Suzanne Barlyn at Reuters tells the story of "How Delaware Kept America Safe for Corporate Secrecy." Long story short: Delaware makes buku bucks off corporate registrations, infamously easier there than elsewhere, and so state officials have hamstrung federal efforts to mandate disclosure of a corporation's real owners, which would be an essential tool in fighting money-laundering and terrorist-financing. How have they done it? Oh, the old-fashioned way -- through fake "compromises" and fake concerns about a "nurturing business environment."
FDA reports that many petitions they receive demanding that they withhold approval of a generic or biosimilar drug "do not raise valid scientific concerns and appear to have been filed to delay approval of competing medicines." In a related note, a Rutgers professor finds that big pharma corporations filed 92 percent of these petitions between 2011 and 2015, which are supposed to raise valid public health concerns, not force the FDA to respond to frivolous petitions aimed at hamstringing competitors. The good news? The FDA denies 9 out of 10 of them. But an even more corporate-friendly FDA -- one heavily influenced by a President Trump, say -- might not.
So, this summer's absolutely blown chunks, right? Well, just imagine what it'd be like if you were in prison, particularly in an even hotter area of the country. Prisons don't install air conditioning -- because of the cost, they say -- and then don't provide water and ice even as much as they say they will. But please do not be the fool who responds that we shouldn't treat prisoners like they're in "Club Med" -- as if basic climate control equals "Club Med," as if we have no obligation to treat each other like human beings, as if treating prisoners as badly as you can proves you have larger testicles than the next person.
Good news, everyone: the Department of Education has essentially barred ITT Technical Institute from accepting new students who are getting federal financial aid. When even the ACICS has said that ITT doesn't comply (and isn't likely to comply) with their accreditation criteria, you know it's bad. Since for-profit colleges would hardly exist without the government teat, this development could be the start of something good -- until a President Trump ensures that all his YUGE and BYOOTIFUL friends running these scam-houses get the "protection" from the public they "deserve."
Polling suggests that a vast majority of Americans support anti-discrimination laws protecting gays and transgendered folk -- a supermajority of Republicans, too -- and that a simple majority opposes "bathroom" bills aimed at oppressing the transgendered. The problem, as always, is whether those of us who feel this way will run through a wall for it, as our opponents will run through a wall for all their attempts to take this great nation backward.
Finally, we learn that Donald Trump's new campaign chief may not only have a domestic violence issue in his past, but isn't living at the address he's provided on his voter registration. In fact, the building at this address is set for demolition as we speak. Filing a fraudulent voter registration could, in theory, land Mr. Bannon in jail for up to five years -- though I bet no one in his neighborhood will ever see a Clear Channel billboard "reminding" voters of the price of voter fraud.
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