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State employee alleges Florida sidestepped process in excluding gender-affirming care from Medicaid

Florida health officials circumvented traditional regulatory channels to draft a report recommending gender-affirming health care be excluded from coverage under Medicaid, a state employee alleges in an exchange included in new court filings.

Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which controls most of the state’s Medicaid program, wrote in a June report that available medical literature provides “insufficient evidence” that puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries are safe and effective treatments for gender dysphoria and therefore excluded them from Medicaid coverage because they are “experimental and investigational.”

The ensuing state rule, which took effect in August, bars transgender youth and adults in Florida from using Medicaid to help pay for any “procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” when those procedures are used to treat gender dysphoria, stripping more than 9,000 transgender Floridians of access to critical health care.

But new court documents filed late Friday by plaintiffs in a case challenging Florida’s Medicaid exclusion include allegations from an AHCA employee that state health officials did not follow customary procedures for developing generally accepted professional medical standards (GAPMS) in creating the June report.

Documentation of an email exchange between Christopher R. Cogle, the chief medical officer of Florida Medicaid, and Jeffrey English, an AHCA employee, show evidence of tension within the agency over the GAPMS recommendation on treatments for gender dysphoria.

Cogle in the June correspondence inquires whether the AHCA has a standard operating procedure for GAPMS recommendations, to which English responds in the affirmative, adding: “If you will excuse me, I feel obligated to include this information: I was not informed or consulted, did not in any way participate, and did not write the GAPMS concerning gender dysphoria treatment.”

“That particular GAPMS did not come through the traditional channels and was not handled through the traditional GAPMS process,” English wrote.

“I do not cherry pick data or studies and would never agree to if I were so asked,” he continued. “All I can say about that report, as I have read it, is that it does not present an honest and accurate assessment of the status of the current evidence and practice guidelines as I understand them to be in the existing literature.”

Most major medical organizations including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) agree that gender-affirming health care for transgender youth and adults is medically necessary, and have denounced government efforts to insert politics into medicine.

The AHCA report in June acknowledged that groups like the AMA and AAP support the use of puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries to treat gender dysphoria, but said “none of those organizations rely on high-quality evidence.”

“Their eminence in the medical community alone does not validate their views in the absence of quality, supporting evidence,” the report said.

English in his message to Cogle says he apologizes “if I come across as a bit agitated about it, but as the ‘GAPMS guy’ around here, lots of assumptions have been made by those who do not know me well.”

“I’m a different sort of person than the author of that report,” English wrote. “I can’t speak for them. I conduct myself and my work with integrity and I do not play favorites, yay or nay. Full stop, period.”

English did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. The AHCA did not respond to The Hill’s questions about how it developed its GAPMS recommendation for gender dysphoria treatment or why the report was not drafted using the agency’s standard operating procedure.

Court documents filed Friday also show the AHCA determined as recently as 2016 that it cannot “categorically exclude” the prescription of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in transgender youth under Medicaid, though the agency admitted at the time that it was unable to determine “whether puberty suppression therapy is considered a health service that is consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards.”

The filings further revealed that the court denied a state request to compel two of the plaintiffs in the case challenging the Medicaid exclusion to submit to psychological testing, finding the state failed to provide evidence that its selected medical expert is not a “transgender denier or skeptic.” The request applied only to plaintiffs Susan Doe and K.F., both of whom are transgender youth under 18, and not to the case’s two other transgender plaintiffs, who are in their early to mid 20s.

Florida health officials have been broadly accused by medical professionals and LGBTQ advocates of publishing intentionally misleading and false information about gender-affirming health care for transgender youth and adults to push a conservative political agenda.

In addition to instituting a state Medicaid policy explicitly excluding coverage for gender-affirming health care, Florida’s Board of Medicine — whose membership consists of doctors appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — in October voted to begin drafting a rule to ban puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender youth under 18.

In April, the state Health Department issued a guidance suggesting gender-affirming health care — including social transition, which can include changes as simple as using new pronouns — should not be accessible to minors. At least 10 medical experts whose research was cited in the guidance told Vice News in August that their work was being misrepresented.

In a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, transgender adolescents and young adults reported increased life satisfaction and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety after receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy for two years.

Source: TEST FEED1

Where Biden's racial justice agenda stands

Racial justice was at the forefront of President Biden’s agenda when he took office. Yet despite signing an executive order on advancing racial equity, critics say he’s made little progress since his election, including on voting rights and police reform, two major concerns for Black voters. He now faces a GOP House that is set to take a radically different position on such issues.

Still, the Biden Administration has seen some success in passing parts of its racial justice agenda. 

Here’s where key aspects of the agenda stand:

Criminal justice reform

One of Biden’s major campaign pledges was to “strengthen America’s commitment to justice and reform our criminal justice system.” Part of that included reducing the number of incarcerated people.  

Since 2021, Biden has pardoned only nine individuals for crimes ranging from possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine to second degree murder while armed. 

But in October, he took another step forward by pardoning everyone convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law. 

The American Civil Liberties Union reports Black Americans are nearly four times more likely than white Americans to be arrested for marijuana possession.

