#scotus for sale

[ivovynckier]

Roe v. Wade: NO woman is smart enough to take decisions about her body.

Trump immunity: ONE man so smart he can stage a coup and murder his rivals.

[lovingbeta]

Supreme Cons

[odinsblog]

This is an illegitimate and deeply corrupt Supreme Court.

“I must respectfully decline your invitation," Roberts wrote in the letter to Dick Durbin (D-Ill), which was released by a spokesperson for the high court.

Durbin responded to the refusal in a statement Tuesday.

“Make no mistake: Supreme Court ethics reform must happen whether the Court participates in the process or not,” Durbin said in the statement.

He also noted that he was surprised that the chief justice had amended his letter with a statement meant to provide “clarity” to the public about how the justices consider ethics issues.

Durbin dismissed the statement as a “recounting of existing legal standards of ethics” and said that Roberts’ suggestion that current law is adequate “ignores the obvious.”

“It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it,” Durbin said.

👉🏿 https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/politics/john-roberts-congress-supreme-court-ethics/index.html

Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time that the malfeasance of SCOTUS has been a problem.

Flashback 2012:

Roberts rejects calls that the justices should be subject to the basic code of ethics that governs all other federal judges and must provide some transparency to their recusal decisions. His argument seems based on the proposition that the justices are good people and able jurists — so they don’t have to be officially bound by a code or explain decisions governing their conduct or recusal.

In Roberts’s view, these good jurists should not have to explain how their decisions conform to the law. Yet the courts’ fundamental legitimacy rests on the notion that judges apply the facts to the law impartially and explain what they have done in reasoned opinions for all to read. Roberts’s position mocks that.

👉🏿 https://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/roberts-to-america-trust-us-071895

[reasoningdaily]

Berke Farah – lawyer for Justice Clarence Thomas

“Personal bank accounts at Congressional Federal Credit Union were inadvertently omitted in prior years – due to a misinterpretation of the rules. Filer believed that personal bank accounts were exempt from reporting disclosure. It is painfully obvious that these attacks are motivated by hatred for his judicial philosophy – not by any real belief in any ethical lapses.”

Wrong! How is it possible – that a US Supreme Court Justice – is too stupid to know – that personal bank accounts – are not exempt – when filing income tax?

Justice Clarence Thomas is a trickster – a cheat – and a liar!

[bybruce]

5 Minutes Ago! Mike Johnson's GAY PORN PAST EXPOSED! @SpeakerJohnson @R...

[sleepyleftistdemon]

(via Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug takes you into the courtroom of Judge Clarence)

[centrally-unplanned]

I saw this slightly-old post making the rounds recently by former alt-right memelord Walt Bismark, on how the alt-right "won" in the late 2010's - positing that as the cause of why it generally vanished. I agree overall with the vanishing part, its not gone-gone ofc but it waned as a cohesive movement. But I saw a lot of people (and generally not alt-right figures) agreeing with its conclusion and I am a bit more skeptical of those.

Its largely a personal essay so I wont address most of it, but it has a summary of five main points that outline essentially "the agenda of the Alt Right at the beginning" to evaluate success upon. Bismark thinks they won on all five, but overall I think this is playing a trick of inventing an enemy to claim you defeated. Anyway, the points:

1: Shift the “Overton Window” of acceptable public discourse to make it politically viable to openly discuss the interests of white people in mainstream politics, in the same way black people or Jewish people discuss their collective interests. 

This one I will grant a partial victory - there was a legitimate intensification of "white as identity" in politics, a making explicit what was implicit in the 2010's. Now ofc I consider this to be a classic horseshoe moment; the hard left at the time was also extremely interested in abandoning race neutrality and valorizing racial identity as an organizing principle, and did it in a very ham-fisted way that the right capitalized on, so it was an easy battle to win - but that is what it is, ofc the wider environment defined the goals & strategy. I mention it however because I do think this is only partial, and the gap between implicit and explicit isn't that relevant. He mentions as an example of this success:

Affirmative action was of course squashed by SCOTUS and the necessary legal infrastructure is being deployed to burn it down. Mainstream conservatives are mobilizing a lot of resources and energy to this end.

