Killing, Supreme Court Etc.

Two years ago on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers in an Ulvalde (TX) school while 376 law enforcement officers waited 77 minutes to breach the door where he was shooting them. On May 24, 2024, 19 families of students and teachers killed or injured settled a lawsuit with the city for $2 million. They also announced they are suing 92 officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the school district, and individual employees.

In other lawsuits connected to the shooting, the family of a 10-year-old victim sued almost two dozen people and entities, including the gun manufacture, the store providing the rifle using for the killings, and law enforcement officials who waited to take action plus a $27 billion class action lawsuit by shooting survivors against several state law enforcement agencies. On the two-year anniversary, victims’ family members filed a lawsuit against California-based companies Meta, parent of Instagram and Facebook, and Activision, owner of the video game Call of Duty featuring the gun the shooter used. The lawsuits claim that these two companies and the gun manufacturer marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde killer before he was 18. He bought an AR-15 23 minutes after midnight on his birthday. Daniel Defense had emailed the shooter when he was 17, telling him the weapon was “ready” for him.

The families’ attorney, John Koskoff successfully helped victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting win a $73 million settlement in a lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in that school shooting in a setback for the firearms industry. Koskoff worked around a 2005 congressional law shielding gun companies from liability by using a consumer protection state law, an exception to the federal law. Instagram from gun manufacturer Daniel Defense show videos of young men

Complaints maintain the three companies “groom … socially vulnerable” young men radicalized to live out violent video game fantasies in the real world with easily accessible weapons. A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense states, “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a videos of young men firing the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting and an image of someone taking a gun out of a car trunk with the words “refuse to be a victim.” A New York judge has permitted a case from families of victims in Tops supermarket shooting in Buffalo to move toward discovery in holding social media companies’ algorithms responsible for radicalizing the shooter.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) aren’t alone in high U.S. officials flying the insurrectionist “Appeal to Heaven” flag.  Leonard Leo, the man from the Federalist Society who succeeded in pushing far-right judges with little or no experience onto the federal bench in perpetuity, is part of the club. His excuse is that, as the “flag of the first navy of the U.S.,” it “symbolizes civic duty and philanthropy towards one country.” No one cared about the flag, however, until the last decade when Christian nationalist used it to represent insurrection and violence. Leo also claimed that “as a resident of Maine, the Pine-Tree-State, I like pine trees.” [Note: he doesn’t fly his Maine state flag although it has a pine tree.]

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Judiciary panel, wrote Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, asking for a meeting to discuss his justices’ ethics and ensure that Alito recuses himself from cases dealing with the insurrection and DDT’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. On MSNBC, Whitehouse talked with Lawrence O’Donnell about how Leo, an operative of the Koch brothers and other billionaires, put “the agreeable” and corrupt Alito on the high court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also proved he supports racial gerrymandering. During the 70^th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education blocking school segregation, Thomas used the pro-gerrymandering opinion to attack the 9-0 1954 decision declaring the unconstitutionality of the “separate but equal” doctrine as “extravagant uses of judicial power.”

In the Middle East, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah,” a southeastern Gaza city, after the International Criminal Court charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for genocide in Gaza. The ICJ also ordered Israel to open the southern border crossing from Egypt to humanitarian aid. Examining South Africa’s case on the Rafah’s offensive forcing the evacuation of 800,000 Gazans, the court’s judge, Nawaf Salam, called the humanitarian situation in Rafah “disastrous” and has “deteriorated further” since the ICJ issued its last order to Israel in March. The court, however, did not call for a ceasefire.

ICJ’s rulings are legally binding, but Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said his government “will not agree” to stopping its military assault. With no police force, the international court has difficulty carrying out orders, such as when Russian ignored a 2022 ruling to stop its invasion of Ukraine. In 1986, the ICJ ordered the U.S. to pay Nicaragua war reparations after violating international law. The U.S. refused and vetoed further attempts.

The court members voted 11-2 for Israel to halt its attack with only Israel and Uganda opposing the decision. The U.S. voted in favor of it. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the court to “go to hell” over the ruling. and said the order “will and should be ignored by Israel.”

Ukraine used U.S.-supplied missiles to destroy an $800 million Russian air defense system close to front lines at an airfield in Mospyne in the occupied Donetsky region. The attack came during the Russian push to seize more of eastern Ukraine before military aid could arrive. A day later, Ukrainians hit two Crimean targets during Russian drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, including air bombs, warheads for short-range missiles, and artillery munitions. French President Emmanuel Macron considers sending troops to Ukraine, and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Ukraine can use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

Another trial started on Friday, this one regarding 12 charges of fraud against exiled Chinese mogul Guo Wengui. Jurors are kept anonymous because of Guo’s former efforts to send his followers to protest outside homes of legal adversaries and members of their families. With DDT’s adviser Steve Bannon, convicted for contempt of Congress for not responding to a subpoena, Guo founded the “New Federal State of China” claiming to be a government-in-waiting to take over governance in Beijing. His defense will likely be fear of the Communist Party.

Norfolk Southern must pay a $15 million civil penalty and the costs of cleaning up the toxic disaster from a train derailment in East Palestine (OH) in early 2023 through a settlement of $310 million. The penalty is the highest amount permitted under the Clean Water Act. If a federal judge approves, the settlement resolves all federal claims and investigation except for the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the derailment cause. Norfolk Southern also agreed to a $25 million program for medical exams and mental health services for community members and first responders for 20 years as well as $30 million to monitor groundwater, surface water, and drinking water for another 10 years. Last month, Norfolk Southern agreed to a separate $600 million settlement for 31 class-action lawsuits by reside3nts and businesses.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) brain damage reemerged, this time about unemployment. In his support of DDT, he claimed that unemployment rates were very low under DDT but have skyrocketed since Joe Biden became president. Corrections for Tuberville: During the first three years of DDT’s term, when DDT said he had the greatest economy in history, the economy created almost 6.4 million jobs. Those jobs all disappeared before DDT left the white House. Since Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, the economy created almost 16 million jobs. By 2017, the annual jobless rate was 3.7 percent, but the onset of Covid in early 2020 increased unemployment to almost 15 percent in a recession, averaging an annual rate of 8.1 percent. The next year, Biden’s first, unemployment fell from 6.4 percent in January to 3.9 percent in December. The rate has been below 4 percent for 27 consecutive months, not seen since the 1960s.   

In proof that inflation was caused by price gouging, big retailers such as Target and Walmart are dropping their prices because they’re losing consumers. After McDonalds jacked up their prices, it plans to introduce a $5 meal deal. 

Religious people are now using another reason for block in vitro fertilization (IVG) other than life beginning at contraception: it requires the husband to use pornography, according to the Family Research Council (FRC). The claim is that IVF clinics employ this to get sperm. “It’s not good for a marriage,” said an FRC member in a video. The Catholic also considers IVF “immoral” because it “eliminates the marriage act as the means of achieving pregnancy” even if the sperm and egg come from husband and wife. Catholics also teach that masturbation, the method of obtaining sperm, is always wrong.

Biden Accomplishments, GOP Voting Control

With No Labels no longer searching for a presidential candidate, co-founder Joe Cunningham plans to vote for President Joe Biden, not Robert F. Kennedy Jr. According to Snopes factchecker, this quote from Dan Rather is accurate. The top donor for both Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and John F. Kennedy Jr. is Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

Kennedy follows DDT in minimizing the January 6 insurrection and repeatedly asks, “What’s the worst thing that can happen” when referring to the “demonstration” in “that building.” Five police officers were killed because of the attempt to overturn democracy, and another 140 were injured. Physical threats required congressional members, their staff, and then-VP Mike Pence to be evacuated. Taxpayers paid $2.7 billion including repair to extensive damage; officials also pay billions for expanded security because of the heightened violence in the nation.

The mainstream media prefers to publicize Deposed Donald Trump (DTT) instead of highlighting accomplishments of Biden’s accomplishments. A few recent ones:

The 303,000 new jobs announced for March dropped the unemployment rate to 3.8 percent, the 26^th consecutive month under 4 percent, the longest period of time since the 1960s. “Full employment” has been defined at 5 percent or below. Wages rose on an annual basis to 4.1 percent, well above the 3.2 percent for that time.

The so-called “border crisis,” used by GOP in campaigning against Biden, added millions of new workers, lifted payrolls and growth, helped keep a lid on consumer prices, and can reduce the deficit. Of the additional 3.3 million immigrants in 2023, most are asylum seekers from Latin America allowed to find work while their claims are pending. The projection of 5.2 million more workers during the coming decade can grow the economy by $7 trillion and add $1 trillion in tax revenues.

Biden plans to rescind DDT’s 2020 ruling that goods produced in occupied West Bank can be labeled “Made in Israel.” The European Union requires that these goods must be labeled as produced in occupied territory, not from Israel itself.

Biden reduced illegal border crossings by using the 1952 Immigration and National Act to allow vetted Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans into the U.S. for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” They pay their own way and have U.S. sponsors, but 14 months after Biden announced the program in a public press conference, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), in a desperate battle for reelection, spread the lie that Biden secretly use government-funded charter flights to bring “illegal” migrants into the country. Presidents of both parties have used the program, starting with GOP Dwight Eisenhower in 1954. Afghans in 2021 and Ukrainian refugees in 2022 also came into the U.S. because of this law.

