StupidiNews!

• After passing both the House and Senate this week, President Biden has signed into law legislation declaring Juneteenth as a national federal holiday, meaning federal employees will have today off.
• An hour-long blackout suffered by global web services provider Akamai interrupted business for multiple US airlines and Australian banks, among other corporations early Thursday.
  
• Peru's judicial electoral board says that full results of this month's presidential elections could take weeks as Pedro Castillo claimed victory, while opponent Keiko Fujimori refuses concession.
• Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party leader Edwin Poots is facing a possible collapse of government as a power sharing agreement with Sinn Fein has come unraveled.
• Ohio Republicans are close to eliminating municipal broadband in the state with a budget amendment that would make public broadband illegal for 98% of residents.
  

Last Call For A Supremely Historic Day

First, the good news: in a 7-2 ruling, the US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by dismissing Texas's challenge to the healthcare law.

 

The Supreme Court saved the Affordable Care Act yet again on Thursday, tossing out a Republican lawsuit that sought to overturn former president Barack Obama’s signature legislation.

The 7–2 decision brought together the court’s liberal wing and several of its more conservative members, including the two newest justices confirmed under former president Donald Trump, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.

The majority concluded that Texas and the other Republican state attorneys general who sued lacked standing to bring the case at all, a ruling that brought the yearslong fight to an end without delving into the substance of the latest challenge to the healthcare law. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion, which was also joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

The ACA’s many provisions that transformed the US healthcare system will remain intact — including insurers being blocked from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, regulated individual insurance markets, and an expansion of Medicaid plans to millions of people with low incomes.

To establish standing, a party has to show that they suffer an injury traceable to the issue at hand. The Texas lawsuit centered on the individual mandate portion of Obamacare, a tax on people who decline to purchase health insurance, which did not directly affect state governments at all. The Republican states tried to get around this by arguing that encouraging people to sign up for health insurance causes extra paperwork costs for states as an employer. “Those forms don’t produce themselves,” then–Texas solicitor general Kyle Hawkins argued before the Supreme Court in November.

The court wasn’t having it. During last year’s hearing, Justice Elena Kagan said the Texas argument would “explode” standing doctrine

The Republican states tried to argue that the individual mandate penalty — despite being $0 — increased their financial burden by driving more people to join state medical insurance programs. But the court forcefully rejected that argument.

“Neither logic nor evidence suggests that an unenforceable mandate will cause state residents to enroll in valuable benefits programs that they would otherwise forgo,” says the decision.

The justices ruled that granting standing in a case like this would essentially give the courts a blank check to overturn legislation. “It would threaten to grant unelected judges a general authority to conduct oversight of decisions of the elected branches of Government,” says the ruling.

 

Texas's argument was simply that the federal government trying to get states to do things was inherently harmful to the states, which is the equivalent of a ten-year-old saying sending them to bedtime causes them irreparable harm and that kids should be allowed to sue to stay up as long as they want. It would have been the end of These United States™ effectively.

Two justices, Alito and Gorsuch, ignored the standing question and agreed with the Texas argument that the entire ACA was rendered unconstitutional in 2017 over the SCOTUS ruling that ended the individual mandate four years ago.  But not even Clarence Thomas bought that argument, neither did Kavanaugh, Barrett, or Roberts.

But in the other major ruling handed down Thursday, the court found unanimously, 9-0, that the city of Philadelphia could not force a Catholic adoption agency to screen same-sex couples as foster care providers.

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that Philadelphia may not bar a Catholic agency that refused to work with same-sex couples from screening potential foster parents.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for six members of the court, said that since the city allowed exceptions to its policies for some other agencies it must also do so in this instance. The Catholic agency, he wrote, “seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else.”

The decision, in the latest clash between anti-discrimination principles and claims of conscience, was a setback for gay rights and further evidence that religious groups almost always prevail in the current court.

Philadelphia stopped placements with the agency, Catholic Social Services, after a 2018 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer described its policy against placing children with same-sex couples. The agency and several foster parents sued the city, saying the decision violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom and free speech.

Lawyers for the city said the case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, No. 19-123, was an easy one. When the government hires independent contractors like the Catholic agency, they said, it acts on its own behalf and can include provisions barring discrimination in its contracts.

Lawyers for the agency responded that it merely wanted to continue work that it had been doing for centuries, adding that no gay couple had ever applied to it. If one had, they said, the couple would have been referred to another agency.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, ruled against the agency. The city was entitled to require compliance with its nondiscrimination policies, the count said.

