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Allison Fisher at MMFA:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that predicts changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coastlines and provides data that informs lifesaving forecasts such as tracking hurricanes, is in the crosshairs of Project 2025, the conservative battle plan for a potential second Trump presidency which describes NOAA as a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” But researchers have pushed back on these charges and defended NOAA’s climate data and meteorological work — while forecasters are predicting an “extremely active” Atlantic hurricane season and experts say this summer could rival last year’s record heat. Project 2025’s call to dismantle NOAA by eliminating or privatizing key functions of the agency is the endgame of years of attempts by conservatives and right-wing media to attack the credibility of the agency and the veracity of the data it produces. It also illustrates that the conservative plan is not just to dismantle U.S. climate policy, but also to scrub the climate data that underpins it.

Project 2025’s chapter attacking NOAA was penned by Thomas Gilman, a former Trump Commerce Department official who recommends that the agency “should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.” Among other recommendations for how NOAA “should be broken up and downsized,” Gilman’s chapter for Project 2025 calls for the National Weather Service to “fully commercialize its forecasting operations”; demands that research from the National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service be reviewed to ensure it is “presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate”; and suggests the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research “should be disbanded” as “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Experts say Project 2025’s cuts to NOAA could have devastating impacts on climate research and weather forecasting. E&E News notes: “The National Hurricane Center’s mission is centered on informing and warning the public about potentially deadly storms, and as part of that work, it has connected the effects of climate change to hurricane intensity. The brushback it gets in the Project 2025 playbook speaks to past insinuations from Republicans that government agencies are manipulating data to make climate change appear worse.” Speaking to The Guardian, former NOAA official Andrew Rosenberg said the agency “basically reports the science as the scientific evidence accumulates and has been quite cautious about reporting climate effects,” adding, “It’s not pushing some agenda.” And meteorologist Chris Gloninger said Project 2025’s recommendations are “a sign that the far right has ‘no interest in climate truth.’” [E&E News, 4/10/24; The Guardian, 4/26/24]

Project 2025 has plans that would adversely affect weather gathering operations if Convicted Felon Donald Trump gets back in again.

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Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Friday night, Jacksonville residents took to the Main Street Bridge to celebrate Pride Month. Just weeks prior, Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration and the Florida Department of Transportation issued an edict banning rainbow-colored lighting on bridges during Pride Month, mandating that all such lighting be replaced with red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag. Residents, however, were undeterred. They carried flashlights and rainbow gels, took their positions, and proceeded to light up the bridge themselves. Weeks ago, Manatee County Commission Chairman Mike Rahn objected to Pride lighting on bridges in Florida. Many bridges in the state, such as the Skyway Bridge in Tampa and the Acosta Bridge in Jacksonville, have been lit up in rainbow colors in previous years. This year, however, Rahn attempted to stop such lights from going up on the Skyway Bridge, formally objecting to the lighting. He expressed that the decision did not lie with him, passing the blame to Governor DeSantis. Rahn stated, “I do not have the authority to override the governor of the state of Florida. However, in my opinion, the lighting of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is an FDOT matter and should not be left to the individual counties.”

In response, Jared Perdue of the Florida Department of Transportation declared that this year, bridges would be lit up in red, white, and blue all summer. This decision bars Pride lighting, Juneteenth lighting, and many other special lighting days on bridges in Florida. Perdue stated in a tweet, “As Floridians prepare for Freedom Summer, Florida's bridges will follow suit, illuminating in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day through Labor Day! Thanks to the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida continues to be the freest state in the nation.” The use of the word "freedom" while taking away the choice to light up bridges for Pride Month struck Matthew McCallister, who organized the bridge lighting event on Friday night, as "Orwellian." In an interview with News 4 Jax, McCallister responded to the rainbow Pride light ban, saying, “The timing of that is really strange. The idea that we are going to celebrate freedom by giving you absolutely no choices seems Orwellian, honestly.”