In other news:

A federal judge ruled that minors stashed at open-air sites must receive safe shelter, even if they haven’t been formally processed, because they are in legal custody, according to the 1997 Flores settlement agreement. The court order takes effect immediately, and the DHS needs to process all children “expeditiously.” Border Patrol officers must stop directing minors to these areas. Outdoor areas lack shelter, food, and sanitation.

Another Native American tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux, banned South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, one of DDT’s wannabe VP picks, from its reservation. She was barred by the Oglala Sioux Tribe in February after her statements that tribal leaders are “personally benefiting” from drug cartels and tribal children “don’t have parents and help them.” She also said that tribal members “have a tribal council or a president who focuses on a political agenda more than they care about actually helping somebody’s life look better.”

In Russia, Ukraine used drones to destroy six planes at an airbase in the Rostov region and badly damaged another eight, all used on the front line in Ukraine. Last Tuesday, Ukraine struck a drone factory and oil refinery over 800 miles into Russia. Ukraine keeps fighting for democracy while the GOP Putin wing in the U.S. House refuses funding for its assistance. Sanctions and drones also caused Russia’s Novatek, the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, to suspend production as well as LNG transport until at least the end of June. State oil giant Rosneft also dropped processing by 20 percent.

In the Middle East, Israel issued an “oops” statement about the killing of seven humanitarian aid workers from World Central Kitchen in the “regrettable loss of life.” Biden finally started getting a bit tougher in a telephone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who suggested he would provide more temporary humanitarian aid to northern Gaza. The U.S. is also on high alert after Israel attacked Iran’s consulate in Syria, preparing for a possible attack on U.S. assets in the region. Biden put Netanyahu “on probation” in an effort to persuade him to change course.

As the election grows closer, election news becomes more fraught. For decades, Republicans have believed that they cannot win elections and control legislatures fair and square, that they must keep the vote to only those from their own voters to keep the control conservative and white.

Newbern (AL) started blocking the Black vote in 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed. The town simply had no elections for mayor: the current mayor appointed the next one. With a population of 133, Newbern is two-thirds Black, however, and Patrick Braxton, the only person to run for the mayor in 2020, is a Black resident. According to law, he should have become mayor. Because no one filed for town council, Braxton appointed five Blacks for the positions. The town’s white leaders, however, held a special election without notifying any other residents and unsurprisingly produced a majority-white town council and a white mayor. They changed the town hall locks, took town documents, and denied Braxton access to the town’s mailbox and bank account. The Black officials sued to make Braxton the legal and rightful mayor of Newbern and the five other plaintiffs legal and rightful town councilmembers. The lawsuit’s outcome will determine whether the Black residents of Newbern will be able to vote in November.  

Wisconsin used a conspiracy theory to pass a ballot initiative to ban the use of private funds for administering elections. States don’t provide sufficient funds for the process.  

In another way to get an extra electoral votes, DDT urged Nebraska to change a 1991 law allowing each of the three congressional districts to cast their votes according to popular vote instead of the winner-take-all procedures in all but two states. The proposal lost this past week in the state unicameral legislature, the only one in the nation, with 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and a progressive nonpartisan. The bill’s sponsor said that passing the bill at this time is “procedurally impossible” because the session is over on April 18. The GOP governor may call a special session.

The election board of Tarrant County (TX) numbers ballots, permitting officials to know who cast each vote, and wants to have pre-numbered ballots. The process would enhance voter fraud rather than prevent it. Ballots are available for public viewing after the election for 22 hours; anyone buying or coercing votes could check to see if a person voted as promised. 

Many conservatives make  mail-in voting difficult because DDT sometimes warns against it while Republican leaders support the process. Eight states, all blue except for Utah, allow all elections to be conducted by mail. 

Throughout the nation, legislatures in conservative states claim privilege in creating district maps benefiting the GOP and win in court by concealing the process of determining these maps. Conservative circuit courts, such as the 5^th Court of Appeals, side with these legislatures. Texas prevents the increasing number of Hispanics, outnumbering white people, from influence.

In Pennsylvania, a 2-1 vote of a 3^rd Circuit Court three-judge panel overturned a lower court when they ruled that mail-in ballots without a handwritten date or an incorrect date won’t be counted although the date has no purpose. These ballots have been accepted in the past, and an appeal to the Supreme Court will be too late.

Even if courts rule some congressional redistricting unconstitutional, delays block changes until changes cannot be made. In South Carolina, GOP Rep. Nancy Mace’s unconstitutional district was protected by a three-judge panel from the 4^th Circuit Court who said they had little choice because of the fast-approaching deadline for the primary election. Last year, the court maintained the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature had “exiled” more than 30,000 Black residents from the coastal 1st Congressional District in “bleaching” to benefit Republicans and an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Supreme Court heard the case last October but hasn’t ruled on it.

The 3^rd Circuit Court also ruled for Republicans in North Carolina, permitting them to use state legislative maps that allegedly dilute Black state representation.

In Florida, the 11^th Circuit Court upheld the GOP redistricting map favoring Republicans and erasing a seat held by a Black Democrat.

Ironically, 90 percent of people believe that the right to vote is important or very important to the U.S. identity and three-fourths think that a democratically elected government is extremely or very important.

Catch-up on McDaniel, Bridge Collapse; Russia, Israeli Wars

 Update on Ronna McDaniel’s hiring/firing: After MSNBC hosts complained about the hiring of Ronna McDaniel, MSNBC President Rashida Jones privately told anchors that they would not need to put her on their shows. More information, however, reveals that Jones was instrumental in persuading McDaniel to take the job after she was offered more money for both NBC and MSNBC.

In the latest fallout regarding McDaniel, the RNC contemplates limiting NBC access at its convention this summer because the event “allows President Trump to feature his message and vision in a fair way.” A requirement might be reporting the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, as possibly required for new RNC employees. In the 2016 primary, the RNC cut out NBC from hosting a debate, but Rob Zatkowski, Director of the House Periodical Press Gallery, said that the RNC doesn’t have control over credentialed outlets for the convention. The RNC claims it manages access to the convention center’s forum for live shots, transportation the network uses, and hotel space. A spokesperson said:

“It appears that it’s up to Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow as to whether NBC will participate in the convention since we just learned that NBC is held hostage by their ‘talent.’”

More about the bridge collapse: After President Joe Biden promised to take funding for rebuilding the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge to Congress, the me-me-me-me-me GOP extremists have objected, preferring to send more money to the rich and big businesses. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) texted that the idea is “TOTALLY ABSURD!!” In a more reasonable response, some liberals called on the cargo company to pay at least part of the costs. Maryland Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin are working with Maryland to cover ten percent of the possible $2 billion expenditure with the remainder covered by a federal emergency fund.

In 2007 when an I-35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, George W. Bush signed a unanimous congressional bill for emergency funding within a week. Spending hawk Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) displayed a surprising understanding of the issue. He said the federal government should pay for interstate highways and replace the bridge because of the port’s importance to national commerce and international trade. 

Van Hollen said 32 members of the Army Corps of Engineers are surveying the scene of the collapse and 38 Navy contractors are working on the salvage operation. The bodies of two men were recovered from a pickup truck in the river near the bridge’s middle span, but the bodies of four other workers are still missing. The victims, some undocumented but all sending money home to their families, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Two other people who went into the water were rescued. At least one large vehicle remains in the water.

Twenty of the 21 crew members on the Dali, which caused the collapse, are from India. Only one was slightly injured. Of the 4,700 shipping containers on board, 56 of them contained hazardous materials, 14 of them destroyed. The International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333 is helping its 2,400 members who have lost their jobs until the port can resume shipping. The federal government provided the $60 million requested by Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore as a “down payment” toward cleaning up and rebuilding the bridge.

Racist conservatives blame Blacks for the bridge collapse, including the appointment of Karenthia A. Barber as one of six commissioners for the Port of Baltimore and the city’s mayor, Brandon Scott, elected with 70 percent of the vote. Scott said DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, is used by people who don’t have the courage to say the N-word. On Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh wrote an article accusing Scott of attacking “white people” while Walsh attacks MSNBC host Joy Reid.  

Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wants taxpayers to pay for a dedicated security escort at commercial airports. His amendment for the FAA bill  to cover federal judges, congressional members, or cabinet members plus their families and staff who have been threatened—a long list—has failed.   

Russia is using a “shadow fleet” of at least 600 to hide its shipments of oil to other countries because of international sanctions on its oil industry. One of them, the Andromeda Star, collided with another ship. Fortunately, its 700,000 barrel capacity was empty; otherwise it could have caused an ecological disaster. The ships “tend to be older, … less well maintained, … run by less experienced crews, … and carry less insurance than they should,” according to research. Also owners aren’t listed on public databases. Western countries, including the U.S., have declared a cap on Russia’s oil of $60 a barrel to use Western shipping infrastructure and insurance, but Russia is skirting this sanction with shadily registered ships.