But conservatives have been fighting affirmative action for 20+ years, easily. Here is a 1999 article on precisely such a campaign, I literally just googled "conservatives affirmative action [year]" and I get results each time, 2003 had big cases (the Bollinger cases) on AA, etc. I remember "affirmative action bake sale" memes from like 2006 at my uni! What changed between Bollinger and 2023's Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is that conservatives had just had enough time to stack courts, and wait for Supreme Court justices to die. That just...takes time to do! The strategy hadn't changed between 2003 and 2023. And meanwhile, did they win? They won that court case, sure. What do you...think the ethic makeup of the next Harvard class is gonna be? Wanna take some bets?

His other listed victories are things like:

"Vivek defended the Great Replacement Theory on national television and remained a major Trump surrogate. The SPLC would have marginalized him for that 10 years ago. Today because of polarization and MAGA closing ranks they can’t do shit."

And like, the Southern Poverty Law Center would have successfully marginalized a Republican politician in idk 2003 are you completely high right now? Strom Fucking Thurmond was an active Senator in 2003! This is the repeated tactic here, the imagined enemies - there was never a time where liberal institutions could consistently force conservative politicians to kowtow, so you can't claim it as a change.

This is why I mention the social justice horseshoe, because he has this point here:

These days you can complain about quotas etc. being unfair to you as a white man and it’s not inflammatory or low status among centrists and conservatives. Even non-woke liberals won’t really hate you for it, just quietly think you’re a bit of a chud. This was not the case in 2015. 

And this is partially correct, I agree there was some norm shift. But that is because in ~2010 there really weren't any quotas against white men, it wasn't a thing almost anywhere outside of university applications, so the complaint would make no sense. What happened was that starting in ~2012 a huge left cultural movement started that just openly supported active discrimination against whites, Asians and men. They were a small minority of course, and never had much power, but they got enough power in certain institutions like non-profits and universities that there was a string of just very obvious cases of clear racial discrimination against in particular whites & asians (both men and women, white women often got it very bad in this wave). And the large majority of people just saw that and went "uh yeah racism is still bad?" and so now you can say that because its actually relevant to say. From that lens, is this a successful cultural victory on the part of the alt-right? In some sense sure, but really its more a cultural failure of the hard left. The status quo just kept on chugging along.

Ugh that point went long, the others repeat so we will go through them quicker.

2: Elevate identity issues like anti-immigration and the promotion of traditional gender norms to the center of Republican politics. 

A fake enemy here - anti-immigration was already a huge issue for Republicans in the 2000's. It had a huge wave under Obama actually, it goes in cycles like that. And it responds to material conditions; it's a big issue again right now because the immigration numbers spiked massively under Biden, its just way worse of a problem now (primarily due to the booming economy of course). Again a partial victory for the first part, I agree its more salient due to Trump platforming it, but I'm skeptical that it is a big shift - people are memory-holing the Tea Party movement really badly here for example.

And the second point is just obviously false, Republicans always cared about that, and they care about it less now, giving up the ghost on gay marriage for example. The Alt-Right coincided with a decline of the influence of the Religious Right, and it shows on this issue, 0 points.

3: Make it socially acceptable to discuss HBD and the resulting moral implications for leveling mechanisms like affirmative action. 

Peak "log off" moment, it was always acceptable to discuss this outside of liberal/professional circles and there it still isn't acceptable to discuss it. Charles Murray wrote the Bell Curve in 1994 and his been an American Enterprise Institute Scholar for this entire span of time. This is confusing churn for change - the mid-2010's had a bunch of big, mainly online fights about HBD, and then everyone just sort of moved on with the status quo pretty much unchanged. Nothing like education policy, even in Republican circles, has shifted over this.

4: Convince conservatives to stop ceding moral authority to liberals and allowing them to determine who on the Right is verboten or beyond the pale. Make it unacceptable among conservatives to “punch Right” or purge people for wrongthink. 

