News bits: Supreme Court investigation fizzles out, etc.

From the Blithering Nonsense Files: The Supreme Court has released results of its investigation into who leaked the draft opinion that obliterated the right to an abortion (Dobbs). The culprit? They don’t know who done it. It’s an unsolvable mystery if one believes the results. Here’s the whole 28 page shebang, or maybe it’s better called a shefizzle. Foschizzle?

The first sentence of the report reads: In May 2022, this Court suffered one of the worst breaches of trust in its history: the leak of a draft opinion. The legal community seems to be somewhat skeptical, to say the least. Top peanut gallery commentary includes these delightful gems:

It hasn't identified them because it doesn't want to, because they know precisely who did it. (60 upvotes)

Liberal judges are ethical. Conservative justices aren’t. It was Alito or Thomas - the two most unprincipled justices on the bench. (11 upvotes)

So, Alito then. (173 upvotes)

Translation: It was obviously someone in the circle of one of the Republican Justices, and therefore we will end the investigation rather than pursue it to the ends of the earth as we would if we believed it was someone connected to one of the liberal Justices. Roberts is such a contemptible pussy. (125 upvotes) 

[Quoting the report and referring to the leaked draft opinion] one of the worst breaches of trust in its history. My trust was breached when a half drunk rapist went to a job interview and cried while bearing his teeth about a Clinton conspiracy and revenge and still got the fucking job. (58 upvotes)

Dang, I think the legal community is in some sort of snit about this. A contemptible pussy? My goodness gracious.

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From the Snowball in Hell Files: House Democrats have introduced a bill to overturn the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which eliminated restrictions on corporate, nonprofit and union campaign spending. The chances of that becoming law? This:

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From the Anti-Woke Laws Files: Once again, Florida leads the way in radical right anti-wokeness. The NYT writes:

Florida Rejects A.P. African American Studies Class

The state’s Department of Education said in a letter that the course content was “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value”

Florida will not allow a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies to be offered in its high schools, stating that the course is not “historically accurate” and violates state law.  

Last year, a federal judge blocked part of the Stop WOKE Act — officially named the Individual Freedoms Act — that would have regulated workplace trainings on issues such as race and diversity. But the law still applies to public schools. So does another 2022 law, the Parental Rights in Education Act, which critics call “Don’t Say Gay,” that among other things bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

By golly, public school children in Florida are not going to be woke. And, they also won’t be aware of some chunks of American history, mostly inconvenient chunks. This anti-woke thing seems to be expanding. 

Supreme Court update: Bigoted Christian nationalism is poised to strike secularism down

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide a case called Groff v. DeJoy. This one could shove a massive stake through the heart of secular society and commerce. DeJoy is a Christian who did not like having to work on Sundays for the post office. So he quit his job and sued the post office. He demands a special religious dispensation for Christians who do not want to work on Sundays. Vox writes:

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear Groff v. DeJoy, a case that could give religious conservatives an unprecedented new ability to dictate how their workplaces operate, and which workplace rules they will refuse to follow.

Yet Groff is also likely to overrule a previous Supreme Court decision that treated the interests of religious employees far more dismissively than federal law suggests that these workers should be treated.

The case, in other words, presents genuinely tricky questions about the limits of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs. But those questions will be resolved by a Supreme Court that has shown an extraordinary willingness to bend the law in ways that benefit Christian-identified conservatives.

That could lead to a scenario in which the Court announces a new legal rule that disrupts the workplace — and that potentially places far too many burdens on non-religious employees.  

A federal law requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” their workers’ religious beliefs and practices unless doing so would lead to “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” But Hardison established that this law does not require employers to “bear more than a de minimis cost” when it provides religious accommodations (the Latin phrase “de minimis” refers to a burden that is so small or trifling as to be unworthy of consideration).

One question is why should a person’s religion make any difference at all? Why treat religious believers better than the rest of us? What is wrong with equal treatment? One could argue that atheists should be entitled to every benefit that Christians are entitled to, but that is a huge loser for atheists and the non-religious community. Christians would be delighted to discriminate atheists and non-believers right out of their jobs in return for a few Christians maybe occasionally facing the same. Among the non-believers, I do not sense anywhere near the same bigotry, hostility and intolerance against believers that Christian nationalists hold toward non-believers.

