Friday, June 30, 2023

And another day of legalizing discrimination, allowing State sponsored predatory practices, SCOTUS making it harder to close the racial wealth gap, the misinformation susceptibility test, riots in France, Bolsonaro, and haze, heat, and storms comes to a close:

“If you care about women's rights to control their own bodies, LGBTQ rights, affirmative action for Black people, or student loan debt relief for young people, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court, and the entire Republican Party that empowered them, has now said F-YOU.” — Keith Boykin

“If John Roberts and Clarence Thomas believe that no further action is needed to undo the damage of 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow, then they can just as easily justify rolling back protections for women, the disabled and others.” — Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

“Young folks, the Republicans canceled student loan forgiveness. They took away your bodily autonomy. They won’t address climate change, wage stagnation, or gun violence. They promote racism and they are anti-LGBTQ. Don’t vote for them.” — Jess Piper

The Supreme Court rules for a designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for gay couples. In a defeat for gay rights, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled on Friday that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples. One of the court’s liberal justices wrote in a dissent that the decision’s effect is to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status” and that it opens the door to other discrimination.

"Although the consequences of today's decision might be most pressing for the LGBT community, the decision's logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services. A website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, for example. How quickly we forget that opposition to interracial marriage was often because 'Almighty God

... did not intend for the races to mix.'" — Justice Sonia Sotomayor

“Yesterday GOP's supreme ‘court’ ended affirmative action saying discrimination against any group is wrong. But Today the GOP court ruled people can legally discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Don't try to make sense of this from a legal pov- these are political decisions.” — Dean Obeidallah 

“White Supremacists will love this one. Lunch counters can finally stop serving black people.” — Dave Johnson

The man named in the Supreme Court’s gay rights ruling says he didn’t request a wedding website. The request in dispute, from a person identified as “Stewart,” wasn’t the basis for the federal lawsuit filed preemptively seven years ago by web designer Lorie Smith, before she started making wedding websites. But as the case advanced, it was referenced by her attorneys when lawyers for the state of Colorado pressed Smith on whether she had sufficient grounds to sue…But Stewart told The Associated Press he never submitted the request and didn’t know his name was invoked in the lawsuit until he was contacted this week by a reporter from The New Republic, which first reported his denial…Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Friday called the lawsuit a “made up case” because Smith wasn’t offering wedding website services when the suit was filed. — So one can just make shit up and take it to the Supreme Court…and they will rule on it?

The Supreme Court rejects Biden’s plan to wipe away $400 billion in student loans. The court held that the administration needs Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program. The majority rejected arguments that a bipartisan 2003 law dealing with student loans, known as the HEROES Act, gave Biden the power he claimed. “Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent, joined by the court’s two other liberals, that the majority of the court “overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans.”

“Total student loan debt that would have been erased for millions of Americans: $400 billion. Total cost of the Trump tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy and corporations: $1.9 trillion. This is what I mean when I say the system is rigged.” -- Robert Reich

Affirmative action for white college applicants is still here. Race is now unconstitutional to consider, but other preferences remain. One study found that these preferences give an edge to white applicants. Among white students admitted to Harvard, 43 percent received a preference for athletics, legacy status, being on the dean’s interest list, or for being the child of a faculty or staff member, and without those advantages, three-quarters would have been rejected. Many colleges don’t have selective admissions at all. But at those that do, the Supreme Court, in other words, left plenty of discretion for college officials to fill their student bodies with the children of donors or employees, or with lacrosse, tennis, or football players, or with the children of alumni. Only the effort to create a racially diverse student body is now all but banned.

“We no longer have a Supreme Court. It’s simply an arm of the GOP.” — Dean Obeidallah 