With no insurance or reachable owner, another shadow tanker, the Pablo, exploded in Malaysian waters and killed three crew after offloading its cargo in China. Malaysian authorities finally towed it to a scrapyard. Shadow fleet ships had to be rescued in the Bay of Gibraltar, run aground near the Chinese port of Qingdao, and drifted for days after losing power in Indonesia. The Houthis attacked a Panama-flagged, India-affiliated ship carrying oil from Russia although promising not to attack Russian or Chinese ships, but the ship had a UK owner until a few months before the attack. Last September, two aging shadow fleet tankers turned off their transponders to conceal their location and made a a ship-to-ship oil transfer off the coast of Greece.

With increased bank scrutiny, Russia is struggling to collect its oil payments from China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Banks are starting to require written guarantees that no person or entity from the U.S. SDN (Special Designated Nationals) list is involved in a deal or is a beneficiary of a payment. UAE banks have suspended several accounts connected to Russian goods trading.

Last Saturday, Ukraine’s navy hit three Russian landing ships and an intelligence ship in Crimea plus the Sevastopol port facilities and an oil depot. One of the ships, the Kostiantyn Olshansky, had been Ukrainian until the Russians captured it in 2014. Ukraine claims it has sunk or crippled one third of Russia’s navy. In addition, 200 companies in Ukraine focused on drones are delivering 50 times as many of them as this time last year.  

Poland has activated its aircraft because of “intense activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation” related to missile strikes against targets in Ukraine. A Russian missile flew into Polish air space during an attack on Ukraine. A Russian SU-35 Flanker fighter jet also crashed into the sea off Sevastopol, possibly from “friendly fire.”

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee that NATO, which includes the U.S., could be dragged into a war with Russia if their forces are permitted to overtake Ukraine. Austin said that “if Putin is successful here, he will not stop.” A Putin victory will also embolden other tyrants with the Baltic states possibly next. Putin has threated to use nuclear weapons. Austin’s warnings were almost ignored by the mainstream media that focused on his keeping his hospitalization a secret at the beginning of January.

Israel blames Hamas’ rejection of a truce proposal on the UN ceasefire resolution that unanimously passed because the U.S. abstained, but the U.S. State Department said that it was passed after the Hamas’ response. Hamas asserted it is keeping to its original position calling for a full ceasefire, and Israel retaliated with attacks on other 60 targets. Israel is also blocking food convoys from entering North Gaza provided by the UN Palestinian aid agency as Palestinians starve. The agency is the primary one supplying and distributing aid and services to Palestinian refugees. The block came days after the U.S. passed a spending bill which banned funding for the agency because Israel accused, with no evidence, that a dozen of its 13,000 employees participated in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had canceled his meeting in the U.S. after the ceasefire was passed with the help of U.S. but now asks it be rescheduled to discuss its military operation in Gaza’s Rafah. No date has been set. Biden’s declaration of the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. is dissipating with Netanyahu’s threat to attack the Rafah, a city of 75,000, where 1.5 million Gazans have retreated. The president calls the invasion a “red line.” Netanyahu said he would appreciate Biden’s support, but he can do it alone.

Israeli soldiers find their destruction of Gaza a joke and post photos and videos of themselves playing with Gaza women’s underwear (left). In one video, a soldier sits on top of a tank holding a female mannequin dressed in a black bra and helmet, saying, “ I found a beautiful wife, serious relationship in Gaza, great woman.” The UN Human Rights Office spokesperson said that “the posting of such images is demeaning to Palestinian women, and all women.” More images. 

Thursday’s sold-out fundraiser at New York’s Radio City Music Hall with former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and other big names from the entertainment world raised over $26 million for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign with a crowd of about 5,000. In one night, Biden received about double donations to Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) during the entire month of January.

Social Media Censorship, Government Shutdown, More

On Monday, the Supreme Court case heard arguments about Texas and Florida laws for almost four hours restricting the removal of political or controversial posts from social media, and the questioning from a majority of the justices indicated that the laws would remain blocked while cases returned to lower courts. Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the First Amendment ban on censorship—the term the two state laws use for social media prohibiting false information—refers only to the government, not private entities. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agrees with Roberts, but Justice Samuel Alito’s questions appeared to differ from the laws unconstitutionality in forcing speech on social media.  

The high courst’s decision about Texas and Florida laws will determine whether sites such as X, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok can determine how to moderate spam, hate speech, and election disinformation. Roberts said that the state laws are “saying ‘you must do this, you must carry these people—you’ve got to explain if you don’t. That’s not the First Amendment.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that Florida’s law could require the online marketplace Etsy to carry everything, and Kavanaugh worried about “the state taking over media, like in some other countries” after Alito described the social media control as “Orwellian.”  

States claim laws are vital to preventing social media from discrimination against conservatives. Justice Elena Kagan asked:

“Why isn’t that, you know, a classic First Amendment violation for the state to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to allow you to enforce those sorts of restrictions’?”

Once again, Clarence Thomas has hit the news with a scandal, and one again it isn’t for his work on the Supreme Court. The hiring of Crystal Clanton, 28, for one of his law clerks gives her the most elite assignment available to a young law school graduate. She worked for Thomas’ wife Ginni in 2018 and lived with Ginni and Clarence Thomas for almost a year after highly conservative Turning Point USA fired her for sending such racist texts to another employee as “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like f—  [spelled out] them all … I hate blacks. End of story.” The text is not isolated. Thomas’ recommendation gained her a position with 11^th Circuit Court Chief Justice William H. Pryor Jr., one of the most conservative members of the federal judiciary. Clanton is one of three percent of the law clerks from the Santonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University hired in the last three years.

Michael Flynn, DDT’s former head of national security for a few days, is also back in the news after documents show that the nonprofit America’s Futures, founded by conservative Phyllis Schlafly in 1946, is spending large amounts of money on his family since Flynn became its board of directors chairman. Brother Joe is a director, and sister Mary O’Neill is its executive director. In 2021 and 2022, the organization raised $3.7 million, 60 percent from anonymous donors, but spent $4.4 million, and 30 percent of the expenditures, 43 percent in 2022, paid salaries, compensation, and other benefits for its leaders and staff. Flynn’s family received over $510,000, over one-third of the expenditures. In 2021, America’s Future gave almost $1 million to the Cyber Ninjas for its failed review of Maricopa County’s (AZ) election results after the 2020 election. Other money went to groups pushing election fraud lies.

Government Shutdown:

With five days before a partial government shutdown, congressional leaders failed to reach an agreement to fund the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and other offices for fiscal 2024. Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) claims “the House has worked nonstop … to reach agreement with the Senate on compromise government funding bills in advance of the deadlines.” He asserted that Senate Democrats have added points “to spend on priorities that are farther left than what their chamber agreed upon.” Five months past the budget deadline, the House has failed to pass appropriations bills, insisting on non-fiscal discriminatory poison-pill amendments include anti-LGBTQ+ and women’s reproductive rights.  

Privately, legislators say they are considering a fourth temporary spending extension to keep 20 percent of the government open after March 2 and the remainder on March 9. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote, “Unfortunately, extreme House Republicans have shown they’re more capable of causing chaos than passing legislation.” Johnson complained about Schumer’s “counterproductive rhetoric” and later added that “this is not the time for petty politics.” Translation: Schumer is supposed to be nice to Johnson while he is stalls for more spending cuts and rolls back President Joe Biden’s legislative victories and executive orders before the 2024 election.

The House GOP extremist Freedom Caucus is willing to force a government shutdown, but governing-minded GOP lawmakers reject the shutdown because their party will suffer its consequences in the fall elections while they try to cling to a narrow House majority, flip the Senate majority, and put a Republicans in the White House. A week ago, the Freedom Caucus gave Johnson a list of 21 rider demands, including eliminating DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayoras’ salary, blocking Biden’s climate agenda, and cutting off funding for the World Health Organization and several UN relief agencies. The far-right prefers sequestration, automatic across-the-board spending cuts taking effect in May of seven to ten percent reductions.

House leadership failed their promise to release the long-awaited compromise appropriations bills during the weekend with a Sunday target.

Congressional leaders failed to unveil the long-awaited compromise appropriations bills over the weekend, blowing through a Sunday target date floated last week and, as a result, leaving members wondering about a path forward just days ahead of the looming deadline. House conservatives are fine with abusing the nation with a government shutdown, but Democrats are willing to support an extension for the budget until April 30 when the one percent cuts kick in.

A catch-up of past news:

No matter how critical presidential candidate Nikki Haley is about DDT, she still would pardon him for all his alleged crimes if she were elected. At a town hall, she said, “It’s not a matter of innocence or guilt at that point, because that means he would have already been found guilty.” Her message is exactly the same as that from Gerald Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon.

Wisconsin Republicans finally got a candidate to run against incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D), but he’ll have to travel from California to campaign. In his launch, Eric Hovde didn’t even mention Wisconsin. Republicans living in states outside their candidacy have become more common. “Dr. Oz” bought a house in Pennsylvania to register to vote although his home until then was in New Jersey. Tommy Tuberville lives in Florida although he is U.S. senator for Alabama, and Californian J.D. Vance became the Ohio senator.  Other “carpetbagging” senatorial candidates:

• David McCormick lives in Connecticut while running in Pennsylvania.
• Tim Sheehy moved from Minnesota to run in Montana (but they’re both “M” states).
• Sam Browne ran for office in Texas before going after the Nevada seat.
• Mike Rogers lived in Michigan, moved to Florida, and then came back for the campaign.  