But the pardons didn’t release anyone from jail — there is no one in federal custody for simple possession of marijuana. 

Still, for those who had a felony conviction, the pardon will restore civil rights, like voting, that had been stripped away. And while the pardon doesn’t erase the convictions from anyone’s record, it will make it easier for those convicted to apply for a job or try to rent an apartment. 

But other key aspects of Biden’s criminal justice reform agenda have not passed: Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level and cash bail remains the standard for most states, though some have begun debating ending it. 

Biden has also not established his promised Task Force on Prosecutorial Discretion. The task force would look at how decisions are made on when to charge someone and with what crimes, both of which vary widely across jurisdictions. Because of this, some individuals end up with longer sentences, parole or probation, while others might be forced into taking a plea deal.

White supremacy 

Black voters have consistently identified racism as one of the top concerns they want to see addressed. Part of that includes having white supremacy declared a national security threat.  

While this has not happened yet, Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021, executive order instructed the Department of Homeland Security to address white supremacists and other domestic terrorists. 

The goal was to improve the federal government’s understanding of white supremacy, prevent groups from being mobilized and counter the use of the internet in recruiting domestic terrorists.

In a report soon after, the DHS identified white supremacists as the biggest terror threat to the United States.

“White supremacists will not have the last word and this venom and violence cannot be the story of our time,” Biden said at the United We Stand summit last September. 

But white supremacist-perpetuated violence has persisted.

A white supremacist gunman attacked a supermarket in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, New York, killing 10, in May last year. In June, 31 people affiliated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front were caught on their way to a Pride parade in Iowa.

Asian/Pacific American hate crimes

Misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rise in hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Attacks have been perpetuated against adults, students and AAPI businesses, according to Stop AAPI Hate. 

Biden took steps to address the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans in May 2021 when he signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Bill into law. The law aims to make reporting hate crimes at the local and state levels easier. 

It also directs the Department of Justice to appoint a designated officer to expedite the review of hate crimes related to COVID-19. It would authorize grants to state and local governments to create programs for preventing and responding to hate crimes.

In their most recent data, Stop AAPI Hate reported more than 9,000 hate incidents against members of the AAPI community between March 19, 2020, and June 30, 2021. Verbal harassment and shunning were the top two types of hate incidents against AAPI members.

“We heard how too many Asian Americans have been waking up each morning this past year genuinely — genuinely — fearing for their safety just opening the door and walking down the street, and safety for their loved ones,” Biden said at the signing. “The moms and dads who, when they let their kids out the door to go to school, were worried.”

“For centuries, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders — diverse and vibrant communities — have helped build this nation only to be often stepped over, forgotten or ignored. You know, lived here for generations, but still considered, by some, the ‘other’ — the ‘other.’  It’s wrong.  It’s simply — to use the phrase — it’s simply un-American.”

Racial wealth gap

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the impact of the racial wealth gap. During the pandemic, Black families were more likely than white families to face financial hardships and to have less access to resources, according to The Center for American Progress. 

So, on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, an incident in which a thriving Black business community was destroyed as a mob of white people killed hundreds, Biden announced his administration would take action to address racial discrimination in the housing market, a huge win for Black communities that have faced widespread discrimination in housing appraisals. 

According to a report by The New York Times, homes in majority white neighborhoods are appraised for $371,000 more than those in neighborhoods where the majority of residents are people of color — a 75 percent increase since 2013. 

But Biden’s plan also announced using the federal government’s purchasing power to grow federal contracting with small businesses by 50 percent. 

Meanwhile, Biden’s decision to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans was also a major step toward erasing the racial wealth gap. 

About 24 percent of Black adults have federal student loan debt, compared to only 14 percent of white adults, according to CNBC + Acorn’s Invest in You Student Loan Survey. 

On average, Black college graduates owe $7,400 more than their white peers when they graduate, according to the Brookings Institution. Four years after graduation, Black borrowers owe an average of $52,726, compared to $28,006 for white college graduates. 

Still, advocates say upwards of $50,000 forgiveness is needed to truly begin addressing the racial wealth gap. And now, Biden’s loan forgiveness plan faces challenges before the Supreme Court.

Source: TEST FEED1

Russia expected to increase cyberattacks in Ukraine war — to little effect

Nearly a year into its war with Ukraine, Russia has had little success on the cyber battlefield — and that doesn’t look like it will change moving forward.

In the coming months, the Kremlin is expected to escalate its cyber operations as it continues to face major military setbacks in the conflict.

However, that increase in cyber activity is likely to have a minor impact in the war as the Kremlin is met with stronger cyber counter attacks from Ukraine and its allies. 

There may in fact be no benefits for Russian forces in ramping up their cyber activity against Ukraine, said James Turgal, vice president of cyber consultancy Optiv, other than “to make the point that they can cause chaos.”

Many experts feared that the Kremlin would carry out destructive cyberattacks on Ukraine and its allies. And over the past year, Russian forces have launched numerous attacks against Ukraine in an attempt to disrupt the country’s critical infrastructure.

