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#CONGRES NEWS
jloisse · 2 months
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➡️👈U.S. Congresswoman Summer Lee Speaks Out Against Netanyahu
“History will judge us poorly for welcoming Netanyahu to Congress with open arms as he commits war crimes in Gaza.”
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my absolute favourite thing about Star Trek is that there is this giant federation of hundreds of species spanning a thousand planets and a sizable bite of the galaxy. a galactic superpower with a complex form of federal and multi-species governance
and its capital is San Francisco
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aita-alternia · 1 year
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LMAOOOOOO NOT TH3 ANON TRYING TO HOOK >P THRO>GH F>CKING GR>MBLR ANONNNNNN NA>RRRR. LIT3RALLY j>st go to a bar yo>ll find shitty n33dy p3opl3 (lik3 m3 <3 ) b>t th3yr3 gonna b3 L3AG>3S B3TT3R than ANYON3 on gr>mblr mor3 or l3ss a f>cking gimmick blog st3aling th3ir gimmick from dr3addit.
-lo<3 anon (which I d3cid3d is my anon nam3). Also btw its fin3 if yo> gi<3 m3 a anon tag AA I loooooo<3 att3ntion in any way shap3 or form 💙
SERIOUSLY. DISCL^IMER NUMBER 2 : DO NOT TRY TO PULL BITCHES IN MY INBOX PLE^^^^^SE
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girltomboy · 9 months
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Last week my bf and I found out that one of our friends has been talking "seriously" to another friend's ex crush and it kinda shattered my faith in him like not only is this girl barely 18 (?? I think) but she was also the root of some huge drama that happened last year. She started secretly texting our friend and he told our other friend who then stopped talking to her and moved on. He was super broken and disappointed though. And a few months ago she apparently texted him again, this time he didn't tell our other friend, and now they have like a Thing?? And he already said he's been thinking about how to tell friend number 2 about what's been going on, but he still hasn't done it, and their Thingationship is just naturally progressing, like he's been tentatively telling me and my bf about some of their inside jokes or things they tell each other, and I'm like ?? Bruh what the hell are you doing lol. My bf apparently told him that his secret situationship is a bad idea and really unfair to our friend as well who suffered terribly after his friendship breakup last year. And he just agreed and that was it. But nothing changed, so we just figured he's enjoying the attention and connection with a girl which has been so rare for him, but I'm like... does the world end and begin with this one girl who's too young for pretty much everyone in our friend group?Just cause she made the silly decision to text you again doesn't mean you have to disregard any feelings you have for one of your best friends... Not to mention this wouldn't even be the first time he has a Thing with a close friend's ex girlfriend or crush 🙄 Like idk I know they're both single and there never really was anything beyond a simple friendship between this girl and friend number 2, but what do you even get out of a potentially failed talking stage that you have to hide from your close friend...? Idk this thing really shifted my perception of him, I noticed he was still following this girl on insta but I thought it was just a coincidence that they still follow each other after the failed attempt at integrating her into our friend group last year.
#later update: it turns out that my bf had actually had a serious talk with our friend about this and the friend said he would handle it#THEN nothing happened again. and he was still talking to her just not telling us/my bf about it LMAO#like he definitely became more lowkey when he saw that we didn't react well to the news he'd broken to us; he probably expected us to congr#tulate him or something lol. and then later he texted my bf to tell him 'she broke up with me hope ur happy' like bro... once again u were#investing ur energy and emotions into the wrong thingationship and now when it inevitably goes badly ur pouring ur frustration#into ur closest friend? who literally told u it was a bad idea from the start? 😩#so my bf patiently explained to him all the hurt that could have potentially been caused by this bizarre talking stage evolving into#something more serious and that he was just wasting his time and emotions AGAIN. and maybe putting his friendship w our other friend#in danger. but he was still frustrated and freshly hurt so his moodiness persisted but then eventually he recovered#and then in the same week he also quit his job and got sick so he was still a bit under the weather#anyway we've been spending time with him and stuff#just updating cuz i didn't even know my bf had talked to him at length abt it and he showed me screenshots. and my friend was apparently#mad that my bf was bringing up our other friend and his old crush on his girlie as if that was not even the entire point?#like ur only chance at having a meaningful relationship is by being a rebound for your friend's failed relationships? plus you KNEW this#wasn't meant to be and that it was gonna deteriorate. and she ended up being the one who broke it off.
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starsandhughes · 1 year
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Penalty Box— Jack’s Birthday Edition
SERIES MASTERLIST
this is so short i’m sorry
yourusername
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liked by jackhughes, lhughes_06, and 8,643 others
yourusername happy our birthday to my soulmate, my ex husband, and most importantly— my other half! we’ve been stuck together like glue since the first day of kindergarten and i don’t know who i would be without you. growing up with you is obviously the best thing to ever happen to you, because you turned out to be a pretty sick ass human being (you’re welcome)!
i remember back in kindergarten when we first found out that we have the same birthday and were so excited because we were so close. we decided that it means we had to be best friends forever! sorry that i later upgraded my best friend to the better model (i’m not sorry)!
in all seriousness, howdy rowdy, i’m so thankful to have you in my life. you made our move to michigan less scary than i thought it would be, and i wouldn’t have survived if not for you. you’ve always been so special to me. i’m so proud of you! i’m so proud of what you did this season, and i’m proud to call you my brother.
part of jacky’s birthday present was some wonderful news, and he has kindly demanded that i share it with everyone! when i am changing my name after mine and trevy’s wedding, i will also be changing my middle name to rowden. it was mom’s idea! she said she loved the idea of twins having the same middle name, and since we do have the same birthday, and i’ve been inducted to the family, i asked her if i could change my middle name. to my delight, she said yes! (he cried when i told him, which made me cry, which made mom cry, which made quinn and luke cry, so the family was really a mess tonight!)
p.s happy birthday to my favorite rookie, wyatt johnson! please score on quinn next season <3
i love you with at least 90% of the atoms in my body❤️ happy birthday!
tagged jackhughes
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jackhughes i love you, too soulmate❤️ your post won’t be as sentimental! (we didn’t cry!)
yourusername bitch <3
jackhughes yes <3
trevorzegras (yes they did)
_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras (nobody asked)
_quinnhughes you choose some amazing pics, sissy
yourusername you should listen to the advice on the last one!
