Saturday, July 8, 2023
AOC Calls Out 'Dangerous Authoritarian Expansion of Power in the Supreme Court'
"What's actually disturbing is the feature of the Roberts Court to accept lavish gifts from billionaires, hide that fact, & then rule in their favor. It would be an insult to democracy to respect this conduct. Legitimacy is not a birthright - it is earned. They are destroying it"
Nonbinary genders beyond 'male' and 'female' would have been no surprise to ancient rabbis, who acknowledged tumtums, androgynos and aylonot
Rabbinic literature, the body of texts written by Jewish leaders in antiquity, includes several other categories. In these texts, a person with both sets of external genitalia is called an "androgynos," a term borrowed from Greek. A person with neither is called a "tumtum," and a person who loses his male sexual organs is called a "saris." There is also a term for someone whose sex assigned at birth is female but does not develop to female sexual maturity – in some cases, because they develop "male" traits: an "aylonit."…
Sanders Statement on Supreme Court Overturning Student Debt Cancellation
" If Republicans could provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent and profitable corporations, if they could cancel hundreds of billions in loans for wealthy business owners during the pandemic when Trump was President and if they could vote to spend $886 billion on the Pentagon, please don't tell me that we cannot afford to cancel student debt for working families. …"
30-year-old who left the U.S. for Denmark says she's 'much happier' now: 'My salary goes further'
It would be difficult for me to go back to the U.S. and deal with private health care, teaching without a union (in some states) and high child care costs. So I'm grateful for my life here and have no plans to leave.
The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decision Is the Latest Effort to Erase Racism from Cultural Consciousness - Scientific American
Liliana Garces of the University of Texas at Austin and her colleagues have found that legal pressures faced by educational can drive administrators to make less inclusive decisions for fear of reprisal and lawsuits when confronted with hate speech. That is why the Supreme Court's actions are yet another square in the tapestry upholding white supremacy—making it so onerous for colleges to thread legal and legislative decisions that administrators overreact.
Along those lines, there's already a new case being argued that focuses on a magnet high school from my home state, Virginia. The Fairfax County School Board was sued because of "race-neutral" changes in the school's admissions policies (e.g., swapping an exam for essays and providing a preferential weight for students who are experiencing poverty). The plaintiffs argued the changes created an undue burden for students of Asian descent because they added weight to so-called proxies for race. Even though the appellate court ruled in favor of the school, it is widely expected that this case will be appealed to the Supreme Court, where even "race-neutral" admissions practices aimed at diversifying the student body may be curtailed.
This gives away the game: the goal is not now, nor has it ever been, to solely focus on so-called race-neutral measures. It has been to dismantle any tools that can be used to advance racial justice in the U.S. —to neutralize any discussion of racism, the wages of whiteness and their joint effect on society...
Campaign Legal Center Files Ethics Complaint Against Governor DeSantis for Undisclosed Travel Gifts
"This lack of disclosure from Governor DeSantis appears to be a clear violation of state laws that are necessary to maintaining public trust," said Kedric Payne, CLC Vice President, General Counsel, and Senior Director of Ethics. "Floridians have a right to know that government officials representing them are acting in the public's interests – not their own personal interest, or the interests of the wealthy special interests who give them gifts."
To help consumers, Biden takes aim at ‘junk’ health care plans
The Biden administration's new moves on "junk" health care plans may not get a lot of attention, but they'll likely help consumers — and the ACA system...
Michigan set to receive $1.5B from feds for high-speed internet
Michigan U.S. Sens. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township and Debbie Stabenow of Lansing, both Democrats, praised the funding in Monday statements.
Peters said the funding will "make a big difference for families, workers, students and small businesses, including to those who currently lack access, and is important to economic opportunity and competitiveness."
