Politics

GOP candidates and lawmakers want to use the U.S. military to battle drug cartels.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/175988

“Great CNN segment featuring @vlal42, @JenniferSey, and @hamill_law, all liberal moms who became disaffected with Democrats and open to a different political path thanks to Ron DeSantis' COVID policies. h/t @justin_hart ”

[https://mega.nz/file/zXBykTyZ#g6EhvFqdIJdKNEx9I2EwBg21_nN4BD6tCgYVO2fPOPw](watch video)

Remember where your rights come from. We've been endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. Men cannot take them away.

#politics

The Republican called the governor's move "nonsense" and is promising to take her to court...

The court said on Friday it would hear a case about loosening gun restrictions for people with domestic violence restraining orders.

The ruling and order are the latest developments in a long-running lawsuit spearheaded by Republican-led states.

The transformation of the court into a partisan player contradicts the central premise of democracy.

Over 50 local and national organizations joined to counter the harmful messaging from the far right group's conference.

The profanity-laced message expressed a common sentiment among Trump supporters

Pro-lifers hate women and want to control their bodies. Pro-choicers hate babies and care about their own convenience more than the lives of children.

Or, alternatively, pro-lifers honestly, truly believe that fetuses are children, in which case it is obviously the proper choice to restrict abortion. Pro-choicers honestly, truly believe that personhood does not begin at conception, in which case there's little room for abortion to be ethically wrong.

Until both sides start addressing each other's actual arguments, this subject is not going to cool off. You won't convince a pro-lifer who sees fetuses as children by wrongly claiming they want to control women. You won't convince a pro-choicer who sees personhood as developing later by insisting that they are a godless baby-killer.

In the four years since DeSantis took office, his administration has routinely stonewalled the release of public records, approved a slew of new legal exceptions aimed at keeping more information out of the public eye, and waged legal battles against open government advocates, the press and other watchdogs.

DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer and former U.S. attorney, is the only Florida governor known to use “executive privilege” to keep records hidden.

His travel records, previously under scrutiny by the media, are now secret, thanks to a new legal exemption — one of a record number created in 2023 by the Republican-led Legislature and approved by the governor.

DeSantis also has fought to conceal information about some of the most significant events during his tenure, including withholding Covid infection data and blocking release of records about the controversial relocation of dozens of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, legal filings show.

DeSantis’ transparency track record is alarming particularly since he could carry the same ethos into the White House, if he’s victorious in 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday let stand a federal appeals court ruling that found people with gender dysphoria should be protected against discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

By declining to hear this case, the Supreme Court implicitly acknowledges what those who have seriously examined the issue have concluded: the ADA protects people who experience gender dysphoria, including transgender and nonbinary people, from being discriminated against on that basis"

-- Olivia Hunt, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in 2021, two of the Moores’ lawyers also declared unambiguously that the lawsuit “stands to slam shut the door on a federal wealth tax like the one Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to enact.” They made a direct pitch to “the courts” to hear the Moores’ case “now” to make it easier to block a wealth tax in the future.

President Joe Biden announced Monday his intention to nominate a former appointee under former President Donald Trump with a controversial past in Latin America to the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

Well, it was another banner week from the six unelected zealots who apparently make all of America's public policy decisions.

Supreme Court justices have faced questions about ties to wealthy donors amid several divisive, consequential rulings.

A Christian graphic artist who the Supreme Court said can refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples pointed during her lawsuit to a request from a man named “Stewart” and his husband-to-be.

On July 2, Florida’s new permitless carry law went into effect, continuing a disturbing trend across the country. Florida’s law marks the 26th state with permitless carry laws on the books as America is quickly becoming a nation of mass shootings. That is, over half of the country has now embraced permitless carry laws even though they carry extra risks.

As CBS News reported, those who choose to conceal carry their firearms are no longer required to have a permit to carry nor are they required to take any instructional course. However, because open carry is not part of Florida’s gun laws, they still are not cleared to conceal carry their weapons in public places. This includes airports, schools, stores, or other locations where guns are restricted or outright banned. Gun owners must still pass a background check, be legal US residents, and be permanent residents of Florida, neither can they be unlawful users or addicted to controlled substances, they also cannot have what is referred to as a disqualifying condition such as a felony charge, misdemeanor charge or an injunction.

It still feels unnerving to some, even those caught in the crossfire, to see injuries invented wholesale and lies accepted by the highest court in the land.

Their message: that both the Supreme Court and Legislature had rolled back rights for ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community and women.

Article- Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised the possibility that Congress should consider subpoenaing Chief Justice John Roberts if he stands by his refusal to testify about ethical questions hanging over the high court.

"And so I believe that ... if Chief John Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas," Ocasio-Cortez told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Nation" on Sunday. "We should be considering investigations."

Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly blasted the court last week as Roberts and the five other conservative justices handed major victories to the right that effectively ended affirmative action, opened the door to discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans, and axed Biden's current student loan forgiveness plan.

The New York Democrat took particular issue with the court's ruling in Biden v. Nebraska, arguing that Justice Samuel Alito's acceptance of billionaire Paul Singer financing a lavish fish trip undercut the court's "legitimacy." According to ProPublica, which broke the news of Alito's Alaska fishing trip, Singer has given millions to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that has taken public positions on a number of cases pending before the court — one of those cases was Biden v. Nebraska. Alito, in an extraordinary Wall Street Journal op-ed, denied any wrongdoing or that he has discussed court business with Singer.

—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 30, 2023

"This SCOTUS' corruption undercuts its own legitimacy by putting its rulings up for sale," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter after the decision.

While Republicans control the House, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that Senate Democrats are investigating the numerous reports about unreported gifts to the justices through the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. But Roberts has thus far declined to appear before the panel.

"Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of the separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence," Roberts wrote in April in response to Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin's invitation.

Along with his invitation, Roberts sent along a statement about ethics that he said the eight other current justices had agreed to try to follow. But the statement reaffirmed the belief that only individual justices should decide whether or not they should recuse themselves.

A civil rights legal group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University, calling it racial discrimination.

A civil rights legal group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University, calling it racial discrimination.

True patriots don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America.True patriots don’t support an attempted coup.It’s time to stop letting ...

Far-right lawyers created a phony "victim" in made-up case — and the justice with the stolen seat wrote the opinion