Alabama attorney general asks feds to investigate 2017 election

(Reuters) - Alabama’s attorney general asked federal elections officials on Monday to investigate allegations that the 2017 U.S. Senate election that Republican Roy Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones was tainted by use of a misleading social media campaign. Attorney General Steve Marshall has said he was concerned over tactics used in the election. Jones, a former federal prosecutor, became the first Democrat in a quarter-century to win a U.S. Senate race in the state when he upset Moore by a narrow margin to win the seat formerly held by Republican Jeff Sessions.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Democratic operatives had sought to undermine Moore by creating a Facebook page claiming that his supporters wanted to ban alcohol in the state. The newspaper has previously reported that Democrats created a separate “false flag” Facebook page that portrayed Moore as supported by Russian bot accounts.

“The Attorney General’s Office has evaluated reports of possible deception in the Alabama U.S. Senate race and has determined the matter to be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Election Commission,” Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Republican attorney general, told Reuters on Monday. “Accordingly, the Attorney General has requested that FEC officials investigate the matter to determine if any federal laws were violated,” Lewis said.

Moore, whose campaign was marred by allegations that he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, refused to concede the election to Jones and filed an unsuccessful legal challenge to the results, claiming voter fraud. Moore, 71, a Christian conservative and former state chief justice, has denied any sexual misconduct or wrongdoing and Reuters has not been able to independently verify the allegations. Facebook Inc (FB.O) has faced criticism in the past two years for its self-admitted sluggishness in developing tools to curb the spread of misinformation on the social networking site. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Republican Donald Trump. Moscow denies meddling in the election.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alabama-election/alabama-attorney-general-asks-feds-to-investigate-2017-election-idUSKCN1P12AP?il=0

US Supreme Court Rejects Exxon’s Plea To Hear Global Warming Case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Exxon Mobil’s appeal of a Massachusetts high court decision allowing the state’s attorney general to continue her investigation into whether the oil giant misled people about the risks global warming regulations pose to its operations. It’s a major win for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, who said in a statement the court’s decision “clears the way for our office to investigate Exxon’s conduct toward consumers and investors.” “The public deserves answers from this company about what it knew about the impacts of burning fossil fuels, and when,” Healey tweeted Monday morning.

Healey’s been battling Exxon for documents related to an investigation years ago over the company’s messaging on global warming. Exxon, however, has fought Healey every step of the way. Healey demanded internal documents and records regarding conservative groups, including two groups — the Beacon Hill Institute and Americans for Prosperity — that never got any funding from Exxon. Exxon asked the U.S. Supreme Court in September 2018 to halt Healey from obtaining internal documents. Exxon argues Healey shouldn’t be allowed to compel compliance to a subpoena from a company that has no operations in Massachusetts.

“The question presented is whether a court can exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident corporation to compel its compliance with an investigatory document request where jurisdiction is based principally on third-party contacts that are unrelated to the subject matter being investigated,” Exxon said in its petition. Healey, however, argued the Massachusetts high court correctly ruled she could compel Exxon’s compliance because of its presence in the state through advertising and licensing agreements. Exxon’s resistance is supported by 11 Republican attorneys general who called the investigation an “unconstitutional abuse of investigative power” to “promote one side of [the] international public policy debate.” Healey joined the crusade against Exxon in 2016 after former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened a probe into the company’s public and private statements on global warming.

Exxon handed over documents to New York and the Securities Exchange Commission, which dropped its probe into Exxon in August, but the company has not handed over any documents to Healey. Schneiderman’s office said its probe was sparked by 2015 reports from InsideClimate News and Columbia University’s journalism school, but court documents later revealed staffers discussed the matter with environmental activists months before officially launching the investigation. Schneiderman resigned from office in May amid allegations he sexually abused several women. His successor, Barbara Underwood, continued the probe against Exxon and brought suit against the company for allegedly not accurately representing risks of climate regulation to investors.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/01/07/supreme-court-exxon-global-warming/

Graphic: Chairman Of Germany's Far-Right Party Brutally Beaten Within Inch Of His Life In "Assassination Attempt"

Frank Magnitz, Chairman of Germany's right-wing AfD party, was beaten within an inch of his life on Monday by three men as he left a New Year's reception, according to the AfD Bremen Facebook page, which adds that he was knocked unconscious with a wooden board and repeatedly kicked in the head.