_quinnhughes jack is not a baddie
yourusername it’s our birthday! we’re baddies, you jurassic bitch
_quinnhughes best friend contract!
yourusername birthday clause!
jackhughes @_quinnhughes ✨suck it✨
user52 THE PHOTO OF Y/N, JACK, AND QUINN AS KIDS SJSKSJAK I’M CRYIN
njdevils we thank you for these jack photos🫡
yourusername anything for my fans <3
user28 SHE’S CHANGING HER MIDDLE NAME😭
_alexturcotte hey um… y/n, our love, WHY WAS I CUT OUT OF THE SEVENTH PHOTO
yourusername you pissed me off last week
_alexturcotte I APOLOGIZED! AND THIS ISN’T LAST WEEK!
yourusername calm down, you big baby
jackhughes fight! fight! fight! fight!
colecaufield @_alexturcotte ✨suck it✨
user33 happy birthday!!!
user18 i always forget sissy is a stars fan
trevorzegras must be nice
jackhughes she doesn’t let us forget
_quinnhughes she doesn’t let me specifically forget
yourusername @/trevorzegras @/jackhughes @_quinnhughes cry. babies.
user09 i cry every time y/n reveals more childhood stories
lhughes_06 i’m offended i wasn’t in the childhood pictures
yourusername in my defense… you were infant so we weren’t cool like that yet
_quinnhughes yeah, moosey, gosh
jackhughes somebody’s self obsessive
lhughes_06 i hate all of you
yourusername those teenage hormones of yours are wildin
lhughes_06 @/yourusername i hate you most
jackhughes @/lhughes_06 don’t talk to your mother that way! it’s mother’s day!
user54 i want what y/n and jack have omg! happy birthday!
john.marino97 what? no photo creds on the first pic? (ps happy birthday hughesy!)
yourusername psa to everyone: johnny m wouldn’t leave jack and i alone one night at the hotel and he stalked us and took the first picture! but i love it, so no harm 0.5 foul!
john.marino97 0.5 foul?
jackhughes @/john.marino97 congrats, man! you got off easy!
john.marino97 thank you?
trevorzegras @/john.marino97 now you’re catching on!
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eretzyisrael · 2 months
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by Jacob Frankel
In the days leading up to the event, Queens Shmira – a Jewish neighborhood safety group – announced that the real-estate sale had been moved to a different venue. According to a statement from Queens Shmira, the venue “has since changed to accommodate a larger audience and will NOT be taking place at Congregation Charm Circle.”
“The protesters’ intention is to intimidate and we will not be intimidated,” the statement added.
Although the event had been moved to a different location, on Sunday anti-Israel protesters nonetheless descended on Congregation Charm Circle, where they were videoed calling for an intifada against Jews and waving Hezbollah flags. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon, has been launching rockets, drones, and missiles at northern Israel daily as Israeli forces simultaneously battle the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to the south in Gaza.
In response, counter-protesters waved Israeli flags and called for the release of the roughly 120 hostages still being held by terrorists in Gaza since Oct. 7.
The protest spilled over to a nearby basketball court, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators could be seen shoving the counter-protesters. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) attempted to de-escalate the situation, but there were no reports of arrests being made.
Local politicians took to X/Twitter to express outrage over the anti-Israel protests targeting a synagogue.
“The event changed venues but the protesters didn’t care, harassing Jews for the crime of going to pray,” New York State Assemblymember Sam Berger, who represents Kew Garden Hills, wrote on X/Twitter.
US Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), who also represents Kew Garden Hills, condemned the demonstration on social media.
“The events that took place outside of Congregation Charm Circle in Kew Gardens Hills are deeply concerning,” she posted. “Harassing people outside of their house of worship is unacceptable. While everyone in the US has the right to protest, there is no place for hate, violence, & antisemitism.”
The protest at Congregation Charm Circle come only four weeks after the violent anti-Israel demonstration outside of Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily-Jewish Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles.
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Andrew Perez at Rolling Stone:
EARLIER THIS WEEK, two Democratic senators announced they have requested a criminal investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — regarding, in part, a loan for a luxury RV provided by a longtime executive at UnitedHealth Group, one of America’s largest health insurers. Thomas apparently recused himself in at least two cases involving UnitedHealth when the loan was active, according to a Rolling Stone review. Yet, he separately chose to participate in another health insurance case and authored the court’s unanimous opinion in 2004. The ruling broadly benefited the industry — shielding employer-sponsored health insurers from damages if they refuse to cover certain services and patients are harmed. Thomas’ advice to patients facing such denials? Pull out your checkbook.
While UnitedHealth was not a party to the case, the company belonged to two trade associations that filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to side with the insurers.  “As we saw so starkly this term, Supreme Court decisions can have sweeping collateral implications: If the court rules in favor of one insurance giant, for instance, it tends to be a boon for all the other insurance giants, too,” says Alex Aronson, executive director at the judicial reform group Court Accountability. “That was the case here, and it’s a perfect example of why justices shouldn’t accept gifts — especially secret ones — from industry titans whose interests are implicated, whether directly or indirectly, by their rulings.” The public had no way of knowing about Thomas’ RV loan at the time of the decision: The loan was only exposed by The New York Times last year. Senate Democrats investigating Thomas believe that much or all of the loan, for a $267,230 motor coach, was ultimately forgiven. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently requested the Justice Department investigate whether Thomas reported the forgiven portion of the loan on his tax filings, after he failed to disclose it in ethics forms.
Meanwhile, Thomas’ health insurance opinion has had wide-ranging, long-lasting ramifications, according to Mark DeBofsky, an employee benefits lawyer and former law professor.  “It hasn’t been rectified. The repercussions continue,” DeBofsky tells Rolling Stone. “People who are in dire need of specific medical care, and [their] insurance company turns around and says, ‘That care is not medically necessary,’ and there’s an adverse outcome as a result of the denial of the treatment, or hospitalization, or service — there’s no recompense for what could have been an unnecessary death or serious injury.” Since last year, the Supreme Court has faced an unprecedented ethics crisis, with much of the focus aimed squarely at Thomas. ProPublica reported that Thomas received and failed to disclose two decades worth of luxury gifts from a conservative billionaire, Harlan Crow, who allegedly provided free private jet and superyacht trips to Thomas and his wife; bought a house from Thomas and allowed the justice’s elderly mother to live there for free; and paid for at least two years of boarding school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew.