But the Russians “underperformed expectations” in the cyber space, a U.S. official said last year. Experts credit Ukraine’s enhanced cyber defenses for the Kremlin’s limited success. Russia was not expecting to be met with so much resistance from Ukrainian forces, which have been shoring up their cyber defenses for the last couple years with the assistance of the U.S. and the EU.

“The Russians haven’t slacked off in cyberattacks, but they’ve been unable to overcome Ukrainian cyber defenses, hence their resort to missile attacks on critical infrastructure,” said James Lewis, a senior vice president and director with the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In recent months, Russia has carried out scores of destructive missile strikes on targets including Ukraine’s energy grid and water facilities. Those assaults have mirrored the Kremlin’s cyber offensives: Last year, Microsoft released a report that found that Russian cyberattacks were strongly tied — and sometimes directly timed — with kinetic military operations on the ground targeting Ukrainian services and institutions.

Russian forces are likely to continue coordinating their cyber activity with their kinetic military operations as they try to boost the effectiveness and impact of their offensives.

This strategy, however, doesn’t always pan out as intended. 

“One of the things that we’ve seen from combat operations over there is that it’s a lot harder to sync up cyber operations with kinetic military operations than I think some people gave it credit for,” said Michael Daniel, president and CEO at Cyber Threat Alliance.

“Using cyber capabilities to cause disruption is easier if you’re not trying to tie it to specific military operations because it gives you more flexibility in terms of choosing the time and place of where you try to get it to actually happen,” he added. 

Turgal said Russia’s long-term strategy of how to win this war both on the kinetic and cyber front seems unclear after it has faced major setbacks in the last couple months. 

“We have seen over the last almost year that the use of one or both of those tactics together has not given them a victory,” Turgal said. 

Looking beyond Ukraine, experts expect Russian forces to expand their cyber activities to neighboring countries, and perhaps directly attack European Union and NATO member countries — a move the Kremlin has been accused of making already. 

Last year, several NATO countries, including the U.S., were hit with cyberattacks that were reportedly carried out by a Russian-backed hacking group.

Jason Blessing, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he expects Russian forces to launch cyberattacks against countries primarily located in Central and Eastern Europe, but also more broadly in the West. He also anticipates Russia will go after companies that are supporting Ukraine economically and militarily.

“I think what’s more likely to happen in the short term is that businesses providing direct support and aid to Ukraine are much better targets because disrupting them disrupts supplies to Ukraine,” he said.

However, Blessing expects those attacks to be low-level and unsophisticated; just enough to create disruption to business operations. None of Russia’s cyberattacks have yet reached the level where NATO’s Article 5, which states that an act of war against any member nation will trigger a response from the full alliance, would be triggered, and he predicts the same will be true going forward.

“So, it’s more a widening of the conflict than sort of a vertical escalation in cyberspace,” he added. 

Despite Russia’s failure to unleash destructive cyberattacks against the West, particularly the U.S., government officials and experts all agreed that the U.S. needs to remain vigilant this year, as it has over the last year.

This month, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly warned the U.S. against potential Russian cyberattacks as the war in Ukraine drags on. 

Easterly said although the Russians have yet to launch massive cyberattacks against the U.S., “we cannot assume that won’t happen going forward.”

“It looks like it’s not going to end anytime soon. We need to continue to be vigilant, keep our shields up, and ensure that we are putting all those controls in place,” Easterly said during a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 

Lewis, who agreed with her statement, said that regardless of what the Russians decide to do this year, the U.S. “needs to increase [its] cyber defenses.”

“We need to be as vigilant as we were last year,” he added. 

The threat of Russian cyberattacks may not abate even if the war between Russia and Ukraine comes to an end. If Russian troops are forced out of Ukraine, the Kremlin could decide to scale up its cyber activity to disrupt and undermine the Ukrainians beyond the end of a traditional conflict.

“If the war ended … I could see the Russians making extensive use of their cyber capabilities to try to destabilize the Ukrainian government and continue to sort of foment separatist interests on the eastern side of Ukraine,” Daniel, of the Cyber Threat Alliance, said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Tensions with evangelicals threaten Trump White House bid

Tensions between Donald Trump and evangelical leaders have spilled into public view, posing a potential threat to the former president’s election chances in 2024.

In an interview earlier this week, Trump said evangelical leaders are showing “signs of disloyalty” because they have yet to endorse his third presidential bid. 

The comments highlighted the changing dynamic in GOP politics as the leaders of one of Trump’s most supportive demographics appear to distance themselves from the former president.

“It’s going to make these next few months uncomfortable for evangelical leaders because they’re going to have to, in essence, answer that question: Are you for Trump or are you not?” said David Brody, the chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network, who conducted the interview with Trump. 

Trump’s comments come after influential evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also evangelical, on stage at First Baptist Church in Dallas last week.

Pence is a potential 2024 Trump rival and Jeffress is a longtime supporter of Trump but has notably held off on endorsing him ahead of next year’s presidential election. 

But in an interview with The Hill on Friday, Jeffress said he believes the former president will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 and that his decision to hold off on endorsing the president is “just a matter of timing.” 