The Supreme Court’s lawless, completely partisan student loans decision, explained. Let’s not beat around the bush. The Supreme Court’s decision in Biden v. Nebraska, the one canceling President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, is complete and utter nonsense. It rewrites a federal law which explicitly authorizes the loan forgiveness program, and it relies on a fake legal doctrine known as “major questions” which has no basis in any law or any provision of the Constitution...There are legitimate policy debates to be had over the Biden plan’s efficacy, fairness, and necessity. But one thing that should have been straightforward was its legality...Roberts’s opinion in Nebraska effectively overrules the decision of both elected branches of government. It overrides Congress’s unambiguous decision to give this power to the secretary of Education. And it overrules the executive branch’s judgment about how to exercise the authority that Congress gave it. As Kagan writes in dissent, “the Secretary did only what Congress had told him he could.”...Obviously, there are potential downsides to Congress’s decision to give him this authority. Any government official given broad authority by Congress might abuse that power. Or they might exercise it unwisely. But, as Kagan writes, Congress’s decision to preference flexible policymaking over constraining public officials “may have been a good idea, or it may have been a bad idea.” But, “either way, it was what Congress said.” And it is not supposed to be the job of the courts to second-guess Congress’s decisions about how federal law should operate. -- Read the rest.

Biden announces new efforts to provide student debt relief after court loss. The president said that once student loan repayments begin on Oct. 1 — after a three-year pause that began during the Covid pandemic — borrowers will have the opportunity to enroll in a temporary 12-month "onramp repayment program" that will remove the threat of default. "During this period, if you can pay your monthly bills, you should," Biden said in brief remarks from the White House. "But if you cannot, if you miss payments, this onramp will temporarily remove the threat of default or having your credit harmed, which can hurt borrowers for years to come.”

Supreme Court to take up major Second Amendment case next term. The Supreme Court on Friday said it will weigh whether a federal ban on gun possession for people under domestic violence restraining orders is constitutional, setting up a major Second Amendment case for the court’s next annual term...The dispute now before the justices involves the criminal case of Zackey Rahimi, who is contesting the federal law after Texas placed him under a restraining order after he assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her. Months later, police searched Rahimi’s home in connection with an unrelated investigation and found a rifle and a pistol. A federal grand jury indicted Rahimi for possessing a firearm while being under a domestic violence restraining order, and he began fighting the charge as a violation of his Second Amendment rights. After his argument was rejected, Rahimi proceeded to plead guilty and was sentenced to 73 months in prison. Then, the Supreme Court handed down the Bruen decision. Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion changed the test that lower courts had used to decide whether gun regulations complied with the Second Amendment. The conservative majority ruled that firearm regulations must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition. -- You can already see where this is likely to go.

“Republicans are out here celebrating the fact that their unelected grifters–appointed by an ex- president who’s being indicted for espionage–have just made life worse for LGBTQ+, for students, and PoC.” -- Brian Ray

“Some people really do want to watch the world burn.” -- R.L. Stollar

The Supreme Court Made It Even Harder to Close the Racial Wealth Gap. Within 24 hours, two rulings from the nation’s highest court—one striking down the use of race-conscious college admissions, and the second gutting Biden’s student debt cancellation plan—rolled back years of progress towards greater economic justice and educational opportunity for students of color. In these rulings, the Supreme Court has all but ensured the deepening of racial wealth inequality by undoing the chance to erase debt held disproportionately by Black Americans, and also decreasing access for students of color to elite US colleges—and the financial opportunity they can offer their graduates…This is in part because Black borrowers take out disproportionately more loans to pay for higher education—often because Black households have less saved to pay for children’s college, due to the racial wealth gap. Then, faced with labor market discrimination, Black borrowers often earn less and then pay down their debt more slowly, further expanding existing wealth inequality. — It always boils down to racism. 

"Everyone must understand that the Republican Party has absolutely nothing to offer Americans. No policy to enrich our lives, no healthcare, no economic, no social, no security policies to help move our country forward. Therefore all  they can do is complain and tell lies." — Daniel Lederman

The Misinformation Susceptibility Test. The quick two-minute quiz gives a solid indication of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by the kind of fabricated news that is flooding online spaces…The first survey to use the new 20-point test, called ‘MIST’ by researchers and developed using an early version of ChatGPT, has found that – on average – adult US citizens correctly classified two-thirds (65%) of headlines they were shown as either real or fake. However, the polling found that younger adults are worse than older adults at identifying false headlines, and that the more time someone spent online recreationally, the less likely they were to be able to tell real news from misinformation. This runs counter to prevailing public attitudes regarding online misinformation spread, say researchers – that older, less digitally-savvy “boomers” are more likely to be taken in by fake news…When it came to age, only 11% of 18-29 year olds got a high score (over 16 headlines correct), while 36% got a low score (10 headlines or under correct). By contrast, 36% of those 65 or older got a high score, while just 9% of older adults got a low score. Additionally, the longer someone spent online for fun each day, the greater their susceptibility to misinformation, according to the MIST. Some 30% of those spending 0-2 recreation hours online each day got a high score, compared to just 15% of those spending 9 or more hours online.

