SCOTUS GETS ETHICS RULES: “The Supreme Court has adopted a formal ethics code for the first time in its history, bowing to public and congressional critics who demanded such a policy in the wake of reports about unreported luxury travel by justices and influence campaigns aimed at the court,” our Josh Gerstein reports. — “All nine justices endorsed the code released Monday. It generally tracks existing rules for lower court judges but includes some special provisions addressing the Supreme Court’s ‘unique institutional setting.’” — “The ethics policy lacks some of the teeth that some advocates and scholars have proposed as potential reforms, opting for what amounts to self-enforcement by the justices rather than allowing lower-court judges or an independent monitor to supervise compliance with the code,” and the early reviews from watchdog groups this afternoon were not great. — “Today’s so-called Supreme Court ‘Code of Conduct’ comes with no enforcement mechanism,” the Revolving Door Project’s Jeff Hauser complained, calling the rules an “unenforceable public relations document” that “serves absolutely no purpose other than to permit the media to revert to pretending that our unaccountable and unethical Supreme Court retains legitimacy.” — “Reiterating past policies that have been blatantly ignored by the justices only further proves that they aren’t up to the task of policing themselves,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller said in a statement, a reference to a statement from the justices accompanying the ethics rules that said they “for the most part” reflect the Court’s longstanding practice. TIKTOK PUSHES BACK ON NEW WAVE OF CRITICISM: “When congressional Republicans this month repeated their long-running calls for a nationwide ban on TikTok, they highlighted a data point they said was proof of the app’s sinister underpinnings: The number of TikTok videos with the #freepalestine hashtag is dramatically higher than those with #standwithisrael.” — “That gap, they said, offered evidence that the app, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, was being used to boost propaganda and brainwash American viewers. But Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s U.S.-based rivals, show a remarkably similar gap, their data show,” per The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell. — “The consistency of pro-Palestinian content across social networks, whether Chinese- or American-owned, undercuts an argument that has become central to the latest wave of anti-TikTok rage in Washington: that the Chinese government is manipulating TikTok’s algorithm to play up pro-Palestinian viewpoints and that the app, which has 150 million users in the United States, should be banned nationwide.” — The issue was the focus of an op-ed last week by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who leads the House Select China Committee, and became a flashpoint in Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate. New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon called on the Justice Department to force TikTok to register as a foreign agent. — But “in a blog post Monday, TikTok said it had been unfairly singled out for criticism based on ‘misinformation and mischaracterization,’ arguing that bluntly comparing video hashtag counts was a ‘severely flawed’ way to evaluate the app’s content. ‘Our recommendation algorithm doesn’t “take sides,”’ the statement said.” DOCTORS PIVOT: “Doctors’ groups don’t expect Congress to reverse Medicare payment cuts proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services earlier this month and instead are trying to limit the damage,” four people familiar with the groups’ efforts told POLITICO’s Daniel Payne. — “The best case scenario, said lobbyists for the groups granted anonymity to speak candidly, is likely the bill the Senate Finance Committee approved unanimously last week that would reduce the size of the cut to 2.15 percent.” — “‘That’s likely the best we’re going to get — if we get anything,’ one lobbyist for providers said. Even that is no guarantee, the doctors’ advocates said, given a House majority that is seeking significant spending cuts.” — “Publicly, doctors’ groups have said another reduction in reimbursement rates could push physicians to stop taking Medicare patients or even close their practices, seeing as it comes on top of a 2 percent cut in 2023 and years in which the rates have not kept pace with inflation.” — The American Medical Association, “which is meeting this week in suburban Washington, has made averting the 3.4 percent cut its foremost legislative priority.” Now, “some doctors’ groups are trying to get a provision mitigating the cuts into the continuing resolution Congress will need to pass by Nov. 17 to avoid a partial government shutdown,” a proposition House Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t agreed to.
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