There are damn good reasons to defend secularism and resist the greedy, morally bankrupt American Christofascist theocratic movement. That movement undeniably intends to elevate religious freedom above all others. Then they will use that advantage to cut down whoever or whatever stands in the way of full blown American Christian Sharia law run by an intolerant, bigoted White male-dominated Christian Taliban. 

Once the Republican Christofascist Supreme Court guts secular protections, the bigotry, racism, intolerance and hate can come gushing out and enjoy legal protection. Targeted groups prominently include women, racial and ethnic minorities, the LGBQT community and atheists, agnostics and non-Christians. Those deemed unworthy will feel the sanctimonious wrath of an enraged Old Testament God. Bigoted, wealthy White heterosexual men (the Christian Taliban) are going to have some of the best times in human history that morally rotted, empowered wealthy men could possibly have. America under Christian Sharia and the Christian Taliban will be a hellscape much worse than the hellscape Musk has turned Twitter into.

As usual, what about the Republican rank and file? Do they support this or are neutral, downplay it, deny it is happening, and/or are they just mostly unaware? I bet that ~75% would say they are neutral or support it but it will not be nearly bad as critics like me say it will be and the remaining ~25% would deny it is happening in any significant way. Recent poll data indicates that ~75% of the Republican rank and file support what the current Supreme Court is doing. That data suggests there some non-trivial level of rank and file knowledge and acceptance.

News bits: Old Trump crimes moldering away, etc.

From the too little, too late files:  

Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he met for 2½ hours Tuesday with Manhattan prosecutors who have revived a years-old investigation into payments made to a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged extramarital tryst.

Cohen said he had been “ordered not to disclose” any of the people present at the meeting or to discuss prosecutors’ area of interest in any detail.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges that he violated campaign finance law by arranging payouts to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public with claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan decided not to prosecute Trump personally over the hush-money payments. The Manhattan district attorney’s office then began investigating the payments to see if any state laws were broken.

No charges were brought against Trump during the tenure of former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who shifted the probe’s focus to the Trump Organization’s business practices. The company was convicted of tax fraud last month and fined $1.6 million. 

After that conviction, Vance’s successor, District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said its Trump investigation was moving to the “next chapter,” but he offered no specifics on where it was headed next.

We all know where the next chapter is heading, i.e., nowhere. That is the same place as the DoJ’s past, next or whatever chapter is going.

Don’t forget. Of Trump’s 56 credibly accused crimes, at least 9 are no longer prosecutable because too much time has passed and the statute of limitations bars prosecution. Trump wins, while democracy, the rule of law and we lose. Again. As usual. 

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Ohio Republicans ramp up anti-election voter restrictions: 

Ohio Republicans quietly enact ‘alarming’ new voting restrictions

Law puts Ohio among states with strictest voter ID rules and will make it harder for elderly people, the disabled and the poor to vote

Ohio Republicans quietly enacted a measure earlier this month that imposes sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state, including more stringent voter ID requirements, cutting the early voting period and giving voters less time to return their mail-in ballots.

The new law puts Ohio among a handful of states with the strictest voter ID rules in the country. The state had already required voters to show identification at the polls, but allowed an exception for voters who couldn’t produce one, allowing them to present a bank statement, paystub or other document to prove their identity. The new law gets rid of that exception and only allows someone to vote if they provide certain forms of photo ID.

Those new restrictions will make it harder for people who tend to lack identification – elderly people, the disabled and the poor – to vote, voting rights advocates said.

Looks like people who want to vote are going to have to stop messing around and get IDs and do whatever hoops Republican are forcing them to deal with. That is more important for non-Republican voters than for Republican voters. This is what Republican Party fascism looks like.

 

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National Republican groups ramp up anti-election voter restrictions:

Rightwing group pours millions in ‘dark money’ into US voter suppression bid

The advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative thinktank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states. 

The Brennan Center reported that more voter suppression laws were passed in 2021 than in any year since it began monitoring voting legislation more than a decade ago.

The expenditures also signal a dramatic increase in Heritage Action’s advocacy activities. In 2020, Heritage Action had reported no spending at all on outside lobbying.

Heritage Action, whose board includes the Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, is set up as a 501(c)4 under the US tax code which exempts it from paying federal taxes. It operates as a “dark money” group, avoiding disclosing the sources of its total annual revenue of over $18m.