France riots: Public transport curtailed after rage over shooting. France asked all local authorities to halt public transport on Friday in a desperate attempt to restore order after rioters torched buildings and cars during a third night of rage sparked by the police shooting of a teenager.

Eight-year election ban for Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court has voted 5-2 to bar ex-president Jair Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years. Mr Bolsonaro was found guilty of abusing his power ahead of last year's presidential poll. He had been accused of undermining Brazilian democracy by falsely claiming that the electronic ballots used were vulnerable to hacking and fraud. — Yet in the US, Trump has a realistic chance of taking the Presidency again. 

Haze, heat and storms are bringing danger and discomfort to many parts of the US. From heat waves in the South and West to unhealthy air quality in the Northeast, much of the U.S. was under the threat of extreme weather. In the Midwest, some residents Friday were recovering from a powerful storm that moved through Illinois and Indiana a day earlier packing winds that reached more than 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour).

ChatGPT maker OpenAI sued for allegedly using "stolen private information". OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT, went from a non-profit research lab to a company that is unlawfully stealing millions of users' private information to train its tools, according to a new lawsuit that calls on the organization to compensate those users.

Gray whales extend population decline, but with signs of hope, study says. Gray whales on the North American Pacific coast fell this year to their lowest population since the late 1960s and early 1970s, but have also shown encouraging signs such as an increased number of calves born and healthier looking animals, scientists report...The decline has been linked to a reduced source of food in addition to human factors such as collisions with vessels and entanglements in fishing nets, experts said, and the recovery may be the result of whales adapting to the food shortage by finding it elsewhere.

WHO's cancer research agency to say aspartame sweetener a possible carcinogen. Aspartame, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars' Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer research arm, the sources told Reuters.

RIP Alan Atkin. He was 89.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Thursday, June 29, 2023

And another day of affirmative action, religious accommodations, DeSantis to eliminate four federal agencies, rich guys who want RFK for President, House R’s avenging Trump, book bans threatening democracy, health insurers saying ‘no,’ and ‘ghost’ particles comes to a close:

“If Generation Z is concerned about their future they will never vote for a Republican.” — David Pederson

Supreme Court strikes down college affirmative action programs. The decision was hailed by prominent conservatives, who say the Constitution should be "colorblind," with former President Donald Trump calling the ruling "a great day for America." Liberals, however, condemned the ruling, saying affirmative action is a key tool for remedying historic race discrimination...The ruling is likely to have repercussions far beyond higher education, including on K-12 schools, and puts increased pressure on colleges to come up with workable race-neutral programs that would foster racial diversity. The decision could also lead to future challenges to racial diversity programs used by employers as similar arguments could be made under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment.

Sotomayor and Jackson slam idea that U.S. is 'colorblind'. The Supreme Court's first Latina and first Black female justices both argued that race-conscious admissions have advanced constitutional equality. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson accused their conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court of ignoring the persistent presence of racism in the United States in striking down affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday..."The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society," Sotomayor added. "Because the Court’s opinion is not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, I dissent."..."Our country has never been colorblind.”

California ended affirmative action in the ’90s but retains a diverse student body. Colleges and universities in California have relied on holistic reviews of applicants, considering such factors as personal essays and whether students turn educational opportunities at their high schools into academic achievement. Some institutions have eliminated requirements for all applicants to submit standardized test scores, which tend to benefit students whose families are able to afford tutors and preparatory classes. The move away from standardized test scores is part of a larger national trend to level the playing field for students from all walks of life.

Supreme Court solidifies protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations. The court made clear that businesses must cite more than minor costs — so-called de minimis costs — to reject requests for religious accommodations at work. Unlike most cases before the court, both sides in the case had agreed businesses needed to show more.

Ron 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." — DeFascist is not a Republican moderate. He’s an extremist. 