The attack on Magnitz was stopped after the "courageous" intervention of a construction worker, according to the Facebook post. The AfD Chairman is currently in the hospital with serious injuries, as well as police protection since the incident has been ruled to be politically motivated. While the attackers have not been identified, AfD notes in its Facebook post that both the Left and Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) support Antifa and its attacks, and asks rhetorically "Is this what the other political parties want?" "Again and again, the AfD is the focus of left-wing attacks that are not condemned or even supported by the other parties," reads the post. "Today is a black day for democracy in Germany."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-07/graphic-chairman-germanys-far-right-party-brutally-beaten-within-inch-his-life

>>4653328

Let's hope so. Aweful..

Merck Urges Supreme Court to Toss Osteoporosis Drug Lawsuit

Drugmaker Merck and Co. told the Supreme Court that a class-action lawsuit against it over top-selling osteoporosis drug Fosamax should be disallowed because the company informed regulators of potential adverse effects and was rebuffed.

Only eight of the court’s nine justices attended oral arguments on Jan. 7. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who turns 86 in March, is recovering at home after undergoing surgery for lung cancer on Dec. 21. She left a New York hospital on Christmas Day. This is the first time Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, has ever missed oral arguments as a member of the Supreme Court, including after two prior cancer surgeries. Chief Justice John Roberts said from the bench that Ginsburg would take part in the case at hand, “on the basis of the briefs and transcripts of oral arguments.”

Hundreds of consumers are suing the company, claiming injuries related to their use of Fosamax, sales of which brought Merck a reported $250 million in 2017 in the lucrative bisphosphonates market. The medication is prescribed to prevent and treat osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. Some women have broken their femur bones while using the bone-strengthening drug.

In response to a question by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the class-action litigants’ lawyer, David C. Frederick, said Merck consultant Dr. Joseph M. Lane of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, previously complained that the company failed to provide “medically accurate education” to the Food and Drug Administration about fractures suffered by users of the drug. Frederick said Lane is “the one who had coined the term ‘Fosamax fracture’ because, in all of his years of osteology, he had not encountered these kinds of fractures until he had patients coming to him who were on this drug.” The patients claim Merck failed to provide sufficient warnings on the drug’s label, but the company, backed by the Trump administration, counters that it alerted the FDA when it discovered Fosamax could adversely affect some users.

The FDA refused the request to add the warning, saying available data didn’t support it. Merck convinced a trial judge to halt the class-action proceeding, but an appellate court reversed and allowed the lawsuits to proceed. The FDA “thought that it is more dangerous … to put the risk in the label than it is to leave it out,” Justice Stephen Breyer said. “And then they set up a task force and decide[d] they were wrong.” But the company is liable even if the FDA made a mistake, Frederick said.

“The FDA clearly didn’t have … all of the relevant information, because what the task force finds is that there are about 170 some articles that had been written on this subject. Only five had been given to the FDA, or that—that was evidence that the FDA was aware of.” Federal law “imposes the duty on the manufacturer, because the manufacturer’s going to be tracking this all over the world,” the lawyer said, adding that in 2006, a Merck employee in Singapore “said I’ve now seen several of these specialized atypical femoral fractures, I think this could be an indication that we need a safety signal.”

Merck attorney Shay Dvoretzky said the law, which assumes that regulators are competent and do their jobs properly, is on the company’s side. The rule applying in this situation “follows from the statutory and regulatory framework governing the FDA’s conduct and from the presumption of regularity.” “The presumption of regularity, of course, assumes that federal agencies do their jobs correctly. The FDA’s job, in this case, includes protecting the public health by working with manufacturers to revise drug labels when necessary.”

Separately, on the same day, the Supreme Court handed a defeat to Merck by refusing to consider an appeal that may have led to the revival of a $200 million jury verdict in its favor. Reuters reports that a jury in San Jose, California, had awarded Merck $200 million in 2016 after determining that Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni infringed two of its patents. A judge later found the patents unenforceable because Merck acted in bad faith. In a similar 2016 case, Merck won a $2.54 billion verdict, reportedly the largest ever in a patent case, but a judge nixed the judgment a year ago, finding Merck’s patent invalid. The Kenilworth, New Jersey-based company currently has a market capitalization of $196.1 billion.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/merck-urges-supreme-court-to-toss-osteoporosis-drug-lawsuit_2759688.html

>>4653599

Far from over I believe…