In the past two years the organization through its public messaging has echoed Donald Trump’s lie that US elections are marked by rampant fraud. A private plan prepared by Heritage Action last year set out a two-year, $24m “election integrity” strategy.

This is what Republican Party anti-democracy fascism looks like. This Republican Party voter suppression and election subversion effort called “election integrity” is not going to go away. Anyone who believes otherwise is sorely mistaken, just as is anyone how sees little or no significant threat to democracy, civil liberties, secularism, truth and the secular rule of law.

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From the I'll be baaack files -- Poll indicates that the ex-pres still has major support in the GOP: 

The Hill writes: A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday showed Trump with 48 percent support among potential Republican primary voters, followed by DeSantis with 31 percent. .... DeSantis has an advantage among potential voters who view each of them unfavorably. Only 11 percent said they view DeSantis unfavorably, while 23 percent said they view Trump unfavorably.

JUST FOR FUN

 To loyal followers of this forum, let's have some fun, shall we?

What's the difference between God and a Republican? God knows He's not a Republican.

The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.

Q: How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb? A: Three. One to hire a Mexican guy and two to deport him when he's done.

What do Republicans and porn stars have in common? They are experts in switching positions in front of a camera.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t there more more happy Republicans?

Q: Why do Republicans avoid living on the West Coast? A: They're scared to live that close to the edge of the Earth.

What is the difference between a Republican ass-kisser and a brown-noser? Depth perception.

Funeral: A Republican died and a friend went around collecting for a fund for his funeral. A woman was asked to donate ten dollars. "Ten dollars?" she said. "It only takes ten dollars to bury a Republican? Here's a hundred - go bury 10 of them!"

Genie: A Conservative found a magic genie's lamp and rubbed it. The genie said, "I will grant you one wish." He said, "I wish I were smarter". So the genie made him a Liberal.

Q: Why did the Republican cross the road? A: There was a black guy on the first side.

OK OK, thanks for the applause.........

NOW I leave it up to you to post your own jokes. 

Climate change news bit: We have a faux carbon credit industry

Gadzooks!! Shades of cryptocurrency collapse. The Guardian writes about a newly discovered scam by pro-pollution forces to deceive us:

The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.

The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.

The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies – some of them have labelled their products “carbon neutral”, or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.

The article goes on to point out that Verra routinely lies about the degree of deforestation in its projects so that it can claim success when a deforestation impact is found. For example, in 32 projects where it was possible to compare Verra’s claims with data, baseline scenarios of forest loss were overstated by about 400%. About 94% of Verra’s claimed deforestation effects are non-existent.

Not surprisingly, Verra strongly denies this and points to errors in the analysis. The predictable bickering has commenced. This is how standard capitalist propaganda efforts work. The capitalists always attack inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning, and then present faux facts, truths and reasoning that supports the pro-pollution status quo. That is just business as usual. 

Maybe if polluting businesses, e.g., ExxonMobil, had not been lying about climate change for decades and quietly blocking government efforts to act by corrupting government, then the polluters might deserve some credibility here. But in view of their pro-pollution for profit track record, they deserve no credibility at all.

Once again, the morality of capitalism, profits above all else, are there for everyone to see. At the rate we are going, the climate and tens of thousands of species, maybe including humans, are going to bite the dust. If we do off ourselves in a fit of self-annihilation, let’s mostly blame (~95%) the Republican Party, ExxonMobil and other pro-pollution and pro-climate change forces. 

News bits: What the GOP knew about Santos, MTG gets high-level assignment, etc.

Prominent fascist Kevin McCarthy knew Santos was a fraud but kept it quiet: Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) comments in a press release:

“Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday admitted to having direct knowledge of George Santos’s web of lies intended to dupe his voters into electing him, confirming reporting by the New York Times that House Republican leadership was aware of Mr. Santos’s fraudulent campaign while it was happening due to internal research that exposed his lies.

“Unfortunately, Speaker McCarthy’s confirmation of his knowledge of Mr. Santos’s deceit was itself deceptive and sparse, and he has still not explained what his response was to learning about the results of a ‘vulnerability study’ described in the Times about fabrications related to Mr. Santos’s educational background, his work for a Ponzi scheme, multiple evictions and a suspended driver’s license.