Meet the Rich Guys Who Want RFK Jr. to be President. But now, two months later, the anti-vaccine activist-turned-presidential hopeful is doing a lot better in his bid for the Democratic nomination than anyone had expected. It’s early days, of course, but a May CNN poll suggested that he should not be consigned to being a mere curiosity, or a fringe candidate: A fifth of Democratic and Democratic-leaning Independent voters said they favored him over President Biden. As for his financial support, his campaign disclosures will not be released until mid-July…The support Kennedy commands is even more notable considering that Kennedy’s platform is, to put it mildly, eccentric. The founder of the anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense, he recently remarked to podcast host Joe Rogan, “Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier, and so all these toxins that are in your body can now go into your brain.” In a conversation earlier this month with Twitter executive chairman Elon Musk, Kennedy raved about how Covid was a bioweapon and suggested that secret labs the world over are designing special weapons designed to kill only people of certain races. Last week, in a SiriusXM interview, he said that he believed that Russia was “acting in good faith” in its invasion of Ukraine. Despite his storied last name and the fact that he is running as a Democrat, over the last two years, Kennedy has allied himself with prominent right-wing activists. In 2021, he spoke at the ReAwaken America tour organized by former national security adviser to former President Donald Trump and conspiracy theorist Mike Flynn. Given this unusual collection of beliefs, it is not surprising that the CNN poll found that Kennedy’s greatest strength among voters so far is his family name…One of Kennedy’s biggest—and richest—fans is the entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, who made an early Silicon Valley fortune as a pioneer of the optical computer mouse in 1980. [The article gives a lot of information on Kirsch. Read it.]…Kirsch, who didn’t respond to my requests for comment for this article, does not yet appear to have donated to Kennedy’s super PAC, American Values 2024. But some other rich guys did…This cast of left-meets-right Kennedy superfans clearly wants to help propel Kennedy out of the fringe and into the spotlight—but whether they’ll be able to do it, says Open Secrets’ Glavin, remains to be seen…Candidates can’t get that broader support without flashy ads, which, of course, is where the rich guys come in. If Kennedy gets “one of these contrarian, wealthy supporters to put a lot of money into the super PAC,” says Glavin, “he’s going to be able to get out there and really make his presence felt.” — Let’s be clear: his name may be Kennedy, but his family does not support his political views. His name is irrelevant. He’s a conspiracy theorist. Don’t let him split the Democratic vote and let Trump or DeSantis into the White House.

House Republicans embark on a mission: Avenge Trump. They've punished his Democratic critics, probed prosecutors who charged him and set up a weaponization panel boosting his narrative. Now they want to “expunge” his impeachments. House Republicans are using the powers of their majority to carry out Donald Trump’s quest for retribution against his political adversaries, bolstering the indicted former president’s 2024 campaign message that he is the victim of a wide-ranging conspiracy by “villains” who must be brought down.

Pregnant or recently pregnant? You just got a lot more rights. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which went into effect this week, gives pregnant and postpartum workers rights to temporary accommodations at work — things like flexible schedules, lighter duty, remote work, more breaks, or access to a chair. The hope is that this will help them keep their jobs while they grow and recover from growing other humans. A decade in the making, the new law will likely change the work outcomes for millions of pregnant people who now have the ability to ask for what they need to get by at work.

How book bans threaten democracy. At the library, patrons aren’t really expected to pay for anything; they can use the library’s free services, from unlimited wifi to job application support; and, of course, the thousands of books libraries hold are available to anyone. But in recent months, Republican state lawmakers and local elected boards in states including Texas and Missouri have threatened to remove library funding as a way to control what materials patrons can and cannot access…The funding threats didn’t come out of nowhere. They are an outgrowth of book bans in public schools. When anti-book crusaders are unsuccessful at banning certain materials, lawmakers and board leaders escalate the fight and threaten to remove funding for libraries altogether.

Paris: Macron calls police killing of teen 'unforgivable'. France's president has called Tuesday's fatal shooting of a teen by police "unforgivable", saying "nothing justifies" a young person's death. Emmanuel Macron's comments come after protests over the killing gripped the Paris region overnight. Nahel, aged 17, was shot in his car after failing to stop when ordered to. Video on social media shows an officer pointing a gun at the driver of a car, before a gunshot is heard and the car then crashes to a stop. The teenager died of bullet wounds in the chest, despite help from emergency services.

