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.
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