Missouri was really positive about more gun laws until the fight-out at the Kansas Chiefs’ celebration in Kansas City (MO). House Republicans have—temporarily—dumped two bills after a woman was killed and 22 other people were injured, some seriously. One measure would have removed sales tax on ammunition and gun purchases while leaving taxes on food, and the second would have permitted firearms on public transit and in places of worship. The GOP Missouri House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson said that “now’s not the appropriate time,” obviously hoping for fewer mass shootings. An 84-year-old shooting a 16-year-old in the head evidently wasn’t the time.  Missouri has the highest rates of gun deaths, gun homicide rates, and household firearm ownership with no gun violence prevention laws

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court hears a case about legalizing “bump stocks,” allowing automatic-style weapons to fire nine ballots every second. DDT’s administration banned them in 2018 after a shooter killed 60 people and injured hundreds more in 2018 at a Las Vegas music festival. Bump stocks were determined comparable to machines guns, but the inventor calls them “fun.”

In Texas, laws continue to have no value. A Black student may not wear his hair in long locs, despite a state law preventing discrimination on the basis of hair texture or protective styles associated with race, according to a Texas judge. The new CROWN Act is meant to block hairstyle discrimination in schools and workplaces, but Barbers Hill High School prohibits hair extending beyond eyebrows, earlobes, or collars even it’s gathered on top of the student’s head. Darryl George (right) has been on suspension since August 31, denied hot food and teaching materials. A federal judge has already temporarily permitted another student to return to the school while his 2020 lawsuit is pending. 

Insanity in Politics; or, Conservative Gone Crazy

A celebration for the Kansas City Chiefs win at the 2024 Super Bowl turned deadly when a mass shooting killed one and wounded at least 25 others, three of them critically and another five seriously injured. Three armed people are in custody, and nearby hospitals are seeing more walk-ins. Kansas and Missouri governors attending the parade were safely evacuated; the Chiefs players and their families are safe. (Left: The crowd for the Chiefs at Union Station.) 

Today’s shooting in Kansas City is at least the 48th mass shooting in the United States on the 45^th day of 2024. Days before this tragedy, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) bragged to an NRA audience that he had passed no laws to protect people from gun violence.

Six years ago on Valentine’s Day, 17 people were killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland (FL), and another 17 were wounded. State Republicans are commemorating the disaster by trying to reverse gun safety laws passed at that time such as restricting the time for background checks to three days and lowering the age to buy rifles—including semi-automatic styles—to 18.

February 14 is also the day that the media discovered a story about a police officer in Oklaloosa County (FL), terrified by an acorn hitting his car, almost killed a Marquis Jackson, a prisoner handcuffed in the back seat last November. When the acorn hit the car, Deputy Jesse Hernandez rolled on the ground, shouted “shots fired” four times, and emptied his weapon into the car, shattering the rear window. He called out, “I’m hit,” and his partner started firing at the car. He hadn’t been hit. Although he had no prior law enforcement before the county hired him almost two years earlier, Hernandez attended West Point and was an Army Special Forces officer for 10 years. He never saw combat. Hernandez resigned during the investigation. Jackson was released, and the county has no record of the episode.

In another shooting, the one at Joel Osteen’s Texas megachurch last Sunday, a women opened fire between services and shot her seven-year-old son and a 57-year-old man. With her typical bigotry, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) managed to get some facts wrong. The woman is from El Salvador, giving Greene the opportunity to rail against immigrants, but she was not trans—she only used a male pseudonym sometimes. The AR-15 had “Palestine” written on it, not “free Palestine,” as Greene claimed. The woman was killed by two off-duty policer officers, making it look like a “good guy with a guy,” but they were hired security. TikTok anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Chaya Raichik from Brookly and chosen for the Oklahoma state education board, also called the woman a “trans terrorist.”

Although the woman suffered from mental illness, the lax Texas gun laws allowed her to legally buy guns because the state has no red flag law to remove weapons for people in crisis. The woman’s former mother-in-law called the shooting “predictable and preventable.”

Last year, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) complained about the GOP House accomplishing nothing, and Dana Milbank’s headline was “Worst. Congress. Ever.” Months later, they should have much more to say about the problems. The first impeachment of a sitting Cabinet member with no cause is the icing on the cake of debacles surrounding electing two different Speakers within ten months, former George Santos’ lying and fraud leading to an extremely rare expulsion, and the most censures against sitting House members since 1870.  

Recent events show increasing disintegration as Republicans continue to attack each other. The shrinking majority caused bitterness about the loss of Santos, especially after he was replaced by a Democrat earlier this week. Some of the more extreme members thought they should have kept him—just for his vote—despite his corrupt and illegal activities as he continues to violate campaign finance laws.

Santos was one of 18 GOP members who came from districts voting for Biden, raising the question of whether some of the remaining 17 will lose to Democrats in the fall. The newly-created New York District 22 is Democrat-leaning, and its one-term GOP member Brandon Williams, won by under one percent. His argument on CNN when he was caught lying about the southern border was “I’m a member of Congress.”

In a bizarre effort to terrify people in the U.S., House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) referred to a “serious national security threat” in communication with President Joe Biden but didn’t identify what it was. Rumors ran rampant for almost a day. Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson said the public didn’t need to be alarmed although references were to Russia. He claimed, “Steady hands are at the wheel,” something no one observing his leadership style would believe.

The “threat” appears to be Russia’s experimentation with disabling satellites with a nuclear weapon, thereby damaging intelligence or communications. Russia has been working on this for at least three years. Turner wants Biden to declassify all information related to the “threat.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, scheduled for a briefing on Thursday, wondered why Turner chose to publicize the matter.

Once again, Republicans want panic about an issue that they have no interest in repairing as they support Russia over Ukraine. Blocking the emergency funding bill also helps China and Iran. On his first day as Speaker, Johnson said, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine.” Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing by keeping the Senate bill from a House vote in an attempt to keep his Speaker position and please his “orange Jesus,” as one of Johnson’s colleagues called DDT.

To create chaos and campaign for DDT, Johnson announced he will start working on a bill to fix the southern border after already rejecting the one negotiated in the Senate. Meanwhile, a $700 million budget shortfall may force U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release thousands of immigrants. Since May, Biden has deported or returned 500,000 migrants, more than DDT did for an entire year. ICE officials may cut detention levels from 38,000 to 22,000. ICE’s shortfall will worsen in the spring when border crossings increase.

In another failure, Johnson pulled a bill to change Section 702, a surveillance law intended for foreigners abroad but allowing warrantless taping of citizens in the U.S., because GOP hawks threatened to keep the bill from debate. Privacy advocates on the Judiciary Committee threatened opposition without amendments to create greater privacy. The withdrawal of the bill is the second time Johnson pull a Section 702 bill during his four-month time as Speaker. He made the surprise decision while the Rules Committee was meeting to ready the bill and amendments for a Thursday floor vote.

Johnson said he was working toward consensus, but a congressional aide said that “the one universal consensus … is that Johnson has no idea what he is doing.” The House leaves Friday until February 28, and the next deadline before a government shutdown is March 1. Instead of working on appropriations bills, Johnson has focused on personal issues such as the Mayorkas’ impeachment.

MAGA complains about Democrats’ taking their privacy, but the anti-abortion group Veritas Society is tracking cell phones through data broker Near Intelligence. Women who visit Planned Parenthood receive disinformation ads, 14.3 million in 2020 just in Wisconsin.

The fifth GOP chair of a major House committee has announced his decision to not run for reelection, another one after the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-TN) cited that House dysfunction and a narrow GOP majority—“frustration of trying to get something done here”—was part of his decision. He called the House “broken.” Green had referred to DDT as the “orange Jesus,” according to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

Jared Kushner, former White House adviser and DDT’s son-in-law, is back in the news—trying to whitewash his history. Speaking at a summit hosted by media company Axios in Miami, he dismissed any conflict of interest regarding Saudi Arabia’s giving him $2 billion for his private equity firm, asking his audience to “point to a single decision we made that wasn’t in the interest of America.” About the torture, murder, and dismemberment of U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi with the alleged involvement of Saudi’s crown prince, he called Mohammed bin Salman “a visionary leader.”

Claiming the U.S. has no racism, conservatives are trying to prove themselves wrong. Greene said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) represented Somalia; Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), called the Black husband of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) a “thug” and said that the Black woman received death threats because she was “so loud all the time.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeatedly asked TikTok CEO Shou Chew, a Singaporean, about his country of origin, insinuating he is from China and a member of its Communist Party. And that’s in public. During the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security chair Mark Green (R-TN) called the Cuban man “a reptile with no balls.” That was all last week as they follow DDT’s bigotry.

In Kentucky, a state GOP legislator Jennifer Decker argued against college diversity initiatives by saying her white father was a “slave.” The backlash led her to admit she “probably overstated.” He was a tenant farmer.

A classic example of systemic racism, however, is in a Florida school where students could not attend a “read aloud” to a book “written by an African American” without written permission for parents or guardians. “Types of guest that may attend the activity or event” are “fireman/doctor/artist.” The requirement came from Ron DeSantis’ “Parental Rights” law that “safeguards our children.” Happy Black History Month!