The case was broadly similar to that of a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

In 2018, the Supreme Court refused to decide the central issue in that case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission: whether businesses may claim exemptions from anti-discrimination laws on religious grounds. It ruled instead that the baker had been mistreated by members of the state’s civil rights commission who had expressed hostility toward religion.

The foster care agency relied on the Colorado decision, arguing that it too had been subjected to hostility based on anti-religious prejudice. The city responded that the agency was not entitled to rewrite government contracts to eliminate anti-discrimination clauses.

 

The Roberts Court has made it very clear over the last several years that religious freedom trumps legal equality, and that government entities must always accommodate an organization's religious beliefs to deny services, employment, or recognition on the basis of sexual orientation. It is still a very loud reminder that both federal law and legal precedent still finds LGBTQ people to be permanently second-class citizens if their existence serves to harm the religious beliefs of others.

It's repugnant, but it will not change in my lifetime. It is the "separate, but equal" doctrine for the 21st century.

 

But Democrats didn't excite people, so we ended up with Trump packing the courts.

No Longer A Householder Name

Indicted former Ohio GOP House Speaker Larry Householder, charged on several federal counts related to bribery involving billions in grift to an energy company SuperPAC slush fund, has finally been expelled from the Ohio state House by a 75-21 vote. All but one Democrat voted to expel him, along with a majority of Republicans.

Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Ohio House removed Rep. Larry Householder from the chamber, ousting the former leader in a 75-21 vote Wednesday.

After a brilliant political comeback to lead the Ohio House of Representatives, Householder leaves his beloved chamber under the cloud of a federal indictment for the second time.

Householder maintains his innocence: "They say the truth will set you free. I look forward to it."

Householder's now-former colleagues utilized a little-used provision in the Ohio Constitution that allows lawmakers to police their own for disorderly conduct. The last legislator removed in this way was Hamilton County Rep. John P. Slough in 1857 for punching another representative.

Even getting the resolution to the floor for a vote was a monumental effort that eked by with one vote. Ultimately, he was removed by 42 fellow Republicans and 33 Democrats. One Democrat, Rep. Joe Miller of Amherst, and 20 Republicans opposed the resolution.

The expulsion came after months of inaction and Householder steadfastly refusing to resign despite the pleas of top Republicans and Democrats.

"This has been going on long enough," said Rep. Mark Fraizer, R-Newark. "It is time for this to come to a conclusion."

Timeline:The rise and fall of Ohio Rep. Larry Householder

Householder, 62, of Glenford, was arrested last July in connection with the state's largest bribery scheme. Householder is accused of orchestrating a nearly $61 million operation to win control of the Ohio House, pass a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants in northern Ohio and defend that law against a ballot initiative to block it.

Householder has pleaded not guilty to the offense. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

 

I expect the federal case against Householder will result in conviction, if it's bad enough to be brought during the Trump era, it must have been egregious.  Having said that, let's remember that every single Ohio state House Republican who voted along with Householder to run this billion-dollar bailout scheme was re-elected in 2020. Every single one of them. The voters don't care, and I expect if Householder isn't convicted and jailed before the 2022 primary, he'll be on the ballot and will win.

We'll see how the trial plays out, but I fully expect that Householder will be back in the Ohio state House, and sooner than people think.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

In something of a major miracle, the US Senate just passed Democratic Sen. Ed Markey's resolution on making Juneteenth a federal public holiday, with avowed racist GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin finally dropping his opposition to the bill.

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Tuesday establishing June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a US holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. 

The legislation has gained momentum since the massive Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last year and the Democrats' takeover of the White House and Congress. 

But Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson blocked the bill in 2020, saying that the day off for federal employees would cost US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Johnson dropped his objection this week despite his concerns, paving the way for the bill's passage in the Senate. 

"Although I strongly support celebrating Emancipation, I objected to the cost and lack of debate," said Johnson in a statement. "While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress to further discuss the matter." 

The measure needs to pass the House and be signed by President Joe Biden to become law.
On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, the end of slavery in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. 

In 1980, Juneteenth became a Texas state holiday. In the decades since, every state but South Dakota came to officially commemorate Juneteenth, but only a handful of states observe it as a paid holiday.

 

I suspect many businesses will treat it much like Dr. King's birthday or the day after Thanksgiving: nice if your employer can give it to you off, but for the most part, it'll be ignored and most of us will be at work that particular day in favor of a "real" holiday like July 4th, or worse, given a choice of one of the two (I totally expect some tech company to announce that you can have your choice of one of the two holidays off in the very near future).