Really happy to hear that some Florida cities told Ron DeSantis “up yours” to his anti-LGBTQ+ ways. 🏳️‍🌈

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Shruti Rajkumar at HuffPost:

Several universities across the country are withholding, or threatening to withhold, the diplomas of seniors who engaged in pro-Palestine demonstrations on their campuses amid a national student mobilization in recent months. After Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli military launched a massive offensive in Gaza, which has so far has killed more than 35,000 and sparked a famine in the region. In response, students formed encampments and held demonstrations to demand that their colleges publicly denounce Israel’s attacks on Gaza as a genocide, increase transparency about their Israeli ties and divest from companies in business with Israel. Many pro-Palestine demonstrations have been peaceful. But hundreds of students at universities across the country have been arrested for their involvement, and some are facing hearings for alleged disciplinary violations. Now, multiple colleges are saying that diplomas will be held until these investigations are completed.

On Friday, administrators at the University of California, Los Angeles threatened to discipline and withhold the diplomas of at least 55 students who were involved in pro-Palestine demonstrations. In letters sent on Friday, administrators accused the students of violating the student code of conduct, alleging that they failed to respond to police’s orders to disperse at the May 2 encampment and engaged in “disorderly behavior,” “disturbing the peace” and “failure to comply,” according to the Guardian and UCLA’s student newspaper, The Daily Bruin. The letters say students must attend hearings to discuss the their protest involvement and will not be allowed to receive their degrees until they’ve done so, the Guardian reported. Students who don’t schedule their meeting or who miss it will not be able to register for classes next semester or, if they’re seniors, graduate.

[...] Several U.S. schools, including the ones that are holding student protesters diplomas, have statements on their websites expressing that free speech and expression is valued on their campuses, so long as it isn’t disruptive and doesn’t violate school policies.

It’s shameful that some universities are choosing to aid and abet pro-Israel Apartheid donors by withholding diplomas from pro-Palestine student protesters who protested against the Gaza Genocide on campuses (of which were mostly peaceful).

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Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

WASHINGTON — The 34 felony guilty verdicts returned against former President Donald Trump on Thursday spurred a wave of violent rhetoric aimed at the prosecutors who secured his conviction, the judge who oversaw the case and the ordinary jurors who unanimously agreed there was no reasonable doubt that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee falsified business records related to hush money payments to a porn star to benefit his 2016 campaign. Advance Democracy, a nonprofit that conducts public interest research, said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified.

The posts, which have been reviewed by NBC News, appear on many of the same websites used by Trump supporters to organize for violence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. These forums were hotbeds of threats inspired by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which he lost, and that the voting system was “rigged” against him. They now feature new threats echoing Trump’s rhetoric and false claims about the hush money trial, including that the judicial system is now “rigged” against him. “Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)

“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another user on the same forum. “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote another user. “This s--- is out of control.” “I hope every juror is doxxed and they pay for what they have done,” another user wrote on Trump’s Truth Social platform Thursday. “May God strike them dead. We will on November 5th and they will pay!” “War,” read a Telegram post from one chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right group whose former chair and three other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy because of their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, just a few months after Trump infamously told the group to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 debate. “Now you understand. To save your nation, you must fight. The time to respond is now. Franco Friday has begun,” another Proud Boys chapter wrote, apparently referring to fascist dictator Francisco Franco of Spain.

The violent MAGA terrorist cult are urging the doxxing of the Trump business record falsification jurors, prosecutors, and the judge presiding over the case on far-right extremist sites such as Telegram and Patriots.win.

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Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records has been met with resounding cheers and the expected right-wing jeers. But no group is more craven than Trump’s desperate cohort of vice presidential wannabes, all of whom made sure to react loudly to the verdict and rush to the felon’s defense.  Some responded on social media, some did interviews, and some did both, but all of them sounded a lot like one of Trump’s trademark unhinged Truth Social rants.  Saying the trial was a “sham” and the verdict was an “injustice,” these bootlickers made sure to wrap their responses in a shroud of conspiracy theories while adding a little something to distinguish themselves.

Potential Trump VP candidates such as Vivek Ramaswamy, J.D. Vance, Elise Stefanik, and Tim Scott, are all lining up to lick Donald Trump’s boots by attacking the 34 business records falsification charges against Trump.

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Andrew Prokop at Vox:

A Manhattan jury just found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts. The former president is still facing other criminal charges across four jurisdictions — Georgia, Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia — all as he runs for the presidency again. The cases, involving allegations of attempted election theft, mishandling classified documents, and hush money payments, have grown so sprawling that it’s tough for anyone but the most die-hard political obsessive to follow them in detail. But in some, the stakes — for our democracy and for Trump personally — are higher than others.

