mangledmuse

[atompowers]

"Plaintiffs have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system"

In historic first, Judge Kathy Seeley ruled wholly in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, declaring that the state of Montana violated the youth’s constitutional climate rights

[kp777]

By Julia Conley

Common Dreams

Aug. 7, 2024

"One day after Kamala Harris had a packed house in Philadelphia, she is following it up with another packed house in Wisconsin," said one activist.

Holding her second rally in the crucial swing state of Wisconsin since launching her presidential bid, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted Wednesday by a crowd of people who had waited in miles long lines of cars to see her and her newly announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speak about their campaign for the White House.

A timelapse video posted on X by Adam Duxter, a reporter for local CBS News affiliate WCCO, showed a long line of people waiting to enter a venue that holds 30,000 in Eau Claire, a city that is represented by a Republican in Congress, as campaign staffer Victor Shi said.

"Holy cow," said Shi. "This energy and enthusiasm are freaking jaw-dropping."

Shi also posted a video of the crowd of tens of thousands of people waiting for Harris and Walz to speak, along with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).

The rally came a day after Harris and Walz appeared in Philadelphia for their first official campaign event together as running mates. Harris' selection of Walz has won praise from labor unions, reproductive rights groups, and climate action organizations, with advocates praising his unapologetic support for universal school meals for public school students, paid family and medical leave, a Minnesota law that codified Roe v. Wade, and legal protections for transgender youths who get gender-affirming healthcare.

"One day after Kamala Harris had a packed house in Philadelphia, she is following it up with another packed house in Wisconsin," said Democratic activist Aaron Parnas. "Folks, a movement is brewing."

A photo by Star Tribune photographer Glen Stubbe showed a long line of cars on a road leading to the venue, and KSTP reporter Eric Chaloux filmed a line that began two and a half miles away from the venue.

In late July, days after President Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside in the 2024 election and endorsed Harris, under pressure from Democratic leaders and donors, Harris held her first campaign event in Milwaukee, speaking to a packed auditorium at West Allis Central High School at an event that showed a stark contrast to Biden's events, including a debate in late June where his performance intensified concerns about his age and health.

The crowded venue in Eau Claire and lines that started forming hours before the rally on Wednesday exemplified what one observer called "2008-level enthusiasm among Democrats right now."

Harris and Walz are planning to make stops in North Carolina's Research Triangle; Savannah, Georgia; Phoenix; and Las Vegas during a battleground state tour in the coming days.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

An Ohio judge has upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, as well as its ban on trans girls and women in women's sports. Two families of young trans people filed a lawsuit against the state's law in March after Ohio lawmakers passed the legislation in January by overriding Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto. The families argued that the law violates the Ohio Constitution because it deals with more than one subject — sports and health care — which goes against the single-subject rule. While the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas temporarily ruled in favor of the families in April, Franklin County Judge Michael J. Holbrook overturned its decision Tuesday, allowing the state's law to go into effect. Patients under 18 can no longer receive gender-affirming care, save for an exception allowing those already on the treatment to continue.

Holbrook wrote in his ruling that those “dissatisfied with the General Assembly’s determinations" must settle their grievances "through their vote as opposed to the judicial system.” “This is a devastating result for our clients and families like theirs across the state of Ohio," Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney at American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. "HB 68’s ban on medical treatments for gender dysphoria remains medically baseless and genuinely dangerous to the current and future well-being of transgender youth in the state. We are particularly appalled the court claims the ‘regulation of transgender individuals’ is a legitimate subject for the legislature under the state constitution."

In Moe v. Yost, Judge Michael Holbrook laws Ohio’s gender-affirming care ban for trans minors and trans women in women’s sports ban combo law (HB68) to take effect.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Ohio judge upholds state ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As I leave the land of my spotty youth and leave behind most of the 2022 midterm elections, I do so with a real nostalgia for the following provision of the U.S. Constitution:

Article IV, Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

This was placed into the new Constitution as a further device to exorcize the evil spirits of the Articles of Confederation, which blew goats. The passage has gone largely unexamined almost since it was adopted with the rest of the Constitution. (For example, it’s hardly mentioned in the Federalist Papers, and the Supreme Court, when it has taken up the subject at all, is incoherent on it.) But whatever “a Republican Form of Government” means, it cannot possibly mean the situation as it stands in Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Party got 51% of the vote statewide. This got the Democrats…30% of the seats in the state legislature. Any reasonable definition of “a Republican Form of Government” cannot possibly include this kind of result. It is completely and utterly a product of grotesque partisan gerrymandering sanctioned by the Supreme Court in its disgraceful decision Rucho v. Common Cause three years ago.

The die was cast on this atrocity last April, when the state supreme court ruled that this year’s elections would be contested on the ludicrous maps produced by the state legislature, itself the product of past gerrymanders. The U.S. Supreme Court was a critical accessory after the fact. From Wisconsin Public Radio:

"It was a reversal for Hagedorn, who joined the court's liberals in early March to choose a legislative map drawn by Gov. Tony Evers. But after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Hagedorn's ruling based on the way it applied the federal Voting Rights Act to draw Black-majority districts in Milwaukee, it sent the case back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider all over again."

You will note that the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the court was not shy about meddling with maps in this instance.

"'We could construct one ourselves or with the assistance of an expert, but time and our institutional limitations make that unrealistic at this juncture,' Hagedorn wrote. 'The remaining option is to choose one of the proposed maps we received as the baseline. Only one proposal was represented as race-neutral in its construction: the maps submitted by the Legislature.'