Sigh, again when have Republicans ever ceded moral authority to liberals? Harvard University could not condemn Newt Gingrich in ~2009 and make him change his mind about anything. And "Republicans don't self-criticize while Liberals eat themselves alive" has been a complaint for literally decades, you would hear that as far back as say Clinton and things like the 1999 WTO protests. Its both true and exaggerated - the Tea Party primaried Republican candidates for wrongthink in 2010, and Trump did the same thing! With disastrous results for the Republicans in 2022. I really, really don't think you can look at Trump's Republican party and say they solved the Wrongthink problem.

5: Expose and dismantle the hypocritical attitude that allows neocons to militantly support Israeli ethnonationalism while brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically.

This one is just a lolwut moment, "brutally repressing any white identity politics domestically", like what does that even mean? Name the concrete policy proposals George Bush implemented in 2007 than Donald Trump didn't in 2018 around this topic. Again a fake enemy, they were never repressed by the right, and ofc are still hated by liberal institutions like universities.

Moving on from any specific point, I think its very telling that very little about free trade vs protectionism or isolationism/support of autocracy abroad enters this list. Because beyond immigration those are the big shifts the Trump movement (which is the mechanism the alt-right has to claim for making its impact) has ushered into the party. They didn't change its stance on sexual politics or "race & IQ" or anything, those haven't changed, but meanwhile the party has completely flipped on things like tariffs or opposition to Russian military expansion. But of course those don't align neatly at all with the issues the Alt-Right fought about in 2015.

The reality the Alt-Right can't escape is that they used Trump as their mechanism for change, and Trump never really cared about any of their goals beyond immigration. He used them and then pursued either bog-standard Republican policy or his own mercurial, autocratic whims, eventually channeling all of this energy into election denialism. I really don't think if you pulled aside frikkin Ryan Faulk in 2014, asked him to put down his graphs about Raven's Progressive Matrices of black Caribbean students, and said "Hey 10 years from now all of this energy is being channeled into pretending that a failed real estate mogul didn't lose the 2020 presidential election", that he would look at that outcome and think Mission Accomplished.

I don't want to fully oversell, there are for example wins Bismark doesn't mention (School choice comes to mind, the biggest conservative win of the past decade besides the protectionist swing). The Alt Right was an influential movement, it earned its place in history. But I do not think it is an example of being a "victim of its own success". I think instead it should be understood as part of the "radical froth" of the 2010's, that bubbled over and then evaporated like its more intense leftwing peers did. It made some mark and then got left in the dust.

Net ranking of the 5 points: 0.5 for Point 1, 0.25 for Point 2, 0 for the rest, 1.25/5.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

The Supreme Court delivered a firm and unambiguous rebuke to some of America’s most reckless judges on Thursday, ruling those judges were wrong to declare an entire federal agency unconstitutional in a decision that threatened to trigger a second Great Depression. In a sensible world, no judge would have taken the plaintiffs arguments in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association seriously. Briefly, they claimed that the Constitution limits Congress’s ability to enact “perpetual funding,” meaning that the legislation funding a particular federal program does not sunset after a certain period of time. The implications of this entirely made-up theory of the Constitution are breathtaking. As Justice Elena Kagan points out in a concurring opinion in the CFPB case, “spending that does not require periodic appropriations (whether annual or longer) accounted for nearly two-thirds of the federal budget” — and that includes popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Nevertheless, a panel of three Trump judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — a court dominated by reactionaries who often hand down decisions that offend even the current, very conservative Supreme Court — bought the CFPB plaintiffs’ novel theory and used it to declare the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional. In fairness, the Fifth Circuit’s decision would not have invalidated Social Security or Medicare, but that’s because the Fifth Circuit made up some novel limits to contain its unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution. And the Fifth Circuit’s attack on the CFPB still would have had catastrophic consequences for the global economy had it actually been affirmed by the justices. That’s because the CFPB doesn’t just regulate the banking industry. It also instructs banks on how they can comply with federal lending laws without risking legal sanction — establishing “safe harbor” practices that allow banks to avoid liability so long as they comply with them.

As a brief filed by the banking industry explains, without these safe harbors, the industry would not know how to lawfully issue loans — and if banks don’t know how to issue loans, the mortgage market could dry up overnight. Moreover, because home building, home sales, and other industries that depend on the mortgage market make up about 17 percent of the US economy, a decision invalidating the CFPB could trigger economic devastation unheard of since the Great Depression. Thankfully, that won’t happen. Seven justices joined a majority opinion in CFPB which rejects the Fifth Circuit’s attack on the United States economy, and restates the longstanding rule governing congressional appropriations. Congress may enact any law funding a federal institution or program, so long as that law “authorizes expenditures from a specified source of public money for designated purposes.”