How Often Do Health Insurers Say No to Patients? No One Knows. Yet, how often insurance companies say no is a closely held secret. There’s nowhere that a consumer or an employer can go to look up all insurers’ denial rates — let alone whether a particular company is likely to decline to pay for procedures or drugs that its plans appear to cover. The lack of transparency is especially galling because state and federal regulators have the power to fix it, but haven’t…“This is life and death for people: If your insurance won’t cover the care you need, you could die,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation who has written repeatedly about the issue. “It’s all knowable. It’s known to the insurers, but it is not known to us.” — Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

“It has long astonished me that the people who oppose single-payer medical insurance because they don't want ‘some government bureaucrat’ making their medical decisions are PERFECTLY OK with some corporate bureaucrat at a for-profit insurance company doing the same exact thing.” — Vaughn Winchell

Central US is now getting worst of the drought. Corn crops are stressed, rivers are running low. Heavy rain over the winter eased the drought in the West, but now the middle of the country is extraordinarily dry. Crops are stressed, rivers are running low, and cities and towns are anxiously hoping for a break in the weather. Experts say the drought in the central U.S. is the worst since at least 2012, and in some areas, is drawing comparisons to the 1988 drought that devastated corn, wheat and soybean crops. This year, although temperatures have been generally mild through the spring and early days of summer, rainfall has been sorely lacking.

Google says it will remove Canadian news links from searches in the country. Google announced it will stop showing links to Canadian news on its products in Canada after the passage of the Online News Act, which requires online platforms to pay content fees to Canadian news outlets.

Thousands more prisoners across the US will get free college paid for by the government. Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program, which offers the neediest undergraduates tuition aid that they don’t have to repay. That program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year.

Why streaming services are dumping shows left and right. Why, you might very reasonably ask, would anybody do this? If a show is just sitting on a hard drive somewhere, not hurting anybody, what’s the harm of leaving it there? Maybe it’s not the most-watched show on the service, but who cares? Companies care, as it turns out, especially about their balance sheets and their shareholders.

Scientists have finally ‘heard’ the chorus of gravitational waves that ripple through the universe. Scientists have observed for the first time the faint ripples caused by the motion of black holes that are gently stretching and squeezing everything in the universe. They reported Wednesday that they were able to “hear” what are called low-frequency gravitational waves — changes in the fabric of the universe that are created by huge objects moving around and colliding in space.

Scientists see 'ghost' particles originating from the Milky Way for the first time. In a world-first, scientists have said they produced an image of the Milky Way not based on electromagnetic radiation — light — but on ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

And another day of audio tapes, SCOTUS rulings, DeSantis endorsing ‘deadly force,’ solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, a brutal heat wave, racism in US getting worse, air quality, declining forests, and pumping groundwater shifts Earth’s axis comes to a close:

“Fascism is not an ideology; it’s a process for taking and holding power.” — Madeleine Albright

GOP’s response to the Espionage charges against Trump is what FASCISM looks like. The tactics the GOP is employing to defend Donald Trump in response to the disgraced former President being charged with 37 felonies--including 31 counts of Espionage—is not simply about “hyper-partisanship” as some in the media are saying. Rather, it’s actually far more alarming. The GOP’s defense of Trump--ranging from threats of violence to using the government to protect Trump—provides us with even more evidence today’s Republican party has become a full-blown fascist movement…Let’s look at how experts describe fascism and then compare it with the GOP’s tactics to defend Trump.

1. Violence: “Whatever else it is, fascism involves the endorsement and use of violence to achieve political goals and stay in power.”…The threat of violence is now the go-to move for many in the GOP.

2. Blind loyalty to an “infallible leader.” “Fascism is based on power, loyalty, and fear of the other. The fascist leader is infallible.” He added, “And anyone who opposes him is immediately a traitor to the nation.”…Beyond the base, GOP members of Congress are showing devotion to their supreme leader by launching an all-out campaign to attack the special counsel’s investigation, vowing to use every tool at their disposal to undermine its findings – from subpoenas to defunding everyone from the office of the Special Counsel and even the DOJ.