For Democrats, the decision was likely the worst-possible outcome. For the past decade, they've felt the sting of the 2011 map, which Republicans drew when they controlled all branches of state government. Even during years when Democratic candidates have performed well statewide, Republicans have maintained large majorities in the Legislature, thanks in part to a map that political scientists have said is among the biggest partisan gerrymanders in modern U.S. history. The new map, drawn by Republicans and made law by four justices on the state Supreme Court Friday, further entrenched that advantage, giving Republicans a realistic shot at a two-thirds majority that would let them override a governor's veto. It took effect despite being vetoed by Evers last year and being initially rejected by the state Supreme Court last month."

The best chance that Wisconsin has to un-fuck itself here comes next April, when an election could bring a Democratic majority to the state supreme court, which theoretically could open the door to maps that less closely resemble a game of three-card monte. Of course, John Roberts and the gang put the kibosh on the last attempt at un-fucking last April. The roundness and completeness with which extreme conservatism has deformed the American republic is occasionally stunning.

Maps are an indispensable tool for outlining natural features, human boundaries and transportation networks. But when it comes to depicting how many people are in a given place — how populations are distributed —a traditional map has distinct drawbacks. Mapmakers have sought to offset this limitation through an innovation that's known as a cartogram.

There are two types of cartograms. Distance cartograms are often used to show stylized bus or subway routes. They depict networks without strict adherence to location or range. The other type is called an area cartogram. In these graphics, the size of each shape making up the map — like counties, states or nations — is adjusted to represent a different variable, often the number of people living there.

Cartograms can highlight the difference between places with large populations (or large amounts of whatever variable is replacing area) and places with large amounts of land and/or water, but which have small populations. In other words, a cartogram shows population density in a graphic format.

There are many different ways to develop an area cartogram. In a contiguous cartogram, the shape of a specific area is altered to account for differences in population (or another variable), but shapes retain their positions relative to one another. This approach leads to distortion of the basic shapes. Another is a non-contiguous cartogram, which means that the shapes can move and resize without remaining in position with their neighbors. Rather, the shapes keep their usual form, and are scaled in size based on population (or other variable).

Cartograms can be helpful in interpreting data when the number of people is important. For example, area cartograms are often used to display election outcomes when the variable of interest is total number of votes — not some rate or percentage. An election results cartogram is an increasingly common tool used to help highlight dynamics related to population density. In conventional maps showing election results large areas that are sparsely populated take up the most space, and thus have the most visual impact, while more densely populated areas that take up very little land area have far less visual impact despite representing many more people.

In an non-contiguous area cartogram of Wisconsin, the state's counties have been resized according to their their populations. Counties with large populations grow bigger than they would appear on a standard map, and counties with sparse populations shrink in comparison.

These two maps of Wisconsin's counties highlight a few key points about the distribution of the state's population. First, the cartogram emphasizes how overwhelmingly large Milwaukee County's population is, relative to all other counties in the state. Dane and Waukesha counties stand out as the next two largest after Milwaukee. In addition, the other counties on the southern and eastern edges of the state together represent a preponderance of Wisconsin's total population. Another takeaway is just how different an area-based map and a population-scaled map look. It's easy to think of Wisconsin's rural areas as making up a lot of the state, but in terms of population they are quite small.

A cartogram can help make sense of any topic where the important information is in the number of people, and there is wide variation in population density in a region. For example, cartograms can be useful illustrations of economic activity, immigration, school enrollment, votes, jobs or housing numbers.

[90363462]

Republicans, Fear the Young

Nov. 19, 2022Seventy percent of the younger electorate in Pennsylvania voted for John Fetterman.Quinn Glabicki/Reuters

By John Della Volpe

Mr. Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.

Stressed and sickened by thoughts of their rights and democracy slipping away, young Americans across gender, racial, geographic and education lines banded together last week to help save the Democrats from what many foresaw as a sizable midterm defeat. If the elections had been decided by voters 45 and older, Republicans would have won the House by an even greater margin and likely taken the Senate. But thanks to young voters (especially the 18-to-29 age group, which had the second-highest turnout in midterm elections in almost 30 years, according to early estimates from Tufts University), Democrats retained the Senate, showing that an alliance of Gen Z and millennial voters answered history’s call to defend democracy. The majority of them rejected the big lie. They possess the turbulent, kinetic energy that withstands red waves. They will propel Democrats’ progressive agenda forward if the party seizes the moment.

In 2018, young voters were key to Nancy Pelosi regaining the speaker’s gavel. In 2020, millennials and members of Gen Z were instrumental in moving Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin into Joe Biden’s column, thus relegating Donald Trump to a one-term presidency. Winning one election might be an accident. Two, an anomaly. Three in a row proves that earning the support of the Gen Z-millennial alliance is essential to winning elections in our current era.

While Gen Z and millennial voters tend to vote Democratic, the preference is most pronounced in voters under 30. Consider some of the recent exit polls: In Arizona, the incumbent Democratic senator Mark Kelly won 76 percent of the 18-to-29-year-old vote, while the election denier Republican Blake Masters received just 20 percent, according to a CNN exit poll. In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, dominated the youth vote, receiving 70 percent, compared with the 28 percent Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, received. And in Nevada, the incumbent Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto earned re-election against the Republican Adam Laxalt, thanks in no small part to her effort among young voters, whom she won resoundingly: Sixty-four percent, compared to Laxalt’s 31 percent.