The measure should pass the House, although it won't be unanimous. You can bet the usual suspects will not vote yes, although I do expect the wiser ones will merely abstain.

Last Call For Putin On The Ritz, Con't

As President Biden meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, you may still be wondering what the Former Guy ™ said to Putin in Helsinki in 2019, and how House Democrats were very eager to get to the bottom of Trump and Putin's conversations without any witnesses (well, a translator who House Democrats definitely wanted to talk to).

But that was then and this is now, and now we're getting well and solidly into the "We're looking forward, not backward" phase of a Democratic administration that completely refuses to hold its predecessor to account, guaranteeing an even worse administration later this decade.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, congressional Democrats said they are no longer seeking records of former President Donald Trump’s private meetings with the Russian leader, despite previous concerns Trump tried to conceal details of their conversations.

"The Biden administration is looking forward, not back," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., whose panel once considered subpoenaing Trump’s interpreter to testify about his July 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, where only an American interpreter was also present.

From 2017 to 2019, amid former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, Democrats raised questions about Trump’s conversations with Putin, especially after Trump said in Helsinki, standing next to Putin, that he believed his 2017 denial of election interference, over the findings of U.S. intelligence.

Similar questions were raised after the disclosure of an unplanned conversation with Putin during a G-20 dinner in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019 during which Trump was not accompanied by an interpreter.

He had told reporters beforehand that his private discussions with Putin were "none of your business."

In 2019, the Washington Post reported that the former president went to "extraordinary lengths" to conceal details of his conversations with Putin, leaving some subordinates without a clear record of the world leaders’ interactions.

Rep. Tom Malinowksi, D-N.J., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who served as an assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, said details about Trump and Putin’s conversations are "historically very interesting," but less relevant given that Trump "is not shaping US policy towards Russia or anything else."

"At the time, my concern was not so much that the former president and Putin had agreed ... to do something not in our interest, because President Trump would have to tell somebody that," Malinowski said. "It was more the signal that it sent to Putin that Trump wanted to confide in him above his own team."

Foreign policy analysts ABC News spoke with ahead of Biden’s meeting with Putin in Geneva largely downplayed concerns about Trump and Putin’s conversations, and their impact on Wednesday's summit.

"You’d like to have it, but I don’t think it matters much," Ian Bremmer, a political scientist and president of the Eurasia Group, who first reported Trump and Putin’s second meeting at the G-20 in 2017, told ABC News.

 

And there we are. "Don't think it matters much."

 

We made this mistake with Obama and Dubya and got Trump. We barely escaped Trump with Biden, and noe Biden is making the same "forward, not backward" mistake.

 

 Our next GOP tyrant will be far, far worse than Trump.

The Big Lie, Con't

Donald Trump tried to pressure both Bill Barr and his eventual Attorney General replacement, Jeffrey Rosen, into declaring the 2020 presidential election fraudulent, thus justifying whatever actions Trump then took to remain in power.

 

New emails from Justice Department and White House officials show how President Donald Trump's allies pressured then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to consider false and outlandish allegations that the 2020 election had been stolen at the same time that Rosen was being elevated to lead the Justice Department in December 2020. 

The emails show how Trump's White House assistant, chief of staff and other allies pressured the Justice Department to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election -- and how Trump directed allies to push Rosen to join the legal effort to challenge the election result, according to a batch of emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday. 

The documents also offer a window into how Rosen dealt with the political pressure coming from the White House. 

Trump's campaign to pressure the Justice Department was occurring as he was replacing Attorney General William Barr -- who had publicly said there wasn't evidence of widespread voter fraud -- with Rosen, the emails show. 

On December 14 at 4:57 p.m., Trump's assistant sent Rosen and DOJ official Richard Donoghue a document claiming to show voter fraud in Antrim County, Michigan. An aide to Donoghue forwarded the document to the US Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts in Michigan. Less than an hour later, Trump tweeted that Barr would be leaving the Justice Department just before Christmas, elevating both Rosen and Donoghue to the top spots at DOJ. 

The emails also provide new detail into how Mark Meadows, then-White House chief of staff, directed Rosen to have then-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark -- who reportedly urged Trump to make him acting attorney general instead of Rosen -- investigate voter fraud issues in Georgia before the US attorney there resigned in January. 

Amid the pressure, Rosen said he refused to speak to Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani about his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.  

When Meadows sought to have Rosen arrange an FBI meeting with a Giuliani ally pushing a conspiracy theory that Italy was using military technology and satellites to somehow change votes to Joe Biden, Rosen said he would not help Giuliani. 

