News bits: Faux tells Swift what to do; DJT’s double liar attorney; PA court attacks Dobbs

Mind-blowing Republican hypocrisy

Various media are reporting that America's authoritarian radical right including Faux News is engaged in a propaganda campaign to stop Taylor Swift from involvement in politics. The WaPo made a 1 minute montage of clips from various Faux blowhards insulting Swift and telling her to stay out of politics. The blowhards say things like (i) it is best for her to stay out, (ii) she can't name one Biden policy, (iii) she complains about climate change but she flew on a private jet, (iv) please don’t believe anything Swift says because she does not do what she says.

The Hill reports: 

“Does Taylor realize the guy that they want her to endorse is a kind of stumbling, bumbling mess, doesn’t have the energy to even give a 30-minute speech, let alone perform a three-hour concert like she does?” Hannity said of Swift and Biden on his nightly show. “He also is kind of very creepy. She may want to check out those creepy videos, they’re online.”

Faux accuses Swift of hypocrisy and Biden of being creepy?? The arrogance and hypocrisy of the Faux blowhard crew is stunning. And Hannity is creepy.

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Trump’s double liar attorney

The New Republic reports that crackpot Trump attorney Alina Habba, the Kraken-Lite of Trump thugs, has retracted her allegation that the judge on the latest defamation case was biased. She alleged that the judge should have recused himself from the trial due to a conflict of interest with the prosecuting attorney. In her retraction, Habba lied about her original accusation, calling it merely an inquiry. It was not a mere inquiry. It was full blown accusation. 

Then she lied about retraction saying the basis for the conflict of interest allegation had been resolved and there was none. There was no resolution, just statements from the judge and the prosecuting attorney that there was no conflict of interest. That is not a resolution. That is just statements from accused people.

What really pushed Habba back from continuing with the original lie about a conflict was a threat by the prosecuting attorney to seek sanctions against Kraken-Lite for lying to the court and smearing both the judge and prosecuting attorney Roberta Kaplan. Kaplan accused Trump and Habba of asserting “a false narrative of judicial bias” and said she will consider filing for sanctions against Habba.

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The Pennsylvania state supreme court issued an opinion that that abortion restrictions constitute sex-based discrimination and are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the state constitution’s equal rights amendment. Slate writes: 

The Supreme Court’s eradication of the constitutional right to abortion in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization had an immediate and devastating impact on gender equality in the United States. With a single ruling, five justices wiped out millions of women’s access to basic health care and handed control over their medical decisions to politicians and judges. It wasn’t just the court’s judgment, though, that relegated women to a lesser place in the constitutional order; it was also the court’s reasoning, which used the centurieslong oppression of women to justify an ongoing oppression of women by way of a deprivation of their rights. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion rested largely on the views of dead white men who condoned the rape, beating, and murder of women to maintain female subjugation in every realm of life. And he dismissed his ruling’s ruinous impact on gender equality in a single conclusory paragraph asserting that abortion restrictions could not possibly discriminate against women.

This week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court responded to that conclusion: no. On Monday, the court issued a landmark opinion declaring that abortion restrictions do amount to sex-based discrimination and therefore are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the state constitution’s equal rights amendment. The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”

It is not clear what impact this might have, but at least in Pennsylvania abortion will remain legal. The logic attacking Alito’s crackpot “reasoning” is simple but solid. Restricting abortions does discriminate against women.