Stabenow said the internet is "an essential service" needed for work, school and more. "This new infrastructure will allow for telemedicine, remote learning, and other services families and businesses rely on in Michigan," she added…
Marjorie Taylor Greene Isn’t Extreme Enough for the House Freedom Caucus - The Atlantic
Greene was not ejected for subscribing to QAnon beliefs, or for encouraging violence against colleagues, or for blaming wildfires on Jewish space lasers, or for supporting Vladimir Putin. Instead, Harris said, Greene was punished for tangling with her fellow HFC member Lauren Boebert of Colorado and daring to take a minimal step toward governance by aligning herself with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a conservative Republican. The vote shows just how radical the MAGA fringe in Congress is today—a wild-eyed clique implacably opposed to governance…
Friday, July 7, 2023
Opinion | How Utilities Use Money From Your Bills to Block Clean Energy - The New York Times
…around the country, utility companies are using their outsize political power to slow down the clean energy transition, and they are probably using your money to do it…
World’s 722 biggest companies ‘making $1tn in windfall profits’
Those profits have stoked accusations of "greedflation" – pushing through excessive price increases and driving up inflation...
‘It’s just like the intifada’: Palestinians reel from Israel’s raid on Jenin | Palestinian territories | The Guardian
Clean-up begins after three-day operation, the largest attack on occupied West Bank in two decades…
Moms for Liberty is part of a long history of rightwing mothers’ activism in the US
As the group has grown, so too have its political ambitions. Moms for Liberty places particular emphasis on capturing local school boards in order to secure greater control over school policy. More broadly, the group endorses legislation that would limit the topics that can be discussed in the classroom (for instance, Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" legislation), and they promote policies that allow parents to target books for removal from school libraries and classrooms.
The materials challenged by Moms for Liberty reflect the "war on wokeness" announced by conservative figures such as Tucker Carlson and Ron DeSantis. Group members regularly disrupt school board meetings to rail against books that address the nation's history of racial violence (maligned under the fuzzy category of "critical race theory"). Likewise, the group condemns materials that explore gender identity or advocate for LGBTQ+ acceptance – particularly those that explore transgender identity. Librarians, teachers and parents who defend these materials have been repeatedly harassed by group members as "groomers" or "pedophile sympathizers"...
Missouri newspaper condemns Josh Hawley for posting fake quote
Earlier this week, Hawley reframed Independence Day on Twitter as a great Christian event, quoting the founding father Patrick "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Henry as saying that America was founded "not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
Nice quote. But as the editorial board wearily pointed out in its second Hawley column, "the quote is false. Made up."
It actually came from a piece about Henry published in 1956 by a white nationalist magazine, the Virginian…
Boy, 16, dies in sawmill accident in Wisconsin | Wisconsin | The Guardian
"To stop violations of child labor laws, we need more funding for enforcement, higher penalties, and clear, attainable ways to hold lead corporations accountable for violations in their supply chains," Gerstein told the Guardian...
Police treatment in black and white – report on Minneapolis policing is the latest reminder of systemic racial disparities
This reality is built on a long history of police targeting people of color. Indeed, policing in the United States was established on the practice of controlling specific populations. In the 19th century, for example, policing in the South was designed to monitor the movement of enslaved Black people. Some of the first police forces in the nation were developed to keep the enslaved from escaping and to recapture them if they did. They were called slave patrols, and by law, some states required white men to serve as slave patrollers.
Similar histories exist with the Irish in the Northeast before they were considered white, as well as with Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest.
Policing and controlling the movements of specific nonwhite groups have often gone hand in hand. This powerful cocktail of racism and policing has enabled brutal forms of violence against people of color...
AI is an existential threat – just not the way you think
So, no, AI won't blow up the world. But the increasingly uncritical embrace of it, in a variety of narrow contexts, means the gradual erosion of some of humans' most important skills. Algorithms are already undermining people's capacity to make judgments, enjoy serendipitous encounters and hone critical thinking...
Campaign Legal Center Files Ethics Complaint Against Governor DeSantis for Undisclosed Travel Gifts
"This lack of disclosure from Governor DeSantis appears to be a clear violation of state laws that are necessary to maintaining public trust," said Kedric Payne, CLC Vice President, General Counsel, and Senior Director of Ethics. "Floridians have a right to know that government officials representing them are acting in the public's interests – not their own personal interest, or the interests of the wealthy special interests who give them gifts."