"I flatly refused, said I would not be giving any special treatment to Giuliani or any of his 'witnesses,' and re-affirmed yet again that I will not talk to Giuliani about any of this," Rosen wrote to Donoghue.

The new emails provide additional detail to reports earlier this month from CNN, The New York Times and others on Meadows' emails to Rosen after the election, which revealed how the top White House aide had urged the Justice Department to take action for Trump's benefit. The emails included a list of complaints about voting procedures in New Mexico, alleged "anomalies" in a Georgia county and the claims about Italian satellites. 

 

Needless to say, the House Oversight Committee would very, very much like to talk to Jeffrey Rosen, Bill Donoghue, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, and a whole boatload of other people, and I expect the subpoenas to fly fast and furious.

Now, whether or not the Biden White House will step in and block the subpoenas in order to protect the Executive branch, well...

That'll be the next fight, yes?

 

 

The GOP's Race To The Bottom In Schools

A well-funded, multi-billion dollar, organized right-wing assault on school boards across the country is under way this summer, and the goal is to enrage liberal white parents in wealthy suburban school districts that the demonic specter of CRITICAL RACE THEORY is going to indoctrinate precious Conner and Madison into hating white people or something.

A booby-trapped billboard. A list of demands. A conservative media frenzy.

Jeff Porter, superintendent of a wealthy suburban school district in Maine, had no idea that his community was about to become part of a national battle when in the summer of 2020 a father began accusing the district of trying to “indoctrinate” his children by teaching critical race theory.

To Porter, the issue was straightforward: The district had denounced white supremacy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, but did not teach critical race theory, the academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.

But the parent, Shawn McBreairty, grew increasingly disgruntled and soon connected with No Left Turn in Education, a rapidly growing national group that supports parents as they fight against lessons on systemic racism. That action turned a heated conflict with the school board into one that soon drew national attention, mobilized by a new, increasingly coordinated movement with the backing of major conservative organizations and media outlets.

It’s a movement that has amped up grassroots parental organizing around the country, bringing the lens and stakes of national politics — along with the playbook of seasoned GOP activists — to school boards.

“I was very naïve at the beginning of the year,” Porter said. “I thought it was a concerned parent who had taken it a little too far. I didn't understand this until recently, but these were tactics from national organizations to discredit the entire district.”

McBreairty became Maine’s chapter leader for No Left Turn last summer. He has since put up a billboard-size sign of a school board member’s face on his lawn and said it was surrounded by rat traps to prevent theft. “This is a war with the left,” McBreairty said in an email to NBC News, “and in war, tactics and strategy can become blurry.” The fight has only escalated, and it shows no sign of slowing.

Conflicts like this are playing out in cities and towns across the country, amid the rise of at least 165 local and national groups that aim to disrupt lessons on race and gender, according to an NBC News analysis of media reports and organizations’ promotional materials. Reinforced by conservative think tanks, law firms and activist parents, these groups have found allies in families frustrated over Covid-19 restrictions in schools and have weaponized the right’s opposition to critical race theory, turning it into a political rallying point.

While the efforts vary, they share strategies of disruption, publicity and mobilization. The groups swarm school board meetings, inundate districts with time-consuming public records requests and file lawsuits and federal complaints alleging discrimination against white students. They have become media darlings in conservative circles and made the debate over critical race theory a national issue.

Virtually all school districts insist they are not teaching critical race theory, but many activists and parents have begun using it as a catch-all term to refer to what schools often call equity programs, teaching about racism or LGBTQ-inclusive policies.

Now, conservative activists are setting their sights on ousting as many school board members as they can, and local Republican Parties have vowed to help, viewing the revolt against critical race theory as akin to the tea party wave from a decade ago.

Activists and parents have launched 50 recall efforts this year aimed at unseating 126 school board members, according to a new report from Ballotpedia, a website that tracks U.S. politics and elections. Most of those recalls — which already surpass the record for a single year — started as objections to Covid-19 restrictions, but five of the most recently launched campaigns, including a particularly contentious fight in Loudoun County, Virginia, include concerns about critical race theory.

And, in a new development this year, rather than targeting a single member, these efforts often target multiple members or entire school boards, according to Abbey Smith, a researcher at Ballotpedia.

 

Parents were already furious at school boards over COVID last year. Now they'll be looking for heads to roll, and the GOP has given them a target-rich environment.  And remember, the ultimate goal here is to get rid of the notion that equality should exist at all...and maybe public schools shouldn't exist, either.

