[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

It just keeps. Getting. Stupider.

(Business insider article, might be paywalled.)

@mjnblack wrote:

Today, I got to publish what I see as the big picture around that story. It's about an entire movement quietly taking off in tech & VC circles of people who believe it is their DUTY to fill the earth with their genius children... to save humanity.

It is paywalled, but it just sounds like the rich and powerful continuing their fliration with eugenics. Not really a new form of stupid but a fairly old one that's just found a new group of people to advocate for it.

Just more examples of wealthy people thinking they’re genetically superior instead of simply benefiting from chance or generational wealth.

A Los Angeles billionaire spent $100m on an election bid. Could it have helped the city’s housing crisis?

Throughout billionaire Rick Caruso’s unsuccessful campaign to become mayor of Los Angeles, critics had one question: why was the real estate developer spending $100m on a race focused on homelessness, rather than simply using his wealth to build desperately needed affordable housing?

Caruso, the developer of some of Los Angeles’ most popular luxury malls, has an estimated net worth of $5.3bn. He made ending visible street homelessness the center of his mayoral campaign.

If she had $90m, his opponent, Congresswoman Karen Bass, tweeted late in the campaign, “​​I would build housing for thousands of people who sleep on our streets every night. Right away. Without hesitation.”

But as Bass prepares to take office, after a historic win as the first woman and second Black politician to lead America’s second-largest city, housing experts said there was no way $100m would build housing in Los Angeles for thousands of people, a sign of the gap between campaign rhetoric and the reality of California’s housing crisis.

Experts said the record-breaking $102m Caruso poured into his failed campaign for mayor could have only built new housing in Los Angeles for an estimated 150 to 400 people.

HAHAHA keeeeeeeeee-rist cost of living.

Yeah we said that about Bloomberg's vanity presidential run.

This is just ... well it is how the world works in reality but it isn't justice, it isn't morally right and it is not something anyone should be proud of.

U.S. moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

The Biden administration declared in a court filing Thursday that Saudi Arabia's crown prince should be considered immune from a lawsuit over his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden's passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.The administration said the senior position of the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler and recently named prime minister as well, should shield him against a suit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group Khashoggi founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

The Justice Department said in a filing with the court that "the United States respectfully informs the Court that Defendant Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the sitting head of government and, accordingly, is immune from this suit."

That's disappointing.

Diplomacy and justice are fundamentally incompatible.

Garland Names Special Counsel To Lead Trump-Related ProbesYour text to link here...

Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel on Friday to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into the presence of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

The move, which is being announced just three days after Trump formally launched his 2024 candidacy, is a recognition of the unmistakable political implications of two investigations that involve not only a former president but also a current White House hopeful.

Though the appointment installs a new supervisor atop the probes — both of which are expected to accelerate now that the midterm elections are complete — the special counsel will still report to Garland, who has ultimate say of whether to bring charges.

A senior Justice Department official disclosed the appointment on Friday but did not reveal the identity of the special counsel. Garland was expected to provide more details later in the afternoon.

Representatives for Trump, a Republican, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

There was no immediate reason provided for the decision or for its timing. Garland has spoken repeatedly of his singular focus on the facts, the evidence and the law in the Justice Department’s decision-making and of his determination to restore political independence to the agency following the tumultuous years of the Trump administration.

And there does not seem to be an obvious conflict like the one that promoted the last appointment of a special counsel to handle Trump-related investigations. The Trump Justice Department named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.

Eternally mindblown that there are so many people insisting that holding up the tradition of workers who fought, bled and literally took up guns and died for better treatment, more equitable pay and better hours from management is "beta sh*t" and being an alpha is running out of saliva bootlicking the CEO class.

Astonishing. The anti-union project in this nation has seen just unbelievable success in shaping people's minds.

No one became a billionaire by being in a union = it's downright unamerican.

farley3k wrote:

This is just ... well it is how the world works in reality but it isn't justice, it isn't morally right and it is not something anyone should be proud of.

The Justice Department said in a filing with the court that "the United States respectfully informs the Court that Defendant Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the sitting head of government and, accordingly, is immune from this suit."
Jonman wrote:

Diplomacy and justice are fundamentally incompatible.

Where's Danny Glover when we need him?

Jonman wrote:

No one became a billionaire by being in a union = it's downright unamerican.

