Healthcare, Oil, and SCOTUS Dominates the News
It has been a while since I have listed news articles. Healthcare, Oil, and SCOTUS topics are dominating news today. Colorado is kicking of a Public Option. If successful, it will greatly benefit citizens there.
Oil and gasoline are big issues. When taking into consideration inflation, the price today of a gallon of gasoline is less than in 2008. If you were to drive the speed limit, you would help create inventory which lowers pricing. Catch RJS’s EIA and Oil posts to get up to date information. Repubs and Dems passed a mild rifle and pistol bill. SCOTUS blocked NYC concealed weapon carry. I put up part of Breyer’s dissent writing for Sotomayer and Kagan also. Basically, what Breyer is saying is “no two localities are alike and laws may be different for each.”
There is a decision covering eugenics as Alito is claiming abortion is about when it comes to minorities. It appears many judges believe SCTUS should have a mandatory code of ethics for its free-wheeling judges. The big one remaining? We will find out how Roe v Wade turns out soon. A decision limiting the enforcement of Miranda Rights. You know police will use this lie to get a conviction.
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“HHS Announces Historic, First-in-the-Nation Program that Seeks to Expand Coverage to Nearly 10,000 Coloradans” | HHS.gov
New “Colorado Option” will lower premiums and ensure greater access to health care for more residents, advancing health equity in the state.
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced approval of Colorado’s Section 1332 State Innovation Waiver amendment request to create the “Colorado Option,” a state-specific health coverage plan that increases health coverage enrollment and lowers health care costs, making insurance more affordable and accessible for nearly 10,000 Coloradans starting in 2023. It will reduce racial and ethnic health disparities by providing new coverage options for Coloradans, reflecting the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to advancing health equity.
“Biden Adviser Sperling: Powell Didn’t Contradict Biden, Gas Prices ‘Due Solely to’ Russia” | Fox Metro News
On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Senior Adviser to President Joe Biden Gene Sperling said that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments that high inflation pre-dates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine don’t contradict President Joe Biden’s rhetoric and “the reason we’ve seen the gas price rise, both here and really around the world, is due to Putin.”
In response to Powell’s comments Sperling said, “Jake, this is clearly correct, and not contradictory with anything the president said.”
“Joe Biden, Oil Man” (nymag.com)
President Joe Biden, despite what he may say to the contrary, is something of an oil guy. Maybe it’s not intentional, since he’s expanding electric-vehicle infrastructure and has pledged to reduce federal emissions by 65 percent by 2030. But last fall, before the war in Ukraine broke out and sent oil markets soaring, he was pushing OPEC+ to pump more oil during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. His push to ban the buying/import of Russian oil, following the war in Ukraine, has pushed up crude prices the world over and effectively diverted the commodities to China and India.
Special Report: “Trump told Saudi: Cut oil supply or lose U.S. military support” – sources | Reuters
In an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
“15 Republicans join Democrats to advance gun safety bill” (msn.com)
Fifteen Republicans sided with all 50 members of the Democratic caucus to clear the procedural hurdle, setting the chamber on a path to pass the legislation by the end of the week. If cleared by Congress, the package will be the first major piece of federal gun reform in almost 30 years.
“Supreme Court limits ability to enforce Miranda rights” (msn.com)
The Supreme Court limited the ability to enforce Miranda rights in a ruling Thursday that said that suspects who are not warned about their right to remain silent cannot sue a police officer for damages under federal civil rights law even if the evidence was ultimately used against them in their criminal trial.
The court’s ruling will cut back on an individual’s protections against self-incrimination by barring the potential to obtain damages. It also means that the failure to administer the warning will not expose a law enforcement officer to potential damages in a civil lawsuit. It will not impact, however, the exclusion of such evidence at a criminal trial.
The Supreme Court is misinformed on eugenics (msn.com)
The leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion nodded approvingly to the discredited theory that those who promote access to birth control and abortion have a eugenicist motive to limit reproduction in Black communities. That is a gross distortion of both history and health care. Embedding this disinformation in a landmark Supreme Court decision will legitimize it — and, in the process, whitewash the vile history of eugenics in our country.