We're well on our way down that path now, but unless Democrats get in gear, we're not going to have schools much longer. You don't need history, math, and science to work at the Amazon warehouse, but without it, you may never work anywhere else.

Education will be one more thing reserved for the "deserving", either those who have the luxury of homeschooling, or private schooling. Public education for the masses is something Republicans have wanted gone for a long time now, and they've found one of their strongest attacks yet.

Underestimate this at your own peril, and you'd better be checking on school boards where you and yours live, because I guarantee you these guys are out there, waiting to pounce on and destroy any voice that tells kids anything other than the strong should rule the weak by force.

The time to get involved in local politics was 2008, folks.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

President Biden is leading efforts to combat white supremacist domestic terrorists rather than using the Trump method, who basically not only empowered them, but employed them.

The Biden administration says it will enhance its analysis of threats from domestic terrorists, including the sharing of intelligence within law enforcement agencies, and will work with tech companies to eliminate terrorist content online as part of a nationwide strategy to combat domestic terrorism.

The National Security Council on Tuesday released the strategy plan, which comes more than six months after a mob of insurgents loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s presidential win.

“Domestic terrorism — driven by hate, bigotry, and other forms of extremism — is a stain on the soul of America,” Biden, who’s traveling in Europe, said in a statement. “It goes against everything our country strives for and it poses a direct challenge to our national security, democracy, and unity.”

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that domestic violent extremists posed an increased threat in 2021, with white supremacist groups and anti-government militias posing the highest risk, officials said.

The new strategy includes enhancing the government’s analysis of domestic terrorism and improving the information that is shared between local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Administration officials said the Justice Department had also implemented a new system to “methodically track” domestic terrorism cases nationwide within the FBI.

The Justice Department was also evaluating whether the administration should recommend Congress pass a specific domestic terrorism law, which does not currently exist. In the absence of domestic terrorism laws, the Justice Department relies on other statutes to prosecute ideologically motivated violence by people with no international ties.

But that has made it harder to track how often extremists driven by religious, racial or anti-government bias commit violence in the U.S and complicates efforts to develop a universally accepted domestic terror definition. Opponents of domestic terrorism laws say prosecutors already have enough tools.

The government’s new plan also includes an effort to identify government employees who may pose a domestic terrorism threat, with a number of federal agencies working on new policies and programs to root out potential domestic extremists in law enforcement and in the military.

A senior administration official said the Office of Personnel Management was considering updating forms to assist in improving screening and vetting of government employees to make sure people who could pose a threat are identified before being put in sensitive roles. The official spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity to detail the internal tools.

Officials said the Justice Department had also formally made domestic terrorism a top priority and had been reallocating resources at U.S. attorneys’ offices and at FBI field offices across the U.S. to combat the threat from domestic extremists. The Justice Department’s proposed budget for next year includes $100 million in additional resources related to domestic terrorism to be used for analysts, investigators and prosecutors.

 

These are all things that need to be done, certainly, but it's got to be accompanied by real prison terms for the January 6th terrorists and their enablers and accomplices in the congressional GOP.  The latter will never happen of course, and they will use their positions to foment more sedition in the future. It's like going after Al-Qaeda and not hunting Bin Laden at all, but the difference is in the end we got Bin Laden.

We have dozens of Bin Ladens in the GOP in Congress, and nobody seems to care, right up until the next insurrection event begins.

A Texas-Sized Power Problem

We already know that Texas, having broken off from the US power grid in order to be "energy independent", can't keep the lights or the heat on when the state freezes over. Hundreds of people died, thousands lost their homes and tens of thousands were stuck with five-digit power bills when the state experienced a record cold snap earlier this year.

But now, Texas's broken power grid is heading into an unprecedented Southwestern drought and triple-digit heat, and already in June the state is telling residents to conserve power as rolling brownouts and blackouts could put thousands at risk.

Texas’ main power grid struggled to keep up with the demand for electricity Monday, prompting the operator to ask Texans to conserve power until Friday.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in a statement Monday that a significant number of unexpected power plant outages, combined with expected record use of electricity due to hot weather, has resulted in tight grid conditions. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, or enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day.

ERCOT officials said the power plant outages were unexpected — and could not provide details as to what could be causing them.

“I don’t have any potential reasons [for the plant outages] that I can share at this time,” said Warren Lasher, ERCOT senior director of systems planning, during a Monday call with media. “It is not consistent with fleet performance that we have seen over the last few summers.”

The number of plants that were forced offline today is “very concerning” Lasher said.

“We operate the grid with the resources that we have available,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the generators to make sure their plants are available when demand is high.”

