And another day of Trump being awful, SCOTUS, secret plans to eliminate gun laws, Vance’s history of disparaging people without kids, a nationwide abortion ban, the young at higher risks of cancer, and a key contributor to happiness comes to a close:
“Donald Trump is fine when black people are kissing his ass, but when they start asking him serious questions and demanding coherent answers, he shows the signature racism and misogyny that have defined most of his pathetic life.” — Bill Auclair
“Forget about ranking him on an awfulness scale for presidents or candidates. He a horrible human. Just a dark, nasty, disgusting, malevolent, cruel, evil human.” -- Ron Filipowski
Trump falsely accuses Harris of deciding to 'turn Black' during a combative panel with Black journalists. The event was combative from the start as Trump and three moderators from the National Association of Black Journalists sparred throughout. “I’ve known her a long time, indirectly,” Trump said. “And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.” “I respect either one,” he added, “but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and…she became Black. ... Somebody should look into that too.” “Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked...Trump was also asked to clarify his comments during the June presidential debate, when he said immigrants were coming to the United States and taking “Black jobs.” “A Black job is anybody that has a job,” he said. “That’s what it is. Anybody that has — they’re taking the employment away from Black people. They’re coming in, and they’re coming in, they’re invading.”...In the days leading up to the NABJ event, there was a whirlwind of controversy from within the organization about whether Trump should have even been invited to talk. Trump in the past has referred to a Black prosecutor as an “animal,” told Black Democratic members of Congress to “go back” to where they came from and referred to Black female journalists as “stupid,” “loser” and “nasty” — comments that in 2019 drew condemnation from NABJ. -- He is disgusting and vile.
White Man Tells Black Journalists His Black Opponent Is Not Black. Former President Donald Trump’s appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention on Wednesday shocked audience members within its opening minutes, as the GOP presidential nominee insulted the moderators—three Black women—claiming their opening question was asked in a “horrible manner.” “You don’t even say, hello, how are you?” Trump said, taking clear offense to a question about his record of denigrating Black people. And then, it only got worse. “Are you with ABC?” Trump continued. “Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network, and I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit.” -- That this man has so much support is evidence that humanity is on course to extinction.
Biden unveils a proposal to establish term limits for the Supreme Court. President Joe Biden has unveiled a long-awaited proposal for changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on Congress to establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He’s also pressing lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity.
The inside story of John Roberts and Trump’s immunity win at the Supreme Court. The chief justice’s institutionalist tendency had been cemented over the past two decades. He often talked it up, famously admonishing Trump in 2018 that jurists shed their political affiliation once they take the robe, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have it an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.” The chief justice, now 69 and about to begin his 20th term, appears to have abandoned his usual institutional concerns. He upended constitutional norms, enlarged the institution of the presidency and gave Trump a victory that bolstered his litigating position even beyond the case at hand, for example, in his attempt to reverse the conviction in his Manhattan “hush money” trial. A jury in May found Trump guilty of falsifying business records...All told, Roberts appears to have reached a turning point. His vision for the high court became more aggressive, and he has perhaps shed the aura of ineffectualness that permeated some public commentary in recent years. He kept the most important cases for himself, including one that reversed a 1984 precedent giving federal regulators considerable power over health care, food and drug safety, the environment and consumer affairs. (As chief, Roberts makes most opinion-writing assignments; he regularly keeps important cases, but in the past has shared more and evened out assignments among the eight associate justices.) At the same time, his dealings with his conservative colleagues were more agreeable...In their private session on the case the next day, however, the votes on the core issue lacked any ambiguity and Roberts was ready to write with bold strokes that a former president is entitled to presumptive, if not absolute, immunity for all official acts. Further, Roberts’ construction of official acts, as opposed to private ones, was extensive.
The Secret Plan to Strike Down US Gun Laws. Sutherland is much less public about the CDF, which in the half-decade since its rechristening has evolved from spreading the good news to facilitating a far-reaching, multimillion-dollar legal campaign to dismantle America’s gun laws...These lawsuits, aimed at getting an eventual Supreme Court hearing, concern bans on AR-15-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, as well as restrictions on young adults buying and carrying handguns. During its next term, which begins in October, the court will hear one of the suits, a challenge to the government’s ability to check the spread of home-produced, unserialized “ghost guns.”...In short: An anonymous funder or funders is bankrolling a legal attack aimed at providing the conservative majority on the Supreme Court an opportunity to wipe out America’s firearms laws. It’s akin to the Christian right’s abortion playbook but for guns.
Hamas’ top political leader is killed in Iran in strike that risks triggering all-out regional war. Hamas’ top political leader was killed Wednesday by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risked escalating into an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.