“Without further explanation, the public has no choice but to believe that Mr. McCarthy and his super PAC were complicit in concealing Mr. Santos’s lies in order to flip a seat in a win-at-all-costs effort to gain power.

This is more evidence of the blatant moral rot and anti-democracy fascism among Republican Party elites and leadership. When voters vote on the basis of deceit, their power to vote on the basis of truth has been taken away. That is authoritarianism (fascism IMO), not democracy.

For context, consider this:

“When political representatives or entire governments arrogate to themselves the right to lie, they take power from the public that would not have been given up voluntarily. .... But such cases [that justify lying] are so rare that they hardly exist for practical purposes. .... The consequences of spreading deception, alienation and lack of trust could not have been documented for us more concretely than they have in the past decades. We have had a very vivid illustration of how lies undermine our political system. .... Those in government and other positions of trust should be held to the highest standards. Their lies are not ennobled by their positions; quite the contrary. .... only those deceptive practices which can be openly debated and consented to in advance are justifiable in a democracy.” 

“[Johnson repeatedly told the American people] ‘the first responsibility, the only real issue in this campaign, the only thing you ought to be concerned about at all, is: Who can best keep the peace?’ The stratagem succeeded; the election was won; the war escalated. .... President Johnson thus denied the electorate of any chance to give or refuse consent to the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Believing they had voted for the candidate of peace, American citizens were, within months, deeply embroiled in one of the cruelest wars in their history. Deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of democratic government.”   -- Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 1999

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Prominent fascist Kevin McCarthy puts prominent fascist coup attempt supporter MTG on the House Homeland Security committee: The Independent writes:

The news broke on Tuesday as committee assignments for the 118th Congress were released following the marathon vote to confirm Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Ms Greene notably did not join anti-McCarthy rebels on the right in an attempt to block his bid in what many speculated was a bid for his favour.

She will now have access to potentially sensitive classified information, a significant change of fortune for the Georgia congresswoman who was stripped of her committee memberships during the last Congress after a Facebook account in her name was found to have “liked” comments endorsing violence against Democrats including Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker.

This is more evidence of the blatant moral rot and anti-democracy fascism among Republican Party elites and leadership. The Foxes are now guarding the henhouse. 

Nothing can go wrong now. /s

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Republican National Committee complaint about social media censorship is rejected: Ars Technica writes:

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has rejected a Republican National Committee (RNC) complaint claiming that Google violated US law by using Gmail's spam filter on Republican campaign emails. Republicans had claimed Gmail's spam filtering amounted to "illegal in-kind contributions made by Google to Biden For President and other Democrat candidates."

But an FEC decision last week, which Google provided to Ars today, said the commission found "no reason to believe" that Google made prohibited in-kind corporate contributions. The FEC, an independent agency of the US government, also found no evidence that the Biden for President campaign committee knowingly accepted illegal in-kind contributions in the form of spam filtering preference.

The FEC told Google in a letter that it has "closed its file in this matter" and that documents related to the case will be placed on the public record within 30 days.

This is more evidence of the blatant moral rot and anti-democracy fascism among Republican Party elites and leadership.

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Capitalism doing politics the old-fashioned way -- make the workers unknowingly pay to keep their wages low: The NYT writes:

How Restaurant Workers Help Pay for Lobbying 

to Keep Their Wages Low

The National Restaurant Association uses mandatory $15 food-safety classes to turn waiters and cooks into unwitting funders of its battle against minimum wage increases

For many cooks, waiters and bartenders, it is an annoying entrance fee to the food-service business: Before starting a new job, they pay around $15 to a company called ServSafe for an online class in food safety.

That course is basic, with lessons like “bathe daily” and “strawberries aren’t supposed to be white and fuzzy, that’s mold.” In four of the largest states, this kind of training is required by law, and it is taken by workers nationwide.

But in taking the class, the workers — largely unbeknown to them — are also helping to fund a nationwide lobbying campaign to keep their own wages from increasing.

The company they are paying, ServSafe, doubles as a fund-raising arm of the National Restaurant Association — the largest lobbying group for the food-service industry, claiming to represent more than 500,000 restaurant businesses. The association has spent decades fighting increases to the minimum wage at the federal and state levels, as well as the subminimum wage paid to tipped workers like waiters.

Make ’em pay to lobby against themselves!!

Capitalism, it sure is inventive, feisty and deceitful!