[...] Federal law requires Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves in any case where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The justices decide for themselves when such a move is necessary — and when they do withdraw from a case, they rarely say why. Thomas does not appear to have explained his decision to withdraw from the two matters that directly involved UnitedHealth. Thomas did not take similar steps in Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, a case that broadly affected the health insurance industry. He instead authored the court’s opinion, which expanded insurers’ favorite tool for limiting liability: ERISA. Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, commonly known as ERISA, in 1974 to protect employee benefits. The law is relatively vague when it comes to “welfare benefits,” and contains a broad preemption clause. The courts have filled in the blanks — including in the Aetna Health case — with distressing results for patients. Half of Americans have employer-sponsored health insurance coverage; nearly all of these plans are governed by ERISA.
Rolling Stone exposes how SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas received a $267K RV from a health insurance executive.
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kemetic-dreams · 3 months
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Anthony Burns was born enslaved in Stafford County, Virginia on May 31, 1834. His mother was the slave of a certain John Suttle and served as a cook for the Suttle family. She bore 13 children in total, with Anthony being her youngest. Anthony's father was rumored to be a free man who worked as a supervisor in a quarry in Virginia who later died from stone dust inhalation.
Burns's master, John Suttle, died shortly after Anthony’s birth. His widowed wife took over his estate and sold Burns’s older siblings in order to prevent bankruptcy. Eventually, Burns’s mother was also sold, or rented out to some other family. Anthony did not see her for two years, when Mrs. Suttle went to collect the revenue from her being hired out as a laborer. When Anthony was six years old, Mrs. Suttle died. Her property, including Anthony, was inherited by her eldest son, Charles F. Suttle.
In order to repay the family’s existing debts, Charles mortgaged his slaves and continued his mother’s financial practices to prevent further bankruptcy. During this time, Burns began his earliest tasks while enslaved. Burns looked after his niece so that his sister was available for labor, and stayed at the House of Horton where his sister lived and worked. Here, Burns was introduced to education by the children who lived there; they taught Burns the alphabet in exchange for small services.
At the age of 7, Burns was hired out to three single women (referred to as maidens in the historic text) to work for $15 a year, paid to his master. His jobs included running necessary errands and collecting their weekly supply of cornmeal from the nearby mill. It was during this time that Burns was first exposed to religion. At the age of 8, Burns went to work for $25 a year and was again offered a chance to learn. In this job, the children taught Burns how to spell through their own spelling worksheets from school; in return, Anthony performed antics for their entertainment. Burns worked in this capacity for two years and left due to poor treatment.
Burns was next leased by William Brent. Brent was the husband of a rich young woman, and lived off her wealth, including the labor of numerous slaves. His wife was extremely kind to Anthony and he stayed there for two years, earning Suttle a total of $100. Under Brent’s supervision, Anthony learned about a land up North where black people were not enslaved. He began dreaming of his escape and freedom. Anthony refused to remain under Brent’s employment for a third year, although Suttle was satisfied with this position. Suttle humored Burns’s wishes to find his own employment, since he knew it was worth more to have a willing slave than many reluctant slaves.
Anthony entered the hiring ground to find a new master under a lease hire arrangement. Eventually, Suttle entered negotiations with Foote, who wanted Anthony to work in his saw-mill for $75 a year. Anthony was 12–13 years old at this time, and did not want to remain enslaved. In his new capacity, Anthony continued his education with Foote’s daughter, but otherwise dealt with many cruelties. Foote and his wife proved to be Anthony’s severest owners, and beat even their youngest slaves without sympathy. Some 2–3 months into his service, Anthony mangled his hand in the wheel after Foote turned it on without prior warning. Anthony was discharged because of the injury and was returned to live with Suttle as he recovered.
While recovering from the injury to his hand, Anthony had a religious awakening, that superseded other experiences. Simultaneously, Millerism was introduced to his small county in Virginia, and Burns was excited by the religious fervor that spread like wildfire. Suttle refused his request to be baptized, saying that Anthony would turn to sin if he joined the Church.
However, after Anthony returned to his employment under Foote, Suttle gave Anthony permission to get baptized. Suttle took Anthony to the Baptist Church in Falmouth, which accepted everyone in its congregation. During mass (communion), the free whites and enslaved blacks were separated by a partition. Two years later, Anthony was given the chance to preach to a group of church members and appointed as a preacher at this church. Anthony used this new position to preach exclusively to assemblies of enslaved persons, although Virginia nominally required all-black congregations to be supervised by a white minister. According to Anthony, if a law officer discovered the blacks in their meeting, any enslaved persons who did not escape would be put into cages and given 39 lashes the following day. Additionally, Anthony performed marriages and funerals for enslaved persons as a preacher.
As previously mentioned, Anthony returned to Foote’s employment after his hand healed. He finished his year of service and was hired by a new master in Falmouth, Virginia, where his church was located. His new master loaned Burns to a merchant for six months of his year of service. Burns was treated horribly by that man, so he refused to remain with the lessee after his year of service was completed.
For the next year, Anthony moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he worked under a tavern-keeper. He earned $100 for his master by this service. A year later, Anthony went to work in an apothecary in the same city. He met a fortune teller who promised him freedom within the next few months.
A short time later, Suttle hired William Brent (Anthony’s former master) to manage hiring out his slaves for fees each year. Brent moved Anthony to Richmond, Virginia, at the end of his year of service. The young man was excited to work in a city with ships that sailed down the James River and then through the Chesapeake Bay to the North. In Richmond, Brent hired Anthony out to his brother-in-law, whom Anthony did not get along with. By this time, Anthony was skilled at reading and writing, especially compared to other slaves. With his knowledge, he set up a makeshift school to teach slaves of all ages how to read and write; this was kept secret from their masters in Richmond. At the end of his year of service with Brent’s brother-in-law, Burns was employed by a man named Millspaugh.