The two prosecutions about Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory (in DC and Georgia) both come with the possibility of serious criminal penalties. They also have enormous implications for the future of American elections, and for whether Trump or someone like him will respect the results next time around. The classified documents prosecution, in Florida, is also significant in that it involves sensitive intelligence material. However, prosecutors have presented no evidence that this sensitive material leaked out from Trump’s possession. The prosecution is mainly about his efforts to defy the government’s demands that he return the documents. The New York case reached a verdict fastest but was the least important of the four. Trump was charged with falsifying business records related to hush money payments he’d made. The core violation here is, basically, that the Trump Organization logged these payments improperly as “legal expenses” — not the highest-stakes issue in the world. 

[...]

1) Federal 2020 election case (District of Columbia)

How important is this indictment? Very important. As Vox’s Nicole Narea previously explained, this case “will legally define what a politician is able to do to reverse a defeat.” The outcome of this case could have major implications for the 2024 election and every race that follows: If Trump isn’t held accountable for the actions he took on January 6 and leading up to it, he and others could try to pull the same schemes in the future. [...]

2) Georgia election indictment

How important is this indictment? Very important. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accused Trump and several of his associates of a sprawling racketeering conspiracy related to their efforts to overturn Biden’s win in the state. In contrast to the federal election indictment, where Trump is the only one charged so far, here 18 others were also charged for participating in this alleged conspiracy. These include famous names like Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, notorious Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Sidney Powell, and lower-level Georgia players.

[...]

3) Federal documents case (Florida)

How important is this indictment? Important. This case centers on a president’s ability to endanger the country’s national security by taking and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Documents that Trump kept addressed everything from US nuclear programs to the country’s defense and weapons capabilities to how America could respond in the face of a possible attack. Additionally, the case looks at how Trump obstructed FBI efforts to take back the documents.

Out of the three remaining Donald Trump indictments still to be resolved, the DC January 6th case might have the best chance of being decided prior to the election.

The Georgia and Florida indictments are likely not going to be decided prior to the election.

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Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) has signed S.B. 2782, an amendment to a 2023 gender-affirming care ban that adds civil penalties for adults who help unemancipated minors travel out of state to receive an abortion or gender-affirming care without their parents’ consent. He signed the bill on Tuesday, making his state the first in the nation to pass this kind of law — it goes into effect on July 1, but is expected to receive immediate legal challenges. While the law excludes ambulance drivers, emergency medical services personnel, and other transportation service providers, the Class A misdemeanor offense is punishable by up to one year in prison. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have emphasized that the law doesn’t ban parents from taking their own children out of state for gender-affirming care.

“OUTMemphis has provided navigation assistance for families seeking gender-affirming care for youth since the ban on care for minors passed last year,” said Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis. “Above all, we want these families to know help is available and that you don’t have to fear leaving the state to get your child the care that they need.”  The state’s 2023 ban on gender-affirming care prohibits minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and, in rare instances, surgeries. The law also required trans young people who are already receiving gender-affirming care to end their treatment by March 31, effectively forcing them to detransition. In late September 2023, a federal appeals court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signs #SB2782 into law, SB2782 would punish adults who help unemancipated minors travel out of state to receive an abortion or gender-affirming care without their parents’ consent (with limited exceptions).

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Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Donald Trump’s “guilty” verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush money trial could make it harder for the Senate to get much work done in the next few months — at least, if a group of pro-Trump senators has their way. Eight Republican senators said Friday they would try to slow down the Senate’s business in response to the verdict. Unlike the House, the Senate runs its day-to-day business under small, temporary agreements between the majority Democrats and minority Republicans. It’s a system that can be undermined sometimes by even one obstinate senator.

“The White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart,” said the eight senators in a letter. Signatories included Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Specifically, the group promised three things: to not allow any increase in “non-security” funding or spending bills that fund “partisan lawfare”; to not vote for any of the White House’s political or judicial nominees; and to not allow faster consideration of Democratic legislative priorities “not directly relevant to the safety of the American people.”

“Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said in a social media post about the letter. “We are no longer cooperating with any Democrat legislative priorities or nominations, and we invite all concerned Senators to join our stand.”

8 felon-coddling Republican Senators signed a letter that they’ll muck up even more business in the Senate in protest of the guilty verdict handed down by a jury in the Trump business records falsification trial.

The 8 signatories are: Mike Lee, J.D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Eric Schmitt, Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, Roger Marshall, and Marco Rubio.

Surprisingly, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton didn’t sign on to it.

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Julian Borger and Emma Graham-Harrison at The Guardian:

Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal he said Israel has put on the table, offering a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip. “It’s time for this war to end … for the day after to begin,” Biden said, outlining the framework of a three-phase agreement, which he said had been put on the table by the Israeli government. A senior administration official said the four-and-a-half-page proposal had been endorsed by the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and had been presented to Hamas on Friday.

Hamas issued a statement late on Friday night, saying it received Biden’s proposals “positively”. It was unclear how enthusiastically Netanyahu had embraced the peace proposal. Biden made his remarks on the Jewish shabbat, when most Israeli politicians were offline. The prime minister’s office issued an ambiguous statement after Biden spoke, confirming Netanyahu had authorised a negotiating team to present a plan to return hostages, but insisting that Israel would keep fighting. “The government of Israel is united in its desire to return the hostages as soon as possible and is working to achieve this goal,” the statement said. “The prime minister authorised the negotiating team to present a proposal to that end, which would also enable Israel to continue the war until all its objectives are achieved, including the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. “The actual proposal put forward by Israel, including the conditional transition from one phase to the next, allows Israel to uphold these principles,” the statement said.

In his remarks on Friday, Biden said the first phase of the peace plan would last for six weeks, during which there would be a ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza. “A number of hostages” including women, elderly and wounded people, would be released by Hamas in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being freed. Remains of some of the dead hostages would also be returned to their families, while Gazans would be able to return to their homes across the entire strip. Crossings into Gaza would be opened, to allow in 600 truckloads of assistance a day, the quantity aid agencies have been saying is a minimum needed by the starving 2.3 million population.

Over the course of the first phase’s six-week ceasefire, Israel and Hamas would negotiate a second phase, aimed at a permanent end to hostilities. If the parties did not reach an agreement in the six weeks, the ceasefire would extend as long as they stayed at the negotiations, brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt. During the second phase, which an administration official said would also be about six weeks long, Hamas would release all remaining hostages, including male soldiers, while Israel would withdraw from all of Gaza and commit to a lasting truce subject to Hamas sticking to its side of the bargain.

President Biden is urging both parties to accept a ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.

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AP, via NBC News:

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s prime minister on Saturday called a permanent cease-fire in Gaza a “nonstarter” until long-standing conditions for ending the war are met, appearing to undermine a proposal that U.S. President Joe Biden had announced as an Israeli one.

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office came a day after Biden outlined the plan, and as families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept the proposal. A major demonstration in Israel on Saturday night urged the government to act now. And a joint statement by mediators the U.S., Egypt and Qatar pressed Israel and Hamas, saying the proposed deal “offers a road map for a permanent cease-fire and ending the crisis” and gives immediate relief to both the hostages and Gaza residents. But Netanyahu’s statement said that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel. Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent cease-fire is put in place.” In a separate statement, Netanyahu accepted an invitation from U.S. congressional leaders to deliver an address at the Capitol, a show of wartime support for Israel. No date has been set.

Biden on Friday asserted that Hamas is “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one by the militant group in October that started the war. He urged Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to release about 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 30 more, for an extended cease-fire. Cease-fire talks halted last month after a push by the U.S. and other mediators to secure a deal in hopes of averting a full-scale Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Israel says the Rafah operation is key to uprooting Hamas fighters responsible for the Oct. 7 attack. Israel on Friday confirmed its troops were operating in central parts of the city. The ground assault has led around 1 million Palestinians to leave Rafah and thrown humanitarian operations into turmoil. The World Food Program has called living conditions “horrific and apocalyptic” as hunger grows. Families of hostages said that time was running out.

[...] Many hostages’ families accuse the government of a lack of will. “We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal, and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months,” Sharone Lifschitz said. Her mother, Yocheved, was freed in November but her father, Oded, is still held.