3. Projection. “Fascist tactics always involve projection. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the totalitarians. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the threat to the nation that they in fact are.” (Sound familiar?!)…Like the corrupt Nazis as Stanley laid out, Trump accuses his opponent of being “corrupt” when he is the one facing a total of 71 felonies in two different jurisdictions. Add to that, Trump claims Biden wants to “destroy American democracy” when he attempted a coup and incited the Jan 6 attack to achieve that very goal. And it’s not just Trump who is the king of projection. His allies in Congress are now defending Trump while accusing President Biden of corruption despite not having the evidence.

4. Today’s GOP is what fascism looks like. Of course, not all Republicans are fascists- but the Republican leaders who have spoken out could fill a Toyota Prius—and still there would be room left in the back seat. And once these Republicans denounce Trump, they are labeled “traitors” by Trump and his supporters. That is what fascist movements do.

In an audio recording Donald Trump discusses a ‘highly confidential’ document with an interviewer. The special counsel’s indictment alleges that those in attendance at the meeting with Trump — including a writer, a publisher and two of Trump’s staff members — were shown classified information about a Pentagon plan of attack on an unspecified foreign country. “These are the papers,” Trump says in a moment that seems to indicate he’s holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran. “This was done by the military, given to me.” Trump’s reference to something he says is “highly confidential” and his apparent showing of documents to other people at the 2021 meeting could undercut his claim in a recent Fox News Channel interview that he didn’t have any documents with him.

“2 died of Ebola: They said Obama should resign. 4 died in Benghazi: They had Hillary testify for 11 hours, held 33 hearings, and launched a 4-year probe. 763,044 Covid deaths, an armed insurrection & theft of classified documents: They cheered, and want Trump to be president.” -- Andrea Junker

Blame the Supreme Court for America’s Decade of Voter Disenfranchisement. 

• The main reason that Republicans were able to target Black representation so ruthlessly was because of Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Supreme Court ruling holding that states with a long history of discrimination no longer needed to approve voting changes and electoral maps with the federal government—a process known as “preclearance.” June 25th marks the 10th anniversary of the decision, which has had a devastating impact on voting rights in the South. Shelby County laid the groundwork for a wave of new voter suppression laws and racially gerrymandered maps. Decades of advances for minority voters have been wiped out in the past ten years. “History did not end in 1965,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion in the 5-4 ruling, alleging that “things have changed dramatically” in the South. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s fiery dissent, where she compared the decision to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” now seems far more prescient…

• Since 2013, more than thirty states have passed new restrictions on voting, including 85 percent of states that were previously required to get federal approval for their voting changes, either statewide or in select jurisdictions. Twenty new laws impeding voting access and fair election administration were passed in the former preclearance states following the Shelby decision…

• Republicans now have majorities in all of the South’s 26 legislative chambers aside from the Virginia Senate, and supermajorities in at least one chamber of the state legislature in every former Confederate state except for Georgia, Texas, and Virginia. The expulsion of two Black Democrats from the Tennessee House last April captured national attention, but it was simply the most blatant example of how Southern state legislatures have undercut minority voting rights in ways unseen since the Jim Crow era. “Because of the makeup of Southern legislatures, they’re starting to act pre-1960s.” The history of the South shows how quickly gains and rights for formerly disenfranchised communities can be taken away…

• Voter suppression efforts have only intensified since Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election, with his Big Lie inspiring an unprecedented reversal of voting access…GOP-controlled states have become increasingly brazen in targeting minority voters…Post-Shelby, such laws can only be challenged after the fact, through lengthy litigation before conservative-dominated courts. The burden of proof has shifted from those engaged in discrimination to those facing it…

• After the onslaught of voter suppression laws, the second major blow from the Shelby decision was a raft of gerrymandered maps passed by nearly every Southern state…Republicans either dismantled existing majority-minority districts in areas like Fitch’s in North Carolina or refused to draw new ones to keep pace with demographic changes in states like Texas. Nearly all of the Lone Star State’s growth over the previous decade came from minority residents, but maps passed by legislative Republicans increased the number of districts held by white Republicans…“I don’t think we’re going backwards,” he says. “We’ve already gone backwards.”