Millspaugh quickly realized that he did not have enough work for Anthony to earn a profit on him, so he set Anthony out into the city to work small jobs and earn money for him. Although they originally set up a daily meeting, they changed it to meet up once every two weeks since Anthony only made a small sum, if any, each day. In his job search, Anthony was pushed to escape by the sailors and freemen he worked with. The only thing holding him back was a sense of religious duty towards his owner, but he justified his escape with the Epistle to Philemon and eliminated any religious qualms he had with leaving. In one of their biweekly meetings, Anthony gave Millspaugh $25 as his earnings that month, and after being presented with such a large sum, his master required Anthony to visit him daily. Anthony refused and walked out on his master without his consent, thus making his escape much more pressing than it would have been if he had had two weeks to plan and execute it. Anthony devised a plan with a sailor friend he met during his work on a vessel in the harbor, and one morning in early February 1854, Anthony boarded the vessel that would take him to the North.
We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, compromise Union Whigs & waked up stark mad Abolitionists.
— Amos Adams Lawrence, Conscience Whig, on the Anthony Burns affair, 1854
Anthony Burns left Richmond, Virginia one early February morning in 1854. His friend stowed him away in a small compartment on the ship, and Anthony immediately fell asleep after days of anxious and long nights. Upon waking up, the ship was already miles out of the harbor and on its way to Norfolk, Virginia before heading to Boston, Massachusetts. On the journey, Burns was stuck in the same position and in the same compartment without room for movement for a little over three weeks. In that time, he suffered from dehydration, starvation, and extreme sea sickness. His friend brought him food and water every 3–4 days, and it was just enough for Anthony to survive the trip to Boston.
The vessel reached Boston in late February or early March (the exact date is unknown), and Burns immediately began seeking new employment. At first, Anthony found a job as a cook on a ship, but was dismissed after one week since he could not make his bread rise. Next, Burns found employment under Collin Pitts, a colored man, in a clothing store on Brattle Street. However, Anthony only enjoyed one month of freedom in this capacity before being arrested.
While in Boston, Anthony sent a letter to his enslaved brother in Richmond and revealed his new home in Boston. His brother’s owner discovered the letter and conveyed the news of Burns’ escape to Suttle. Suttle went to a courthouse in Alexandria County, where the judge ruled that Suttle had enough proof that he owned Burns and could issue a warrant for his arrest under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The warrant was issued on May 24, 1854 and stated that Watson Freeman, the United States Marshal of Massachusetts, was required to arrest Anthony Burns and bring him before Judge Edward G. Loring to stand trial. On that same day, Deputy Marshal Asa O. Butman, an infamous slave hunter, was charged with the execution of the warrant.
On May 24, 1854, Butman scouted out Burns in the clothing store before arresting him. His goal was to make a peaceful arrest in order to not incite mob violence and have the mob rescue Burns before he could be returned to the South. After Burns and Pitts closed down their store, they walked separate ways to go home. While walking, Butman stopped Burns at the corner of the Court and Hanover street intersection and arrested him under the guise of a jewel store robbery. Burns, knowing he was innocent of that crime, complied with Butman and peacefully walked with him to the courthouse. At the courthouse, Burns expected to be confronted by the jewelry store owner, but was instead met with U.S. Marshal Freeman. In this moment, Burns knew he had been caught under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
By the first day of the trial, the prosecutors had succeeded in keeping the trial hidden from the public. However, Richard Henry Dana Jr. was passing by the courthouse an hour before the initial examination and heard about the proceedings of the day. Immediately, Dana entered the courthouse to talk to Burns and offer him his professional help. Initially Burns declined, citing it would be of no use, but reluctantly agreed due to Dana’s insistence.
In the initial hearing, the plaintiff (Charles Suttle) put William Brent on the stand to further verify Burns’ identity along with Suttle’s testimony. Brent was also asked to recall his conversation with Burns and Suttle the previous night right after Burns’ arrest, but Dana intervened on behalf of Burns and got the evidence thrown out for the time being. At the end of the hearing, commissioner Loring agreed to push further proceedings back to May 27, but they were again delayed until the 29th due to Burns’ late appointment of counsel. In an interview, Theodore Parker, witness to the trial, cited that Burns's hesitancy to accept counsel came from fear over how well Brent and Suttle knew him.
During the duration of the trial, Burns was kept in a jury-room under constant surveillance of armed guards. In this time, the guards tried to provoke and trick Anthony into slipping up and admitting to his status as a slave, but Burns evaded their tactics. The closest Burns came to self-admission was at the provocation of Suttle, who was outraged the public saw him as a harsh and abusive master to Anthony. Suttle asked Anthony to write a letter proving the contrary, but Leonard Grimes, a Boston clergyman and abolitionist, had Burns destroy the letter after seeing it as evidence to be used against him in the trial.
The final examination began on May 29, 1854. Armed soldiers lined the windows of the courthouse and prevented all officials and citizens from entering the courtroom. Even Dana, Burns’ senior counsel, couldn’t enter the courtroom until late into the examination. Thus, Charles Ellis, Burns’ junior counsel, was forced to begin the examination by arguing that it was unfit to continue while Suttle’s counsel carried firearms, but Loring rejected this sentiment. During the plaintiff’s argument, Loring approved their request to present the conversation between Suttle and Burns as evidence from the night of his arrest. As their final piece of evidence, they admitted the book that contained the Virginia court’s ruling in favor of Suttle.
When Burns’ counsel presented their defense, they focused on proving that Suttle’s timeline was off and they lacked sufficient evidence to show Burns was the slave who had run away. They brought in William Jones, a colored man who testified that he had met Anthony on the first day of March and described his relationship to Anthony through their time together in Boston. In addition, the counsel knew that the commissioner would be hesitant to accept the testimony of a colored man, so they called up 7 other witnesses to validate his story. As one of the witnesses, the counsel called up James Whittemore, a city council member of Boston. Whittemore testified that he had seen Burns in Boston around March 8, and identified him by his scars as proof.
In Loring’s final decision, he admitted that he thought the Fugitive Slave Act was a disgrace, but his job was to uphold the law. Loring stated that Suttle produced sufficient evidence to prove the fugitive slave Suttle described matched Anthony’s appearance, thus he ruled in favor of Suttle.
It has been estimated the government's cost of capturing and conducting Burns through the trial was upwards of $40,000 (equivalent to $1,303,000 in 2022).
Among the citizens interested in Burns’ trial was the Committee of Vigilance, which was founded after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The goal of the group was to prevent the execution of the Act for fugitives in Burns’ position. It was effective due to the diversity of its ranks, ranging from people of every socioeconomic status and race. In Burns’ case, the committee debated between two courses of actions: attacking the courthouse to forcibly rescue Anthony, and creating a crowd when they removed Burns from the courthouse to act as an immovable barrier. Between these two propositions, the committee ruled to go forth with the second and more peaceful plan, and additionally posted men at the courthouse to make sure the officials did not try to move Burns without their knowledge.