House Approps Republicans Pollute Annual Spending Bills with Attacks on Climate, Clean Energy, Water
"House Republicans continue using the same tired playbook: They're hijacking must-pass bills with harmful poison pill riders that neither the public nor Congress support but benefit their polluter donors," …
US Needs to Solve Its Skilled Worker Shortage to Compete With China
America's drive to compete with China in manufacturing requires lots more skilled workers. Tennessee's experiment with free technical school, and its close partnerships with business giants like Volkswagen and Nissan, offer a glimpse of the future…
The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decision Harms Science, Education and Health - Scientific American
Success is not a finite resource. Society does better, generation after generation, when we extend educational opportunities to people who historically haven't gotten them. White students benefit educationally from diversity. Black people live longer when they have Black doctors. In study after study, more diversity makes for better work. More innovation happens. More people make money to support the economy. And accomplishments are more meaningful when we lift others up, instead of pulling the ladder up...
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Did Israel’s Military Incursion in the West Bank Solve Anything? - The New York Times
Underlying sources of Palestinian anger remain, including the West Bank occupation dating to the 1967 Middle Eastern war, continued encroachment by Jewish settlements and a lack of economic opportunity. Palestinian statehood is as distant as ever. Ultranationalist members of Israel's government reject any talks or political progress with the Palestinian leadership, which is weak, divided and unwilling or unable to police rising hotbeds of militancy…
Biden brings in Sperling to calm looming Detroit showdown - POLITICO
The upcoming contract talks between the Big Three automakers and a newly energized United Auto Workers union threatens to pose a political threat to Biden's reelection campaign...
Insight: Swing state Republicans bleed donors and cash over Trump's false election claims | Reuters
Real estate mogul Ron Weiser has been one of the biggest donors to the Michigan Republican Party, giving $4.5 million in the recent midterm election cycle. But no more...
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Man accused of attacking Capitol officer as January 6 arrests pile up
More than 1,000 people in total have been arrested, across almost all states, for January 6-related crimes...
US judges across country block healthcare bans for trans youngsters
US district court judges have halted such laws in six states so far – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee – finding that they infringe on the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the 14th amendment to the US constitution...
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
The housing community that will require ‘patriots’ to fly the US flag
Developer of North Carolina neighborhood for homeowners 55 and older says his brand 'only the beginning' of a 'movement'
Pro-choice Catholics fight to seize the narrative from the religious right
"Catholic teaching supports and respects religious pluralism. And what rightwing Catholics are trying to do is have their theological ideas codified into civil law. By doing that, they're infringing on the religious freedom of everyone else. Our religious freedom guarantees not only our right to practice our beliefs, but our right to be free of the beliefs of others and so abortion bans and restrictions take away religious freedom," she said...
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Twitter suspends Erica Marsh account after questions are raised - The Washington Post
In eight months, Erica Marsh has become one of the most consistently viral left-wing voices on Twitter, gaining more than 130,000 followers for her hyper-liberal, often melodramatic opinions on the biggest flash points in American news.
She's been especially popular with conservatives, who promoted her as a perfect symbol of how overly theatric and inane progressives can be — like when she attacked the Supreme Court's affirmative-action decision last week by saying "no Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system." The tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
There's just one problem: She's probably a fake...
Monday, July 3, 2023
Pragmatic, swing district House Republicans push back on agenda - The Washington Post
"At the end of the day, if you don't want to vote for it, that's fine," Joyce recalled telling a Freedom Caucus lawmaker. "But do not get up and say that no Republicans should vote for this. There are 435 districts. You don't control any of them but the one you were elected in.
"We're not actively trying to side with Democrats. We're just trying to do what's right for our district."
'Stewart' cited in SCOTUS gay rights case says he never requested a website - The Washington Post
A request he appeared to have made in 2016 to a Colorado artist to create designs and possibly a website for his same-sex wedding was now part of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the reporter told him.
Except Stewart — who didn't want his full name used out of fear of being harassed — is not gay. In fact, he has been married to a woman for 15 years, and he's a web designer himself.
"I've been active and vocal on LGBTQ rights," he told The Washington Post on Saturday. "So it was frustrating to see my name being used."…
Sunday, July 2, 2023
‘It’s infuriating’: queer New Yorkers react to supreme court’s LGBTQ+ ruling
Days after Pride celebration mood near historic Stonewall Inn has changed: 'Who is to say this will stop at queerness?'