The conservation request comes at a time of heightened anxiety around electricity after the state’s catastrophic February power outages left millions without power for days. Those outages, which were prompted by a severe winter storm, may have killed as many as 700 people, according to an analysis of mortality data by BuzzFeed News.

The root cause of the February freeze is the same as the coming summer of inferno: climate change, and an entire political party that instead of preparing for it, opened the state's infrastructure to the Wild West of deregulation, turning Texas into a third-world country when it comes to keeping the power going.  The power companies are making billions. Texans are dying. Nobody seems to give a damn in the state's halls of power, either.

It's only going to get worse in the years ahead, too. More deadly deep freezes as global climate amelioration systems break down under the stress. There'll be worse storms, tornadoes and hurricanes hitting the state, blazing hot summers with scores of 100-degree days instead of just a dozen bad days over the worst part of the season. Crippling droughts as farmers, ranchers, Native tribes and local governments fight more and more over less and less water each year.

We need a national infrastructure plan that assumes the worst-case and prepares us to deal with the fact that large sections of America are going to become unsustainable. But we're nowhere near ready for that conversation yet, and we won't be in my lifetime.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Texas Democrats are headed to DC to speak with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democratic senators as they fight tooth and nail to keep Texas Republicans from passing not just voter suppression laws, but election nullification laws.

 

Texas Democrats who killed a Republican elections bill with a dramatic state legislative walkout last month are heading to Washington this week to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and pressure lawmakers on voting rights — part of a week of action that culminates in an Austin rally hosted by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

The push comes with Democrats’ expansive federal voting rights legislation on life support after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he’ll vote against it. Texas Democrats had previously called on their counterparts in Washington to pass the bill as a means of pushing back against restrictive voting laws being passed in many states. Manchin and other Senate Democrats have also voiced opposition to changing the Senate filibuster rules, which would be an obstacle for other voting rights bills.

The Texas legislators are expected to be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for meetings with lawmakers from both chambers. It isn’t clear if that group of lawmakers will include Manchin or Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.), another senator opposed to changing the filibuster. A person familiar with the Texas Democrats’ plans said neither senator was on the schedule as of Sunday, but they were trying to set up meetings. Manchin and Sinema’s offices did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The Democratic state lawmakers are set to hold meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the “For the People Act” and other elections-related legislation; and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the lead sponsor of the Senate version of the bill. They’re also slated to meet with staffers for Texas’ two Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.

“I think it is important for senators to hear real world stories that are happening in states like Texas,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, one of the Texas Democrats making the trip to Washington. “The discrimination we’re talking about is not accidental discrimination. We’re talking about purposeful and intentional discrimination.”

The group will also meet on Wednesday with Harris, who was recently named the administration’s point person on voting rights by President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, O’Rourke — who narrowly lost a 2018 Senate run to Cruz before making a short-lived 2020 presidential run — is planning to host a rally focused on voting rights on Sunday in Austin, the state’s capital.

O’Rourke said in an interview that he wants “every senator up there to meet this moment.” And he said that while he was thankful that Biden spoke out against the Republican state legislation that Texas Democrats blocked last month, he wants to see the president “do more” in the push for Democratic voting rights bills.

“You need the most powerful man on the planet,” O’Rourke said. “He uniquely can call our attention and demand our focus on the most important challenge facing us, and then call us to action.”

O’Rourke also addressed a possible run for governor of Texas next year. “We’re going to see this through,” he said. “After we do that, I'm going to think through what it is I can do to serve here. And that might be running for office, and it might be supporting others who run for office.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a vote on the “For the People Act” during the last week of the month, despite the opposition from Manchin and the additional obstacle of the filibuster. Manchin’s primary public complaint with the sweeping package, which would remake American election, campaign finance and ethics law, is that it doesn’t have bipartisan support.

 

Texas Democrats are begging for anyone in Washington to help them stave off the most fascist voting laws in the US, and frankly, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema still don't seem to give a damn.  That's not just a WV, AZ, or TX problem.

It's an America problem.

StupidiNews!

• Public health officials in Illinois are warning residents evacuated from Rockton not to pick up debris as a chemical plant fire that started on Monday may rage for several days before burning out.
• Senate Republicans are hoping that agreeing to a major physical infrastructure bill will blunt the rest of President Biden's agenda on child care, education, and jobs.
• The US and Canada are reportedly in talks to lift COVID-19 border travel restrictions as vaccination rates in both countries continue to increase.
• House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee say they will investigate the Trump Justice Department probing secret 2017 investigations of Democrats and journalists over leaks.
• As microchip shortages continue worldwide, consumer advocates are warning of counterfeit chips, recycled hardware sold as new, and supply chain theft.