Say it with me:

Leela: Fry, you're not rich!

Fry: No, but someday I might be, and then people like me better watch out!

Say it louder for the people in the back:

Rom wrote:

Ferengi don't want to put a stop to the oppression, they want to find a way to become the oppressors!

Prederick wrote:

It just keeps. Getting. Stupider.

(Business insider article, might be paywalled.)

@mjnblack wrote:

Today, I got to publish what I see as the big picture around that story. It's about an entire movement quietly taking off in tech & VC circles of people who believe it is their DUTY to fill the earth with their genius children... to save humanity.

The only person I’m aware of that has even come close to pulling this off was a man named Temüjin, and I doubt even the modern American technocracy have the resources or the stomach for brutality he had to get his genetic legacy present in 8% of all Asian people (0.5% of the total population).

(statistics from 2003)

Another study in 2018, conducted by the RAND Corporation, found that such markups are unique to the US. The study compared the 2018 pricing of various insulin products in the US with the pricing in 32 other OECD countries (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). The study found that US list prices were often set five to 10 times higher than those of other countries. In 2018, the average price for a standard unit of all types of insulin in the US stood at $98.70, while the average price among all the other OECD countries was $8.81.

f*cking monsters

BUt rEseArch & DeVeloPmenT

It does take a lot of effort to research and develop our increased profit margins...

Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach

New York Times wrote:

As the Supreme Court investigates the extraordinary leak this spring of a draft opinion of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a former anti-abortion leader has come forward claiming that another breach occurred in a 2014 landmark case involving contraception and religious rights.

In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with The New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.

Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates.

Mr. Schenck’s allegation creates an unusual, contentious situation: a minister who spent years at the center of the anti-abortion movement, now turned whistle-blower; a denial by a sitting justice; and an institution that shows little outward sign of getting to the bottom of the recent leak of the abortion ruling or of following up on Mr. Schenck’s allegation.

The evidence for Mr. Schenck’s account of the breach has gaps. But in months of examining Mr. Schenck’s claims, The Times found a trail of contemporaneous emails and conversations that strongly suggested he knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public.

Mr. Schenck, who used to lead an evangelical nonprofit in Washington, said he learned about the Hobby Lobby opinion because he had worked for years to exploit the court’s permeability. He gained access through faith, through favors traded with gatekeepers and through wealthy donors to his organization, abortion opponents whom he called “stealth missionaries.”

The minister’s account comes at a time of rising concerns about the court’s legitimacy. A majority of Americans are losing confidence in the institution, polls show, and its approval ratings are at a historic low. Critics charge that the court has become increasingly politicized, especially as a new conservative supermajority holds sway.

In May, after the draft opinion in the abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was leaked in what Justice Alito recently called “a grave betrayal,” the chief justice took the unusual step of ordering an investigation by the Supreme Court’s marshal. Two months later, Mr. Schenck sent his letter to Chief Justice Roberts, saying he believed his information about the Hobby Lobby case was relevant to the inquiry. He said he has not gotten any response.

In early June 2014, an Ohio couple who were Mr. Schenck’s star donors shared a meal with Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann. A day later, Gayle Wright, one of the pair, contacted Mr. Schenck, according to an email reviewed by The Times. “Rob, if you want some interesting news please call. No emails,” she wrote.

Mr. Schenck said Mrs. Wright told him that the decision would be favorable to Hobby Lobby, and that Justice Alito had written the majority opinion. Three weeks later, that’s exactly what happened. The court ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance covering contraception violated their religious freedoms. The decision would have major implications for birth control access, President Barack Obama’s new health care law and corporations’ ability to claim religious rights.

Justice Alito, in a statement issued through the court’s spokeswoman, denied disclosing the decision. He said that he and his wife shared a “casual and purely social relationship” with the Wrights, and did not dispute that the two couples ate together on June 3, 2014. But the justice said that the “allegation that the Wrights were told the outcome of the decision in the Hobby Lobby case, or the authorship of the opinion of the Court, by me or my wife, is completely false.”

Mrs. Wright, in a phone interview, denied obtaining or passing along any such information. A representative for Hobby Lobby would not comment. Beyond sharing Justice Alito’s statement, a spokeswoman for the court declined to answer questions about Mr. Schenck’s account or its investigation.

