Friday, June 30, 2023
Sotomayor's biting dissent: Ruling rolls back 'decades of precedent and momentous progress'
"Entrenched racial inequality remains a reality today," Sotomayor said. "That is true for society writ large and, more specifically, for Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), two institutions with a long history of racial exclusion."
"Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal," she continued. "What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality."
DOJ charges 78 people with $2.5 billion in health-care fraud
The defendants include "physicians and other licensed medical professionals who lined their own pockets, including doctors who allegedly put their patients at risk by illegally providing them with opioids they did not need," the DOJ said in a press release...
DeSantis says he would eliminate four federal agencies if elected president
"We would do Education, we would do Commerce, we'd do Energy, and we would do IRS," DeSantis said in an interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum when he was asked whether he favored closing any agencies.
"If Congress will work with me on doing that, we'll be able to reduce the size and scope of government," he added. "If Congress won't go that far, I'm going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life."…
The Biden ‘bribery’ allegation slips on more banana peels - The Washington Post
Republican proof of Biden crimes is coming any day now. Just never today...
The Hunter Biden investigation collapsed into bitter acrimony, whistleblower testimony reveals - Vox
"But putting these tidbits together, it appears to me that there are the seeds of another story here — one in which the pre-midterms leak destroyed DOJ's trust in the IRS team, and in which, after investigating, they found concerning emails of some unspecified nature. DOJ so far has not commented on why the IRS team was removed...":format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72411773/GettyImages_1258955007.0.jpg)
Religious Freedom Arguments Underpin Wave of Challenges to Abortion Bans - The New York Times
One Kentucky plaintiff, Sarah Baron, a 38-year-old mother of two and a board member of a Louisville synagogue, said, "The Torah teaches us that the fetus does not have the same personhood status as the mother until its first breath."
Ms. Baron, who belongs to Judaism's conservative denomination, said her age and previous fertility struggles raised risks of pregnancy complications or fetal abnormalities.
Under Kentucky's ban, she said, "I would be unable to make that extremely difficult decision of whether to continue carrying a fetus if the pregnancy is causing severe physical or psychological harm to me or the fetus is nonviable."
"It's not only cruel," she said, "but it represents a situation where Jewish law may require the pregnancy to be terminated."…
German Catholic church ‘dying painful death’ as 520,000 leave in a year | Germany | The Guardian
Speed of departures has been driven by series of child abuse scandals and accusations of a cover-up…
DeSantis agency sent $92 million in covid relief funds to donor project - The Washington Post
Mori Hosseini, who donated a golf simulator to the governor's mansion, championed a new exchange on Interstate 95 that feeds into his housing and shopping center project…
Investigation of Trump Documents Case Continues After His Indictment - The New York Times
Prosecutors often continue investigating strands of a criminal case after charges have been brought, and sometimes their efforts go nowhere. But post-indictment investigations can result in additional charges against people who have already been accused of crimes in the case. The investigations can also be used to bring charges against new defendants...
Trump support dips among Republicans after federal indictment: poll | The Hill
38 percent of Republicans now say they have an unfavorable view of Trump, an uptick from the 30 percent in April...
Biden gets a boost as GDP growth exceeds forecasts - POLITICO
While 2 percent growth is less than spectacular, the U.S. is doing better than other advanced economies, as White House officials have stressed...
Koch Network Raises Over $70 Million for Push to Sink Trump - The New York Times
The Koch network's goal in the 2024 presidential primaries, which has been described only indirectly in written internal communications, is to stop Mr. Trump from winning the Republican nomination. In February, a top political official in the network, Emily Seidel, wrote a memo to donors and activists saying it was time to "have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter."…
Thursday, June 29, 2023
US supreme court rules against fringe legal theory in key voting rights case
The ruling is a blow to North Carolina Republicans who had asked the court to embrace the so-called independent state legislature theory – the idea that the US constitution does not allow state courts to limit the power of state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. There was deep concern that embracing such an idea would upend US elections, essentially giving legislatures a blank check to write election laws without oversight from state courts. It would have been a massive win for Republicans, who control more state legislatures than Democrats do.
The court's decision means that state courts can continue to weigh in on disputes over federal election rules. State courts have become increasingly popular forums for hearing those disputes, especially after the US supreme court said in 2019 that federal courts could not address partisan gerrymandering...