This union of Gen Z and millennial voters will account for nearly 40 percent of votes in the next presidential election, according to estimates from the Center for American Progress. Republicans ignore this voting bloc at their peril. Even among white voters — the traditional Republican base — the youngest are slipping away to support Democrats. While midterm estimates show that the majority of whites over 30 years old voted Republican, 58 percent of whites under 30 voted for Democratic House candidates.

This is perhaps not surprising given how out of touch with young people party stalwarts such as Senator Ted Cruz can sometimes seem. Mr. Cruz, potentially provoking millions of voters following Mr. Biden’s student loan forgiveness announcement, said: “If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can’t get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand.”

Democrats who court the youth vote fully will likely outperform their competitors in 2024. Now is the time to listen more intently, see beyond the top-line polling data and better understand the values and vision of this still emerging voting bloc intent on saving the America they believe is under threat.

As the salience of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization illustrates, young voters, both Democratic and Republican, are exceedingly concerned about rights — not just their own. A defining attribute of young Americans today is the degree to which they stand up and fight for those even more vulnerable than they are. Roughly four months before the Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years of precedent on abortion, preserving individual rights and freedoms overpowered more than a dozen other midterm-year issues such as climate change and criminal justice reform, according to a national surveyof likely voters ages 17 to 34 that my firm, SocialSphere, conducted for Snapchat.

Similarly, according to the fall 2022 Harvard Youth Poll, a national survey I oversee for the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, 59 percent of young Americans believe their rights are under attack and 73 percent are troubled that the rights of others are threatened. Defending and expanding fundamental rights must be a cornerstone of the Democrats’ 2024 program. As the right for women to control their bodies animated younger voters in red states and blue, so too could a campaign for the right to inherit a healthy planet, to feel safe in school, to receive quality education, health care and an economy of opportunity.

As the 2022 post-mortems evolve into 2024 strategy, Mr. Biden and Democrats would also be well served to invest more in relational organizing, which enables young Americans to share with their peers the many campaign promises the president successfully delivered. Breaking through the algorithmic bubble of the uninterested is a complex challenge for political operatives. Our research shows that the more closely younger Americans follow politics, the more likely they are to approve of Mr. Biden’s job performance. As Victor Shi, a U.C.L.A. junior and Mr. Biden’s youngest convention delegate in 2020, reminded me, “the messenger matters, and it’s much easier for a young person to listen if it comes from their peer.”

Like all voters, young Americans stay engaged when they recognize the tangible difference their votes can make. By never losing sight of the threat to our democracy and focusing on concrete deliverables such as an assault weapons ban, a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, investments in child care and more affordable housing, Democrats can continue to attract and galvanize this critical part of their evolving base.

Many of the young men and women who voted for Democrats this fall have a complicated relationship with America. They have been told of our exceptionalism but rarely experienced it themselves or seen our nation united. Their brightest political memories are when the powerful protect and defend the vulnerable — like the day in 2015, a zoomer told me recently, when President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Biden lit the White House in rainbow L.G.B.T.Q. Pride colors in honor of the Supreme Court recognizing same-sex marriage. In the eyes of many young voters, this is how America meets its destiny: when the passion of the grass roots melds with the power of institutions to forge progress. As political analysts methodically review the numbers after an election for the ages, anyone interested in the winning formula for 2024 should closely examine those between the ages of 18 and 39.

Mr. Della Volpe (@dellavolpe) is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics and has overseen its youth poll since 2000. He is the author of “Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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[thepitofjob]

Job 31: 16-23. "The Joint."

The reason we want to know which animals chew the cud and which do not is because the ability to intellect is essential to the achievement of the Mashiach. Without its longitudinal view, mankind has gone nowhere. It eats the knowledge of the past, but it cannot chew the cud and therefore its joints, its ability to make conscientious strategic thoughts are out of whack.

So we are back to a discussion about Chabad, but not just in a religious theoretical way. Without Chabad, a cognitive approach in real life, the cud is not chewed. The process works backwards and forewards. One can analyze a Jewish word problem found in the Torah and search for evidence of its proper application, one can begin Chabad with a problem and reverse engineer it in search of a proper prohibition or prrescription in the Torah.

We know the world is experiencing an excess of poverty, homelessness and tyranny. We know this whether or not we read the Torah. But Jews have been reading about these for centuries. To know we are in arrears with the eradication of war, tyranny, and poverty and watch the shit show is a grave wickedness.

Tyrants love this. God hates it. God's hatred of complacency is why man has been told to chew the cud:

16 “If I have denied the desires of the poor     or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, 17 if I have kept my bread to myself,     not sharing it with the fatherless— 18 but from my youth I reared them as a father would,     and from my birth I guided the widow— 19 if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing,     or the needy without garments, 20 and their hearts did not bless me     for warming them with the fleece from my sheep, 21 if I have raised my hand against the fatherless,     knowing that I had influence in court, 22 then let my arm fall from the shoulder,     let it be broken off at the joint. 23 For I dreaded destruction from God,     and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.

If we let the joint between the arm and the should splinter, if we fail at valor, we shall be conquered by those whose wicked objectives must not come to pass. What the US Government did by allowing Donald Trump to cheat in that 2016 election and then dig terror tunnels and make good friends in India, Iran, Russia, and North Korea was a gigantic and stupid mistake, easily fixed. Every step of the way, the Department of Justice and the White House allowed Donald Trump to beat them like dogs and then the world order disintegrated.