“I just don’t see a need to make an official endorsement two years out,” Jeffress said. 

“Just let me cut to the chase,” he said. “I think President Trump is the presumptive nominee for 2024. I expect he will be the nominee in 2024 and I believe he’ll be the next president of the United States.” 

However, Jeffress said that if Pence decides to run in 2024 he will be “a strong contender.” 

White, evangelical Protestants played a key role in Trump’s coalition in 2016 and 2020 and have historically been a loyal Republican voting bloc. According to Pew Research, 84 percent of white, evangelical Protestants voted for Trump in 2020, while 77 percent voted for him in 2016. 

The conservative voting bloc was drawn to Trump for his stances on issues like abortion and immigration. Trump, who appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices, has largely been credited for setting in motion the overturning of Roe v. Wade — one of his key campaign promises. 

“He’s very much action-oriented and so therefore if he made promises and he delivered on those promises, which he did for four years, he’s going to say ‘well, what’s the problem here?’” Brody said. 

While notable group leaders are choosing to wait to endorse the former president — despite him delivering on those promises — many are now wondering if it’s a signal that Trump’s support is softening among evangelicals ahead of the 2024 Republican primary. 

“I think Trump is not helping himself here,” said Robert Jones, founder of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. “Trump did not really gain the votes of white evangelicals through white evangelical leaders in 2016.” 

Jeffress publicly broke with Russell Moore, the-then president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, over Trump in 2016. Moore has been a vocal critic of the then-GOP candidate, while Jeffress embraced him. 

“If you had just listened to evangelical leaders, you would have thought there was a great divide in the evangelical community on this,” Jones continued. “Of course when it came time to vote in primaries, the rank and file of white evangelicals lined up quite handily behind Trump.” 

“There was never a divide on the ground in the way there was among evangelical leaders,” he said. “I think Trump himself may misunderstand the dynamics that evangelicals were never waiting on their leaders to tell them who to vote for.” 

Brody said that broadly evangelical leaders and voters also have not been turned off by the controversies that have dogged Trump for decades, arguing that they always knew what they were signing up for.

“If chaos was there before — and it was — and chaos was here now, what has changed? Nothing has changed,” Brody said. 

There is a trend in some early polls showing Trump’s support wavering among Republican voters as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gains traction. Forty-nine percent of Republican primary voters said they would support the former president in 2024 and 54 percent of evangelical voters said they planned on supporting him in his third bid, according to a New York Times-Sienna College poll released in October ahead of the midterm elections. 

However, polling this week showed Trump running ahead of DeSantis. A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released on Friday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 31 percent. 

But if multiple Republican contenders jump into the primary, which is likely to happen, evangelical support could be divvied up. 

“Evangelicals are going to have a decision to make and Trump will probably end up losing some of that support,” Brody said. 

And experts say they doubt that Trump’s support among evangelical voters themselves will suffer drastically anytime soon. 

“When you look at Trump’s favorability numbers, they have moved down a bit since he was in office among white evangelicals but not very much,” Jones said. “To me, unless the numbers look significantly worse than they did in 2016 for him, I would not count him out, and they do not.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

The five hardest hits from a judge’s scathing ruling against former President Trump 

Former President Trump suffered yet another legal setback on Thursday, when a U.S. district judge ordered him and his lead attorney to pay almost $1 million in costs and fees to numerous defendants, including Hillary Clinton, after a Trump suit the judge found to be without merit. 

The stark finding appears to have had an instant result — a rare Trump retreat on a related matter. 

The following day, the former president’s legal team withdrew a separate action against New York Attorney General Letitia James before the same judge. 

The Thursday judgement came in response to a suit Trump had filed in March 2022 against Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and many others. 

At its core, Trump accused the defendants of “a malicious conspiracy” against him, especially with regards to allegations of Russian collusion.  

Taking the lead in the case was Trump attorney Alina Habba. 

The judge, Donald M. Middlebrooks, was nominated to his current position by President Clinton in 1997. 

Middlebrooks’s 46-page ruling was scathing enough to put even Trump on the back foot. 

Here are the five sharpest jabs from the bench against the former president. 

“This case should never have been brought. It’s inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. … Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative.”  

There was no warming-up or throat-clearing from Judge Middlebrooks, who began his ruling with the words above. 

He went on to note the background of the case and how rapidly Clinton and other defendants had “identified substantial and fundamental factual and legal flaws” in the Trump team’s original claim. 

The judge added that an amended complaint had been filed by the Trump team in June 2022, three months after the inception of the case. The new and supposedly improved version “failed to cure any of the defects” in the original filing, Middlebrooks writes. 

Middlebrooks intriguingly also cites a September 2022 interview Habba gave to Sean Hannity in which she claimed Trump encouraged her to drop the case at an earlier stage.  

“And I said no, we have to fight,” Habba told Hannity. 

She may come to rue that decision. 

“Here we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.” 

This is a key passage in Middlebrooks’s rationale for why Trump personally should be sanctioned. 

The judge cites other instances where Trump pursued cases against real or perceived adversaries including Twitter and CNN. 