Bibi is a genocidal bastard who will do anything to get Donald Trump elected.

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Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley announced Tuesday that public schools will be allowed to use the unaccredited, right-wing nonprofit PragerU "edu-tainment" children's videos. PragerU’s billionaire-backed, Islamophobic, homophobic, climate denialist, racist, and ultimately revisionist content was born out of the repugnant minds of right-wing radio show host Dennis Prager and screenwriter Allen Estrin. PragerU is a propaganda project designed to target children with far-right ideas and alternate facts. The videos range from animations for very young children to hosted informationals for young adults, with titles like "Born to hate Jews," about how Muslims are raised to be antisemitic. There’s also "Would you rather be colonized by Aztecs or Christians?," which is hosted by Christian conservative extremist Michael Knowles.

[...] Louisiana now joins Oklahoma, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, and Arizona in adding PragerU materials to their public education curriculum. These materials include books for young adult readers like “Sofia Survives The Border,” which is about a young girl who “learns why strong borders are essential for keeping communities safe and prosperous.” 

Louisiana is the 6th state to allow schools to teach from right-wing indoctrination factory PragerU.

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Eleanor Klibanoff at Texas Tribune:

The Texas Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the most significant challenge to Texas’ new abortion laws yet, ruling Friday that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough to withstand constitutional challenge.

The case, Zurawski v. Texas, started with five women arguing the state’s near-total abortion laws stopped them from getting medical care for their complicated pregnancies. In the year plus it took to move through the court system, the case has grown to include 20 women and two doctors. In August, a Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction that allowed Texans with complicated pregnancies to get an abortion if their doctor made a “good faith judgment” that it was necessary. The Texas Office of the Attorney General appealed. The Texas Supreme Court overturned that ruling Friday, saying it “departed from the law as written without constitutional justification.” While the opinion was unanimous, Justice Brett Busby issued a concurring opinion that left the door open to a broader challenge to the law.

Zurawski v. Texas was a pioneering case in post-Roe America, the first challenge to a state’s abortion bans on behalf of women with complicated pregnancies. At least three other states have followed suit, and it led to a related case, in which Kate Cox, an actively pregnant woman in Dallas sued to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy. The Texas Supreme Court rejected Cox’s plea in December, which many saw as a likely foreshadow of how the court might rule in Zurawski v. Texas. On Friday, those suspicions were confirmed when the court offered a ruling very similar in nature to the Cox case. “A physician who tells a patient, ‘Your life is threatened by a complication that has arisen during your pregnancy, and you may die, or there is a serious risk you will suffer substantial physical impairment unless an abortion is performed,’ and in the same breath states ‘but the law won’t allow me to provide an abortion in these circumstances’ is simply wrong in that legal assessment,” the court wrote.

How the case unfolded

The initial lawsuit was filed in March 2023, and unlike previous wholesale, pre-enforcement challenges to abortion bans, this case focused on a very narrow argument — women with complicated pregnancies were being denied medically necessary abortions because doctors were unclear on how and when they could act.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in summer 2022, Texas banned all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant patient. Almost immediately, women began to come forward with stories of difficult pregnancies worsened by doctors’ hesitations and uncertainty. Amanda Zurawski, the named plaintiff in the suit, was 18 weeks pregnant with a daughter they’d named Willow when she experienced preterm prelabor rupture of membranes. Despite the condition being fatal to the fetus and posing significant risks to the pregnant patient, her doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because there was still fetal cardiac activity. Eventually, Zurawski went into sepsis and spent three days in the intensive care unit. While she survived, the infection has made it difficult for her and her husband to conceive again.

[...]

Friday’s ruling

In Friday’s ruling, the court ruled that only one of the 22 plaintiffs in the Zurawski suit had standing to sue — Karsan, the Houston OB/GYN who had agreed to perform Cox’s abortion. “We conclude that the Attorney General directly threatened enforcement against Dr. Karsan in response to her stated intent to engage in what she contends is constitutionally protected activity,” the justices wrote. “A state official’s letter threatening enforcement of a specific law against a plaintiff seeking relief from such enforcement is a sufficient showing of a threat of enforcement to establish standing to sue.” The trial court ruled in the injunction that a doctor should be allowed to perform an abortion when they deemed it necessary in their “good faith judgment.” Friday’s ruling found the trial judge overstepped, and said the way the law is written — allowing abortions based on a doctor’s “reasonable medical judgment” — is clear enough.