Documentary 'Every Body' centers the lives and activism of intersex people : NPR
"Yeah. So I like to think of intersex as sex characteristics. And, you know, when I say sex characteristics, I mean hormones, like testosterone or estrogen, chromosomes, like XX, XY, X, XXY, internal organs like ovaries, testes, ovotestes and external organs like penis, vagina. So we all have sex characteristics, but people with variations in their sex characteristics are often targeted by the medical establishment and by practitioners for what sometimes are very harmful medical interventions."
…
So although I was, you know, born with a small phallus and undescended testes, I was assigned female at birth. And they were hoping that my mom would do really invasive medical surgery to sort of align my body with sort of social expectations of female, right? And even though they had done the surgery, I still didn't necessarily feel more like a girl. I didn't fit in. So I went to college. And one night, I'm sort of at my student job, and I type in testicular feminization syndrome. And then this updated term, androgen insensitivity syndrome, came up. And I sort of looked at the characteristics of AIS, and I was literally in shock because I was like, that's me. That's my body. And all of the doctors who I had spoken to or interacted with up until that point did not tell me the truth about my body.
‘Nowhere in Palestine is free’: West Bank villagers defenceless against rising settler violence
The killing of a young father during a rampage through his quiet village underlines the impossible options for Palestinians in the occupied territories…
Kagan says Barrett got it backwards | CNN Politics
"The broadly worded 'waive or modify' delegation IS the HEROES Act, not some tucked away ancillary provision," Kagan wrote, referring to the relevant student loan program statute. "And as JUSTICE BARRETT agrees, 'this is not a case where the agency is operating entirely outside its usual domain.' So I could practically rest my case on JUSTICE BARRETT's reasoning."
Saturday, July 1, 2023
The latest Hunter Biden controversy, explained
Basically, a Trump-appointed prosecutor is denying Shapley's narrative of pro-Biden political interference. That's clearly important. …
Trump launches FairTax attacks while supporters in House push for bill
But the attack line based on the FairTax bill, which would overhaul the current system and implement a 23-percent sales tax nationwide, is having little effect on the policy in Congress, where many Trump supporters who co-sponsor the legislation still support the idea…
New Zealand bans thin plastic fruit and vegetable bags in world first | Evening Standard
The ban is expected to reduce the use of 150 million bags a year…
GOP had evidence disproving Biden bribery claims in 2019, top Democrat says | The Independent
"In this case, that context includes not just repeated and failed efforts in 2019 and 2020 by Mr. Giuliani, Senate Republicans, and Trump's Justice Department to find support for these allegations, but also clear evidence that then-Vice President Biden's actions carried out the policy of the United States, its allies, and its international partners to combat corruption in Ukraine," he said...
The Supreme Court didn’t end affirmative action for white people - Vox
The Supreme Court's decision to effectively ban the consideration of race in college admissions reversed more than 40 years of precedent. It also left other kinds of admission preferences in place — ones that often benefit white students...
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Revealed: Christian ‘hate group’ funds US anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion organizations
A rightwing Christian "hate group" which is behind a host of legal efforts to roll back abortion rights, remove anti-LGBTQ+ protections and demonize trans people has seen a huge increase in its funding and has funneled some of that money to a slew of smaller anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion groups across the US, the Guardian can reveal...
Republicans claim Democrats can’t keep us safe – crime data disagrees
Studies show that states with higher murder rates are those that vote red even as conservatives stoke fear about crime…
Opinion | The Supreme Court Turns ‘Equal Protection’ Upside Down - The New York Times
But diversity — whether on campus, in business, or in government and society at large — remains a vital goal for any institution, and it will now be more difficult to achieve. The word is not a "trendy slogan," as Justice Jackson wrote in her dissent. Diversifying medical schools by opening up the profession to Black physicians can save lives, she notes. Black infants, for example, are more likely to survive under the care of a Black doctor. Diversity also expands economic benefits and social understanding. A diverse student body, she wrote, means that "students of every race will come to have a greater appreciation and understanding of civic virtue, democratic values, and our country's commitment to equality." …
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."…
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