[...]

Notably, the Supreme Court’s CFPB decision was authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, who is ordinarily the Court’s most conservative member. The fact that even Thomas delivered such an unambiguous rebuke to the Fifth Circuit is a sign of just how far the lower court went off the rails in its decision.

Two justices did dissent: Justice Samuel Alito, the Court’s most reliable GOP partisan, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also dissented in a similar case that could have triggered an economic depression if Gorsuch’s view had prevailed. Alito’s dissenting opinion is difficult to parse, but it largely argues that the CFPB is unconstitutional because Congress used an unusual mechanism to fund it.

SCOTUS ruled 7-2 in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional, delivering a big rebuke to the ultra-radical right-wing 5th Circuit Court. The author of this ruling is Clarence Thomas.

[meandmybigmouth]

How to stage a coup and power grab? Simply stop doing your job, plant enough political agents in a scotus, Implement citizens united where the government is always on sale 24/7!. take over all oversight committee's, Cut back the federal departments that try and maintain federal laws as their political sabotage turns America into a shithole they think will be able to control it? And lastly make a pact with a life long enemy to help in their power grab!.

[odinsblog]

Harlan Crow has been very good to Justice Clarence Thomas, lavishing gifts and other favors on Thomas and his family.

Crow provided $500,000 to allow Thomas' wife to start a Tea Party group, and he once gave Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. He also served on the board of a corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AI), which once gave Thomas a $15,000 gift.

As ThinkProgress reported earlier, AEI filed at least three briefs in the Supreme Court after giving Thomas this very expensive gift, and Thomas either sided with AEl or took a position that was much more extreme that AEl's in all three of these cases.

👉🏿 https://archive.thinkprogress.org/second-harlan-crow-connected-group-has-a-perfect-litigation-record-before-justice-thomas-1aaf50c21db8/

The U.S. Supreme Court is for sale. Roberts' lack of monitoring the ethics of his 'justices' is a crime. Thomas needs to be impeached immediately. And that's just the beginning.

[ghostmann82]

SCOTUS to Decide on Whether to Remove Trump From 2024 Ballot

[tomorrowusa]

After hundreds of heavily armed Texas law enforcement personnel were unable to stop one very bad guy with a gun for 1 hour and 7 minutes at Robb Elementary School, the NRA may be looking for a new slogan.

Also gun related...

Mexico's lawsuit against American gun manufacturers is revived by appeals court

From that report: Jonathan Lowy, founder and president of Global Action on Gun Violence, points out why Mexico is suing US gun manufacturers.

Mexico alleges and intends to prove that, for decades, gun manufacturers have known how their guns are trafficked to the illegal market in Mexico and here in the United States. They know that there's a small group of bad apple gun dealers - about 5% of gun dealers - selling about 90% of the crime guns. They know that many of these sales are bulk sales of a number of assault weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. And manufacturers could require their dealers to sell guns responsibly and cut off the bad ones, but they choose not to in order to profit off the criminal market.

The gun manufacturers refuse to police themselves because it might be bad for their business.

Maybe Mexico should build a border wall to keep guns from streaming into the country and make the US gun manufacturers pay for it. 🤔

We need a Supreme Court that will stop rubber stamping NRA and GOP policies. The only way to get that is to keep electing Democratic presidents and keep Democrats in control of the US Senate. This requires a long term commitment the way Republicans spent decades packing SCOTUS with corrupt fanatics and drunks.

[odinsblog]

This Supreme Court is illegitimate and deeply corrupt

Two years after John Roberts' confirmation as the Supreme Court's chief justice in 2005, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, made a pivot. After a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, she refashioned herself as a legal recruiter, a matchmaker who pairs job-hunting lawyers up with corporations and firms.

Roberts told a friend that the change was motivated by a desire to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, given that her husband was now the highest-ranking judge in the country. "There are many paths to the good life," she said. "There are so many things to do if you're open to change and opportunity."