Democrats warn party: The threat of Trump winning in 2024 is 'very real'. But a new NBC News poll released Sunday showed Biden with a relatively narrow 49% to 45% lead over Trump — which falls within the survey’s margin of error and is far lower than the 10 percentage point edge Biden held in NBC’s last poll before the 2020 election. The new survey shows DeSantis, who is less known than Trump, tied with Biden at 47% each. Despite an air of confidence from Biden and his team, some Democrats say they believe Trump has a very serious shot at winning back the Oval Office. -- The word “winning” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Ron DeSantis says he’ll end birthright citizenship as president. Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration system and ramp up border enforcement, vowing to end birthright citizenship, “repel the invasion” at the U.S. southern border and use the “levers at our disposal” to ensure cooperation from Mexico. — DeFascist is just trying to play up to all the white nationalists. Birthright citizenship is in the constitution. He’d need an amendment to remove it. 

“Without the socialism of Social Security benefits & Medicare payments, Florida as we know it would not exist.” — Lawrence O’Donnell

No Labels’ signature-gathering firm has ties to Ron DeSantis. As part of its push for a unity ticket presidential bid, the bipartisan group No Labels quietly employed a firm with ties to GOP candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis...Still, the expenditures are likely to provide fodder to the group’s critics, who have accused it of having too many ties to Republicans and who fear a well-funded third party candidate could help re-elect former President Donald Trump. Though No Labels has floated Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) as a possible presidential candidate, its affiliated nonprofit has many donors who have given heavily to Republicans in the past.

Supreme Court rules against giving state legislatures unchecked control over federal elections. The justices ruled in a 6-3 vote that the North Carolina Supreme Court was acting within its authority in concluding that the map constituted a partisan gerrymander under the state Constitution...The ruling was widely welcomed by voting rights groups and Democrats who had been worried about the implications of a ruling that would curb state court power. "Today the Supreme Court rejected the fringe independent state legislature theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances," former President Barack Obama tweeted.

“Look this is very good news but still horrifying that 3 Supreme Court Justices were willing to end democracy as we know it.” — Mallory McMorrow

Supreme Court paves the way for Louisiana congressional districts to be redrawn. The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Louisiana's appeal seeking to prevent the state's congressional map from being redrawn over claims that it unlawfully dilutes the influence of Black voters. The move via a brief unsigned order was expected after the Supreme Court's ruling on June 8 that buttressed a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act in a similar case concerning congressional districts in Alabama.

Supreme Court rules for online stalker convicted of making ‘true threats’. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a Colorado man convicted of making "true threats" who repeatedly sent abusive messages to a local musician. The court said that Billy Counterman's conviction for sending Facebook messages to singer-songwriter Coles Whalen was based on the wrong legal standard. On a 7-2 vote, the justices ruled that the jury should have been required to make a finding about whether he intended his comments to be genuine threats. If such messages are not true threats, they are deemed protected speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Supreme Court lets lawsuits over team doctor’s sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State. The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss.

McCarthy considers impeachment inquiry of AG Merrick Garland over Hunter Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is considering launching an impeachment inquiry over Attorney General Merrick Garland's handling of the investigation into President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

Ron DeSantis endorses 'deadly force' against migrants suspected of trafficking drugs. It's not clear exactly how officers would be able to tell exactly who was a drug smuggler and who was not. -- That may be DeFascist’s main objective. Muddying the waters so no one is safe and everyone is a criminal.

Deputies accused of abusing Black men are fired by Mississippi sheriff amid federal probe. All five Mississippi deputy sheriffs who responded to an incident where two Black men accused the deputies of beating and sexually assaulting them before shooting one of them in the mouth have been fired or resigned, authorities announced Tuesday.”

Most Black Americans believe US racism will get worse in their lifetime: poll. Nearly 70 percent of Black Americans said now is a more dangerous time to be a Black teenager than when they were teens, including almost 80 percent of those 50 to 64 and 65 and older. Almost 60 percent of Black adults said they are very or somewhat worried they or someone they love will be attacked because they are Black.

Police 'appeared to ignore rules' in strip searches on teens. Police in Northern Ireland "appeared to ignore the rules" in the vast majority of strip searches conducted on young people in 2022, a review has concluded.