From the Civil War to Conservative Ignorance

A big shocker at the end of 2023 is Maine removing Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) from the state primary ballot because of his insurrection. In the second state to do so, the state’s Secretary of State made that ruling; the state constitution gives her that power. Shenna Bellows, however, did say that the decision would not be enforced until the courts weigh in. With the ruling against DDT in both Colorado and Maine, the Supreme Court is likely to take up the issue. Earlier this week, Michigan joined Arizona and Minnesota in determining DDT could stay on the ballot because the state constitution does not give the power to remove him despite the U.S. Constitution superseding a state constitution. DDT’s spokesperson also verbally attacked the Maine Secretary of State. Maine and Colorado must send ballots to overseas military service members and others 45 days before their elections on March 5, making the deadline for mailing ballots January 20 because February has 29 days in 2024.

The other popular media story concerns Nikki Haley. Two days ago, she was edging out Ron DeSantis for second in the GOP presidential candidate race. That was before she explained at a New Hampshire town hall that the reason behind the U.S. Civil War was freedom.

“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”

By the next day, she tried to cope with the backlash for avoiding the subject of slavery when talking about the war that killed over 600,000 by saying she knew it was about slavery. Another Haley position was that the war concerned two sets of values, one for “tradition” and one for “change.” Then she blamed the question on a “Democratic plant.” DeSantis’ campaign jumped on Haley’s attempts at clarification by calling them “embarrassing.” Another candidate, Chris Christie, said that “she did it because she’s unwilling to offend anyone by telling the truth.” 

One assumes that Haley is for what she calls “tradition”: She tried to justify a Confederal History Month. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina which was the first state to secede during the Civil War, once defended states’ rights to secede from the U.S., a position which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) frequently supports. South Carolina’s ordinance of secession in 1860 mentioned slavery in the first sentence to outline reasons for seceding from the Union: “increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) kept her South Carolinian colleague company in double-speak. He defined conservatism as the “get out of your business” and “leave you alone” ideology in declaring “war” on New York’s legislative proposal requiring restaurants in state highway system rest areas to operate seven days a week. Chick-fil-A, claiming to be religious, closes on Sunday. Graham bragged about conservatives being “tolerant …. You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.” He’s talking about the party that blocks abortion, marriage equality, parental healthcare for transgender youth, etc.

Recently revealed tapes and emails show that DDT’s campaign frantically worked to get fake elector certificates to Washington from Michigan and Wisconsin that were caught up in the mail. Using a chain of couriers and assistance from two congressional Republicans, Sen. Ron Johnson ((WI) and Rep. Scott Perry (PA), the campaign even considered chartering a jet to send the files. The campaign paid for the flights, but it needed congressional members to deliver the false certificates when they arrived in Washington, D.C. DDT’s former pro-DDT lawyer Kenneth Chesebro described these events as part of his plea deal to avoid prosecution in the Georgia RICO case. 

A Michigan Republican, James Renner, serving as one of 16 state fake electors, expressed regret after the state AG Dana Nessel dropped criminal charges against him after he agreed to cooperate. Renner told investigators he said in the interview process that he “knew nothing about the electoral process” and later let three others take over. Because he thought they knew “what they were talking about.” Not until he was being sued in civil court in January 2023 did he understand that what had transpired “was not legitimate,” that “there is an official state authorized process for this.”

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, appointed by President Barack Obama, handed Georgia Republicans a win by upholding the state’s GOP congressional—and racially gerrymandered—map, stating that it “fully complied with this court’s order requiring the creation of Black-majority districts in the regions of the state where vote dilution was found.” In reality, the map broke up the one minority-dominant district to create another which “blatantly targets” Rep. Lucy McBath by drawing her out of her district, according to Democratic state Rep. Jasmine Clark.

As her Democratic opponent gains ground on her, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is running away from the 4^th District to the 3^rd that she considers safer for a reelection. In her last run, she won by only 546 votes in a district learning 9 points to Republicans. Her new district leans 27 points to the GOP. Boebert doesn’t have to move into a new district to run for its representative, who is now Rep. Ken Buck, but said she will move. Buck has said he won’t run again, but at least six high-powered politicians have already lined up for the primary. Boebert’s departure gives Republicans a better chance to win the district again after her scandals.

Texas has until January 3 to say it won’t follow a new state law arresting people accused of unauthorized entry from Mexico. If not, the DOJ will sue the state because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. According to a DHS official in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, the new law, Senate Bill 4, is “unconstitutional and will disrupt the federal government’s operations” vis-à-vis immigration and border enforcement. If Texas refuses, the agency will “pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.” Abbott’s spokesperson said Texas will fight all the way to the Supreme Court. Federal court rulings have determined that only the federal government can enforce immigration laws.

Florida has a solution for his serious labor shortage after Republicans drove off all the migrant workers: work the children. If 16- and 17-year-olds can drive cars, they are not children and can have a fulltime job, according to GOP state Rep. Linda Chaney. The proposed bill will eliminate state guidelines on when they can work and limit local governments’ abilities to enact stronger regulations. Current law prevents employers from working minors under 18 over 30 hours a week during the school year, working them during school hours, assigning them night shifts, and scheduling them to work more than six consecutive days.

As of August 2023, the state has only 53 workers for every 100 open jobs. After DeSantis draconian anti-immigrant laws, experienced migrant workers fled Florida for other states with no new migrants replacing them. The text for the bill was written by a right-wing think tank, Foundation for Government Accountability and calls its program “Empowering Teenagers Through the Power of Work.” The FGA’s biggest donor is billionaire Dick Uihlein, a major DeSantis donor, who has also funds election-denial efforts and other right-wing causes. Six other states—Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota—have introduced bills to weaken child labor protections. Arkansas has passed a law repealing restrictions on work for 14- and 15-year-olds.

Another proposed Floria bill would allow parents the decision of promoting their children lacking basic skills from third to fourth grade. It would also reduce requirements for high school graduation. In summary, Florida Republicans want their children to be uneducated workers.

A good part of MAGA ignorance comes from their conservative media. Jesse Kelly was lecturing on the superiority of U.S. art and architecture over that in Europe. Unfortunately for him, he used the Statue of Liberty as an example of U.S. superiority. The base of the statue was built in the U.S., but the statue is pure French, a gift from the country in ? The idea came from Frenchman Édouard René Lefèbvrede de Laboulaye, the design by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and the metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel of the tower fame. Laboulaye was President of the French Anti-Slavery Society and wanted to honor the U.S. for the Union victory in the Civil War leading to the emancipation of U.S. slaves. Thus the name “liberty.”

Kelly became defensive when X explained the statue’s background attached to his original ignorant statement with this attack:

“I thought @elonmusk taking over would let freedom ring on this site. Guess I was wrong.

Kelly self-identifies himself as “Host of the nationally syndicated Jesse Kelly Show. Host of ‘I’m Right’ on The First. Anti-Communist. World Famous Author.” His discussion of the Statue of Liberty made him more famous.

Despite the belief that homicides and crime are rising, it’s falling. The homicide rate will fall almost 13 percent in 2023 from the previous year, and other violent crime is significantly down—aggravated assaults 7 percent, robbery 9 percent, and rapes 15 percent.

States in U.S. Try to Quash Democracy – Part I

A month after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “froze for 20 seconds in a press conference, the same “frozen” appearance, this one for 30 seconds occurred again while he took reporters’ questions at a forum. His possible neurological issues may come from ongoing problems after he suffered from polio as a child. After the last episode, Republicans started demanding his resignation, and he’s due to return to Washington in two weeks.

In many states, democracy is struggling.

Montana: The state Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen is lying about an investigation into litterboxes in schools and proof that they exist. There is no proof and no investigation. The claim of children behaving as “furries” comes from the transphobia sweeping red areas of the U.S.

Kansas: A judge has ordered authorities to destroy all electronic copies they made of the files for the Marion County Record after police raided its office this month with insufficient evidence to justify the seizure.

Georgia: A federal judge ruled Rudy Giuliani, a former personal lawyer for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), liable for defaming two election workers in the state after he falsely accused them of tampering with the 2020 election results. It was a default judgement “as a straight-up sanction” for his failure to provide documentation ordered by the judge. Giuliani will go to trial in D.C. federal court for monetary damages, but a judge already ordered him to pay approximately $132,000 for refusing to hand over the information. Giuliani agreed not to contest his making false and defamatory claims about the two women but maintained his comments were protected by the constitution and didn’t cause damage.

About election fraud, Giuliani had claimed in texts that his statements didn’t need “to be proven, but does need to be easy to understand” and highlighted the video in which he falsely described the women removing “suitcases” of ballots. DDT referenced the video in his demands with Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes.”

Giuliani is reportedly selling his condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $6.5 million to pay his bills. His phone bill alone is $57,000, and the voting machines company Smartmatic is suing Giuliani for defamation. He purchased the apartment for $4.77 million about two decades ago.

Ohio: Republicans failed to keep a pro-choice citizens’ measure on the election and failed to push through a law requiring 60 percent to pass the measure. So they’re trying another tactic: lying on the amendment’s summary for voters. A lawsuit states that “the prescribed ballot language—drafted and introduced by respondent Secretary of State Frank LaRose and approved by the Ohio Ballot Board in a 3-to-2 vote—fails to comport with the Ballot Board’s duty to provide ballot language that impartially, accurately, and completely describes the amendment’s effects. Instead, it is a naked attempt to prejudice voters against the amendment.”

