"Republicans have openly admitted that their efforts to impeach President Joe Biden — which will begin in earnest this week as House members return to DC from summer break — are in bad faith. They don’t just want to tarnish Biden. They want to tarnish the impeachment process itself."
~ Noah Berlatsky
#Republicans #impeachment #Biden #democracy
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https://www.publicnotice.co/p/house-republicans-biden-impeachment-23-explained
"It appears from the record that, prior to this game-changing decision [to turn off his satellites and thwart a Ukraininan military operation], Musk held talks with Russian officials about the war."
#ElonMusk #Russia #Ukraine #LoganAct
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"Musk was not only wrong in his strategic assessment, he was interfering in the military operations of a U.S. ally in a time of war. This could amount to a violation of the Logan Act, an old and rarely invoked law which prohibits U.S. citizens from negotiating or communicating without authorization with any foreign governments about U.S. foreign policy or disputes."
~ Jay Kuo
#ElonMusk #Russia #Ukraine #LoganAct
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"Phantom-docket cases have allowed the court’s conservative majority to rewrite precedents while avoiding any immediate real-world consequences of their rulings. Yet even by those standards, Kennedy’s case might be the most phantasmal of them all."
It's impossible to believe that the right-wing bloc controlling the Supremes do not know these cases are frequently based on outright lies. Treating them seriously dishonors the court.
#Florida #prayer #SupremeCourt #JoeKennedy #ReligiousRight
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As Matt Ford notes, this case was one of an increasing number of "phantom docket" cases the right-wing block controlling the US Supreme Court increasingly take to advance the agenda of the religious right — made-up cases about nonexistent "persecution" of "religious" people.He writes,
"These might be more simply described as fake: They rest upon nebulous theories of standing, hypothetical injuries, and right-wing causes célèbre."
#Florida #prayer #SupremeCourt #JoeKennedy #ReligiousRight
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"Ageism is one of the last acceptable prejudices, 'so ingrained in our culture that we often don’t even notice,' according to the American Psychological Association.
Because of ageism, women in the spotlight must wear a ton of makeup to appear youthful, while men can age naturally without worrying about looking old."
~ Mary Mitchell
#ageism #Biden #Trump
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2023/9/8/23863029/ageism-biden-age-starting-over
As is being widely reported now, Republicans have shot themselves in the feet by capturing the Supreme Court and using its right-wing Catholic bloc to rip away from women the right of abortion.
As Tori Otten reports, they're now facing a branding problem vis-a-vis abortion, and it's a difficult one, since they have for so long relied on calling themselves the "pro-life" party.
When they're anything but that…. And now the mask is off.
#abortion #Republicans #ProLife
https://newrepublic.com/post/175455/republicans-new-term-pro-life-losing-elections
As Reuters reports, Supreme Court Justice Alito has refused to recuse himself from "a tax case that involves an attorney who interviewed him for a newspaper article and helped him "air his personal grievances."
A reminder: Alito is Catholic. So is Thomas. So is Roberts, who refuses to hold either justice accountable for unethical behavior.
The US Catholic bishops have rattled their sabers at Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.
#SupremeCourt #Alito #ethics #corruption
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https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/sep/08/samuel-alito-supreme-court-recusal-tax-case
nostr:npub1ultdtscjrkdufw0yec50n08m5djh090wlgm6vn85m9c3dyhwcges58hg4l nostr:npub1v0efhk93h64lwypcgwgkmh5fplysly578jh7g6fkaljaffhdw4mq703wwh Thanks. I want them to do something, too. And I have never seen them or any other political party as perfect. But my instinct with stories like this is not immediately to jump on the Democrats but to look carefully at the mass of evidence showing that the problem with Republican-controlled states is very serious.
nostr:npub1glwzevtuggzwvkpn5rs3l2f2ykm7y9wenrsqfxjfervecg3f2yfsgdasnj A good summary of the tired, groundless, silly talking points.
nostr:npub1vj9ndkx03aundwa3csr5fu7vcrngevl0hcdhquz3apzm099l6cjsjufldn Amen — from your mouth to God's ears.
nostr:npub1n2p2x95yptslsata5x4prnev729q6ccaqgwghja2h2kkw4anlt6qmcz9ad Yes — and I like your use of that underused word "claptrap" here!
"Mexico’s supreme court has unanimously ruled that state laws prohibiting abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights, in the latest in a series of victories for reproductive rights activists across Latin America."
~ Lillian Perlmutter
#Mexico #abortion
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/mexico-decriminalizes-abortion
nostr:npub1fxmqftqvyw4ndxghsax5zgtquvm6cujym5urwqpu7an96km3nyns07guxz A good question. I'd say antisemitism has long proven to be a predictable vehicle for toxic fascist sentiments.
nostr:npub1lzz05275zkk6zwuzel45jusr74ftyyuah8zll8vl09k98w8smy7qedjhl3
I come from NYC. My aunt & uncle had a dairy farm about 70 miles north of the city. When I was small, my grandparents (German Jews) used to bring me to the farm because I loved animals so much. Outside of the city, in the suburbs, there were signs as we entered certain towns, saying they were restricted. My grandparents told me it was because they didn't allow Jews to move there.
nostr:npub13h0m32eu7y42umgkcq9hv3gmdt6zxnsvezg3cqesahm0apmlx72qtw2yqt This is part of American history that should not be forgotten — along with the signs forbidding non-Gentiles to swim in certain areas. I have Jewish friends who tell me they grew up with close friends with whom they did everything, going to movies together, sharing meals at each others' homes. But when their friends went to the country club, they conspicuously did not invite their Jewish friends, since their country club prohibited Jews from joining. This is not far in the past.
As Ryan Burge states, polling data seem to indicate that, while regular church attendance used to foster an attitude of trust in others, this is now no longer the case. To the contrary, regular churchgoers, who are very disproportationately, report diminished trust in anyone other than members of their tight circle.
Church as toxin and infection of democracy….
#democracy #churches #Republicans
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/church-attendance-used-to-drive-up
"I understand why so many Americans want to burn the political system to the ground. But I don’t. Not when the system they propose replacing it with is one in which, as Donald Trump promises, explicitly a tool of authoritarian Trumpian vendetta. A system in which the MAGA movement’s Christian nationalist allies dream of faith-based restrictions on the right to vote."
~ Max Burns
#democracy #authoritarianism #Trump #MAGA
What's wrong with the lament of many centrists that our political life has become so "polarized" and was not polarized in a mythical golden age in the past?
Thomas Zimmer states,
"Political 'consensus,' to the extent it ever existed, was usually confined to white male elites and based on a cross-partisan accord to leave a discriminatory social order intact and deny marginalized groups equal representation and civil rights."
#nostalgia #polarization
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https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-triumph-of-weaponized-nostalgia