Middlebrooks’s point is that Trump deserves to have harsh treatment meted out to him because — in the judge’s view — the former president has a long record of trying to weaponize or clog up the legal system to besmirch or intimidate opponents, or for publicity purposes. 

“The 819 paragraphs of the 186-page Amended Complaint are filled with immaterial, conclusory facts not connected to any particular cause of action. Consider the incendiary charge that Mr. Comey, the Director of the FBI, conspired with Ms. Clinton to maliciously prosecute him. Leaving aside the fact that Mr. Trump was never prosecuted, examine the allegations in the Amended Complaint pertaining to Mr. Comey. … 

[They] do not allege that Mr. Comey initiated an investigation of Mr. Trump, much less a prosecution. And the implausible claim that Mr. Comey conspired with Ms. Clinton, given the impact of his announcements on her 2016 campaign, not only lacks substance but is categorically absurd.” 

In addition to his complaints about Trump trying to use the legal system for extra-legal purposes, Middlebrooks is evidently irked by the approach of the former president’s legal team. 

The section about Comey goes into considerable detail about what Middlebrooks clearly considers pointless meanderings — including details of Trump’s firing of Comey as director of the FBI. 

The shoulder-shrugging dismissal of any cooperation between Comey and the Clinton campaign is alluding to events late in the 2016 campaign.  

Comey announced in the final days of that contest that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State in President Obama’s administration.  

Comey’s public disclosure is to this day blamed by some Clinton partisans for her narrow loss in the election. 

“The plaintiff consistently misrepresented and cherry-picked portions of public reports and filings to support a false factual narrative. Often the report or filing actually contradicted his allegations. It happened too often to be accidental; its purpose was political, not legal. Factual allegations were made without any evidentiary support in circumstances where falsity is evident.”  

Middlebrooks here cites claims from the Trump team including the assertion that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report “went on to exonerate” Trump from any suggestion of Russian collusion. 

In fact, as Middlebrooks notes, Mueller’s conclusions were a good deal more nuanced and equivocal than this.  

“While perhaps acceptable as a cable news talking point, that allegation [of exoneration] is neither an accurate nor fair reading of the Mueller Report,” he writes. 

“Despite an affidavit from Mr. Dolan saying he lived in Virginia, and the fact that service upon him occurred there, the Amended Complaint claimed he lived in New York. The Plaintiff’s lawyers’ excuse: There are a lot of Dolans—some of them live in New York.” 

This passage refers to Charles Dolan, a Democratic strategist who was also in the Trump team’s sights. 

But the judge’s point is emblematic of a kind of weary exasperation that permeates his ruling. 

In another section, he draws casual attention to a typo in one Trump team filing, which laments false allegations of “Russian collision.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Justices were interviewed as part of Supreme Court leak probe

All nine Supreme Court justices were interviewed as part of a probe into last year’s leak of the draft opinion overturning federal abortion protections, but none were implicated, court marshal Gail Curley said on Friday.

Curley has led the court’s investigation since Politico published the draft Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization majority opinion in May, but she indicated on Thursday that investigators have not found the leaker.

“During the course of the investigation, I spoke with each of the Justices, several on multiple occasions,” Curley said in Friday’s statement. “The Justices actively cooperated in this iterative process, asking questions and answering mine. I followed up on all credible leads, none of which implicated the Justices or their spouses. On this basis, I did not believe that it was necessary to ask the Justices to sign sworn affidavits.”

Curley’s public report on Thursday detailed extensive efforts to identify the leak’s source, including interviews with 97 people described as court “personnel” or “employees.”

That raised eyebrows as to whether the list included the justices, with rumors circulating that they or their spouses could have leaked the draft opinion.

Curley noted that her team has not substantiated any of the allegations on social media.

Progressives, including advocacy group Demand Justice, in the wake of the extraordinary leak emphasized how Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election in speculating a potential source of the leak.

Scrutiny of Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the Dobbs majority opinion, has also grown after The New York Times reported in November that an anti-abortion activist alleged he and his wife had disclosed the then-pending decision in a separate landmark case at a 2014 dinner.

Alito has publicly denied the claim, and The Hill has not independently verified the allegation.

Both Thomas and Alito have previously condemned the leak.

“In May 2022, this Court suffered one of the worst breaches of trust in its history: the leak of a draft opinion. The leak was no mere misguided attempt at protest. It was a grave assault on the judicial process,” the court said in unsigned statement on Thursday accompanying Curley’s report.

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis sparks outrage with rejection of African American studies class

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is facing criticism after his administration rejected an Advanced Placement African American Studies course from being taught in Florida schools, the latest curriculum-related action by the governor to draw fierce backlash.

The DeSantis administration made the move earlier this month, when it sent a letter to the College Board Florida Partnership arguing that “the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” The letter didn’t name which law the course purportedly violated, and the state’s Department of Education did not clarify that matter when asked by The Hill.

The action has drawn heavy criticism, with Democratic legislators and LGBTQ advocates likening it to DeSantis’s recent crusade against Florida schools teaching lessons related to sexual orientation or gender identity — topics state officials have argued are inappropriate for children.