‘We could lose our status as a state’: what happens to a people when their land disappears
At the heart of this discussion is the scientific certainty that oceans will continue to rise for at least another century and a sense of injustice that those worst affected are among the least responsible for the climate crisis. The Alliance of Small Island States represents more than a quarter of the world's countries, but is responsible for less than 1% of global carbon emissions, most of which come from big industrialised countries in the global north.
This has locked in an expansion of the world's oceans that is already under way and will accelerate in the second half of this century. Island maps are already being slowly redrawn and coastlines are increasingly threatened by storm surges. Within decades, archipelagos could lose outlying atolls that define national borders. A century from now – if not sooner – entire states could become uninhabitable, raising doubts about what will happen to their citizens, governments and resources...
Our primary healthcare system is a mess. I have a plan to fix it
Millions of Americans can't access a doctor or dentist or have to wait months to be seen. Let's change that…
Trump adviser suggested blowing up migrants’ boats with drones, book says | Books | The Guardian
According to Taylor, Miller said: "Tell me why can't we use a Predator drone to obliterate that boat?"
Taylor writes: "Admiral Zukunft looked nonplussed. 'Because, Stephen, it would be against international law.'"…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/27/trump-stephen-miller-migrants-boats-drone-attacks-book
REPORT: U.S. public pensions could be $21 billion richer right now
New research shows that U.S. public pension funds would be $21 billion richer had they divested from fossil fuels a decade ago...
Retirement talk surrounding Thomas, Alito raises stakes for 2024 election
Democrats are worried that if Biden loses and the GOP wins the Senate majority, it could allow a GOP president to replace both men with younger conservatives who could rule far into the future…
White House picks fight with Greene over funding
"President Biden is proud of the resources he's provided to stand up for the rule of law, crack down on gun crimes, and keep cops on the beat in Floyd County – and across the country," White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in a statement first provided to The Hill.
"Unlike Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who voted against this funding, as well as to defund federal law enforcement and fire thousands of Border Patrol agents, President Biden is committed to ensuring law enforcement has the resources they need to keep Northwest Georgians safe," she added.
What is the difference between nationalism and patriotism?
Patriotism encompasses devotion to the country as a whole – including all the people who live within it. Nationalism refers to devotion to only one group of people over all others...
Historic Black church in Annapolis suffers $100,000 in vandalism damage - The Washington Post
Police are investigating the incident at Fowler UMC as a possible hate crime…
Opinion | This Is Why Trump Lies Like There’s No Tomorrow - The New York Times
When individuals feel angry, Yip and Schweitzer continued,
they are more likely to deceive others. We find that angry individuals are less concerned about the welfare of others, and consequently more likely to exhibit self-interested unethical behavior. Across our studies, we link incidental anger to self-serving deception.
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
If Trump wins, he’ll turn the justice department into a vendetta machine
If there weren't already enough reason to fear a second Trump presidency, this would be it.
Public trust in our governing institutions has already sunk to a new low – due in large part to Trump's first term, his subsequent big lie that the 2020 election was "stolen", and now his second big lie that Biden is orchestrating a "witch-hunt" against him.
Even if Biden is re-elected, it will be necessary to deal with the damage Trump and his Republican enablers have wrought…
The sudden warming of Britain’s seas will tear through ocean life like a wildfire
It is one of this year's nastier surprises. Sea temperatures are up to 5C higher than usual, in part due to human-induced global heating, and in part as a result of this year's El Niño effect. It is a mortal reminder of how the sea dominates our entire planet – that a cycle of warm water in the distant Pacific should impact so severely on our local shores. As water temperatures reach an all-time high, the direct effect on wildlife – from seagrass to oysters and fish – will be devastating, the way "wildfires take out huge areas of forest", as one scientist says...
In audio recording, Trump heard discussing sensitive Iran document - The Washington Post
The recording, made at a meeting at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J., is an important piece of evidence obtained by special counsel Jack Smith. It appears to undercut Trump's claims that he had declassified documents before leaving office or didn't know about possessing restricted documents after leaving the White House...
Supreme Court rules against NC Republican theory in election law dispute - The Washington Post
The Constitution's Elections Clause "does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a 6 to 3 decision...