Why a Kamala Harris Victory Could Prove Critical for the Health of the Planet. If Harris isn’t elected, Donald Trump has made very clear, over and over again, that he will work to scrap all of President Joe Biden’s hard-fought (and effective) clean-energy and pro-environmental initiatives, while granting fossil-fuel companies carte blanche to spew as many planet-heating gasses as they please. He’s already got a presidential record of ample regulatory rollbacks, international agreements canceled, and oil-industry glad-handing to show for it...Of course, the Biden-Harris administration has been the climate’s best presidential champion in history, but it’s a low, low bar...The promising news is that whichever way Harris spins it, she likely will use her law-enforcement background to go after the oil companies, and they very much seem to understand that. That alone is an important and necessary contrast with Trump.
It’s not just ‘cat ladies’: JD Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids. Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance has a history of making disparaging remarks toward people without children...In November 2020, Vance said on a conservative podcast that childless Americans, especially those in the country’s “leadership class,” were “more sociopathic” than those with children and made the country “less mentally stable.” Vance added that the “most deranged” and “most psychotic” commentators on Twitter – now known as X - were typically childless.
JD Vance Has Supported Criminalizing People Seeking Abortions. Ohio Sen. JD Vance has previously argued against abortion ban exceptions for rape and incest, supported the use of the Comstock Act to criminalize sending abortion medications in the mail, and called for a national abortion ban. “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,” Vance said on a podcast in 2022 when running for the Senate. Add to that his recent support for the use of patients’ medical records by the police to investigate people who travel out of state for abortions. In a letter sent in June 2023 to the head of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Vance and 29 other Republican lawmakers urged HHS to reverse course on its recently finalized rule that protected patients’ reproductive healthcare information from law enforcement, particularly when patients travel to access lawful abortion care. “Abortion is not health care—it is a brutal act that destroys the life of an unborn child and hurts women,” the letter reads. “The Proposed Rule unlawfully thwarts the enforcement of compassionate laws protecting unborn children and their mothers, and directs health care providers to defy lawful court orders and search warrants.” -- So many stupid people. There are many medical reasons where an abortion is necessary. Vote blue and vote these motherfuckers into the dustbin of history.
Here’s How the GOP Platform Could Lead to a Nationwide Abortion Ban. Instead, Hawkins said what leading reproductive rights scholars Mary Ziegler and Rachel Rebouché told me weeks ago: The invoking of the Fourteenth Amendment in the newest GOP platform could grant full citizenship and rights to fetuses—thus offering an avenue to potentially banning abortion nationwide.
Iowa now bans most abortions after about 6 weeks. Four states now ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy — before many women know they’re pregnant — and 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy.
Purdue president: New Indiana high school diplomas won’t meet admission requirements. Purdue University’s president says Indiana’s proposed changes to high school diplomas do not meet the school’s admission standards in math, social studies and world languages.
What’s Behind Trump’s Plan to “Restore American Beauty”? Of all things to rally behind, are Republicans calling for…prettier buildings? Clues from Trump’s time in office point to yes, actually...But as some academics noted at the time, the use of classical architecture in the US has a fraught history. Reinhold Martin, an architecture professor at Columbia University, told the New York Times in 2020 that Trump’s order, while having no real teeth, was “an effort to use culture to send coded messages about white supremacy and political hegemony.” As my former colleague Camille Squires has reported, there is a long, ugly history of pro-slavery Southerners deploying classical architecture to justify their cause. “Beauty” doesn’t exist in a vacuum...But perhaps the vagueness is the point. Whether intentional or not, by failing to define these terms, the Trump campaign can effectively quell the concerns of many voters who support clean air and water, land conservation, and wildlife protections, while failing to make any real commitments. Of course, without aggressive action at the highest level of government, we risk losing the natural beauty of the country as various environmental crises—climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and more—stand to get worse. But hey, at least our buildings will look nice.
FDA approves new blood test to screen for colon cancer. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Guardant Health’s blood test, called Shield, to screen for colon cancer. The test isn't meant to replace colonoscopies, but is generating enthusiasm among doctors who say it has the potential to boost the dismal rate of screenings for the second-highest cause of cancer death in the United States.
Gen X, millennials face higher risk of 17 cancers than older generations. Researchers aren’t sure why but say a combination of factors, including obesity, more sedentary behavior, common medications or chemical exposures, is possible.
Eating more processed red meat is linked to an increased risk of dementia, study suggests. The researchers found that the people in the study who ate at least two servings per week of processed red meat (such as bacon, bologna or hot dogs) had a 14% increased risk of dementia, compared to those who ate less than three servings per month, after the 43-year follow-up period.
Heavy metals, including lead, found in many dark chocolate bars, research shows. “You actually cannot avoid exposure to heavy metals in the diet,” Frame said. “It’s really not about avoiding them; it’s about making sure you’re not getting too much.”
We’ve been wrong about a key contributor to human happiness. But according to new research from Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, there is an “ever-increasing association between more money and higher happiness.”...In short, Killingsworth said that the income threshold idea wasn’t wrong, per se. But his research suggests that if such a level exists, “it is considerably higher than incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.”
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