Last Call For Laboring Under A Misconception, Con't

If you want to know what a red state run entirely by Republicans want for America, look no further than the state's official job posting website.

There are more than 250,000 jobs available in Tennessee right now, but some lawmakers say there’s a catch with that number.

Only 3% of the jobs posted — about 8,500 as of Friday evening — pay $20,000 or more. The federal poverty line for a family of three is just under $22,000.

Senator Heidi Campbell (D-District 20) said she’s worried about Tennessee losing the federal CARES Act funds currently paying for some unemployment benefits. Governor Lee elected to stop accepting those in July, saying he didn’t want to pay people to sit at home.

“I think for the most part Tennesseans aren’t lazy and, I think it’s kind of insulting to continuously imply that they are,” Campbell said.

You read that correctly. Of the 8,500 jobs on the state of Tennessee's official job board, about 8,250 pay $10 an hour or less, which is a poverty level wage even in Tennessee. 

America doesn't fight poverty, it runs on it, as Ezra Klein explains.

I’m not going to pretend that I know how to interpret the jobs and inflation data of the past few months. My view is that this is still an economy warped by the pandemic, and that the dynamics are so strange and so unstable that it will be some time before we know its true state. But the reaction to the early numbers and anecdotes has revealed something deeper and more constant in our politics.

The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

Reports that low-wage employers were having trouble filling open jobs sent Republican policymakers into a tizzy and led at least 25 Republican governors — and one Democratic governor — to announce plans to cut off expanded unemployment benefits early. Chipotle said that it would increase prices by about 4 percent to cover the cost of higher wages, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee to issue a blistering response: “Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage, and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill.” The Trumpist outlet The Federalist complained, “Restaurants have had to bribe current and prospective workers with fatter paychecks to lure them off their backsides and back to work.”

But it’s not just the right. The financial press, the cable news squawkers and even many on the center-left greet news of labor shortages and price increases with an alarm they rarely bring to the ongoing agonies of poverty or low-wage toil.

 

Vast numbers of Americans are kept poor for a reason. Any whiff of labor organization, or worker solidarity is ruthlessly annihilated in order to maintain millions of Americans working for single-digit hourly wages, or slightly higher wages, but no benefits whatsoever. We demand it, because we know corporations will just break our backs with higher prices if we give in. Either way, we're the ones who pay, and it's never the billionaires.

Instead we tell these folks "Well this is America. If you don't like being poor, you can always do something about it, like not being poor."

And we go back to eating our dollar menu cheeseburgers and watching NFL football and thinking to ourselves "Well, I don't know anybdy *that* poor. We're not rich, but we do ok."

 

Except you know plenty of people that poor. Personally. And many of us want to keep it that way, just in case we someday end up rich.

Bye Bye Bibi, Baby

In a 60-59 Israeli Knesset vote on Sunday evening, the new government of Naftali Bennett and his Lapid party and partners has been sworn in to replace Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu of course is vowing to bring down the government as soon as possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to lead his Likud Party back to power.

Netanyahu is slated to become opposition leader later Sunday when parliament is expected to approve a vote of confidence in a new coalition formed by his opponents.

In a speech to parliament, Netanyahu made clear he has no plans on giving up leadership of the Likud Party.

He vowed to “continue the great mission of my life, ensuring the security of Israel.”

“If it is destined for us to be in the opposition, we will do it with our backs straight until we topple this dangerous government and return to lead the country in our way,” he said.

Israel is set to swear in a new government on Sunday that will send Netanyahu into the opposition after a record 12 years in office and a political crisis that sparked four elections in two years.

Naftali Bennett, the head of a small ultranationalist party, will take over as prime minister. But if he wants to keep the job, he will have to maintain an unwieldy coalition of parties from the political right, left and center.

The eight parties, including a small Arab faction that is making history by sitting in the ruling coalition, are united in their opposition to Netanyahu and new elections but agree on little else. They are likely to pursue a modest agenda that seeks to reduce tensions with the Palestinians and maintain good relations with the U.S. without launching any major initiatives.

Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, remains the head of the largest party in parliament and is expected to vigorously oppose the new government. If just one faction bolts, it could lose its majority and would be at risk of collapse, giving him an opening to return to power.

The country’s deep divisions were on vivid display as Bennett addressed parliament ahead of the vote. He was repeatedly interrupted and loudly heckled by supporters of Netanyahu, several of whom were escorted out of the chamber.