‘Every Body’: Eye-opening documentary sheds light on intersex people - The Washington Post
…Wall (he/him) was born with undescended testes and an unusually small penis, ambiguous enough that he was eventually "assigned" the female sex — and the name Suzanne — and raised as a girl after a gonadectomy. He says he always felt like a boy.
Intersex activist Sean Saifa Wall in "Every Body."
Gallo (they/them) was born with a penis but no testes; surgery was performed to place prosthetic testes in his empty scrotum. Today, Gallo is a nonbinary and queer artist/activist known for the short film "Ponyboi."…
Mueller Report expert Allison Gill exposes the sham Durham Inquiry on The Weekend Show with Anthony Davis.
Mueller Report expert Allison Gill exposes the sham Durham Inquiry and discusses the dangerous case of the MAGA House, responsible for censuring Adam Schiff and trying to impeach Joe Biden.
Interview:
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Public Charter School Seeking Permission to Violate Students’ Constitutional Rights
In Peltier v. Charter Day School, parents and students at Charter Day School in Brunswick County, NC, challenged the "skirts only" rule for girls, which the school says it adopted based on the belief that every girl is a "fragile vessel." The school argued that, as a public charter school, it should be free to violate students' constitutional rights that other types of public schools must respect...
‘Conservative justices? Yeah, in what way?’ Key senator on a supreme court in thrall to special interests
"Then people are beginning to realise that this is not a conservative court. This is a special interests-captured court. But we don't have a very ready narrative in American society for explaining the difference and we still get people who cover the court and …
Whitehouse believes that the term conservative has been "obsolete" since dark money began funding groups such as Leonard Leo's Federalist Society to handpick justices for the court. "There's nothing about the way they're behaving as judges that meets any definition of small 'c' conservative."
He continues: "Little by little, the facts of the decisions they've been up to are beginning to break through with something more than just them being 'conservative'. There's this overlay of who's in charge behind the scenes. Of course that pops up everywhere, in the amicus briefs, in the dark money behind their confirmations. You can't make it stop. Harlan Crow intersects with it. And then Dobbs was a clang the gong moment where everybody realised, oh, this is a little not normal."
‘We can’t rest or relent’: Pence reiterates support of staunch abortion restrictions
Former vice-president hails Dobbs decision as 'historic victory' but says it didn't go far enough and urges a nationwide abortion ban…
Why the Supreme Court Really Killed Roe v. Wade - POLITICO
Abortion opponents gained an ally in Leonard Leo, an attorney who had helped Thomas during his 1991 confirmation hearings. By 2001, Leo had become the head of the Federalist Society's lawyers' division, was profoundly opposed to legal abortion and wanted to dethrone the American Bar Association from its traditional role rating judicial nominees — which activists saw, as Leo put it, as rejecting conservative judges "on ideological grounds." In building new networks between movements and judges, and devising more sure-fire selection methods, Leo became both a patron and an entrepreneur…
Following the election of George W. Bush, Leo joined three other men in a group that called itself the Four Horsemen; the group included not only Republican legal veterans like C. Boyden Gray and Edwin Meese III but also prominent Christian conservative Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice. Leo, who had long worked as a Republican Party liaison with Catholics, helped steer John Roberts' Supreme Court nomination through the Senate…
Leo, meanwhile, went on to gain further influence, helping choose the three Trump Supreme Court picks who would ultimately overturn Roe. The money has also flowed: He obtained a $1.6 billion donation last year from a wealthy conservative businessman named Barre Seid for his legal network, likely the largest political gift in American history…
A critical facet of this story is that a number of conservative grassroots objectives are broadly unpopular, from the recognition of an almost unlimited right to bear arms to the recognition of fetal personhood that would make abortion unconstitutional nationwide. This is an important reason why judicial entrenchment is so attractive to minoritarian interests: They can win by appealing to a handful of judges even when they lose decisively and repeatedly through the political process…
‘Let the world know’: elderly survivors of the Tulsa race massacre push for justice
"We were happy then," she says wistfully. "Before this happened, we had children in the neighbourhood to play with. We had schools, churches, hospitals, theatres and anything that people enjoyed. It was a strong community."