Although the committee itself agreed to go ahead with the peaceful plan, a faction of men planned to rescue Burns from the courthouse themselves. On Friday evening, May 26, the entire committee dispersed from their meeting in Faneuil Hall at around 9 p.m., when the men planned to hold their assault. By that time in the evening, they had gathered at least 25 men, all armed with various weapons such as, revolvers and axes. The crowd picked up members from the committee meeting as they made their way to the courthouse, and began their attack by breaking down the doors with axes and wooden construction beams. After breaking into the courthouse, a fight broke out between the guards and rioters, and resulted in the death of one of the guards, James Batchelder.
The riot did not get far after the police arrived as back-up, resulting in the arrest of many abolitionists. However, it is highly unlikely the attack would have been successful in rescuing Anthony since he was held in an extremely secure room in the top floor of the courthouse.
A grand jury indicted three of those involved in the attack at the courthouse. After an acquittal of one man and several hung juries in trials for the others, the federal government dropped the charges.
After the riot, President Franklin Pierce sent the United States Marines to Boston to aid the police in preventing further violence. Following the riot, the entire city of Boston was excited and awaiting the next phase of the trial. Once Loring’s decision was announced in favor of Suttle, the abolitionists began their preparations for Burns’ movement.
Following the trial, Marshal Freeman was tasked with successfully moving Burns from the courthouse without interference from the crowd in Boston. Jerome V. C. Smith, the mayor of Boston, was responsible for maintaining a peaceful crowd. With this news, the citizens of Boston set up interviews and tried to persuade the mayor to join their side of the cause and free Burns. Initially, the crowd succeeded in convincing the mayor to only implement one military company to guard the courthouse the day Burns was moved. Like Loring, Smith was against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, but did not feel as strongly about upholding it. Despite the mayor’s orders, Marshal Freeman felt as if one company would not be enough to maintain order while Burns was moved, and pushed the mayor to call in more troops. Mayor Smith ended up implementing an entire brigade of state militia to help clear the streets on the day of Burns’ transfer.
While the mayor was planning for crowd control, Freeman put together a band of 125 citizens of Boston to help move Burns. The Marshal swore these men in and armed them with various weapons, such as pistols and cutlasses. From the date of Loring’s decision until his departure on June 2, Burns was kept in the same jury room he was in during the trial. Throughout this time, Burns’ friends began making plans to purchase his freedom and no matter how much money they offered, Suttle refused to negotiate as long as Burns was under his service.
At 2 p.m. on June 2, 1854, Burns was escorted from the courthouse by Marshal Freeman and his men, along with an additional 140 U.S. Marines and infantrymen. State militia brigades lined the streets to keep the crowd at bay and to prevent any interference with the procession. Along their route, citizens left symbols to indicate the funeral of Burns’ liberty and freedom. One man suspended a black coffin and others draped their windows to show Burns they stood with him. At one point in their route, the guards made an unexpected turn into a road lined with spectators. The officers ran at them with bayonets and beat their way through the line of bystanders. One man, William Ela, was beaten with muskets down on the pavement, cut in the face, and put into confinement. Eventually, the officers and Burns reached the wharf where the vessel headed to Virginia was scheduled to depart from Boston. At 3:20 p.m., Suttle, Brent, and Burns left Boston for Virginia.
As a result of Burns’ trial, Massachusetts passed the most progressive liberty law the nation had seen up until 1854. The law stated that slave claimants were not allowed to be on state property, fugitive slaves were required to have a trial by jury, and slave claimants had to produce two credible and unbiased witnesses to prove the evidence in their case. Burns’ trial was the last rendition hearing for a fugitive slave in Massachusetts. Additionally, Loring suffered severe consequences at the hands of abolitionists in Boston. Harvard University refused to re-hire Loring in his faculty position in their school, and the Massachusetts legislature voted to remove Loring from his state position as a Probate Judge, but the governor never approved the removal. However, in 1857, a new governor was elected to the position and signed Loring’s removal address. This action prompted severe anger from politicians in Washington, D.C., and President James Buchanan appointed Loring to the Federal Court of Claims when a position opened up.
After leaving Massachusetts, Burns spent four months in a Richmond jail where he was prohibited from being in contact with other slaves. In November, Suttle sold Burns to David McDaniel for $905 and McDaniel brought Burns to his plantation in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. As an owner, McDaniel was firm and strong businessman, who constantly sold and traded his slaves. He had as few as 75 slaves on his plantation and as many as 150 slaves at other times. Burns was employed to be McDaniel’s coachman and stable-keeper, which was a relatively light workload compared to that of other slaves on the plantations. Instead of lodging with the other slaves, Burns received an office and ate meals in his master’s house. Due to this level of respect, Burns vowed never to run away from McDaniel as long as he was his master.
In addition to Burns’s level of care as a slave, Burns attended church twice while serving four months under McDaniel. Burns even held illegal religious meetings for his fellow slaves. Although discovered by McDaniel, the master did not punish Burns as he would have another slave. The overseer on the plantation resented Burns getting such special treatment, and threatened him with a pistol during one of their quarrels. Burns reported only to McDaniel as his supervisor and recognized only his orders. During these months of enslavement, Burns failed to notify his Northern friends of his location in the South.
One afternoon, Burns drove his mistress to a neighbor’s house. In the outing, a neighbor recognized Burns as the slave who had caused commotion with his trial in the North. A young lady overheard the neighbor recalling the story, and repeated it in a letter to her sister in Massachusetts. Her sister, after receiving the letter, told the story to her social circle, including Reverend Stockwell, who told Leonard Grimes. He was a known abolitionist who had spent his life helping fugitive slaves escape from Washington, D.C. Later he built the Church of Fugitive Slaves in Boston. Stockwell wrote to McDaniel to begin negotiations for Burns’s purchase, and McDaniel responded, saying he would sell Burns for $1300. In the two weeks before they left for Baltimore to meet McDaniel and Burns, Grimes collected sufficient funds for Burns’s purchase, while Stockwell covered the expenses for their journey. Grimes departed by himself after Stockwell failed to show up.