The summary falsely states that the amendment would restrict “the citizens of the state of Ohio”—rather than the state—from interfering with Ohioans’ exercise of their right to make reproductive decisions. Instead of the “clear, simple 194-word text of the amendment itself on the ballot, … the Ballot Board refused, instead adopting a wholesale rewrite.” The “condensation” is longer than the adopted language. In addition, the new text replaces medically accurate terms such as “embryo” and “fetus” with the emotional “unborn child.” The lawsuit requests that the state either use the original language of the amendment or ask the board to reconvene “to prescribe lawful ballot language.”

Louisiana: Ranking #45 in health care and #46 in education, the state is paying $101 million to renovate the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge. The women’s basketball team’s head coach asked for funding for a private foundation.

Tennessee: GOP legislators thought they fixed their problems by expelling two Black members of the state House for protesting unlimited gun ownership in the state after the March murders of children and staff at a Nashville private Christian school. Foiled by that expulsion when both legislators were reelected in special elections, they passed a ruling against any signs of protest by observers. A judge overturned that law so they moved to pass a new rule allowing Republicans to block any legislators who addressed a different topic from the debate from speaking on floor.

On the first day of the new law, one of the Black formerly expelled lawmakers, Justin Jones, was prevented from speaking during the remainder of the special session. Republicans denied Jones’ topic addressed the issue. The question is whether there will be another ruling against legislative rules. [Note: a large majority of Tennessee voters support stronger gun restrictions.]

The special session ended with a shoving match between Justin Pearson, one other expelled Black legislators, and Cameron Sexton, the House Speaker, after Republicans forced an adjournment before Pearson could call for a vote of no confidence in Sexton. The Speaker claimed that his security detail had pushed him into Pearson in the chaos of departure.

Florida: The first of DDT’s dozen opponents for the White House seems to be leaving the race: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced he is suspending his bid after failing to gain momentum during his 76-day campaign. Using rewards for donors, he had met that RNC requirement but missed on the polling.

With multiple crises in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis canceled some of his presidential campaigning to return to the state. Fox host of Outnumbered, Emily Compagno, praised him for “suspending” his campaign to take care of his own state as a “servant.” Unfortunately, DeSantis was booed at a vigil for the three Blacks deliberately shot and killed by a white man at a Dollar Store in Jacksonville (FL) because of their skin color. Many of those who attended the vigil were angry because of DeSantis’ refusal to recognize racism and blocked schools from any Black history except his personal revisionist one.

People hold DeSantis personally responsible for the open racist attitudes in the state because of his policies and rhetoric specially targeting Blacks. Residents complain about his next-to-obsessive efforts to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts in the public schools, doing away with gender studies, defunding DEI activities, and implying that Blacks benefit from slavery. He also removed many gun restrictions, including permitless concealed weapon carry. When DeSantis and other Republicans rejected the AP African History class, they ignored reviewers who objected to the state’s curriculum sanitizing slavery and the Blacks’ plight throughout history. A GOP objection to the course was the “viewpoint of an oppressor vs. oppressed” in slavery based on race or ethnicity.

Idalia, a Hurricane Category 3, started sweeping over Florida yesterday, turning into a tropical storm when it hit land. Even so, it caused a 100-year-old oak tree to fall on the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee while DeSantis’ wife and three children were in residence. The anti-Biden DeSantis, went begging to the president for an “emergency declaration.” Biden backdated the declaration to August 27 when DeSantis requested it and said he was giving the governor “full support

Before Idalia hit land, NOAA had to ground its third and only remaining data-collecting “hurricane hunter” plane because of a generator failure. The other two planes are undergoing repairs. In 2022, NOAA had asked for four C-130 planes to replace two P-3s in service and another that was decommissioned in 2018. The fourth one was to “meet the expanding airborne data requirements and objectives.” The planes are deployed only over water, not over land. An Air Force flight collected some data when the hurricane hunter failed.

Because of Republicans’ refusal to pass funding, FEMA is running short of money after the dozens of storms and wildfires thus far in 2023, 65 thus far with nine in the past week. The number is more than any full year from 1953 to 1995. This shortage will compound problems for rebuilding Florida after DeSantis collected millions from insurance companies who were allowed to restrict payments for damage in the state. In addition, the poor building regulations resulting in damage has led to major insurance companies pulling out of the state. Biden asked Congress for $12 billion for replenish the disaster fund and said that if the government is unable to provide enough disaster aid during the current hurricane season that “I’m going to point out why.”

In another “hurricane,” DDT attacked Disney and fired an elected state attorney in nearby Orlando. According to the Daily Beast, DeSantis helped a Osceola County sheriff by getting rid of Monique Worrell who was ready to “crack down on a wide-ranging cover-up by deputies who, she says, were faking documents to hide lethal and abusive behavior.” The job of the governor’s close associate Larry Keefe, who got his job through Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), is to coordinate the illegal removal of local prosecutors to embarrass Democrats. To replace Worrell, DeSantis appointed a circuit judge DeSantis put into office before putting him in the charge of the Ninth Judicial District State Attorney’s Office.

For the second time, DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” law throughout K-12 grades in public schools survived in court—with a DDT-appointed judge. Wendy Berger said that verbal abuse of LGBTQ+ students is no problem because bullying is “a fact of life.”  

More state news, hopefully tomorrow, with a big chunk on Texas, the biggest and perhaps most bigoted undemocratic state in the lower 48.

Good News (Mostly) – July 29, 2023

Starting out with the good news, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to change the military’s dealings with sexual assault cases. The order:

• Amends the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) by transferring key decision-making powers from commanders to specialized, independent military prosecutors in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, child abuse, and other serious offenses.
• Sets up rules to govern the new Offices of Special Trial Counsel, the independent military prosecutors who will now decide, in place of commanders, whether to prosecute such offenses.
• Establishes prosecutorial decisions from the special trial counsel that are binding and independent from the military chain of command.
• Better protects victims.
• Promote uniformity and fairness for rape and sexual assault sentencing.
• Guarantees consistency within the military services with a uniform evidence standard for non-judicial punishment actions.
• Advances the core accountability recommendations outlined in a 2021 report by the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military, building on progress that has been already made by the U.S. Department of Defense.

According to last year’s survey by the U.S. Department of Defense, the number of sexual assaults on service members reported in 2021 spiked to a new high of 7,249, a 13 percent increase from the previous year. Despite major efforts to address the issue of sexual assault in the military, including reforms instituted in 2021, women in the military services have significantly lost trust in the military to follow through on their cases or treat them with respect.

A federal judge in Arkansas has temporarily blocked the state from enforcing a new law, due to take effect on August 1, permitting criminal charges against providing “harmful” materials to minors. The preliminary injunction creates a new process challenging library materials and relocate them to areas not accessible by youth. The judge also stopped state prosecuting attorneys from trying to dismiss the case. Booksellers and publishers are also suing to block a new Texas book censorship law, a ratings law that could ban Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men” from schools’ classrooms and libraries. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated that his signing the law “gets that trash out of our schools.”

Tennessee teachers are fighting back against GOP state laws blocking them from talking about race and forcing them to push “biased” views of history on students. Their lawsuit opposes the deliberately vague law with no definition and making teachers afraid that even neutral mentions of race could cause them to lose their jobs and even go to prison. They claim the law violates the 14th Amendment, requiring laws to be specific.

Republicans claim that the law allows “impartial” discussion but doesn’t define the term although it prohibits any reference to racial superiority such as the violent nature of slavery. The state says any mention of this could make students—meaning white ones—feel guilt. To solve the “problem,” for example, Tipton County replaced an annual field trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis with a trip to a baseball game. A choir director in Shelby County fears that his decades-long teaching about the history of spirituals will be “divisive.” State Rep. John Ragan (R) explained that teaching “balance” in teaching about the Holocaust of 9/11 could be done by saying the perpetrators of those events were created “in the image and likeness of God,” just like everybody else.

Another federal judge in Montana put a temporary hold on a new law banning minors “from attending ‘sexually oriented shows,’ including “so-called drag story hours, which the law defines as events hosted ‘by a drag queen or drag king who reads children’s books and engages in other learning activities with minor children present.'” The bill “also bans public ‘sexually oriented performances’—including any involving ‘removal or simulated removal of clothing in a sexual manner’—seen by people under the age of 18.”

The extremist right-wing Florida group Moms for Liberty who partnered with the right-wing violent Proud Boys to elect Republicans, including DeSantis, and organized a book banning movement across the nation is now facing an IRS complaint about being a political educational organization. A Michigan attorney alleges that Moms for Liberty violated its 501(c)4 non-profit status. He also questioned the group’s participation in political campaigns and active recruitment of school board candidates. In 2021, the husband of the organization’s co-founder, chair of the Florida GOP, said:

“I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year old females involved with the Republican Party. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.”

Reactions to Florida’s curriculum that students see slavery as a help toward better jobs haven’t calmed down. Gov. Ron DeSantis has failed to avoid controversy although he claims that he didn’t have anything to do with the decision. He handpicked all the people who prepared the materials and led the anti-history movement throughout the U.S. Some Black Republicans are supporting DeSantis’ support of the curriculum, but Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), presidential candidate, and Rep. Ryan MacDonald (R-FL), a leader in putting Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) into the House Speaker position, criticized the curriculum and agree that DeSantis has gone too far.