He is a very stupid man. His friends in the Party and the Mormons are bean bags. They are all stupid. But they have won the world. How is this possible? How did our brains and our hands become disconnected? What do we say to all the people Donald Trump and the rest hurt while the US Gov was fist fucking itself?

The Zohar says above the righteous were afraid and the enemy was not. There must be fear of God or the world does not turn. Donald Trump, his party and his terror alliances must be stopped. Such things must never be allowed to consume our days again.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 16-17: I have kept my bread to myself. I told the Administration to kill that mother fucker for cheating in the 2016 election ten years ago. I did not keep it to myself, a few concerned persons tried to get rid of him, but nothing worked. The Number is 11138, קיאלח‎, keilah, "the community assembly."

All year long the media has watched and provided insight into what was going to happen should a convicted felon, cheater, child molester, and traitor continue his return to power. Every step of the way the red carpet was thrown down, the debates continued, and while this was happening, the Russians, Iranians, Chinese, Indians, and North Koreans saw, once again, how we don't have what it takes. We get caught up, and can't get free.

Our entire navy and air force could have freed Ukraine last year this time and cleared Hamas and Hezbollah out of the Middle East, but instead, we focused on bandaids and water bottles for the poor Palestinians who robbed the world of its dignity.

During this time, the Prince of Wales and KC3 started contracting with the Episcopal Church, Catholic Church, Mormons, Waltons, Greens, Marriotts and Mitt Romney to abduct, rape, and in some cases murder American citizens and expatriates in ways that are too disgusting and elaborate to publish in order to ensure solidarity against them here in America and abroad did not succeed. They are also still in power, as the police and CIA have not responded in a manner that is efficacious or final.

v. 18-19: I have seen people perishing from lack of clothing. Have you? The Number is 11105, יאיה,yei, "what is proper."

v. 20-21: But I had influence in court. I could not believe the police and the Department of Justice called all of this "complex" and could not figure out how to lift a finger and protect the human race from this bullshit. To this very moment, the government is acting puzzled as to what to do about all the crime it has allowed.

There has been no brilliance whatsoever at work in curbing the wickedness that is overshadowing every minute of our lives.

The Number is 8537, ח‎הגז‎ ‎, "as a box."

The screen rant has a purpose. We are boxed in by logic that does not serve the purposes of the Torah or any faith on earth. Inside a box, logic bounces back on itself. By stating the crimes of Donald Trump and the Republicans were too complex, the government decided to allow powerful men and women to abuse and exploit their constituents and the citizens of other countries. The Torah says the logic is not boxed, it is a very straight line between the law and those it is supposed to protect or prosecute.

When that butthole Anythony Blinken got off his plane yesterday and started telling the government of Israel once again to protect terrorists, I almost shit kittens. He obviously lives in a box. Fortunately the law says the IDF does not need to do any such thing and Hamas can be killed to the last man at its leisure without the need for any ridiculous humanitarian pauses.

The time for that was before a bunch of Mormons decided to pack the shelves of their shitty apartments with missiles, bullets, and enough crystal meth to make Godzilla throw his dinosaur legs up.

v. 22-23: I let my arm fall from my shoulder. Legal documents that protect us from crime, guarantee civil rights and protect the environment are our salvation, not religion. Without tediousness towards secular laws, we cannot be saved. The application of the spiritual sentiment through secular law is why we chew the cud using Chabad.

The Number is 6131, ואגא‎, and aga, "and taunt." To taunt is to get man to act according to his laws and principals. Taunting is for children, not for civilized societies and their governments.

President Biden could have shot Donald Trump in the head, legally, after the siege of January 6, which was clearly a well planned act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in response to my reports they were engaged in trafficking in sex with minors with and for President Trump and his entire cabinet. They turned the misfortune of my reports to the police into a religious crusade that eventually turned into the plan to attack Israel on October 7.

We need to cover some ground and fast on all of this and return the sanity and prosperity these mistakes have stolen from their proper owners. The time for valor is past, that is very sad. Now is the time for remorse, but still we must make our way and cannot stop. The onset of the Mashiach depends on it.

[dankusner]

Governors defend bans on care for trans youths

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster led a group of nine Republican governors in filing an amicus brief in United States v. Skrmetti in support of a Tennessee law barring transgender minors from receiving certain medical care.

The case hinges on whether banning gender-affirming care for minors violates the Equal Protection Clause – a section of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that bars states from enforcing laws that 'shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.'

In March 2023, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone treatment.

Now, the high court will determine whether the law infringes on constitutional rights after the Biden administration petitioned the court after intervening in the lawsuit.

McMaster, who signed a similar bill into law earlier this year, argued that the law does not infringe on any rights but that governors’ decisions to sign the bills into law 'fall squarely within the states’ long-recognized power.'

States legislate on controversial medical questions frequently, McMaster said, including medical marijuana, vaccinations and abortion.

'All those topics draw strong opinions and split experts.

And all those topics have seen states take divergent approaches.'

'Governors have signed these prohibitions on experimental gender-transition procedures into law because they – and the citizens of their states – want to protect children. The goal is to keep children from making life-changing decisions that they may later regret,' the brief argues. 'That’s not some radical position. States prohibit children from making certain decisions all the time.'