McDaniel knew he was going against public sentiment in North Carolina by selling Burns to the Northerners, so he swore Anthony to secrecy. On their train to Norfolk, a confidant of McDaniel spread the rumor that the fugitive slave notorious from Boston was on board the train. Many passengers and even the conductor were outraged. The latter said he would not have let Burns onboard if he had known who he was. McDaniel held firm and kept the crowd at bay in their journey. When they arrived in Norfolk, Burns boarded their ship to Baltimore before McDaniel did. There he encountered another curious, unruly crowd. When McDaniel arrived, the crowd's anger was directed at him. Some men tried to buy Burns for more money than Grimes was paying for his freedom. McDaniel refused but compromised with the crowd by agreeing to sell Burns if the purchasers never arrived.
In Baltimore, Burns and McDaniel met Grimes at Barnum’s Hotel. They arrived two hours after Grimes, and immediately began negotiations. The payment was delayed after McDaniel demanded cash instead of the cheque Grimes produced. Eventually, the cash was exchanged, and Anthony’s freedom was purchased. Upon leaving the hotel, Grimes and Burns met Stockwell at the entrance. He accompanied the men to the train station. Burns spent his first night as a free man in Philadelphia.
Anthony Burns reached Boston in early March, where he was met with a public celebration of his freedom. Eventually, Burns enrolled at Oberlin College with a scholarship. He entered a seminary in Cincinnati to continue religious studies.
After briefly preaching in Indianapolis, in 1860 Burns moved to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada in 1860 to accept a call from Zion Baptist Church. Thousands of African Americans had migrated to Canada as refugees from slavery in the antebellum years, establishing communities in Ontario.
Burns died from tuberculosis on July 17,
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ridenwithbiden · 2 months
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is preparing to endorse significant proposals to reform the Supreme Court and notified some members of Congress about his intentions last weekend, three sources familiar with the plans said Tuesday.
The proposals under serious consideration include legislation to establish term limits for justices and establishing an updated code of ethics that would be binding and enforceable, a source said. The policies, which haven't been finalized, may be rolled out in the coming weeks, which would be a new approach for a president who has long been skeptical of restructuring the Supreme Court.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
Biden told lawmakers in the Congressional Progressive Caucus during a virtual meeting Saturday that he had been consulting constitutional scholars on the matter for more than a month, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
“I’m going to need your help to and advice on how we should be doing what I’m going to be doing there. Want to make sure we have a closer working relationship, because we’re in this together,” Biden told the lawmakers, though he didn’t get into specific policy substance, the source said.
The Washington Post first reported Biden’s plans.
Two other sources told NBC News that Biden told the lawmakers he will come out for big reforms, without giving them details, but that members on the call understood him to be referring to term limits and ethics rules. The call took place Saturday before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
“Look, it’s not, it’s not hyperbole to suggest Trump is literally an existential threat, an existential threat to the very constitution of democracy we, we say we care about. And I mean if this guy wins, he’s not, and now, especially with that Supreme Court giving him the kind of breadth of — I don’t need to get into the Supreme Court right now — anyway, but I need your help,” Biden said.
Changing the structure of the Supreme Court would require Congress to make a new law. That's extremely unlikely while Republicans control the House, as the party is pleased with the 6-3 conservative majority it has built on the high court.
But the proposals could become a useful messaging device for Biden on the campaign trail. And if Democrats sweep the election, they may have a fighting chance of passing. Democrats have rallied voters against the Supreme Court, citing unpopular rulings like the elimination of federal abortion rights and a spate of recent reports detailing apparent ethical lapses among some of the justices.
Last month, Senate Democrats sought to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation but ran into Republican opposition. In the House, Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Don Beyer, D-Va., have lintroduced legislation that would impose 18-year term limits for future justices, ultimately creating vacancies to fill during every four-year presidential term and preventing retirements for partisan reasons.
Khanna praised Biden for warming up to the idea, noting that he first introduced term limits legislation in 2020.
“Since then, we have been advocating for the president to champion this reform," Khanna told NBC News on Tuesday. "It is a big step for him to now call for commonsense term limits for the court and a judicial code of ethics.”
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sweetmuffynsblog · 2 years
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Plastic Marriage
Part 3. Everyone knows The Targaryen are Extra and Drama Queens. And how Y/N Targaryen is too comfortable with her marriage that she forgot that Aemond is also her husband and not just her uncle.
A few days later, the carriage and a group of the Northern house come to King's Landing. Rhaenyra basically shoved her oldest daughter to the bath and asking the maids to dressed her in the finest dress consisted with a Targaryen and Velaryon sigil and the colour is bright red but the underskirt is green and black, because her daughter decided to become a salted fish prior to the news about the Northener leading by Cregan Stark already in Kingswood and will come to the Red Keep in a no time.
"but Mother..." she whined, "i don't want to go! It's embarrasing!"
"he is the Warden of the North, you are the future Queen, you must go and see them. Your grandsire said so too."
"but it's embarrassing."
Jacaerys Velaryon snorted at her sister's words, "why you are so dramatic? You and him were just holding hands, and you were what? 12? 13? It's not like you have a sex with him."
"Jace!" Rhaenyra warned, "mind your tongue."
Rhaenyra's attention went to the box of Jewelery while Jacaerys stricking his tongue out,
"mother look at Jace!"
Jacaerys still mocking her by gave her a smug smile, while Y/N pouted and shoot him a dagger look.
"what's wrong here?"
"uncle!"
"uncle."
Jacaerys and Y/N greeted at the same time, Rhaenyra snorted softly when she caught that her daughter didn't call her brother husband at all but Uncle. She found it amusing when Y/N forgot that she was married to Aemond and sometimes will call him Uncle in the slip of tongue, Aemond walked into his shared chamber,
"sister." he greeted Rhaenyra, then placing a kiss on Y/N's forehead, "i came here to inform you that The Northerners already in their way to the Red Keep, Father ought us to go and greet them."
Rhaenyra nodded, and went outside with Jacaerys, while Aemond looked at his wife tenderly, "you look stunning." he said then gave her a kiss in the lips, he sucked her lips and bite it softly making her whimpered, he sensed her breathing, then let the kiss stop, "so beautiful. My wife, mine."
They want to continued this, especially Y/N, who wants to stay in her chamber rather than facing Cregan Stark. It's not like they hate each others, no, Y/N infact had a biggest crush on him when she had a trip around the Westeros with her family, but she remembered their utterly disaster of a kiss, in the Godswood at that, it's her secret with Cregan, both made a promise to never mentioned that disaster again, she cringed when she remembered that.