Scott said that “slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives.” DeSantis responded that they had joined the liberals like VP Kamala Harris, mispronouncing her first name, who said, “They want to replace history with lies.” The two who spoke out are 40 percent of Black Republicans in the Congress.  

DeSantis’ feud against Disney started after the company’s CEO criticized DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” law; the governor has moved on to defunding the police for Disney’s property. The governor’s handpicked Disney board has removed $8 million from the security budget to lower property taxes. Disney pays $1 billion a year in taxes and has 75,000 employees. Defunding the police is not a good look for DeSantis campaign who also faces other possible legal problems.

DeSantis is taking a campaign tour as a “guest” of the super PAC Never Back Down, which is bound by law to be separate from any candidates. In addition, DeSantis is upsetting Republicans and incurring complaints by the Federal Elections Commission. He is using $100 million from his DDT-backed governor reelection campaign to run against Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and moved $82.5 million from his state political committee to the federal super PAC. Never Back Down used this transfer to claim it raised $150 million. In March, two months before the transfer, the Florida GOP-led election officials reversed the ruling that blocked the transfer of money from state to federal committees.

The purpose of the Supreme Court, one of government’s three branches, is to enforce checks and balances in the U.S. government, but one justice said that those same checks and balances don’t apply to him or the other Supreme Court justices. In a defensive statement to Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, Justice Samuel Alito stated:

“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”

For the current time, this assertion caps a series of WSJ op-ed pieces defending Alito’s position and justifying his taking financial favors organized by Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Alito purports that the Supreme Court controls the other two branches of the government. Those refuting his position cite the Constitution, specifically Article III, Section 2:

“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Attorney and former judge Bob Vance used other parts of the Constitution to point out that “Congress has the power of the purse, controlling funds allocated to the federal judiciary. It can also alter the size of the Supreme Court, which it has done in the past.” Rep Ted Lieu (D-CA) directly wrote Alito:

“You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the court to nine justices. Congress can impeach justices and can in many cases strip the court of jurisdiction. Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so. You are not above the law.”

Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser wrote:

“For the record, Article III judges are not supposed to issue advisory opinions on constitutional questions that are not presented to them in case or controversy that their court properly has jurisdiction over.”

Alito may have the chance to oppose voting rights again after supporting Alabama’s gerrymandered congressional districts to keep Blacks from voting. The state is refusing to following the directive of the 11^th Circuit Court per the high court’s ruling with a GOP plan to overturn the 1965 Voting Rights Act, according to anonymous sources. If the case returns to SCOTUS, Alabama may find a majority of conservatives to support the state’s gerrymandering as it did in Alabama’s Shelby County v. Holder ruling. Alabama AG Steve Marshall is leading the noncompliance charge.

In Georgia, whites are so opposed to Black officials that the Augusta judicial circuit, home to a three-county criminal justice system for over 150 years, lost its whitest county after a Black was elected district attorney in 2020. The state Supreme Court dismissed the Black Lives Matter Fund’s lawsuit, contending that the old circuit’s Black voters were disenfranchised.

 

Republicans Squeal at Backlash

House hearings have come and gone, but two in the last week are particularly memorable.

Robert F. Kenney Jr. – Censorhip

RFK Jr. got the publicity he wants for his insane ideas while front and center in a House hearing supposedly for censorship. He went overboard by stating criticism of him is actually “censorship” although no one tried to keep him from speaking. Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the House weaponization subcommittee, treated him kindly, unlike his treatment of other witnesses such as FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Jordan attacked.

Fortunately, CNN’s Dana Bash factchecked RFK Jr.’s lies at the hearing including his denial about statements provable on video. He accused journalists who quote him as trying to “twist” his words to make him look like a “madman,” but in his refutation of their statements, he repeats his earlier claims. The backlash is becoming home to roost. His popularity in polling for president has dropped as people learn about him, decreasing from 20 percent in April to a current 14 percent with two-thirds of them Republicans. He’s more popular among GOP members than several of their own candidates, and more Republicans donate to his campaign than Democrats.

Nephew of the revered president assassinated in 1963, RFK Jr. changed from an environmental lawyer to a vaccine conspiracist in the 1990s. Wanting more attention for himself, he adopted the lie that Bill Gates implanted microchips into patients with vaccines to track their movements before moving onto the falsehood that the Gates Foundation paralyzed 496,000 children in India during a polio vaccine trial instead of the 17 cases of vaccine-derived polio there since 2000. About the Covid restrictions, he lauded “Hitler’s German [where] you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.” The teenager was captured and died in a Holocaust concentration camp. His disinformation is so dangerous to lives that he has been banned from Instagram and Facebook, allowing him to become a martyr to Republicans.

Despite RFK Jr.’s belief that vaccines cause autism, all his children have been vaccinated, as Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) pointed out during the hearing. He also required a vaccination for a guest invited to his party.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, RFK Jr. praised blamed the U.S. for the invasion and asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin acted in “good faith.” He also falsely stated that the U.S. and Ukrainian “ultra-nationalists” pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into not making peace with Russia although Putin wanted to end the “conflict.”

More of his lies that he freely shares on an extensive number of conservative podcasts including some statements about vaccines:

• 5G networks change human DNA, cause cancer and “leaky brain,” and are used to “harvest our data and control our behavior.”
• “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,” according to RFK, Jr.
• Antidepressants are to blame for school shootings.
• Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender.    
• The U.S. should “seal the [U.S.-Mexico] border permanently.” (In fact, unlawful entries along the southern border decreased 70 percent from record highs since the end of Title 42 on May 11, and industry desperately needs immigrant labor.) 
• Covid was “ethnically targeted” to do more harm to white and Black people than to Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
• Vaccine research created HIV, the Spanish flu, and Lyme disease.
• Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, a useless treatment, should be used to cure Covid.
• “Infectious disease is [not] an enormous threat to human health” (despite over one million excess deaths in the U.S. during the first two years of Covid.)

RFK, Jr. and his organization Children’s Health Defense are promoters of James Corbett, a Sandy Hook and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who, like RFK Jr., is an anti-vaxxer. Corbett’s lies:

He praised “articles documenting the discrepancies and outright lies in the official narrative of the Sandy Hook shooting.”

He stated that the 9/11 attack on New York’s World Trade Center was actually a “false flag” event and “the official story of 9/11 is a lie.”

“Hitler was a Rothschild [a Jewish banking family]. Hitler and the Nazis were one hundred percent completely and utterly set up … by the international banking community and the international crony capitalists.”

In 2021, RFK Jr. spoke at the ReAwaken America tour organized by Michael Flynn, conspiracy theorist and DDT’s former national security adviser. DDT’s ally Steve Bannon has been “supportive of Mr. Kennedy’s campaign” and “float[ed] the idea of a Trump-Kennedy ticket,” while convicted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones “also expressed enthusiasm.”

DDT called RFK, Jr. “a very smart person,” and RFK Jr. is proud of DDT’s praise in a mutual admiration society. RFK Jr. compared DDT and Abraham Lincoln on Fox & Friends:

“Trump is probably the most successful debater in this country since Lincoln-Douglas.”

If elected, he plans to gut the Food and Drug Administration and order the independent DOJ to investigate medical journals for “lying to the public.” After an interview with RFK Jr. for the New York Intelligencer, Rebecca Traister wrote:  

“Kennedy crowed to me about his horseshoe coalition gathered round a campaign he views as fundamentally populist. And it’s quite a band he has put together: crunchy Whole Foods–shopping anti-vaxxers, paunchy architects of hard-right authoritarianism looking to boost a chaos agent, Nader-Stein third-party perma-gremlins, some Kennedy-family superfans, and rich tech bros seeking a lone wolf to legitimize them.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity is having another one of his infamous town halls on July, this one with RFK Jr., in a push to make the conspiracy theorists a viable opponent for Biden.

President Joe Biden and Son’s Crimes – Hunter Biden

In another embarrassment for House Republicans, the Oversight Committee’s hearing failed to provide a case against Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, with no evidence. Chair James Comer’s hearing was to prove AG Merrick Garland protected Hunter, but the media focused a peep show by a salacious Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) showing nude photographs of Hunter, supposedly from his laptop.

Hunter’s lawyer filed a complaint against Greene, demanding that the House ethics panel take action for her display of sexually explicit photos now put into the Congressional record. The filing is an update from an earlier request in April seeking a probe into Greene’s baseless accusations on social media posts linking Hunter with “an Eastern prostitution or human trafficking ring.” Greene’s photos did not black out Hunter’s faces as she did those of everyone else in the photographs, taken when Hunter suffered from drug addiction after the 2015 death of his older brother, Beau. Photographs were not related to the hearing topic, DOJ’s investigating his tax returns.

In addition, Greene used the photos in fundraising emails, sending them to minors with no age screening. Her actions may also violate D.C.’s revenge porn law. With no evidence, the mailings also claimed that Hunter is guilty of sex trafficking and tax fraud. Although Greene claimed that Hunter deducted payments to prostitutes, the GOP witness who formerly investigated Hunter for tax issues would not confirm her accusation.