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in a brief that the Tennessee law 'explicitly classifies based on sex and discriminates based on transgender status.'

'Because S B1’s prohibition applies only when a covered treatment is prescribed to allow individuals to live in conformity with a gender identity other than their sex assigned at birth, the law does not restrict the provision of puberty blockers or hormones for any other purpose.'

In his filed response, Jonathon Skrmetti, Tennessee’s Attorney General, argued that the law makes no mention of 'sex classification.'

'S B1 includes no sex classification. It draws a line between minors seeking drugs for gender transition and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes. And boys and girls fall on both sides of that line,' Skrmetti said.

In May, McMaster signed H.4624, dubbed the Help Not Harm Bill, banning puberty blockers and hormone treatment for those under 18. It also made it a felony to perform gender reassignment surgery on those under the age of 18.

Minors could still be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapies to treat conditions such as precocious puberty or endometriosis.

Tennessee’s bill acts similarly to South Carolina’s bill as it bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors but allows minors to be prescribed them for some medical conditions.

[lesser-mook]

MUST WATCH: Lisa McClain Goes Head To Head With Witness: ‘You Have No Facts!’

Lisa McClain Goes Head To Head With Witness: ‘You Have No Facts!’

https://youtu.be/r4w90P4-iZg

Jokes aside, it’s how he came at her just to be contrary, that “Actually” attitude with no facts or argument, just contrary to be contrary, zero respect- Is issue #1 with his detraction.

He’s not even honest enough to address the figures as she stated them, no he’s just here to insinuate she’s a liar on national television when she has the numbers in her friggin hands.

No credence, no good will, nothing. Just a wise-guy. It’s not even him disagreeing, it’s the lack of honesty and respect here.

The figures are MORE than half of half, you don’t even try to address that before trying to rationalize with excuses.

Someone like this is proof the destabilization is working & accepted to some people, that’s the scary part.

Someone with her kind of drive to give a hoot, and fire to shut down bullshit is someone who should be President.

But that goes against the narrative/ it goes against the agenda doesn’t it? We can’t have this lady (or anyone sane) raising hell & weeding out the corruption as President.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g3e_kqTlZE&ab_channel=WolvesAndFinance

We need to make sure we sabotage the U.S, their dollar, their birthrates, their culture, their youth, their workface, their backbone etc.

Divert revenue by raising taxes/ redirect profitability elsewhere, collapse the social stability, turn people against each other, disconnect the sex, prioritize hedonism over humanity: So the last thing we need is someone in Office that will fix the problems that we want to happen to establish Idon’t know… a United Global Gov. ?

If the United States is going strong, if the people are taken care of, birthrates up, profits up, workforce/stock market are healthy, competent healthcare, Vets taken care of. We laughed in the face of woke culture & prevented American culture from becoming a Global joke, and Americans are god forbid: HAPPY?

Logically, if a modern day (could’ve been) Empire is actually doing well- Then we can’t justify the need for a One World, New World Order, now can we?

Get rid of the competition, plant rotten seeds in the soil, bring the whole damn tree down.

Destroy the family. Redefine normal. Push alternative lifestyles that no Country or Nation could thrive on in it’s early stages of Civilization SO WHY tf do you think is a good idea to push it now. Tax raises, Erratic Gov. Spending. Misandry, corrupting women, castrating the male, shame the male/smother him in fantasy & eternal escapism (peter pan syndrome), smother the female in entitlement and narcissist delusion. Disconnect.

Backdoor corrupt dealings with a certain nation in the East. Inviting Illegal Aliens to disrespect both our borders, our women, Americans Tax dollars/thus the American people, and the Immigrants doing the process the right way.

Sabotage. Destabilize. Fall. Engineering Collapse.

“Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.”

[pashterlengkap]

Families sue to stop Missouri’s trans health care ban from going into effect next month

A lawsuit to block Missouri’s ban on gender-affirming care was filed in a state court in Cole County earlier this week. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed S.B. 49 into law in June. It bans all gender-affirming treatments, including reversible puberty blockers, for trans youth until August 2027. Any healthcare providers who violate the law risk losing their license. The law also bans both adults in Missouri state prisons and adults on the state’s Medicaid program from accessing gender-affirming care. --- Related Stories Kansas City declares itself a “sanctuary city” for transgender people The move comes in response to the state’s Republican-led legislature passing two bills aimed at limiting the rights of transgender Missourians. --- The law goes into effect on August 28, but a group of families, medical providers, and LGBTQ+ organizations is trying to stop that from happening, arguing that the ban violates the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee and interferes with parental rights when it comes to determining their kids’ health care. Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you. “S.B. 49 is the latest chapter in Missouri’s relentless attacks on transgender people, and the stories of the families challenging the law demonstrate the immense, devastating harm it is already inflicting on their lives,” said Lambda Legal’s Nora Huppert. “S.B. 49 would deny adolescent transgender Missourians access to evidence-based treatment supported by the overwhelming medical consensus. This law is not just harmful and cruel; it is life-threatening.” The plaintiffs include several people who were plaintiffs in a previous lawsuit to block Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s April emergency rule that imposed severe restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans people in the state, including adults. They won a temporary injunction against the rule and Bailey later rescinded it, but a month after he rescinded it, Parson signed S.B. 49. The plaintiffs in Noe v. Parson include three families of transgender youth, including the family of Nicholas Noe, a 10-year-old trans boy. The complaint says that Noe first made his gender identity known when he was six years old. At that age, the complaint says, he decided to wear “boy clothes” and hasn’t stopped since. He has been seeing a therapist and has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. He has socially transitioned but has not started any medical process for his transition. He wants to go through male puberty and be a man one day. As such, the standard of care would be to start puberty blockers at the onset of puberty and then later, hormone replacement therapy. But now he’s worried that he will be forced to go through female puberty because of S.B. 49. His mother tried to keep the news of the law away from Nicholas, but he heard about it through family members. “Nicholas broke down sobbing and asking his mother if Missouri would — as some other state’s policies have threatened to do — take him away from his family,” the complaint states. Southampton Community Healthcare is also a plaintiff in the case, and they provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth. If S.B. 49 goes into effect, they say they will have to deny patients medically necessary and life-saving care, conflicting with their professional oaths. PFLAG and the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights are also plaintiffs in the case. Transgender advocates have been successful in blocking gender-affirming care bans from going into effect in most other states that passed them, except for Tennessee. http://dlvr.it/Ssr1z2