Solitary confinement is still widespread in US prisons and jails. The US continues to lock people in isolation even though it causes severe psychological damage that can last a lifetime…“As the United Nations has confirmed, it’s torture taking place on US soil. Now, we finally have a comprehensive count of how many people are in solitary confinement.”…“I think it’s really important to point out how extreme the United States is,” said Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. “In European countries, it’s considered a violation of human rights for someone to be locked up for more than 15 days in solitary confinement, and we’re locking up people here for 20 or 30 years.”

A brutal heat wave is gripping Texas for a third straight week. Punishing heat is gripping Texas for a third straight week, with tens of millions of people in other states across the South also facing scorching conditions this week. It's a brutal heat wave that officials say “shows no signs of letting up.” Much of Texas continues to swelter under triple-digit temperatures, and heat records across the state have been smashed in what has been a blistering start to summer. Warnings and advisories for excessive heat are also in place across the Southwest and parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Texas’s nighttime temperatures are a symptom of a new, more dangerous kind of heat wave. But overnight temperatures will also stay abnormally high, with potentially 180 nighttime records broken over the next seven days. Hotter nights are a consequence of the climate crisis, scientists have warned. On average, nights are warming faster than days in most of the US, according to the 2018 National Climate Assessment.

Over 80 million people from the Midwest to the East Coast are under air quality alerts as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifts to the US. Canada is seeing its worst fire season on record with hundreds of wildfires raging across the country – more than 200 of them burning “out of control,” according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The wildfires have led to the highest emissions on record for the country, according to a Tuesday report from Copernicus. As smoke crosses into the US, air quality alerts have been issued for the entire states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Delaware and Maryland as well are portions of Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, according to the National Weather Service. Residents are being advised to stay indoors with their air conditioning running or wear N95 masks if they have to be outside.

The alarming decline of Earth’s forests, in 4 charts. Over the last decade, dozens of companies and nearly all large countries have vowed to stop demolishing forests, a practice that destroys entire communities of wildlife and pollutes the air with enormous amounts of carbon dioxide…And yet forests continue to fall. A new analysis by the research organization World Resources Institute reveals that deforestation remained rampant in 2022. More than 4 million hectares (about 10 million acres) of forests vanished from the tropics that year in places like Brazil and Central Africa, according to the analysis, which is based on data from the University of Maryland. That’s a Switzerland-size area of forest gone, WRI said. Alarmingly, the world lost 10 percent more tropical forest in 2022 compared to the previous year, indicating that countries are, on the whole, moving in the wrong direction. This is especially troubling considering that tropical forests are among the most important ecosystems on Earth. They help regulate weather, store vast amounts of carbon, and provide homes to the richest assemblages of wildlife on the planet.

The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine. After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many predicting more vaccines will be out in five years. These aren’t traditional vaccines that prevent disease, but shots to shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Targets for these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer, with gains reported this year for deadly skin cancer melanoma and pancreatic cancer.

No more needles? A daily pill may work as well as Wegovy shots to treat obesity. High-dose oral versions of the medication in the weight-loss drug Wegovy may work as well as the popular injections when it comes to paring pounds and improving health, according to final results of two studies released Sunday night. The potent tablets also appear to work for people with diabetes, who notoriously struggle to lose weight. Drugmaker Novo Nordisk plans to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the pills later this year.

Analysts estimate pickleball injuries could cost Americans as much as $500M this year. The analysts wrote that while seniors are becoming more active, they can be more susceptible to injuries, especially those associated with pickleball. They said that the sport is “highly attractive” to seniors, who make up one-third of players who play eight times or more per year.

Humans pump so much groundwater that Earth’s axis has shifted, study finds. However, the new research shows that persistent groundwater extraction over more than a decade shifted the axis on which our planet rotates, tipping it over to the east at a rate of about 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) per year. That shift is even observable on Earth’s surface, as it contributes to global sea level rise.

Costco cracks down on members sharing cards at checkout. The big box retailer will require shoppers at the self-checkout kiosks show their membership cards with their photo before they can begin scanning after the company noticed non-members were borrowing the non-transferrable cards to get in the warehouse.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.