“Florida is doing its best to tilt the scales and shut down important, much-needed discussions of race, slavery, stolen lands, and undeniable history that have led to where we are as a society today,” Florida Sen. Shevrin Jones (D), the state’s first openly gay senator, said Thursday in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis’ whitewashing of history and book bans are his latest assault on American history and our First Amendment rights. Horrifyingly, it is our vulnerable and underrepresented students who will suffer the most as a result.”

A February 2022 Quinnipiac University poll found that only 27 percent of Americans felt the U.S. history taught in schools reflects an accurate account of the role of African Americans in the country. The new Advanced Placement course, which is currently a pilot program in 60 schools nationwide, had been in the works for over a decade, according to the College Board. 

Ivory Toldson, the NAACP Director of Education Innovation and Research, condemned Florida’s rejection of the course. 

“Ron DeSantis’ flippant dismissal of an AP African American Studies course is not only a dereliction of his duty to ensure equitable education for all Floridians, but shows clear disdain for the lives and experiences that form part of our national history,” Toldson said in a statement on Friday. 

“Dismissing this important subject as lacking “educational value” defies centuries of evidence to the contrary. African American history is American history, and failure to comprehend this very simple fact is un-American in and of itself.”

But Florida’s rejection of the course follows a pattern from last year, when DeSantis signed the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act into law. The law, known as the Stop WOKE Act, prohibits any instruction that could make someone feel “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex or national origin.

In unveiling the legislative proposal last year, DeSantis said the measure was drafted with the intent of “taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory” — an academic theory that addresses systemic racism in the U.S.

But scholars have argued that concepts related to critical race theory are not taught until students reach the college level.

“Remember when we were told they weren’t opposing the teaching of Black history, just ‘CRT’? And how many dismissed those of us who said these laws were anti-history laws, and anti-Black? Perhaps one day folks will listen to those who know,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The New York Times’s 1619 Project, wrote on Twitter. 

Hannah-Jones’s program, which puts the repercussions of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the forefront of the national narrative, has been banned in Florida classrooms. 

“Our history has long been treated as illegitimate,” Hannah-Jones said. “It has always been contested.”

DeSantis’s office did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. 

The governor, who is seen as a top GOP contender for the 2024 presidential election, was sworn in for his second term on Jan. 3. During his inauguration speech, he highlighted the educational reforms his administration passed in his first term.

“Florida is No. 1 in education freedom and we rank No. 1 in parental involvement in education,” DeSantis said. “We must ensure school systems are responsive to parents and to students, not partisan interest groups, and we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology.

“Florida must always be a great place to raise a family – we will enact more family-friendly policies to make it easier to raise children and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence,” he added.

Jones, the Florida state senator, tweeted on Friday that Florida had become a state where you “Don’t Say Black” — a reference to a new Florida education law known to its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law for its heavy restrictions on how LGBTQ issues and identities can be addressed in the classroom.

New York Rep. Ritchie Torres (D) — currently the member of Congress who is both Black and openly gay — similarly tweeted: “Florida has gone from Don’t Say Gay to Don’t Say Black.”

Officially titled the “Parental Rights in Education” law, the measure, which went into effect in July, prohibits public primary school teachers from engaging in classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Educators through high school are barred from addressing either subject in a manner that is not “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate” for their students, though neither term has been given a concrete definition.

Florida teachers who violate the law risk having their licenses suspended or revoked under a rule adopted by the state Board of Education in October.

But restrictive curriculum laws — particularly ones pertaining to LGBTQ subjects — are mostly unpopular among the American public.

In March, an ABC News-Ipsos poll found that more than 60 percent of adults oppose legislation seeking to bar elementary school teachers from addressing sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.

Americans are more split on whether such lessons should be taught through high school, however, and a May Morning Consult survey found that while 41 percent of American parents support teaching or discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in K-12 classrooms, 44 percent are opposed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Toxic exposure victims slam military, DOJ for delaying their pursuit of justice

Thousands of Americans are in the dark as to when they might be able to seek justice for a historic set of toxic exposure claims, even though Congress removed the barriers that were blocking them from doing so months ago. 

Some of those involved were shocked to see their cases, related to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, dismissed last month over a technicality, requiring them to start the process over again. But they don’t plan to give up the fight just yet. 

“We sat in the gallery of the Senate three hours while the Senate voted on three different amendments and then took the final vote on the PACT Act,” said Mike Partain, a breast cancer survivor born at Camp Lejeune. “Veterans were crying. They were hugging each other.” 

Partain was referring to the Honoring our PACT Act, an expansive bill signed into law in August that improved benefits for veterans exposed to toxins. Within the bill is a measure permitting lawsuits for those who endured on-base water contamination decades ago at Camp Lejeune.  

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that payouts to Camp Lejeune victims will amount to about $6.7 billion through 2031.  

Victory turns to frustration

“I can’t explain how elated, how relieved I was that it finally passed. I turned around and looked at Jerry and said, ‘We won, Jerry, we won,’” said Partain, who has long advocated for the legislation with retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger. 