[davidrivkin]

The NRA vs. the Censorship "Mob"

By David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Andrew M. Grossman

December 27, 2022, in the Wall Street Journal

It’s the classic threat of B-movie mobsters: Nice business you got there, it’d be a shame if something happened to it. Government shouldn’t operate like that, but it too often does, sometimes to evade the Constitution’s limits on its power. A recent decision by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the practice and provided a road map for officials to circumvent the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech.

Maria Vullo led the New York State Department of Financial Services, which has broad power to regulate almost every major financial player in the U.S. After the February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., Ms. Vullo and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a press release stating that the department would “urge” the insurers, banks and companies it regulates “to review any relationships they may have with the National Rifle Association” for “reputational risk.”

The goal was to punish the NRA for its gun-rights advocacy. The press release quoted Ms. Vullo as saying that corporations need to “lead the way” on “positive social change . . . to minimize the chance” of future shootings. “DFS urges all insurance companies and banks doing business in New York to join the companies that have already discontinued their arrangements with the NRA.”

Ms. Vullo followed through with official guidance to regulated entities. Citing “the social backlash against the National Rifle Association” and society’s “responsibility to act,” the guidance directed insurers and banks to evaluate the “reputational risks” of “dealings with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations.”

Behind the scenes, Ms. Vullo was pressuring senior executives of the insurance syndicate Lloyd’s of London. In 2017 she had launched an investigation of insurers that formed partnerships with the NRA to sell “affinity” insurance, including gun-owner policies. The basis was twofold: technical violations of disclosure rules and alleged violation of state law by covering losses, including criminal-defense costs, even when policyholders were found to have illegally discharged their weapons.

The NRA alleges in a lawsuit that, in a meeting with Lloyd’s, Ms. Vullo acknowledged that these problems were widespread in the marketplace but made clear that her focus was the NRA policies. The key to minimizing liability, she emphasized, was joining the department’s efforts to combat the availability of firearms by weakening the NRA.

Lloyd’s got the message. Despite its reputation for insuring even the most controversial risks, it understood that its regulator considered working with one of the nation’s most broadly supported advocacy organizations to be off-limits. Lloyd’s publicly announced that it was terminating all business with the NRA. It signed a consent decree with DFS permanently barring it from participating in any insurance program with the NRA—rather than the usual remedy of bringing policies into compliance and possibly paying a fine. The decree didn’t cover the non-NRA policies that ran afoul of the same New York laws. The NRA says its corporate insurer refused to renew its policy because it feared similar reprisals after seeing DFS target Lloyd’s and another NRA-affinity insurer.

In Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963), officials from the Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth sent letters to booksellers informing them that it had identified certain books and magazines as “objectionable” and noting its power to recommend obscenity prosecutions. The U.S. Supreme Court held that this “informal censorship” violated the First Amendment. Although the government didn’t seize or ban any books, it “deliberately set about to achieve the suppression” of protected speech.

So did Ms. Vullo. As the Second Circuit observed, she “plainly favored gun control over gun promotion” and therefore “sought to convince DFS-regulated entitles to sever business relationships with gun promotion groups.” Yet the judges concluded that was reasonable.

Their logic is circular: The NRA’s advocacy led to a “backlash” that could “affect the New York financial markets,” given that “a business’s response to social issues can directly affect its financial stability in this age of enhanced corporate social responsibility.” So Ms. Vullo’s entreaties to drop the NRA weren’t threats, but actions “to protect DFS-regulated entities and New York residents from financial harm and to preserve stability in the state’s financial system.”

It’s fanciful to suggest that selling insurance to, or in partnership with, the NRA poses a threat to New York’s financial system. More important, the Constitution’s protections don’t amount to much if government officials can censor disfavored opinions simply by labeling them “reputational risk.” And even if such risk is real, empowering government officials to engage in censorship on that basis creates a heckler’s veto over controversial speech: Gin up enough online outrage or disagreement by officials or purported experts, and you can justify censoring anything or anyone.

The Biden White House successfully pressed Twitter to shut down accounts, including journalist Alex Berenson’s , for bucking the expert consensus on Covid vaccines. The FBI and Twitter cooperated in 2020 to censor humorous tweets about the election and voting. The Cato Institute’s Will Duffield has identified 62 recent instances of government officials making specific demands to censor speech on social-media platforms. This kind of “jawboning” by government officials usually occurs in the shadows and rarely comes to light. It can be difficult to identify when official encouragement crosses the line into coercion.