In other inappropriate GOP behavior, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) published a years-old “uncorroborated FBI record” from an unnamed source with a second-hand unverified tip that former Dictator Donald Trump’s (DDT) AG Bill Barr debunked. It claimed corruption on the part of both Hunter and Joe Biden that DDT’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had spread four years ago. On June 1, Grassley said he didn’t care if the statements were true or not. 

Last month, Christopher Dunham, FBI Acting Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs, criticized Oversight Committee chair James Comer for ignoring “security restrictions,” allowing details to be made public after promising he would not do so. Greene has also violated the agreement by announcing details after she saw them in the highly secure SCIF. The unproven form is the basis for Comer’s and other Republicans’ investigation into Biden and his family’s business deals.

Comer also went on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) podcast to claim, with no evidence, that Biden has been selling access to enemies for decades. Asked for proof, Comer said that Biden “never had a successful career in investing” but he’s accumulated assets. Biden’s tax returns and financial disclosures show that his reported $8 million comes primarily from public speaking engagements and book royalties after he was no longer VP with $15 million in book royalties. Unlike DDT, Biden posts this information on his website.

GOP Senators Want No Ethics for Justices:

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to advance a bill requiring the Supreme Court develop a code of conduct with a transparent process for submission of ethics complaints against justices within 180 days. The measure also mandates the high court adopt disclosure rules for gifts, travel, and income received by justices and law clerks as rigorous as Senate and House disclosure rules. Recognizing the corruption of some conservative justices, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) accused Democrats of trying to “destroy” the conservative court although the bill refers to all justices. Graham already stated that justices need to “get their house in order.”  

SCOTUS, unlike other judiciary, lacks any code of ethics. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) began to urge Chief Justice Robert Roberts for ethics reform 11 years ago, but Roberts ignored all pleas while DDT’s appointments have dropped the confidence in the Supreme Court to an all-time low. In a survey, 70 percent, that rarely agrees about anything, believe justices are too influenced by politics.

Republicans may be in the majority, but they’re squealing like stuck pigs because of their failure.

Court, Washington News – July 17, 2023

Some good news from the courts:

The nine members of the conservative Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected a petition filed by attorneys for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) to expunge evidence gathered by a Fulton County (GA) grand jury requested by DA Fani Willis. The court also dismissed DDT’s filing to dismiss Willis from further investigation. DDT’s attorneys lost the same requests earlier this year in a lower court. Willis said her grand jury heard from 75 witnesses and asked that no trials be scheduled during the first three weeks of August although she gave September 1 as the deadline for any indictments. Another grand jury began determining indictments on July 11.

 Despite a new Iowa law to the contrary, abortion became once again legal up to 20 weeks after a judge temporarly blocked the procedure’s ban as of a pregnancy’s six weeks. The legislature used the lie of “cardiac activity” as of six weeks to justify its decision to deny abortions for women who might not know they are pregnant.

A DDT-appointed Republican federal judge ruled that Oregon’s voter-approved gun safety measure is constitutional. One of the toughest state laws in the nation, it bans the sale or transfer of magazines with more than 10 rounds and requires a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety,” according to the Oregon Public Broadcasting. Measure 114 requires safety training and a background check for permits. The judge wrote that large capacity amendments are not protected by the Second Amendment because they “are not commonly used for self-defense.”

Three House members including Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are preparing a resolution to censure Rep. George Santos (R-NY) for his lies about his education, work history, and family background summarized in three pages. The resolution will be privileged, meaning that the GOP-controlled House must act on it. When Torres calls for a vote, it must receive a vote or be tabled within 48 hours. Torres’ deadline is within the next week. Republicans voted down a resolution in May to expel Santos from the House after he was indicted with 13 charges, but Republicans moved the issue to the ethics committee which doesn’t appear to be taking any action. Since then, GOP members censured Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for investigating Russia’s involvement in DDT’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) blockade against military promotions has brought the ire of VoteVets, a prominent veterans’ group. Its new one-minute ad (available here), “Situation,” starts with an empty table and footage of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping followed by video of Tuberville with a narration of “our enemies are watching…” The video criticizes Republicans for not objecting to Tuberville’s hold, and he bragged about how none of them pressured him “to cave.” Tuberville blames President Joe Biden for his hold:

“I didn’t start this. The Biden [administration] injected politics in the military and imposed an unlawful abortion policy on American taxpayers. I am trying to get politics out of the military.”

U.S. military leaders, veterans, all living former secretaries of Defense, congressional Democrats, President Joe Biden, and others oppose Tuberville’s actions from concerns regarding national security. Tuberville said he had no choice except to hold up the promotions to bet his own way, but he could introduce legislature or join a lawsuit to achieve his ends.

The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report on its hearing about Saudia Arabia’s acquisition of the PGA Tour golf league for a merger with LIV Golf League. In the report are the Saudi’s other public equities showing large investments in the U.S.’s largest corporations. The $700 billion in assets make the Saudis the sixth largest sovereign wealth fund.

Shortly after Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in 2018, the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund expanded its staff from 50 to almost 500 and put some of its members on corporate board. One of them is on the Uber board with has $2.3 billion Saudi investment. Other large investment shares are in Meta and gaming companies such as Activision which Microsoft plans to purchase. The crown prince is an avid gamer, and Saudi invested $38 billion in gaming. Last year, the Saudi fund lost $11 billion, bringing the question of whether investments are made for profit or some other reason such as influence. Six months after DDT left the White House, his son-in-law Jared Kushner also received $2 billion for his new company, possibly to curry favor with the White House if DDT wins in 2024.

In last week’s hearing, PGA Tour officials defended their partnership, but the documents show proposals significantly changing the pro golf landscape—a global “World Golf Series” team event concluding in Saudi Arabia; LIV Golf continuing as an independent circuit confined to the fall season; Greg Norman sidelined and removed from LIV Golf chief executive; Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy given ownership of LIV Golf teams and participating in events; two elevated PGA Tour events branded by the PIF or Saudi oil company Aramco; and a membership to Augusta National Golf Club for Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF who is poised to be among the most powerful men in professional golf if the partnership goes through.

Recommending that PGA “avoid the sellout,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) warned that taking the Saudi money could have unforeseen consequences. The assumption is that the Saudi would provide “north of $1 billion,” and Blumenthal suggested that figure “is just the beginning.” The Saudis will “continue to wield the influence that they do,” he warned. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), leading conspiracy theorists in the chamber, want to stop any investigation until the deal is finished.

Members of the PGA board are concerned about the League’s deal. After 12 years on the PGA board, Randall Stephenson resigned because he could not “in good conscience support” the deal. He said he and most of the other board members weren’t involved in the arrangement.

Without determining its source, the Secret Service ended its investigation into the source of cocaine, valued at a little over $1, that was discovered on July 2 in the lobby area to the White House West Wing where visitors leave their personal belongings. After a briefing of the Oversight Committee, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said possible suspects were narrowed down to about 500 people. She demanded the Secret Service perform drug tests on all 500, and McCarthy accused the results showed “unequal justice” in favor of the Biden administration. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who has said that Congress has no way to stop school shootings, wants someone fired for the lack of discovery.  (He also said he could “dig” a fistfight between two conservative representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene, GA, and Lauren Boebert, CO.)

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT OpenAI is illegally risking personal reputations and data. Called the fastest-growing consumer app in history, the chatbot is beset by competition; violating consumer protection laws can result in fines or a consent decree dictating how the company handles data. FTC has already brought big fines against Meta, Amazon, and Twitter.

Soon after the probe’s news broke, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) repeatedly accused FTC Chair Lina Khan of being unethical in a Judiciary Committee hearing. While coaching wrestling at an Ohio university, Jordan failed to report a doctor who sexually molest athletes and refused to comply with subpoenas to the House January 6 investigative committee last year for testimony. Although Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), like Jordan, also attacked Khan, several other Republicans didn’t follow his lead.

One of FTC’s functions is to protect consumers. A radio talk show host in Georgia has sued OpenAI for defamation, asserting the chatbot fabricated legal claims against him and falsely accusing the host of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. ChatGPT also accused a lawyer of making sexually suggestive comments and attempting to touch a student on a class trip to Alaska, citing a non-existent Washington Post article that didn’t exist. There was no class trip. The FTC asked OpenAI to describe how it refines its models to address their tendency to “hallucinate,” making up answers when the chatbot models don’t know the answer to a question.

Other governments are ahead of the U.S. in drafting AI legislation and regulating the technology’s privacy risks. Countries within the European Union limit U.S. companies’ chatbots under the bloc’s privacy law, and Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT from operating in the country from data privacy concerns. This past week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) hosted an all-senator briefing with officials from the Pentagon and intelligence community to discuss the national security risks of artificial intelligence while he works with a bipartisan group of senators to craft new AI legislation.

The conservative owner of a Tennessee radio station referred to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as “Buckwheat” on air while spreading lies about transgender youth being able to get “gender-changing treatments” with parental consent. Buckwheat is the name of a Black character on the 1930s program The Little Rascals/Our Gang and considered a racist stereotype. The owner, a lawyer who has worked in both the DA’s and the U.S Attorney’s offices, demonstrated a lack of legal understanding and racial expressions. To complaints about the slur, he said, “There we go, Buckwheat, Buckwheat, Buckwheat” before he tried to spin it the term by calling it a “compliment” because Buckwheat “is an intelligent, admirable character.” Refusing to back down, the owner faces an FCC complaint.