Purdue Pharma calls supreme court decision ‘heart crushing’
In a statement following the supreme court’s Harrington v Purdue Pharma decision, the company described the ruling as “heart-crushing”.
Members of the Sackler family branches who own Purdue suggested they plan return to negotiations. A statement to AP reads:
While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.
Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said the court’s decision was a major setback.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750m for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives,” Neiger said in a statement.
As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.
Key events
The supreme court’s ruling earlier today to allow Idaho hospitals to provide emergency abortions – for now – has left key questions unanswered and could mean a final decision is delayed to beyond the November elections.
A draft decision in the case was briefly posted on the court’s website yesterday and abruptly removed. The final version of the decision published today appeared to closely resemble the draft.
Responding to the order, Joe Biden said the ruling ensures that Idaho women can get the care they need while the case continues to play out, adding:
Doctors should be able to practice medicine. Patients should be able to get the care they need.
No woman should be denied care, made to wait until she’s near death, or forced to flee her home to receive the health care she needs.
Today’s Supreme Court order ensures women in Idaho can access the emergency medical care they need for now.
But @VP and I will continue to fight… pic.twitter.com/cfeuZVbLjg
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 27, 2024
The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said:
No woman should be denied care or wait until she’s near death or forced to flee her home state just to receive the healthcare she needs.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said the justice department will continue pressing its case and using “every available tool to ensure that women in every state have access to that care.”
Donald Trump has appeared to share his talking points for tonight’s debate on his Truth Social platform.
The post shows what appears to be a set of recommendations from Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency chief.
Wheeler, in the post, advises Trump to pledge to reduce carbon emissions and to point out that Joe Biden rejoined the Paris climate accord, and “all that does is send American dollars overseas”.
Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, shared Trump’s talking points on Twitter/X, writing:
Donald Trump is just posting his debate talking points. Thanks I guess.
Edward Helmore
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anger and frustration at what he describes as his exclusion from the debate despite six qualifying polls and confirmed ballot access in five states – with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five more, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.
Biden supporters worry Kennedy’s famous name and his history of environmental advocacy could sway voters from the left.
His family members are largely against his candidacy, which they have made clear in public statements and by visiting the Biden White House en masse on St Patrick’s Day in March.
But Republicans also have not welcomed his quixotic intervention in a tight race that could serve to siphon off vital votes from both candidates.
Donald Trump has described him as “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat, including West and Stein”, referring to third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein.
Edward Helmore
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta.
But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.
In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.
“The American people want leaders who trust them to make up their own minds,” Kennedy said.
Instead, our last two presidents are restricting voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars from the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the one candidate who can hold them to account.
Lauren Gambino
Young voters were key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. And they helped forestall a Republican “red wave” in 2022.
But recent polling suggests the 81-year-old president may have a problem with the youth of America.
One theory for the shift is that young people don’t have strong memories of Trump’s presidency. Some who will vote for the first time this year were just 10 when the reality-TV star was first elected. They have only ever known polarization and politics in the age of Trump.
One gen Z-led group is working to remind their peers of what the Trump presidency was like. Ahead of the debate, the group is warning viewers not to believe what the former president is telling them.
“Donald Trump – a criminally convicted liar – will undoubtedly lie about his destructive record and alarming agenda tonight,” said Santiago Mayer, the 22-year-old founder and executive director of Voters of Tomorrow.
Trump will try to distract us from the fact that his presidency was the worst thing to happen to gen Z in our lifetime.
The group has launched, ironically, GenZforTrump.org, as a resource for young people to fact-check the former president, whose relationship with the truth has always been … casual.
Responding to the Harrington v Purdue Pharma decision, several state attorneys general issued statements praising the court’s ruling.
Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, said in a statement reported by Reuters:
Purdue and the Sacklers must pay so we can save lives and help people live free of addiction. If they won’t pay up, I’ll see them in court.
William Tong, the attorney general of Connecticut, whose office first sued and eventually agreed to the deal, said:
The US supreme court got it right – billionaire wrongdoers should not be allowed to shield blood money in bankruptcy court … We will be front and center again in any new negotiations.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator for Massachusetts, said the supreme court’s ruling blocking Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan was a “first step towards accountability for the Sackler family”.
The Sacklers “made a fortune from hooking people to opioids that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and then tried to use the bankruptcy system to keep their money,” Warren said in a statement posted to social media.
The Supreme Court closed this bankruptcy loophole, but that doesn’t make things right for the millions of people who have lost loved ones to opioid overdoses.
“It’s time for the Sacklers to pay up.”
Opponents of the Purdue Pharma settlement praised the court’s decision, while some called on the justice department to seek criminal charges against members of the Sackler family.
Mike Quinn, who represents Ellen Isaacs, whose son Ryan died after becoming dependent on Oxycontin and who filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the supreme court case, said:
This is a victory for all Americans – a victory for everybody that wealthy wrong-doers don’t have the right to receive liability and write the law, that anybody can stand up against them and protect their rights under the constitution.