But those feelings of elation have turned into frustration.  

The same day that President Biden signed the bill into law, groups of plaintiffs filed multiple lawsuits against the U.S., alleging that the government failed to ensure that toxic chemicals “did not seep into the water used by the men and women who were willing to lay their lives on the line.”    

Retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger addresses a rally against the federal government’s support for what activists say is a known polluter. Getty Images

Just last month, however, Partain found out by chance —  through a Google alert — that his case had been dismissed. 

The reason for the dismissal, he learned, was a legal technicality: He needed to refile what’s known as “an administrative claim” with the government before then filing his actual lawsuit.  

“The law says you have to file an administrative claim with the Department of the Navy,” Partain said. “Our position was we already did.” 

Neither Partain nor Ensminger — who are working with Camp Lejeune Legal, a group of law firms pursuing federal claims under the new law — could figure out the logic behind this setback.  

Ensminger, who served for 25 years in the Marine Corps, slammed the military and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for doing “everything in their power to kill” legislation that took decades to pass.  

“The Navy and the United States Marine Corps have lied, evaded, obfuscated facts,” Ensminger told The Hill.  

‘The backbone of our country’

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), who sponsored the Camp Lejeune bill, said that service members who chose to defend their country and those who supported them at the base “were let down by their government in a big way.”

“These victims also waited far too long to receive the justice they deserve,” Cartwright said in a Friday statement. “Now that the bill has been signed into law, we should not prolong the suffering of those who served our country.”

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who is also working with Camp Lejeune Legal, described the dismissal as “a delay tactic” while calling upon the government “to follow through with the spirit and the intention of this bill and what Congress passed.”  

“The backbone of our country and who America is, is our military,” she said.  

While it is notoriously difficult to sue the government, a 1946 statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act paves the way for doing so by recognizing liability for the negligent or wrongful acts of government employees.  

But to file such a lawsuit, an individual first must submit an administrative claim to the relevant government agency within two years of the date of negligence. That agency then has six months to complete an investigation.  

Consumer advocate Erin Brockovich embraces retired Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger. Getty Images.

Only if the agency denies the claim can the plaintiff file a lawsuit in federal court.  

Partain discovered he had breast cancer in 2007, at age 39. At the time, he was one of about 64 men who shared both this diagnosis and a history of exposure to contaminated tap water at Camp Lejeune, according to 2010 testimony he gave before Congress. 

“I was conceived, carried and then born at the base Naval Hospital while my parents lived in base housing,” he said at the time.  

Ensminger, meanwhile, attributes his daughter Janey’s leukemia to the time she spent in utero at Camp Lejeune. Janey died of the cancer at age 9 in 1985. 

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act

The Marine Corps first discovered specific volatile organic compounds in the drinking water generated by Camp Lejeune treatment plants in 1982, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 

Since then, the agency has found that on-base exposures to contaminants such as trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene and vinyl chloride likely increased the risk of certain cancers and other health issues from the 1950s through February 1985. 

The long-awaited Camp Lejeune Justice Act, passed in August as part of the Honoring our PACT Act, allows those exposed to these toxins to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Northern Carolina.  

Such injuries, which include in utero exposures, must have occurred for at least 30 days between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987. 

The globe and anchor stand at the entrance to Camp Lejeune. The Associated Press

The new law overrides a legal hurdle — North Carolina’s so-called statute of repose — that had long prevented such cases. North Carolina is among the few states with such a statute, which prohibits lawsuits if more than 10 years have passed since the contaminating event.  

The problem was, however, that most plaintiffs didn’t even become sick — let alone know they were contaminated — until far more than a decade after the polluting incident.  

But cancer survivors such as Partain and family members of those who have died wouldn’t take no for an answer and ultimately vested their hopes in Congress.  

“We couldn’t go to the courts, because the courts said that we had to turn in claims before we knew we were exposed and before we had cancer,” Partain said.  

Nonetheless, Partain filed an administrative claim — as required by the Federal Tort Claims Act, prior to a lawsuit — to the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) in 2009.  

Ensminger had already submitted a claim on his late daughter’s behalf in 2002.  

Legacy claims

Neither Partain nor Ensminger heard back from the Navy JAG Corps within the six-month window required by law. But if an agency fails to decide on a claim within six months, that claim is considered rejected.  

“My original claim was actually filed in February of 2009,” Partain said. “And the JAG sat on it until spring of 2019 when I received a denial letter from JAG.” 

Partain and Ensminger — along with more than 4,000 other claimants — received a letter rejecting their claims that year, according to a November court document submitted by the DOJ.  

The letter, shared by Partain with The Hill, justified the rejections by citing North Carolina’s statute of repose — explaining that the claimants “did not file their claims within 10 years” of the last contamination incident they experienced at Camp Lejeune.  

But when the Camp Lejeune Justice Act became law in August, Partain said he had assumed that his dismissed administrative claim — now known as a “legacy claim” — made him eligible to seek justice from the government.  

“The day that the president signed the bill, our cases were delivered, hand-delivered, to Navy JAG department at the Washington Navy Yard,” Ensminger said. 