"This" refers to the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, when a white mob descended on the neighbourhood of Greenwood, home to a business district known as Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people and looting and burning businesses and homes. Thousands were left homeless and living in a hastily constructed internment camp…
Abortion pill ruling: The GOP’s backup plan if its lawsuit fails - Vox
The problem, according to medical groups such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is that the claims legislators are asking doctors to make are not supported by good science.
"Claims regarding abortion 'reversal' treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards," ACOG says. "Politicians should never mandate treatments or require that physicians tell patients inaccurate information. This is an interference in the patient-clinical relationship and contradicts a fundamental principle of medical ethics."…
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Behind the Scenes of Justice Alito’s Unprecedented Wall Street Journal Pre-buttal — ProPublica
The Journal editorial page accused ProPublica of misleading readers in a story that hadn't yet been published…
Senate, House Republicans on collision course over defense spending
Republican defense hawks on the Senate Appropriations Committee vented their frustration with the allocations for the Defense Department set by Senate Democrats and House Republicans, which represents an increase of more than 3 percent over current spending levels…
Alito’s Wife Leased Land to an Oil and Gas Firm While Justice Fought EPA
"There need not be a specific case involving the drilling rights associated with a specific plot of land for Alito to understand what outcomes in environmental cases would buttress his family's net wealth," Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, told The Intercept. "Alito does not have to come across like a drunken Paul Thomas Anderson character gleefully confessing to drinking our collective milkshakes in order to be a real life, run-of-the-mill political villain."
Opinion | It’s Not Too Late for the Republican Party - The New York Times
No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that's exactly what they're planning…
Monday, June 26, 2023
Why This Economist Wants to Give Every Poor Child $50,000 (Ezra Klein Show podcast)
“Wealth is the paramount indicator of economic prosperity and well-being,” says the economist Darrick Hamilton. He’s right. Policy analysis tends to focus on income, but it is wealth that often determines whether we can send our kids to college, pay for an illness, quit a job, start a business or make a down payment on a home. Wealth is also the source of some of our deepest social inequalities: The top 10 percent of households in the U.S. own about 70 percent of the nation’s wealth, and the typical Black family has about one-tenth the wealth of the typical white family.
Hamilton is an economist at the New School who has spent decades studying the origins of the United States’ wealth disparities and how to close them. His “baby bonds” proposal — which would give poor children up to $50,000 in wealth by the time they become adults — has been put forward as national legislation by politicians like Senator Cory Booker and Representative Ayanna Pressley, and a state-level version of it is about to be established in Connecticut. So I asked him on the show to walk me through the structure of wealth in America today, the policy decisions undergirding that structure and the kinds of policies we could pass to dismantle it.
Mentioned:
Hamilton is an economist at the New School who has spent decades studying the origins of the United States’ wealth disparities and how to close them. His “baby bonds” proposal — which would give poor children up to $50,000 in wealth by the time they become adults — has been put forward as national legislation by politicians like Senator Cory Booker and Representative Ayanna Pressley, and a state-level version of it is about to be established in Connecticut. So I asked him on the show to walk me through the structure of wealth in America today, the policy decisions undergirding that structure and the kinds of policies we could pass to dismantle it.
Mentioned:
- “Can ‘Baby Bonds’ Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America?” by Darrick Hamilton and William Darity, Jr.
- “A Birthright to Capital” by Darrick Hamilton. Emanuel Nieves, Shira Markoff and David Newville
- “Hidden in Plain Sight” by The Corporation for Enterprise Development
- “Umbrellas Don’t Make it Rain” by Darrick Hamilton, William Darity, Jr., Anne E. Price, Vishnu Sridharan and Rebecca Tippett
- When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson
- Racial Conflict and Economic Development by W. Arthur Lewis
- Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Interview:
The Captured Court Emerges (Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; Making the Case podcast)
When most people think about the current Supreme Court, one of the first names that comes to mind is Donald Trump, who appointed three of its Justices. But there's another name that's arguably more important. And that is the right-wing billionaires’ fixer, Leonard Leo.
In this episode, Senator Whitehouse is once again joined by Rep. Hank Johnson, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, and Lisa Graves of True North Research to discuss the recent history of the right-wing scheme to capture the Court.