The Supreme Court will have to take up the question sooner or later, and an NRA appeal would present a strong opportunity to do so. The DFS has broad discretionary power to regulate industries on which almost everybody depends. That makes it all the more crucial to ensure that it respects the Constitution.

Mr. Rivkin served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Mr. Grossman is a senior legal fellow at the Buckeye Institute. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nra-vs-the-censorship-mob-national-rifle-association-weapons-shootings-rules-defense-banks-insurers-11672176818

[opedguy]

Trumped Blamed for GOP Failures

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Nov. 13, 2022.--Blaming Trump for the poor showing in the Nov. 8  Midterms, the Republican Party has piled on 76-year-old President Donald Trump, completely missing the real reasons for the lack of results.  Losing the Senate again, the GOP has little clout in the remaining two years of the Biden administration where it’s possible for Democrats to continue profligate spending that could send the country into a protracted recession.  But when it comes to Trump, all the anti-Trump forces have come out of the woodwork, scapegoating Truth for the GOP’s turn to the extreme right.  When Trump ran for president in 2016, ironically he was slammed by his GOP for being a “New York liberal”  Today, Trump’s MAGA brand has morphed into the most extreme end of the GOP, culminating Jan. 6, 2021 with white nationalist groups aping out on the U.S. Capitol in utterly unsightly riots.

Republicans, Democrats and independents have “Trump fatigue,” no longer finding him electable, regardless of his four-year track record of low-inflation growth and peace overseas.  Yet the U.S. press has it in for Trump, giving him zero credit for his many accomplishments in the economy and foreign policy.  Today, 79-year-old President Joe Biden has opted to wreck decades of diplomacy with Russia and China, leaving the U.S. in the worst national security place since WW II.  Unlike Trump, Biden, since taking office, has wrecked U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations, to the point that the U.S. prosecutes in Ukraine a proxy war against the Russian Federation.  Biden, for some unknown reason, has a consensus in Congress using the old anti-Russian claptrap, saying 70-year-old Russian President  Vladimir Putin is trying to take over Europe--complete rubbish to justify the Ukraine War.

Midterm elections sent a loud message to Republicans that the party has lurched too far to the right.  When the Supreme Court ruled June 24 against Roe v. Wade, taking away a women’s medical decision-making, the GOP cheered, showing relief after living with Roe v. Wader for nearly 53 years.  Republicans, especially the most conservative ones, got what they wanted, robbing a women of their medical rights.  Democrats and the press like to blame newly minted conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court like Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, all Trump appointees.  But Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Aliton all joined the 6-3 ruling.  Exit polling for the Nov. 8 Midterms showed the youth voters under 40-years-old and single women turned completely off to the Republican Party, not for one election maybe forever.

Republican Party under the anti-abortion crowd has turned the part of Lincoln into an extremist political party, consumed with issues irrelevant to ordinary voters.  While most voters want peace-and-prosperity, something not happening under Biden, the divided nation requires the GOP to show some sensitivity to mainstream thinking.  Only 25% of the electorate opposes abortion, that leaves 75% that agreed with the basic principle of Roe v. Wade:  That women have a Constitutional right to medical-decision making.  Ripping away women’s rights was not the way for the GOP to win friends and influence people.  Whether Trump announces his 2024 run Tuesday or not, the GOP has real problems going forward in any 2024 election.  Democrats no longer need Biden to run in 2024.  Any number of younger candidates, including Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, would beat any generic Republican candidate.

When it comes to Trump’s chosen candidates losing in the Nov. 8 Midterms, it’s unreasonable to blame Trump.  Take 63-year-old former TV talk show host Mehmet Oz, he just didn’t persuade enough Pennsylvania voters that his brain damaged rival, 53-year-old John Fetterman was unfit.  What does Trump have to do with any candidates’ ability to influence voters?  Conservative media pundit Anne Coulter, 60, went ape on Trump, blaming him for the GOP mess.  But Coulter and other conservatives don’t want to admit that the GOP is no a longer viable party for national elections. If you can’t appeal to young people or single women, what’s left for the party?  Only appealing to the geriatric population?  Trump, whether he likes it or not, falls into the same category as Sen. Mitch McConnelll (R-Ky.), aging leaders that needs to step aside so a new general of leaders can eventually rescue the party.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel needs to take a serious inventory of the GOP’s direction heading into 2024.  Whether or not Trump’s in the picture, the GOP must appeal of young voters and single moms, not by gloating about the Supreme Court’s wrecking ball, ending Roe v. Wade.  McDaniel must take seriously the very real prospect that that GOP, as configured today, is no longer competitive in national elections. Trump’s MAGA base only represents 25% of the electorate, not enough to win another presidential election.  Republicans must start over by proving to voters that they’re not the party to take away women’s rights or any other rights for that matter.  Partisan hacks, like Coulter, want to point fingers but they don’t want to take an honest inventory of the Republican Party.  No party in U.S. history has celebrated its own self-destruction.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.    

[kp777]

Montana youths take climate case to trial in historical first

By Megan Michelotti

Independent Record

Feb. 15, 2023

Some Montana youths say they are fed up with their big sky being polluted in Big Sky Country and their Treasure State losing its value to the obtrusive hands of climate change.

On March 13, 2020, 16 young Montanans filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against the state of Montana — two days before COVID-19 started shutting down the United States. Held et al v. Montana is now the nation's first-ever youth constitutional climate case set to go to trial.