Mr. Schenck was not present at the meal and has no written record of his conversation with Mrs. Wright. But The Times interviewed four people who said he told them years ago about the breach, and emails from June 2014 show him suggesting he had confidential information and directing his staff to prepare for victory. In another email, sent in 2017, he described the disclosure as “one of the most difficult secrets I’ve ever kept in my life.”

The court deliberates about the fundamental rights of Americans — like access to contraception and abortion — behind closed doors. Mr. Schenck’s campaign offers insights into the court’s boundaries and culture, and into efforts to draw the justices closer to communities that are devoted to particular outcomes in critical cases.

In interviews and thousands of emails and other records he shared with The Times, Mr. Schenck provided details of the effort he called the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”

Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.

All the while, he leveraged his connections to raise money for his nonprofit, Faith and Action. Mr. Schenck said he pursued the Hobby Lobby information to cultivate the business’s president, Steve Green, as a donor.

Nice to see that our supposedly impartial SCOTUS justices are being secretly lobbied and very likely have repeatedly leaked upcoming decisions to their "friends." Maybe this article will help Chief Justice Roberts understand why the American public is increasingly questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

The Sunday shows were worse than usual this week. Letting Mike Pence make nonsense excuses for Trump (his lawyers told him to foment insurrection so he's not guilty), and just trying to shill his new book and hope he can ever hold office again (narrator: he can't). What a travesty and waste of TV time. I actually turned off MTP to watch something else for a while.

Democrats Give Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts An Ultimatum

Top Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees demanded on Sunday that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts comply with their investigation into the court’s refusal to abide by ethics laws.

And if the court continues to suggest it’s not serious about policing itself, Congress will step in, warned the joint letter from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), chairs of the subcommittees overseeing the federal judiciary in their respective chambers.

“If the Court ... is not willing to undertake fact-finding inquiries into possible ethics violations that leaves Congress as the only forum,” they wrote.

The letter came a day after The New York Times reported that Justice Samuel Alito leaked the outcome of a 2014 decision in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Burwell. Alito reportedly spoke about the decision ahead of its release to Supreme Court Historical Society donors who were part of an influence operation led by a former conservative evangelical leader, Rev. Rob Schenck.

Ooo, a strongly worded letter! The Democrats are finally taking the erosion of democracy seriously!

I flip flop on the issue. On one hand it is almost pointless on the other had if they start pissing on the norms too then it is not helping either.

Supreme Court Allows Democrats Access To Trump's Tax Documents

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied former President Donald Trump’s request to block the U.S. Treasury Department from granting a request by congressional Democrats for copies of Trump’s tax returns.

The court’s order lifted a temporary hold that Chief Justice John Roberts put on a lower court’s ruling that Democrats could have the returns earlier this year.

Moviong this over from the mass shooting thread:

The RW opinion on the Colorado Springs shooting has, within days, evolved into "What did you expect, you had it coming and it'll keep happening until we get what we want."

This is an inflection point. (Especially post-Paul Pelosi.) And a really, really not-good one.

Prederick wrote:

The RW opinion on the Colorado Springs shooting has, within days, evolved into "What did you expect, you had it coming and it'll keep happening until we get what we want."

By 4 seconds into that video, Tucker's back to his angry, confused neanderthal expression.

Trump meeting with Kanye is mostly hilarious (Kayne is probably the only person Trump has ever met who is vastly more narcissistic and egocentric than him), that Trump may have met with white nationalist vlogger Nick Fuentes is more dismaying (and again, a statement about where the movement is/has been going).

Trump is trying to pretend he knew nothing about Fuentes, which is, of course, absurd. Does anyone here think that Trumps has dinner with people he doesn't know? Or that the secret service would just let Fuentes in without an okay from Trump?

There’s a joke somewhere about how two of the most recognizable white supremacists in America right now are Mexican American Fuentes and Cuban American Tarrio.

And credit where it’s due, Fuentes has done more to make the lives of Kirk and Shapiro miserable than any liberal I’m aware of.

I can't help thinking we're, what, a week into Trump's 24-month-long reelection campaign and we're already at the point where he's casually dining in public with avowed anti-Semites and white nationalists.

I hate to imagine where we're going to be in like June 2024.