"When I found out that the spouse of the chief justice was soliciting business from law firms, I knew immediately that it was wrong," the whistleblower, Kendal B. Price, who worked alongside Jane Roberts at the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, told Insider in an interview. "During the time I was there, I was discouraged from ever raising the issue. And I realized that even the law firms who were Jane's clients had nowhere to go. They were being asked by the spouse of the chief justice for business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there was no one to complain to. Most of these firms were likely appearing or seeking to appear before the Supreme Court. It's natural that they'd do anything they felt was necessary to be competitive."

Roberts' apparent $10.3 million in compensation puts her toward the top of the payscale for legal headhunters. Price's disclosures, which were filed under federal whistleblower-protection laws and are now in the hands of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, add to the mounting questions about how Supreme Court justices and their families financially benefit from their special status, an area that Senate Democrats are vowing to investigate after a series of disclosure lapses by the justices themselves.

(continue reading)

[lawbyrhys]

"Prosecutor v. Felon" Debate Notes: 09/10/2024

These are notes from an attorney written in my personal shorthand as it pertains to the 2024 Presidential debate between former prosecutor Kamala Harris and 34-time convicted felon Donald Trump. Again, these notes are written in my shorthand has I watch the debate live, and typos may be edited lightly, if at all. I might write a formal long-form post about the debate in addition to these notes, but these are the raw notes taken by me in the moment of the debate itself. Please note that not everything written here—especially Trump's points—is guaranteed factual, but are all taken from the debate itself.

Let's get into the debate by way of my notes.

Economy

Harris: raised as middle class kid, plans to lift middle class. Believes in dream of the people. Opportunity economy. Aims to extent tax cuts of $6k child tax credit for families. Passion is small business. Give $50K tax deduction to small business. Points out Trump billionaire tax cut, Trump sales tax. TST would create $4K increase of middle class taxes.

Trump: Rebuts sales tax, discusses payback tarifs especially from China. He doesn't understand tarifs. We have inflation worse than ever. Defends ever class. Talks about people pouring in from asylums taking jobs from minorities. Says they're violent, says Biden Harris let them in. Have to get them out fast.

Harris response: Lists all of Trump wrongdoing. Says they have cleaned up his mess and built on hopes of people. Calls out his name calling and P25. Talks being president for all.

Trump: Rebuts involvement in P25. Says he's open book will cut taxes create a great economy. Says wrong year of Spanish flu. Talks about covid shit he didn't do lol. He says he created them

Harris: Trump has no plan. Ec plan all about tax breaks for wealthy. Best economists reviewed her plans and says better, Trump worse. Trump exploit deficit. Trump interested in defend himself. Trump interrupts her and talks about himself. Says Kamala copied 4 sentences of Biden plan.

Trump on tariffs: China rips us off for years, will have higher tariffs. We will take in $100B, says he had no inflation. Polls 80/90% on his side

Harris rebut: trade deficit by Trump. He sold US chips to China to improve military there, sold us out. Says Trump thanked Xi.

Trump rebut: we hardly make chips, says Harris has no policy. Trump was gonna send maga hat to Harris. Calls her Marxist. Talks about millions of immigrants pouring in. Criminals etc. Bad for economy. Worse thing to happen to economy.

Abortion

Trump: Says abortion in 9th month, cites former WV gov BS execute bby law. Bashes Waltz, says he condunes execution after birth. Trump takes pride in getting rid of RvW by genius heart and strength of SCOTUS. Believes in exceptions. Says legal scholars, etc wanted issue brought to states. Each state votes, vote of people. Did great service, credits 6 justices.

Harris rebut: calls out bunch of lies. Trump picked SCOTUS conserv justices, 20 states bans. Cites no conserv exceptions as immoral. Not abandon faith to believe in women freedom. Pledges to sign protections into law, says Trump will nationally ban abortion under P25 monitor.

Trump calls it lies, says he won't sign ban. Legal scholars wanted it brought back to states. He did something nobody thought possible. Says not in favor of ban, taken by states doesn't matter. Cites Congress now, not potential after election. Rambles about catastrophe of loans. Slams Biden for beach day.