"uncle, can we not go?"
"we should go."
"can we not?"
"everyone will talk, my sweet, and the Northerner will offended."
"but uncle..."
Aemond dragged his little wife out of their chamber, both of them walked into the front of the castle where everyone waited,
"we are sorry we are late." Aemond said making Y/N pouted, King Viserys nodded at them with a big smile in his face, out of everyone's relationship, he only loved his granddaughter and his second son's relationship, theirs were unique.
"Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell and the Warden of The North!" the guardsmen announced, Cregan get of his horse and kneeled infront of Viserys along with the other Northmen that came with him, then Viserys let him up,
"Welcome to King's Landing, Lord Stark."
"Thank you, Your Grace." then Viserys was carried away by the men because his health wasn't that good. Cregan bowed as a greet to Queen Alicent, then to Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra smiled at him and gave him a hug, after that they entered the Red Keep with other Northern nobles, Cregan hugged Jacaerys, both were longtime friend and a sworn brothers, after that he sweeped his eyes and found the one he was looking for, the Princess Y/N.
"Princess..." he greeted softly, Cregan loved to tease the Future Heir, she was like a sister to him, it's almost come natural for him to teased her at this point, "Congratulations on your wedding. You receive my gift, i pressume?"
"yes. Thank you." she answered stiffly making him almost laughed out loud, The Princess is too cute.
If the look could kill then Cregan already death a thousand times because Princess Y/N's husband, the rider of the biggest Dragon alive sent him a threatening look, after greeted Cregan, Y/N dragged Aemond go, leaving Jacaerys with him,
"what's wrong with the Princess?" Cregan asked, Jacaerys stiffled a smile,
"she's being dramatics as always."
Y/N and Aemond walked around,
"uncle, do you see his face? Ugh, i wanted to smack him so bad!"
"uncle, do you see Jace's always mocking me? I'm sure i'm so gorgeous, and he's just jealous but-"
"my love," Aemond cuts her rambling, Y/N shut up immediately,
"yes?"
"first of all, i'm your husband." he pointed out,
"but you're my uncle too. What's your point?"
Aemond sighed in frustration, "but i'm your husband first, right? You don't see your mother calling uncle Daemon, 'Uncle' anymore after they married."
"yes, you are right!" Y/N nodded furiously, "but when you're saying that, i just realized how weird our family is. My mother marrying her uncle, me marrying my uncle, my daughter in the future... Eww..." Aemond could see his wife's nose scrunched and she visibly cringed at whatever her thoughts are,
"what?"
"i'm imagining Alyssane marrying either Joffrey, Daeron, Aegon or Viserys and i feel dying inside."
Aemond following his wife's step by feeling cringed, imagine about his sweet little daughter is being married to anyone making him tense,
"no need to worry, my love, when the time comes, i will fight any boy who wished for our daughter's hands."
Y/N nodded, "yes. And if they're stubborn, just feed them to Vhagar."
And why is everyone worrying about their relationship? Y/N and Aemond Targaryen, the Future Queen and King consort Of Westeros are so similiar in their differences. Aemond may be harsher and Y/N is softer, but everyone cannot denying the fact that both of them love the bloods.
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jloisse · 2 months
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THIS IS HOW CONGRESS APPLAUDED ISRAEL BOMBING PALESTINE
NEVER FORGET
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simply-ivanka · 9 months
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Hunter Biden faces backlash after defying subpoena with press conference 'stunt': 'Hold him in contempt!' | Fox News
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Toles
* * * *
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
July 2, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
JUL 03, 2024
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a “Resolution for Independence” declaring “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
Also known as the “Lee Resolution,” after Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee, who had proposed it, the resolution was the final break between the king and the thirteen colonies on the North American continent that would later become the United States of America. 
The path to independence had been neither obvious nor easy. 
In 1763, at the end of what was known in the colonies as the French and Indian War, there was little indication that the colonies were about to start their own nation. The war had brought an economic boom to the colonies, and with the French giving up control of land to the west, Euro-American colonists were giddy at the prospect of moving across the Appalachian Mountains. Impressed that the king had been willing to expend such effort to protect the colonies, they were proud of their identity as members of the British empire.
That enthusiasm soon waned. 
To guard against another expensive war between colonists and Indigenous Americans, the king’s ministers and Parliament prohibited colonists from crossing the Appalachians. Then, to replenish the treasury after the last war, they passed a number of revenue laws. In 1765 they enacted the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on printed material in the colonies, everything from legal documents and newspapers to playing cards. 
The Stamp Act shocked colonists, who saw in it a central political struggle that had been going on in England for more than a century: could the king be checked by the people? Colonists were not directly represented in Parliament and believed they were losing their fundamental liberty as Englishmen to have a say in their government. They responded to the Stamp Act with widespread protests. 
In 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but linked that repeal to the Declaratory Act, which claimed for Parliament “full power and authority to make laws and statutes…to bind the colonies and people of America…in all cases whatsoever.” This act echoed the 1719 Irish Declaratory Act, which asserted that Ireland was subordinate to the British king and Parliament. It also imposed new taxes.
As soon as news of the Declaratory Act and the new taxes reached Boston in 1767, the 
Massachusetts legislature circulated a letter to the other colonies standing firm on the right to equality in the British empire. Local groups boycotted taxed goods and broke into warehouses whose owners they thought were breaking the boycott. In 1768, British officials sent troops to Boston to restore order. 
Events began to move faster and faster. In March 1770, British soldiers in Boston shot into a crowd of men and boys harassing them, killing five and wounding six others. Tensions calmed when Parliament in 1772 removed all but one of the new taxes—the tax on tea—but then, in May 1773, it tried to bail out the failing East India Company by giving it a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. The result would be cheaper tea in the colonies, convincing people to buy it and thus establishing Parliament’s right to impose the tax.
Ships carrying the East India tea sailed for the colonies in fall 1773, but mass protests convinced the ships headed to every city but Boston to return to England. In Boston the royal governor was determined to land the cargo. On December 16, 1773, men dressed as Indigenous Americans boarded the Dartmouth, tied to a wharf in Boston Harbor, and tossed the tea overboard. Parliament promptly closed the port of Boston, strangling its economy.