The case asserts that by supporting a fossil fuel-driven energy system, the state is violating its own constitutional rights “to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life's basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways. In enjoying these rights, all persons recognize corresponding responsibilities,” according to Article II, Section 3 of Montana’s Constitution.

Montana's Constitution was adopted in 1972, replacing the original 1889 constitution.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare Montana’s State Energy Policy, parts C-G and the Climate Change Exception in the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Section 2, part A that was passed in 1971 as unconstitutional. They also ask that the state be ordered to develop a remedial plan based on what scientific research recommends to protect the youth plaintiff's constitutional rights from continuing to be infringed upon.

Lander Busse, one of the 16 plaintiffs, said it is a matter of accountability. 

“As much as we want to think about the historical retrospect or how big of an impact this could have on a wider scale, our mission right now is to make sure we’re holding our Montana government accountable for their violations of our state constitution,” he said. “... It’s sad that it’s falling on us, the youth, to do this and not the adults, our elected officials, who know this material best.”

Montana’s State Energy Policy has goals of developing and utilizing Montana’s “vast coal reserves” and increasing oil and gas exploration in the state. In MEPA, Montana lawmakers codified a provision that prohibits the state from considering regional, national or global impacts when debating permits for projects that require an environmental impact statement.

The case states how greenhouse gas emissions are “triggering a host of adverse consequences in Montana,” such as increasing temperatures, extreme weather events, wildfires, glacial melt, changing precipitation patterns, droughts and floods and causing adverse health risks to many, especially children.

Other defendants named in the 104-page lawsuit are former Gov. Steve Bullock and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the Montana Department of Transportation, and the Montana Public Service Commission.

The trial is scheduled for June 12 in front of Montana 1st Judicial District Judge Kathy Seeley.

Read more.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and restrictions on it for trans adults can be enforced while a lawsuit against it proceeds. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the state is likely to win the case, known as Doe v. Ladapo, so the injunction against the law should be stayed. Doe is one of the anonymous plaintiffs who sued, and Ladapo is the Florida surgeon general. “The district court likely misapplied the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith when it concluded that the prohibition and regulation provisions, and the implementing rules, were based on invidious discrimination against transgender minors and adults,” the majority opinion states. Judges Britt C. Grant and Robert J. Luck were in the majority.

Judge Charles R. Wilson dissented, writing that the district court had “identified sufficient record evidence to support concluding that the act’s passage was based on invidious discrimination against transgender adults and minors” and that “withholding access to gender-affirming care would cause needless suffering.” In a June 11 ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a permanent injunction against the law and the restrictions, finding them unconstitutional.

[...]

The ban on gender-affirming care for minors was first enacted in March 2023 through the adoption of rules by the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Joseph Ladapo, and the Florida Department of Health. SB 254, which was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and took effect in May 2023, wrote the ban into state law, subject to a narrow continued-use exception for minors who had started treatment before the ban. SB 254 also created felony criminal and civil penalties for Florida medical providers. It further added severe restrictions that effectively blocked access to essential medical care for trans adults and minors who would be eligible for the continued-use exception, including requiring that care be provided exclusively by physicians, barring telehealth, and requiring patients to complete unique, onerous, and misleading consent forms.

A three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 that Florida is permitted to enforce its gender-affirming care ban on trans youths and restrictions on trans adults law SB254 while the Doe v. Ladapo lawsuit continues to proceed.

[buchino]

I made an animation for Our Children’s Trust.

 The short and the long of it is: the climate crisis is only getting worse. Heating is the symptom; increased concentrations of greenhouse gases is the cause. We need to enact policy that is tied to variables we control—the amount of carbon in the air (350 parts per million), not degrees of temperature (1.5°C, 2°C, etc.).

If you wax nostalgic for Paul Rand and mid-century nuclear fallout animations like I do, you’re gonna love Why 350 ppm?!

Written by Our Children’s Trust & Michael Buchino Art direction, production, illustration by Michael Buchino Animation by Michael Buchino & Ryan Tiszai Narration by Sarah Hovermale Voice Recording by Groundswell Studios Music by Michael Buchino & Yoko Silk

Our Children’s Trust is a non-profit law firm that represents and supports youth in demanding an end to government sanctioned climate destruction and judicial enforcement of their constitutional rights to a safe climate.

Their documentary, Youth v. Gov, is streaming now on Netflix.

[where-the-wild-things-sleep]

I know we’re all still riding the Heartstopper hype wave but there’s something else to be excited abt on Netflix rn!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💖

If you’re a fan of the environment and you live in the US (or have a VPN to trick Netflix into thinking you’re in the US) you should watch “Youth v Gov”!! If you didn’t know, there are a group of youth who are suing the US government over its involvement in climate change, and they have all the evidence required, but the government keeps petitioning to keep their case out of the courts. Spread the word and support their cause!! 🌍 🌎 🌏

📢 If we don’t act now, nothing will change! I don’t want to live in a world destroyed by pollution, and neither do you!! 📢

[film-focus-mind]

Would you guys mind if I posted a video that’s for a class project? It’s just of me promoting a movie about the Juiliana v America case that’s showing at the local film festival. I just thought there’s over 1,100 of you, so at least someone would consider buying a ticket. The individual tickets aren’t expensive and you have 48 hours to watch the movie after purchase. It’s going to be available next Friday.