Bennett’s speech mostly dwelled on domestic issues, but he expressed opposition to U.S. efforts to revive Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

“Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Bennett said, vowing to maintain Netanyahu’s confrontational policy. “Israel will not be a party to the agreement and will continue to preserve full freedom of action.”

Bennett nevertheless thanked President Joe Biden and the U.S. for its decades of support for Israel.

Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the new government will likely be more stable than it appears.

“Even though it has a very narrow majority, it will be very difficult to topple and replace because the opposition is not cohesive,” he said. Each party in the coalition will want to prove that it can deliver, and for that they need “time and achievements.”

 

I don't see how the prospect of an ugly corruption trial is going to improve Bibi's chances to return to power, either. I would expect that after a conviction, Likud will boot him, and they may do so before that happens just to clear the decks and get his baggage behind them to make a new run at the brass ring.

Ahh, but having said all this, keep your eye on Naftali Bennett. We're going to find out that not being Bibi is a bar low enough that Bennett can clear, while still keeping 99.9% of Israel's current government and military policies, particularly towards continuing Palestinian apartheid. If anything Bennett will be under immediate pressure to make a brutal and bloody crackdown this summer.

Bibi's gone. It by no means guarantees anything will be better in the Middle East, but the die has been cast nonetheless. There was zero chance of improvement under Bibi. How much of a chance exists under Naftali Bennett, we'll see.

The Return of Austerity Hysteria, Con't

As July 1 deadlines for state budget fiscal years are approaching across the country, red states are eagerly cutting pandemic benefits and GOP lawmakers are getting back to adding cruel means testing so that families fight over the scraps that remain. Ohio is a perfect example of this.

Republicans in the Ohio Senate dropped a series of last-minute changes into their version of the state budget bill that would change the rules for families who get assistance with their groceries.

Supporters say the changes would make Ohio's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, sometimes referred to as food stamps, more secure and therefore better able to serve families in need.

"Unfortunately, a lot of folks take advantage of that who don’t qualify," Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said.

But opponents argue the changes — especially the "low limit" on total assets — will have the opposite effect.

"It’s going to take food out of the mouths of hungry children and working families," Ohio Association of Foodbanks Director Lisa Hamler-Fugitt said.

Here's what the changes would do.

Ohioans who receive food assistance would have 30 days to notify the program of a change in income that was more than $500. Parents would have to cooperate "with the child support enforcement program" as a condition of eligibility. And the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services would have to "conduct an asset test for each SNAP recipient."

The problem, Hamler-Fugitt said, is that the Senate set the total limit at $2,250.

"Families are going to have to sell their cars to keep their SNAP benefits ...," she said. "Senior citizens who may have a modest burial insurance policy would have to liquidate that policy in order to feed themselves."

But John Fortney, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, called those analogies unfair. The Senate plan requires Ohio to verify the current federal guidelines, which sets that asset limit for people under 60 who are not disabled. And it excludes the value of homes less than $600,000 and cars used for work or those worth less than $4,650.

“This simply follows federal guidelines," Fortney said. "We want to make sure these critical funds are available to those who need them the most.”

Another issue Hamler-Fugitt had with proposed changes was child support. Requiring women — some of whom are victims of domestic violence — to seek a formal agreement is going to push them out of the system.

"These families have just cause for not pursuing a formal child support arrangement," Hamler-Fugitt said.

 

Just like Republican love to put in as many loopholes as possible to keep the wealthy from having to pay taxes, they're adding loopholes to prevent people from getting benefits. Republicans want you to be poor, trapped in a series of low-wage jobs that don't pay a living wage, because you're easier to control then. Eventually you slip off the knife's edge and you end up in the abyss, and you're no longer worth worrying about.

We disappear thousands, if not millions of Americans each year this way, and that's exactly what the GOP wants.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a lawsuit against Houston Methodist Hospital filed by employees who argued that requiring COVID-19 vaccination was unconstitutional.
• The European Union says it expects British PM Boris Johnson to honor a trade agreement with Northern Ireland, Johnson says that the deal can't be legally enforced.
• Congressional Democrats say they will open hearings into the "rogue actions" of the Trump Justice Department, including on Trump DoJ secret subpoenas of Democratic lawmakers' metadata.
• Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori is blaming the "international left" for "interference" in elections as interim President Francisco Sagasti oversees a recount entering its second week.
• At least three FDA drug advisory committee members have now resigned as a result of the agency approving an Alzheimer's treatment drug last week despite a lack of testing data.