In fall 1774, worried colonial delegates met as the First Continental Congress in Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia to figure out how to stand together against tyranny. In Massachusetts a provincial congress stockpiled weapons and supplies in Concord and called for towns to create companies of men who could be ready to fight on a minute’s notice.
British officials were determined to end the rebellion once and for all. They ordered General Thomas Gage to arrest Boston leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were rumored to be in Lexington, and to seize the supplies in Concord. On the night of April 18, 1775, the soldiers set out. The next morning, on the Lexington town green, the British regulars found several dozen minutemen waiting for them. The locals began to disperse when ordered to, but then a shot cracked through the darkness. The regulars opened fire. Eight locals were killed, another dozen wounded. 
The regulars marched on to Concord, where they found that most of the supplies had been removed. Then, when they turned to march back to Boston, they found their retreat cut off by minutemen firing from behind boulders, trees, and farmhouses. Seventy-three regular soldiers were killed, another 174 were wounded, and 26 were missing. There were 96 colonial casualties: 49 killed, 41 wounded, and 5 missing.
Before disbanding the year before, the First Continental Congress had agreed to meet again if circumstances seemed to require it. After the events at Lexington and Concord, the delegates regrouped in Philadelphia in late spring 1775, down the street from Carpenters’ Hall in the Pennsylvania State House, a building that we now know as Independence Hall.
The Second Continental Congress agreed to pull the military units around Boston into a Continental Army and put George Washington of Virginia in charge of it. But delegates also wrote directly to the king, emphasizing that they were “your Majesty’s faithful subjects.” They blamed the trouble between him and the colonies on “many of your Majesty’s Ministers,” who had “dealt out” “delusive presences, fruitless terrors, and unavailing severities” and forced the colonists to arm themselves in self-defense. They begged the king to use his power to restore harmony with the colonies. By the time the Olive Branch Petition made it to England in fall 1775, the king had already declared the colonies to be in rebellion.
In January 1776 a 47-page pamphlet, published in Philadelphia by newly-arrived immigrant Thomas Paine, provided the spark that inspired his new countrymen to make the leap from blaming the king’s ministers for their troubles to blaming the king himself. “In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” Paine wrote. 
Paine rejected the idea that any man could be born to rule others, and he ridiculed the idea that an island should try to govern a continent. “Where…is the King of America?” Paine asked in Common Sense. “I’ll tell you Friend…so far as we approve of monarchy…in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.
“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
“We have it in our power,” Paine wrote, “to begin the world over again.” 
As Common Sense swept the colonies, people echoed Paine’s call for American independence. By April 1776, states were writing their own declarations of independence, and a Virginia convention asked the Second Continental Congress to consider declaring “the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain.” On June 7, Lee put the resolution forward. Four days later, the Congress appointed a committee to draft such a declaration.  
Congress left time for reluctant delegates to come around to the resolution, so it was not until July 2 that the measure passed. “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” Massachusetts delegate John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3. While we celebrate the signing of the final form of the declaration two days later, the adoption of the Lee Resolution marked the delegates’ ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law.
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
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kp777 · 3 months
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By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
July 1, 2024
The liberal justice said Congress can remedy the "profoundly destabilizing" decision by passing legislation to strengthen the federal regulatory regime.
As the U.S. Supreme Court dealt yet another blow to the federal government's regulatory authority, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday stressed that "the ball is in Congress' court" to enact legislation to "forestall the coming chaos" wrought by the right-wing supermajority's decision.
The justices ruled 6-3 in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System that the Administrative Procedures Act's (APA) statute of limitations period does not begin until a plaintiff is adversely affected by a regulation. The ruling reverses a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Corner Post—a North Dakota truck stop that challenged a U.S. Federal Reserve rule capping debit card swipe fees—because the six-year statute of limitations on such challenges had passed.
Monday's ruling makes it much easier to sue government agencies. As Sydney Bryant and Devon Ombres at the Center for American Progress explained, the decision "is intended to allow a swarm of legal challenges to rules that have protected the American people from bad actors and corporate malfeasance for decades."
"Corner Post is not the story of David versus Goliath but rather the Trojan Horse, where moneyed interests attempt to sneak in their anti-regulation politics under the guise of altruism."
In a dissent joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Jackson wrote that "today, the majority throws... caution to the wind and engages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about statutory limitations periods that we have previously admonished."
"The court's baseless conclusion means that there is effectively no longer any limitations period for lawsuits that challenge agency regulations on their face," she continued. "Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly destabilizing for both government and businesses. It also allows well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new entities or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past the statutory deadline."
"At the end of a momentous term, this much is clear: The tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the court's holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the federal government," Jackson added, referring to last week's 6-3 overturning of the so-called Chevron doctrine, the legal principle under which courts deferred to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous laws passed by Congress.
While numerous business advocates welcomed Monday's ruling, a broad range of consumer, labor, and other groups echoed the alarm in Jackson's dissent.
"Americans expect that safeguards will protect us and our families from unsafe food, products, polluted air and water, and dangerous and unfair working conditions. This decision provides special interests, opposed to the safeguards that people rely upon, with more opportunities to challenge and seek to overturn these important protections," said Rachel Weintraub, executive director of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards.
Weintraub added that the ruling "undermines federal agencies' ability to use administrative courts to impose civil penalties for violating regulatory protections" and "starkly impedes agencies' ability to protect the public."
Bryant and Ombres wrote that "Corner Post is not the story of David versus Goliath but rather the Trojan Horse, where moneyed interests attempt to sneak in their anti-regulation politics under the guise of altruism."
Jackson's dissent states that "Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity and forestall the coming chaos" by "clarifying that the statutes it enacts are designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hobble them."
"In particular, Congress can amend §2401(a)," Jackson offered, referring to the default six-year statute of limitations, "or enact a specific review provision for APA claims, to state explicitly what any such rule must mean if it is to operate as a limitations period in this context: Regulated entities have six years from the date of the agency action to bring a lawsuit seeking to have it changed or invalidated; after that, facial challenges must end."
"By doing this," she added, "Congress can make clear that lawsuits bringing facial claims against agencies are not personal attack vehicles for new entities created just for that purpose."
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moonilit · 2 years
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Alice: I'm adopting a new kid!
Diluc: ?? Congr-
Alice slapping the paper on the table: it's you. Sign here.
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