“They refused to accept them,” he added, noting that instead, a courier took the lawsuits to a FedEx office and shipped them a couple blocks to the Navy Yard.  

On Dec. 20, U.S. District Judge James Dever dismissed Partain’s lawsuit — filed together with other breast cancer survivors — stressing that the plaintiffs had neglected “to exhaust administrative remedies.” 

“This was not part of the intent of the act, and it certainly wasn’t part of the law,” Brockovich said. “They’re going to make now thousands of legacy claims refile.” 

Ensminger’s case has yet to be dismissed because all the lawsuits were distributed among four judges — three who have already rejected their pile and one who has not issued a decision, according to Partain.  

But a bolded, all-caps announcement on the Navy JAG Corps website now indicates that “claims previously denied under the Federal Tort Claims Act involving water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. must be refiled for consideration.” 

That failure to exhaust administrative remedies was at the core of the November response from the DOJ to Partain’s initial August complaint. 

The DOJ response questioned whether claims submitted “years before enactment” of the Camp Lejeune Justice Act satisfy administrative requirements, stressing that the Navy did not yet have a chance to reevaluate these legacy claims under the new law.   

The response also argued that while the Camp Lejeune Justice Act “expressly overrode various aspects” of the Federal Tort Claims Act, it did not eliminate the need for claims to be “administratively exhausted.”  

“To the contrary, Congress expressly reaffirmed that requirement, cross-referencing the relevant requirement and prohibiting the filing of suits in federal court before it is satisfied,” the DOJ response stated. 

Replying to the DOJ response later in November, a former attorney for the plaintiffs, Eric Flynn, described the government’s argument as “misguided.”  

Jerry Ensminger holds a portrait of his daughter, Janey, in White Lake, N.C. The Associated Press

“Before filing suit, a plaintiff must present an administrative claim to the Navy and the Navy must deny that claim,” Flynn wrote. “Plaintiffs did precisely that.” 

Nowhere does the law state that claims exhausted before the bill’s enactment do not count, according to Flynn.  

The Hill has reached out to the House Armed Services Committee for comment.

Separately from the Camp Lejeune claims, which must be filed through the Navy JAG Corps, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced last month that it has already received more than 213,000 claims related to the broader PACT Act.  

The VA said that it would begin to process those claims on Jan. 1 and that 959,000 veterans had received new toxic exposure screenings — with nearly 39 percent reporting an exposure concern.

Asked why legacy claims must be refiled and face further delays in the judiciary process, the Navy JAG Corps referred The Hill to the DOJ. 

The DOJ, in turn, declined to comment on the issue. 

‘I’m in limbo’

Mikal Watts, a trial lawyer on the Camp Lejeune Legal team, told The Hill in a statement that he and his team “didn’t believe the law required re-presentment of claims already denied.” 

“However, we respect court decisions and will abide by whatever the courts decide either way,” Watts said. 

Both Partain and Ensminger already refiled new claims as a backup measure months ago, but Partain said he has yet to receive confirmation that Navy JAG got his new claim.  

“I’m in limbo in that sense,” Partain said. “But the thing is, for those people who didn’t and just filed suit, now they would have to file a new claim all over again.” 

Stressing that these are identical claims to those denied in 2019, he questioned the government’s motive in making “people who have been waiting 17 years” wait still longer.  

While acknowledging that “the wheels of justice” can move slowly, Partain emphasized his growing frustration and disillusionment with a fight he thought he finally had won.  

“The president signed the law, Congress passed a law, it’s clear that they’re wanting this issue resolved, but yet we’re getting delays,” he said. “And this is yet another delay.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

White House calls Florida rejection of AP African American studies course 'incomprehensible'

The White House on Friday called it “incomprehensible” for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to block a new Advanced Placement (AP) course for high school students on African American studies.

“It is incomprehensible to see…this ban or this block, to be more specific, that DeSantis has put forward,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, noting the Biden administration does not play a role in dictating school curriculums.

Jean-Pierre called the decision by DeSantis’s administration unsurprising, however, given some of the other actions the governor has taken on education in recent years.

“They have banned more books in schools and libraries than almost every other state in the country. And let’s not forget, they didn’t block AP European history, they didn’t block music history or art history, but the state chooses to block a course that is meant for high-achieving high school students to learn about their history of arts and culture,” she said.

The White House previously sparred with DeSantis over legislation that prohibits teachers of young children from discussing gender or sexuality in the classroom.

In rejecting AP African American Studies, the Florida Department of Education wrote in a letter to the College Board Florida Partnership that “the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”

The letter, signed by the department’s Office of Articulation, did not name which law the course violated or what part of the curriculum it was objecting to. 

Florida has banned schools from teaching “critical race theory,” which aims to understand systemic racism in the United States. Most experts on the subject have said it is not taught in elementary or high schools, but opposition to the concept has become a rallying cry for Republicans.

Last year, DeSantis signed legislation called the Stop WOKE Act, which restricted how racism can be taught in schools. The law, which stands for Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees, prohibits any instruction that could make someone feel “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex or national origin.

Source: TEST FEED1