I took a piss break while he went in circles

Harris rebut: refutes 9mo abortions as insulting, never happens. Couples denied IVF, working women barely afford child care have to travel for healthcare. Majority of Americans believe in woman's rights and red and blue votes agree.

Trump calls this a lie. Says he's leader on IVF. Says Dems will allow 7-9mo abortions.

Immigration and Border Security

Harris: Only person on stage prosecuting trans national criminals. Talks bipartisan border security bill she supported. Allowed to stem flow of fentanyl. Trump called conservative Congress and killed this bill. Says we need a leader, not a Trump who runs on a problem. Invites us to attend Trump rally as it's interesting—Hannibal, windmill cancer, people leaving. He won't talk the American people.

Trump rebut: Responds rallies, says nobody goes to Harris rallies. Says people wanna take country back, says we are failing country 3.5 years and gonna get into WWIII. More immigrants. Springfield OH is eating people's pets. Trump supports like MAGA, says Harris destroys this country. We will be Venezuela on steroids

Mod calls BS on Springfield claims. Trump argues

Harris rebut: laughs about extremity. Talks endorsement of 200 Republicans including Cheneys. Ask former Trump associates about him.

Trump rebut: he's different kinda person. He fired people, but Biden Harris didn't. Bashes Afghanistan withdrawal. Talks smear books. Says BH never fire anybody and rambles. Good way not to have books. Got more votes than any republican or sitting prez by far.

Trump on immigration again back on track: He'd deport higher than 11M immigrants, talks crime drop in Venezuela because criminals are here. Destroying fabric of country. World crime down but here it's through the roof. Migrant crime. Refutes FBI claims of dropping crime as fraud.

Harris rebut: rich for prosecuted criminal, goes through his record. Brings up Nov court case. It's important to move forward, turn the page, address American people needs.

Trump rebut: all cases started against repub by dems, says he's winning most. Weaponized DOJ.

Harris rebut on weaponization: SCOTUS Immunity Ruling, discusses Trump termination of Constitution if elected, weaponize DOJ.

Trump says she weaponized, not him.

Harris on policy shifts: values haven't changed. Fracking won't be banned, we have to invest in diverse energy. We have largest increase in domestic oil prod in history. Middle class hard worker. Calls out Trump privilege and 6-time bankruptcy. Discusses focus on protecting most vulnerable. Values have not changed. Lift people up, not beat people down. Leaders understand.

Trump rebut: Says not given $400M, only a fraction built into billions. Defend police was given up wrongly by Harris. She gave up 12-15 policies. Raised money in MN. Trans operations on immigrants. Says he'll end fracking on day 1. Says Kamala would destroy oil, fuel, etc day 1.

Peaceful Transfer of Power

Trump on Jan. 6

Trump: Trump says he wanted peaceful and patriotic. Says conserv didn't hurt any dems. Rambles about immigrants again. Pelosi babble.

Harris rebut: Charlottesville, fine people on both sides Trump quote, proud boys stand back stand by Trump quote. Won't go back, turn page. Stand for democracy, rule of law

Trump: different term, energy bloodbath. Says Charlottesville was debunked by all news. Defects Capitol critiques with immigration. Says debate waste of time, Harris has been so bad.

Trump is forgetting what he said, says losing by a whisker comment was sarcastic. Our elections are bad, we need walls and borders. If you can't speak English, you shouldn't be able to vote. Refutes Trump election fraud claims as judges said they didn't have standing as fraudulent. We have to solve nation in decline problem.

Harris rebut: Trump was fired by 81M people and has difficulty processing that. We can't have prez who upends free and fair election. Discusses world views on Trump being disgrace. Discusses his lost court cases.

Trump: ass kisses Orban, says Trump is most respected most feared, Biden weak pathetic. Says Biden got 14M votes, Biden hates Harris.

Israel-Hamas War

Harris: Discusses 2023 conflict history. Hamas attack on Israel concert and Israel right to defend itself, but that far too many Palestinians have been hurt and war must end in ceasefire.