The all-GOP Texas Supreme Court hate women full stop, as the court rejected the Zurawski v. Texas lawsuit challenging the Lone Star State’s harsh abortion bans.

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Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

The Supreme Court should intervene in former president Donald Trump’s business fraud case, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday after Trump’s conviction. “I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Johnson said in an appearance on Fox News the day after Trump was found guilty Thursday in a New York state court on 34 charges of falsifying business documents. Trump said Friday he would appeal his felony convictions, the first-ever for a former president. “This is totally unprecedented. And it’s dangerous to our system,” Johnson said. “This is diminishing the American people’s faith in our system of justice itself. And to maintain a republic, you have to have that. People have to believe that justice is fair, that there’s equal justice under law.”

Johnson said he thought at least some of the court’s justices were worried by the case.

Criminal-coddling House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) calls on SCOTUS to intervene in the Trump business records falsification case with the hopes of getting the case overturned.

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Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast:

Eric Bolling, who parted ways with Fox News in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations, is now leaving the wannabe Fox News competitor he joined in 2021. Pro-Trump cable news channel Newsmax confirmed on Friday that Bolling had departed the network, noting that they had “mutually agreed” to end his primetime program The Balance. According to a network spokesperson, a temporary replacement show will take its place starting Monday with a rotating slate of hosts until a new show is announced this summer. “Newsmax wishes Eric Bolling well in his future endeavors,” the spokesperson added. “The network looks forward to an exciting period this election season which will include our nightly news coverage with Greta Van Susteren, Rob Schmitt, Greg Kelly and Chris Plante.” In a statement to Mediaite, which first broke the news of Bolling’s departure, the MAGA personality suggested that his exit from Newsmax was due to another gig.

[...] During his Thursday night broadcast, which largely focused on raging against former President Donald Trump's felony conviction, Bolling did not note at any point that it would be his last show, nor did he issue a final farewell to viewers.

Right-wing blowhard Eric Bolling departs from Newsmax. His Eric Bolling: The Balance show last aired this week.

Where will Bolling end up next? Real America's Voice? Lindell TV? Stay tuned.

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Al Jazeera:

The top legislators in the United States have issued a formal invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a speech to Congress in the latest show of support for Israel amid its war on Gaza. The invite by Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives on Friday came as the International Criminal Court considers issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes. “To build on our enduring relationship and to highlight America’s solidarity with Israel, we invite you to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy, combatting terror, and establishing a just and lasting peace in the region,” the letter said. It did not specify a date for the speech. The letter was signed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. If he accepts the invitation, Netanyahu would surpass the late former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the foreign leader who has delivered the most speeches to a joint session of Congress.

[...] Netanyahu has been facing global outrage over Israel’s apparent abuses in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed more than 36,000 people and destroyed large parts of the territory. Israel has also imposed a strict blockade in Gaza, bringing the territory to the verge of famine. Netanyahu’s government defied its Western allies, including the United States, this month by launching a major assault in Rafah in southern Gaza, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians had been sheltering. The offensive has displaced one million Palestinians. An Israeli bombing of a camp for displaced people in Rafah earlier this month killed 45 Palestinians and sparked international outrage. But the US Congress remains staunchly pro-Israel although some Democrats have been increasingly critical of Netanyahu.

Inviting the genocidal war criminal Israel Apartheid State PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress at a time and date to be announced-- especially during the ongoing Gaza Genocide campaign-- is highly irresponsible and a slap in the face to common sense.

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Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly at Politico:

Donald Trump says he won’t ban birth control if he returns to the White House. But he could make it a lot harder to get. As president, Trump enacted several policies that made it more difficult for people, particularly the working class and the poor, to obtain contraception — from allowing more employers to opt out of birth control coverage in their workers’ health insurance to imposing restrictions on the Title X family planning program that triggered a mass exodus of clinics.

