way is exceedingly rare. I still haven't found a case where a customer was entirely unable to obtain their prescription due to these issues.

I recognize that this could potentially be an issue, but since legal precedent forces pharmacists to pass the prescription on to another pharmacist and they can't impede the patient from a compliant pharmacist, I can't see it as much more than an extraordinarily rare inconvenience. Statistically, you're significantly more likely to be struck by lightning.

[worstblogever]

A federal court just declared Ohio's Congressional map unconstitutional, and demanded it be redrawn for the 2020 election. Expect Gov. DeWine and the state legislature to drag their feet on getting that done, and whatever they draw to triage on to seats to save a lot of GOP congressmen like Steve Chabot and Jim Jordan.

[aja_christopher]

"GOP, Not Russia, Is Greater Threat to Free Elections"

"After the Supreme Court’s right-wing gang of five gutted key sections of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder, Republican-controlled states immediately ramped up efforts to create obstacles for voting, particularly for people of color. They mandated specific forms of state ID, made it harder for students to vote, eliminated same-day registration, reduced early voting days, closed polling booths in African American neighborhoods leading to long delays, purged voters from the rolls, perfected partisan gerrymandering and more. In some cases, as in North Carolina, their discriminatory intent was so public that the laws were overturned in federal court, but in most places, the new barriers were in place in 2016.

Did it make a difference? Voting rights expert Ari Berman says, “absolutely.” Overall 14 states had new restrictions in place, passed since the Shelby decision. Look at Wisconsin. Trump won by 22,000 votes. In Wisconsin, 300,000 African American voters didn’t have the newly required strict photo ID. Black voter turnout in Milwaukee declined by 51,000 votes from 2012, while as Lawyers Committee President Kristen Clarke noted, voter turnout rates were depressed across the state.

What’s clear is that interference with our elections and with the right to vote will come far more from the efforts of domestic politicians than it will come from whatever mischief the Russians plan.

Now we’re headed into 2020. Republican bastions like Texas, Tennessee and Arizona witnessed surges of Democratic support in 2018. Not surprisingly, they are launching new efforts to suppress the vote. In Texas, the secretary of state announced a plan to purge 95,000 people from the voter rolls because they weren’t citizens. Independent research then demonstrated that in Harris County, which includes Houston, 60 percent of the 30,000 people on the list had received citizenship long ago. Some of the supposed research was 25 years old. Once more citizens had to go to court to try to stop the suppression.

In Texas, state lawmakers are also moving to add criminal penalties for people who improperly fill out voter registration forms, an effort to intimidate nonprofit groups that work to register people to vote. In Arizona, Republicans are making it harder to cast an early ballot. In Tennessee, GOP lawmakers are pushing legislation to fine voter registration groups that submit incomplete forms, even by mistake, up to $10,000. Tequila Johnson, co-founder of the Equity Alliance that focuses on registering people of color, called them out: “We have never seen a bill like this on the floor, until we dared to register 86,000 black and brown people to vote. This screams racism.”

Much, much more attention should be paid to this battle. Happily, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has made voting rights a priority. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, has launched an investigation of voter suppression in Georgia in 2018, where the victor, Brian Kemp, oversaw the election as secretary state. And, as Cummings detailed, 1.4 million people were purged from the voting rolls from 2012 to 2016, 53,000 — 80 percent of them people of color — had their registrations put on hold; 214 polling places were shuttered, contributing to lines of more than four hours in heavily black precincts..."

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...free-elections

[Tami]

For the curious

Document: Robert Mueller's Letter to Bill Barr

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had submitted a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr on March 27 related to the letter Barr sent to Congress on March 24 summarizing the Mueller report. Mueller’s letter is available below.

[Tami]

Trump says he spoke with Putin about 'Russian hoax,' didn't warn him against 2020 election meddling

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump said he briefly discussed special counsel Robert Mueller's report in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, but didn't warn his Russian counterpart to not meddle in the next US election.

"We didn't discuss that. Really, we didn't discuss it. We discussed five or six things. We also went into great detail on various things," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after the phone call, which occurred on Friday morning.

Earlier, Trump tweeted he'd discussed the "Russian hoax" with Putin, along with other issues, during their hour-long phone call.

In the Oval Office, Trump said "(Putin) sort of smiled when he said something to the effect that it started up as a mountain and ended up as a mouse. But he knew that because he knew that there was no collusion. Pretty much that's what it was."

[Tami]

House Judiciary Chairman Sends DOJ Detailed Counter Offer for Mueller Report Redactions and Underlying Evidence

Washington, D.C. — Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr with a counter offer to immediately gain access to the redacted portions of Special Counsel Mueller’s report and underlying materials.

[Jack Dracula]

i just noticed that. I wonder what happened?

redacted...

[wjowski]

I understand. I was just looking for real-world examples where people have been denied their prescriptions due to this.

The conscience clause isn't really a bad thing. It's designed, at least in part, for a pharmacist to, if concerned about a patient's health, not fill a prescription until they talk to the prescriber. It's also designed to allow a pharmacist to refuse a sketchy looking or not legal order until they receive confirmation of its authenticity.

Source: https://www.drugtopics.com/legal-new...cience-clauses

The most prominent example I could find of a person being refused was back in 2002, and the court ruled that the pharmacist had the right to refuse, BUT they had to transfer the prescription to another pharmacist and were not in any way allowed to impede the customer. A conscience clause being used this way is exceedingly rare. I still haven't found a case where a customer was entirely unable to obtain their prescription due to these issues.

I recognize that this could potentially be an issue, but since legal precedent forces pharmacists to pass the prescription on to another pharmacist and they can't impede the patient from a compliant pharmacist, I can't see it as much more than an extraordinarily rare inconvenience. Statistically, you're significantly more likely to be struck by lightning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.28e5078b4028
Not a pharmacist, but it's the same general idea.

[Dalak]

Are there any actual examples of this happening? I haven't heard of any. And if it actually did happen in one unlikely instance, why couldn't the customer simply go to another pharmacy or ask for a different pharmacist on staff? This strikes me as fear-mongering.

With a time sensitive medication, the day or 3 it can take to switch Pharmacies (Friday issues, yer fucked til Monday) could upset surgeries or exacerbate the chance of infection. You are also assuming there's several pharmacies in every small town. As for denying transition medication, I have learned not to put anything past the conservative hate machine in the last few years but I know of no specific occurrence other than the one you brought up.

On the subject of fear mongering, I've got nothing on the folks demonizing caravans, SJW's, and Antifa. I've just seen that the GoP and the religious right will abuse every loophole to get their goals, and I don't see how this would be any different.

E: A coke for wjowski BTW.