Trump: skips issue, discusses Russian-Ukrainian war and friendship with Putin. Says Harris wouldn't meet Netanyahu, Harris hates Israel. Says Harris also hates Arabs, she would blow it all up. Says it'd never happen under Trump. Rambles about middle east, he'd get it settled before he ever becomes president if elected.

Harris: voices support for Israel, calls out Trump dictator on day 1 comment, his friendship with dictators and autocrats.

Trump says 168 country sent us immigrants, says Putin endorsed Harris last week.

Russian-Ukranian War

Trump: wants war to stop, says numbers are all fake. Nobody asks Europe, says Biden Harris don't have the courage to ask. Calls them weak. Says Russian Ukranian leaders respect him. Hell settle the war as president-elect. Refutes if Biden is even a president or knows if he's alive. Says it's US best interest to get this war done.

Harris: reminds Trump he's not running against Biden. Alleges Trump would just give up the war. Discusses US support for Ukraine, bringing 50 countries together. If Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv. Putin won't stop at Ukraine, praises NATO power.

Trump: Putin would be happier than he is now, he has nukes and might use them someday. Says Harris caused the war with weak negotiations.

Harris: Calls out all of Trump's lies, discusses our priority to stand up for our allies. Right to rely on president who understands US responsibility and not selling for benefit of personal flattery.

Afghanistan

Harris: Agreed with Biden pull out decision, American taxpayers save $300M/day and no soldiers in combat zone first time this century. Trump bypassed Afghan gov, negotiated with Taliban, lifted tariffs, invited them to Camp David.

Trump rebut: Defends negotiations with Taliban, rambles about head of Taliban, wouldn't have left $85M of military equipment behind. Blames Russian attack on Ukraine on Biden Harris weakness

Race issues

Trump: Doesn't care about Harris identity, refutes his quotes on Harris turning black recently.

Harris: Tragedy that Trump has used race as a division tool, Americans don't want this decision. Reminds us of Trump racist landlord past. Discusses Central Park 5. We don't want leaders who point fingers at each other. Regardless of color etc, we all have dreams and want president who invest in those.

Trump says this is most divisive presidency. Rambled about inflation, economy

Harris brief response: she isn't Biden or Trump, offers new generation of leadership to USA. Discusses tax plans for Americans again.

Trump interrupts about defund the policy, guns, fracking. Obamacare was lousy. He has concepts of a plan. Options of a plan.

Harris on insurance: supports private healthcare options, discusses guns and says she's not taking them away, Obamacare—defends McCain, Trump has no alternative plan. Reminds us about pre existing conditions. Access to healthcare is a right not privilege.

Trump says she made mistake. We can do better than Obamacare, says Harris won't approve private health insurance.

Climate change:

Harris: Trump says it's a faux but it's real. Denied home insurance or expensive insurance as a result. Young people care deeply. As VP invested $1T in clean energy, jobs, etc. Trump lost these. Endorsed by UAW, invest in American made.

Trump: Says manufacturing jobs leaving, owned by China in Mexico. Biden is paid off and corrupt.

Closing statements:

Harris: Mentions to very different visions for country. One on future, one on past. Mentions unity, coming together, having a plan, hopes and aspirations of American people. Investing in families, protecting seniors, giving breaks and bringing down cost of living. Earning respect, military strength. Protect women's rights. Talks legal career and one client; the people. Only cares if people are okay and nothing more. Intent to be president for all Americans.

Trump: Refutes Harris, says she hasn't done anything as VP. Why hasn't she done it? Says she should leave and go do it, but won't because American people don't believe in her ideals. Rips on bad vision. Why didn't she do it? Failing nation. Brags about friendships with leaders. Talks about what he did 4+ years ago, no plans for the future. Wasted entire closing statement.

There you have it—an attorney's real-time notes from the live 2024 Presidential debate. Please let me know what you thought of the debate!

[ralfmaximus]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to a California animal welfare law that would ban the sale of pork derived from breeding pigs housed in confined spaces.

You want some good Supreme Court news for a change?

SCOTUS just affirmed California's right to regulate how pigs are farmed for pork products sold in California. Basically: only "humane" methods may be used.

Which is HUGE because there's virtually no pig farming in California.