Conservative allies want to reimpose those policies and go further if he wins in November. Their “Project 2025” blueprint includes proposals to require coverage of natural family planning methods and remove requirements that insurance cover certain emergency contraception. Taken together, the policies highlight the many ways a second Trump administration could hamper access to contraception, short of a blanket ban. The impact would also be much greater now that roughly one-third of states prohibit nearly all abortions. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, to the consternation of some conservatives, the Biden administration has worked to make contraception more accessible, approving the first birth control pill available over-the-counter and requiring more types of contraception be covered by insurance. [...]

Roger Severino, a former Trump administration official who drafted the health care section of the Project 2025 blueprint, argued that the restrictions proposed in the document are a “far cry” from pulling contraceptives off the market or criminalizing their use — actions some Democrats have warned conservatives plan to implement. “The notion that there’s a formal organized movement to ban contraception across America is downright silly. I don’t know how that idea came about. But it strikes me as political posturing in the wake of the Dobbs decision to try to mislead people into thinking everything is up for grabs having to do with sex,” Severino said. “It’s fearmongering.” The Biden campaign said last week that Trump’s contraception remarks are the latest example of the chaos he has wrought for women’s reproductive rights, particularly by appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

[...]

As part of their 2025 wish list, conservatives want to overhaul which forms of birth control insurance companies must cover for patients at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. For instance, they have drafted plans to allow insurers to drop coverage of the emergency contraceptive pill Ella, which some on the right believe is an abortifacient.

“Instead of a mandate of a particular potentially abortifacient drug, it should be opt-in instead of opt-out,” Severino said. “Mandates are a difficult thing to impose on the American people, especially when you have something as fraught as issues of potential loss of life.” Conservatives also call for a requirement to cover “fertility awareness-based methods” of family planning, such as apps to track menstruation. Waters said she would also like to see the National Institutes of Health or another entity study the long-term effects of birth control. Trump allies also hope he will bring back a number of policies from his administration. During Trump’s four years in office, his administration slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has allowed at least 58 million women to access birth control with no out-of-pocket costs.

Federal health officials in Trump’s administration also issued rules allowing virtually any employer to refuse to cover contraception in their health plans, a policy supporters of the former president hope will be restored in 2025. The administration’s biggest impact on contraception access came from its overhaul of the federal Title X program, which provides free and subsidized birth control, STD screenings and other services to millions of low-income people. Trump’s health officials first cut the length of grants to clinics in that program from three years to eight months, creating more uncertainty and paperwork burdens for already strapped clinics. They then issued rules that banned providers from referring patients for an abortion or discussing it as an option and required clinics to construct fully separate facilities for the procedure and other services. Proponents argued the policies would ensure taxpayer dollars didn’t inadvertently support abortion, but many critics considered it a “gag rule” that prevented open communication between doctor and patient.

Politico is reporting that Donald Trump may be open to heavily restricting access to contraception and birth control instead of an outright ban. This is yet another example of the morally bankrupt Project 2025 agenda that the GOP wants to enact.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Tait and Léonie Chao-Fong at The Guardian:

Joe Biden warned on Friday that it was reckless and “dangerous” for anyone to claim Donald Trump’s criminal conviction was the result of a rigged trial, as the former president hit out at the verdict against him and Republicans maligned the integrity of America’s justice system. Donald Trump hit out furiously on Friday morning at the new status of “felon” conferred on him by a New York jury, whose guilty verdict made him the first former US president ever to become a convicted criminal. On Friday afternoon, Biden began a White House talk about the war in Gaza with remarks on criticism from Trump and the right wing about the historic trial that had concluded in New York the day before.

The US president said: “It is reckless, it is dangerous, it is irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict. The US justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and is literally a cornerstone of America.” He added that the system and the justice it produced should be respected. “And we should never allow anyone to tear it down, simple as that, that’s America,” Biden said. The war of words came a day after Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges he had faced. On Friday morning, the ex-president painted himself as a victim of injustice in a rambling and often incoherent appearance at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, at which he labelled his opponents “fascists” and blamed his legal plight on Joe Biden. Trump was unanimously convicted by a jury of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

In contrast to 34x Convicted Felon Donald Trump's paranoia-fueled speech in response to his conviction, President Joe Biden rightly called out Trump's conspiracist screeds about the People of New York v. Trump business records falsification trial as "dangerous."