Interview:
Consent Search (Andrew McCabe and Allison Gill; Jack: A Special Counsel podcast, Episode #30)
This week: 
- Judge Cannon has set a trial date, but it’s unclear where the proceedings will be;
- the January 6th probe continues along with a new witness testifying before that grand jury in DC;
- findings of the GA investigation into voter fraud;
- plus listener questions.
Interview:
‘The People Are Silent’: The Main Reason the Wagner Mutiny Bodes Ill for Putin - POLITICO
Neither the top military brass, nor the prime minister nor the leaders of the Duma parties, nor the mayor of Moscow backed Putin publicly. The fissures in his support were also evident with the Russian people, who appeared at best indifferent to the outcome of mutiny and at worse, like the residents of Rostov, welcoming it...
In NYC, Some People Forced Into Psychiatric Wards Find Homes - The New York Times
"I begged for help, I asked God to help me with my brother," said Orlando Solano, who said his 67-year-old brother, a onetime doctor, started living in the streets, chased by paranoid delusions, about 15 years ago. "I even looked for some paramedics and told them the situation, but they told me that they couldn't do anything unless my brother had a very serious crisis."
His brother is at a nursing home where his mental and physical health are so improved he's like "another person," Mr. Solano said...
"It's our job to keep people safe," he said. "We can leave someone with wounds that clearly look infected and is sitting in feces and urine. Do you think they have a right to stay there? Maybe. But do we have a responsibility as social service providers, and social workers, and ultimately as human beings to look out for this person, because if we don't, who's going to do it?"
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Two Georgia election workers cleared of wrongdoing in 2020 elections
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss faced harassment after Trump and Giuliani spread false claims about them…
Twitter agrees to comply with tough EU disinformation laws
Bloc officials enter company's headquarters to test its controls on issues such as Russian propaganda
A BRICS currency is unlikely to dislodge dollar any time soon – but it signifies growing challenge to established economic order
Meanwhile, rising interest rates and the recent debt-ceiling crisis in the U.S. have raised concerns among other countries about their dollar-denominated debt and the demise of the dollar should the world's leading economy ever default...
Abortion is a Religious Right (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)
Brad and Dan dedicate this episode to discussing the state of reproductive rights, activism, and law one year since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Brad begins by going through the numbers on support for abortion in the country, policy and campaign surprises since Roe’s fall, and the ways Democrats and Republicans have responded.
In the second segment Dan outlines the American religious groups who are suing to have abortion bans overturned in their states on the basis of religious freedom. The argument: abortion is a religious right that is part of their religious practice.
This leads to a broader discussion of how law and religion work in the USA and why using religion as a means of policy change is so effective.
Interview:
In the second segment Dan outlines the American religious groups who are suing to have abortion bans overturned in their states on the basis of religious freedom. The argument: abortion is a religious right that is part of their religious practice.
This leads to a broader discussion of how law and religion work in the USA and why using religion as a means of policy change is so effective.
Interview:
Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)
"We report state/church victories and complaints in Texas, Alabama, Utah, California and Wisconsin, and we chastise Sen. Josh Hawley for his erroneous and tone-deaf Juneteenth comments about Christianity and slavery.
Then we speak with Catholic journalist Mary Jo McConahay about her new book, Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right."
The interview with McConahay starts at 26:00.
Then we speak with Catholic journalist Mary Jo McConahay about her new book, Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right."
The interview with McConahay starts at 26:00.
Interview:
Saturday, June 24, 2023
The News Roundup – Domestic and International (The 1A) 2023-06-23
Domestic
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal trying to get ahead of a report released by ProPublica detailing unreported trips he took with a billionaire who had business before the court.The one-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade is this week. Abortion continues to be a political sticking point for both parties.
The FTC is suing Amazon over its “deceptive” Prime sign-up and cancelation processes. The commission’s complaint states that the retail giant has “knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling.”
Interview:
International
The search for a submarine carrying tourists to the wreck of the Titanic gripped the attention of people around the world. Hope of finding the five people aboard has now passed.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed Congress this week. Progressives are wondering why President Joe Biden would extend such a warm welcome to a world leader whose actions have sometimes been interpreted as anti-democratic.
At least seven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Hundreds more were injured as soldiers fired live ammunition.
Interview:
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