The eugenics movement has never been about giving women the right to choose when they’re ready to bear children. On the contrary, it has been about ripping that autonomy from women deemed inferior, unworthy, irrelevant.
“Most judges in survey support U.S. Supreme Court having ethics code” | Reuters
(Reuters) – Hundreds of judges nationwide believe that U.S. Supreme Court justices should be subject to an ethics code, according to a poll released Wednesday, with one saying they should set a “very high bar for the rest of us to emulate.”
The National Judicial College, which provides training to judges nationally, said that in a survey of more than 12,000 of its alumni, 97% of the 859 judges who responded agreed Supreme Court justices should be bound by an ethics code.
“In 6-3 ruling, court strikes down New York’s concealed-carry law” – SCOTUSblog
“JUSTICE ALITO asks why I (Breyer) have begun my opinion by reviewing some of the dangers and challenges posed by gun violence and what relevance that has to today’s case. Ante, at 2–4 (concurring opinion). All of the above considerations illustrate the question of firearm regulation presents a complex problem. One that should be solved by legislatures rather than courts. What kinds of firearm regulations should a State adopt?
Different States might choose to answer that question differently. They may face different challenges because of their different geographic and demographic compositions. A State like New York must account for the roughly 8.5 million people living in the 303 square miles of New York City. The state might choose to adopt different (and stricter) firearms regulations than States like Montana or Wyoming, which do not contain any city remotely comparable in terms of population or density. See U. S. Census Bureau, Quick Facts: New York City (last updated July 1, 2021) (Quick Facts: New York City); Brief for City of New York as Amicus Curiae 8, 22. For a variety of reasons, States may also be willing to tolerate different degrees of risk and therefore choose to balance the competing benefits and dangers of firearms differently.
The question presented in this case concerns the extent to which the Second Amendment restricts different States (and the Federal Government) from working out solutions to these problems through democratic processes. The primary difference between the Court’s view and mine is that I believe the Amendment allows States to take account of the serious problems posed by gun violence that I have just described. I fear that the Court’s interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves States without the ability to address them.” (Page 9 Breyer Dissenting)
“studies have shown that “may issue” licensing regimes, like New York’s, are associated with lower homicide rates and lower violent crime rates than “shall issue” licensing regimes. For example, one study compared homicide rates across all 50 States during the 25-year period from 1991 to 2015 and found that “shall issue” laws were associated with 6.5% higher total homicide rates, 8.6% higher firearm homicide rates, and 10.6% higher handgun homicide rates. Siegel, 107 Am. J. Pub. Health, at 1924–1925, 1927. Another study longitudinally followed 33 States that had adopted “shall-issue” laws between 1981 and 2007 and found that the adoption of those laws was associated with a 13%–15% increase in rates of violent crime after 10 years.
Donohue, 16 J. Empirical Legal Studies, at 200, 240. Numerous other studies show similar results. See, e.g., Siegel, 36 J. Rural Health, at 261 (finding that “may issue” laws are associated with 17% lower firearm homicide rates in large cities); C. Crifasi et al., Association Between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban Counties, 95 J. Urb. Health 383, 387 (2018) (finding that “shall issue” laws are associated with a 4% increase in firearm homicide rates in urban counties); M. Doucette, C Crifasi, & S. Frattaroli, Right-to-Carry Laws and Firearm Workplace Homicides: A Longitudinal Analysis (1992–2017), 109 Am. J. Pub. Health 1747, 1751 (Dec. 2019) (finding that States with “shall issue” laws between 1992 and 2017 experienced 29% higher rates of firearm-related workplace homicides); Brief for Social Scientists et al. as Amici
Curiae 15–16, and nn. 17–20 (citing “thirteen . . . empirical papers from just the last few years linking [“shall issue”] laws to higher violent crime”). (page 19 and 20 Breyer Dissenting)