Ed Bisch, whose son Eddie died from an overdose after taking OxyContin, said he would have accepted the deal if he thought it would have made a dent in the opioid crisis. A statement to AP read:
This is a step toward justice. It was outrageous what they were trying to get away with. They have made a mockery of the justice system and then they tried to make a mockery of the bankruptcy system.”
Purdue Pharma calls supreme court decision ‘heart crushing’
In a statement following the supreme court’s Harrington v Purdue Pharma decision, the company described the ruling as “heart-crushing”.
Members of the Sackler family branches who own Purdue suggested they plan return to negotiations. A statement to AP reads:
While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.
Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said the court’s decision was a major setback.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750m for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives,” Neiger said in a statement.
As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.
The supreme court, in its decision to reject Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan earlier today, blocked a controversial deal that would have protected the Sackler family from further liability over the US opioid epidemic, in exchange for providing funds for compensation and rehabilitation treatment.
The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M Gorsuch, was voted on non-ideological lines. It was backed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A Alito Jr, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett M Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John G Roberts Jr and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The deal was constructed to allow Purdue, the Connecticut company behind the prescription opioid OxyContin, to restructure and also shield the relevant Sackler billionaires without them having to declare personal bankruptcy.
As part of the deal, the Sackler family had agreed to contribute $6bn to the settlement from the vast fortune they made from OxyContin and give up ownership.
Court filings showed that 95% of creditors in the Purdue bankruptcy case had agreed to sign on to the plan, although many reluctantly, partly seeing it as the only way to finally get some recompense. But several states, Canadian municipalities and Indigenous tribes, and more than 2,600 individuals, including high-profile activists, were opposed.
Today’s ruling now leaves matters between the company and plaintiffs unresolved. The case is seen as having consequences for other corporate bankruptcies where company owners or officials want immunity from liability.
Sam Levine
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer left the door open to a presidential run in 2028 when Katie Couric asked her about her plans for the political future during a session this morning at the Aspen Ideas festival.
Whitmer is often mentioned as one of the top Democratic contenders to be the next president.
Noting she had a tough job for the next two and a half years, Whitmer said:
I’m making no plans right now and then I’ll see what happens next.
She added:
Maybe there’s someone I’m gonna be excited about. Maybe another scenario. That’s as far as I am down that path.
She also weighed in on whether Joe Biden could face trouble in Michigan, a key battleground state, from its large concentration of Arab-American voters. More than 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the Democratic primary in the state amid concerns over how Biden handled the war in Gaza.
While Whitmer said the Biden campaign was “not thrilled” about that result, she said she actually thought it was a positive thing because “people were able to register their discontent and it opened up a line of communication.”
Whitmer also acknowledged that she thought “we can do more” to make American voters understand that Biden gets their concerns about the economy.
Pressure grows on Congress to rescind invitation to Netanyahu
Congress is facing increasing pressure to withdraw its invitation to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is set to speak on Capitol Hill next month.
Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:
A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.
The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.
“Congress has made a terrible mistake. Mr Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will not represent the State of Israel and its citizens, and it will reward his scandalous and destructive conduct toward our country,” the article’s six authors argue in a blistering critique that also accuses the Israeli prime minister of failing to secure the release of scores of hostages taken in last year’s attack and still held captive.
For the full story, click here:
Alice Herman
Pro-democracy groups gathered at the Wisconsin state capitol Thursday morning to call on the resignation of Robert Spindell, a Republican who served as a pro-Trump false elector in 2020, from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Spindell has also bragged about GOP voter suppression efforts in Milwaukee.
In an email first reported in January 2023, Spindell wrote that Republicans could be “especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”
During public comments before the Wisconsin Elections Commission, speakers decried Spindell’s participation in the false elector scheme and his comments about voters of color.
“You wanna know what’s exhausting? Living in a country where people get to live above the law,” said Nick Ramos, director of the watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
In response to comments calling on his resignation, Spindell made repeated reference to “Milwaukee’s white Democrats,” who he blamed for voter suppression in Milwaukee.
Individuals who served as false electors in Arizona and Michigan are facing prosecution over their role in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul filed felony charges against two attorneys involved in the false elector scheme; the ten Wisconsin false electors, including Spindell, have not yet been charged.
Sam Levine
I’m sitting in a packed auditorium here at the Aspen Ideas Festival where attendees are packed in to hear from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is speaking with journalist Katie Couric.
Talking about her childhood, Couric brought up how Whitmer was a troublemaking teenager and even once threw up on her high school principal from drinking. “Not my best day,” Whitmer said to laughs.
She then paused and took a shot at Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who has come under fire for sharing a story about killing her pets.
“I’ve never executed any dogs or goats,” Whitmer said, prompting more laughter.
I couldn’t make it out exactly, but one woman in front of me whispered to her friend, “she’s got my vote.”