Most of California's bacon & ham comes from other states, which squealed in terror at the new law because it's expensive as heck to humanely do anything. So the National Pork Producers Council sued California over the bill and it ended up at the Supreme Court.

And now pigs intended for use in California must be raised & slaughtered humanly, yayyy.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE SUPER IMPORTANT BIT

If instead, SCOTUS had ruled the other way? That would have opened the door to negate all California import requirements.

Requirements like: automobile emissions.

See, because California has the strictest vehicle pollution standards in the nation AND import so many vehicles, they've almost single handedly forced the world to make cleaner cars.

Car makers used to either (1) not sell cars in California or (2) build special versions of the same car with better emissions equipment in order to meet the requirements. But they stopped doing that because it's cheaper to just make better fucking cars across the board. Kind of like how they discovered it's cheaper to just put power windows on every car than to switch back and forth between installing buttons & window cranks at the factory.

And everybody won: our air got cleaner.

So SCOTUS actually did the right thing for once. Shocking, right?

[calilili]

We Get HEARD🗽

When We Don’t Vote

We Get HERDED 🛤️🚉🚊

Election Train (Revisited)… Revisited

© cali lili

“ Cattle train

Coal train

Picture train

Toy train

Soul trains

Trains of thought

People trained

Sold and bought

Cattle train

Coal train

Picture story

(Holocaust)

War train

Peace train

People trained

Sold and bought

What kinda broken knees

Built these tracks

We got missiles goin’ forward

We got nothin’ comin’ back

Dream

Dreamin' up

The Iron Beast

Gotta get some

Get some

Get some rest

See me

I'm a plastic priestess

Screamin' through the window

Of ‘Emergency Release’

What kinda broken backs

Built these tracks

We got

Missiles goin’ forward

We got no-one comin’ back

Robber trains

Gravy trains

They foot the cost

Of another movin’ picture story

(Holocaust)

What kinda broken dreams

Work these tracks

We got missiles goin’ forward

We got zero comin’ back

Come and See

The slow decay

Ridin' the rails

of another day

Come and ride

The ‘Election Train’

Follow me

Ridin’ up

The drain

What kinda broken dreams

Work these tracks

We got missiles goin forward

We got zero comin’ back

Sure is gettin’ darker

on the ‘twilight express’

movin’ on without us

this Election Gotta Press

Sure is gettin’ darker

on the ‘twilight express’

can’t see nothin’

from a bullet train with no address

Come and See

The slow decay

Ridin' the rails

of another day

Come and ride

The ‘Election Train’

Follow me

Ridin’ up

The drain

Come and See

the slow decay

Ridin' the rails

Of another day

What kinda broken knees

Built these tracks

We got missiles goin’ forward

We got nothin’ comin’ back

Sleep Sleepin’

Sleepin’ with a monster

See dreamin’

dreamin’ of a beast

Me

Me

I'm a pretty plastic priestess

Scream

Screamin’

For My

Pretty shattered dream

Leave behind

What I couldn’t find

Sleep inside

A monster in motion

What the hell

My country ain’t for sale

Drown my sorrow

Cry me an ocean

Movin’ on

‘Cause I'm movin’ out

Rockin’ out

‘Cause I been rocked over

Trackin’ down

Trackin’ down a nightmare

Nightmare of a livin’ locomotion

Leave behind

What I'll never find

Tried my best

Gotta get some rest

Gotta get some

get some

get some rest

Gotta get some

get some

get some rest

Cattle train

Coal train

Picture train

Toy train

Soul trains

Trains of thought

People trained

Sold and bought

Cattle train

Coal train

Picture story

(Holocaust)

War train

Peace train

People trained

Sold and bought.”

©️

#savedemocracy 🗽 #savetheplanet #mybodymychoice #lgbtq🌈 #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lesbiancommunity #womensrights #womensupportingwomen #blacklivesmatter #votingrights #democracy #climateaction #climatecrisis #climateemergency #votebluetosaveamerica🇺🇸💙 #scotus #voting #vote #election #supremecourt #roevwade #calililihauser

MusicVideo

on YouTube

written and directed by cali lili

Lyrics by CaliLili

Music by

Cali Lili

&

Wings Hauser

song streaming everywhere including

AppleMusic 🍎 etc