Jessica Schneider and Veronica Stracqualursi,, - CNN
Stephan: Here we have what I hope will work out to be good news. Thank you NAACP. Louis DeJoy, yet another MAGAt not being held accountable, is still Postmaster General, and still trying to gut the USPS, so that the delivery companies in which his wealth is invested can make more profit. This decision, however, blocks some of his worst depredations.
US Postal Service (USPS) trucks are parked on August 20, 2020 in New York City.
The United States Postal Service announced an agreement Friday with the NAACP on a lawsuit the civil rights organization filed prior to the 2020 election that had challenged USPS delivery delays.Under the settlement, the USPS said it anticipates enacting policies and practices during the 2022 midterms that are similar to the “extraordinary measures” used during the November 2020 general election. Those measures came amid criticism that the USPS, under the leadership of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, implemented changes that impacted the delivery of mail-in ballots during a highly consequential election year and ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Between 2024 and 2028, the Postal Service agreed to publicly post guidance documents that outline its “good faith efforts to prioritize monitoring and timely delivery” of election mail.
Under the new agreement, the agency agreed to meet with NAACP officials in the months before each national primary and general election through 2028 […]
Stephan: I do so hope that David Cay Johnston is correct. Donald Trump belongs in prison for this and a host of other crimes.
Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump Jr. Credit: AFP
Former president Donald Trump will soon be indicted for criminal racketeering under New York state law, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston.
Johnston indicated Saturday afternoon that the charges will stem from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s ongoing investigation into whether Trump’s company misled lenders or tax authorities about the value of its properties.
“I anticipate they’re going to bring a racketeering charge against Trump,” Johnston said. “Certainly Trump’s team, when he’s indicted, and I’m certain he will be indicted, is going to try to lay the blame on everybody else, and so what the prosecutors want to show that is if (Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer) Allen Weisselberg phonied up documents, it was at the direction of Donald Trump.”
MSNBC host Yasmin Vossoughian then pressed Johnston to confirm that he is certain about an impending indictment.
“Oh, yeah,” Johnston responded. “They would not have done all of this and know how much they know … if they weren’t going to to do this. Yeah, they […]
Linda Greenhouse, Contributing Opinion Writer - winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize - The New York Times
Stephan: This is the best assessment of the present Supreme Court representing my view that I have come across. We are undergoing a long term strategy by the Republicans, and those who own them, to destroy democracy.
Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times
When the Supreme Court overturned a 41-year precedent three years ago and ruled that public employees have a right under the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee not to pay union dues, Justice Elena Kagan accused the 5-to-4 majority of “weaponizing the First Amendment” to serve its anti-labor agenda.
Her powerful dissenting opinion in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees helped propel the “weaponizing” image into circulation as an apt description of how the court’s conservatives were hijacking the First Amendment and converting it into a tool of deregulation.
Now it’s the Supreme Court itself that has been weaponized.
With the accuracy of a drone strike, the three justices appointed by President Donald Trump and strong-armed through to confirmation by Senator Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, are doing exactly what they were sent to the court to do.
The resulting path of destruction of settled precedent and long-established norms is breathtaking. Despite the increasingly plaintive reminders by Chief Justice John Roberts that, as Read the Full Article
Stephan: The inability of the EPA to understand what is going on with honey bee communities all over the country, is either the result of stupidity or corruption. Take profit away and it makes no sense at all. I hope this is the start of some good news.
A beekeeper shows dead bees at a protest against the manufacture of harmful chemicals by agrochemical companies on April 26, 2019 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Credit: Oliver Berg/dpa/picture alliance/Getty
After waiting nearly five years for the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to a petition calling for the closing of a regulatory loophole which has proven deadly for honey bee colonies—spelling disaster for farmers’ crops, food security, and biodiversity—two advocacy groups are suing the agency and demanding officials take immediate action to end the use of harmful pesticides known as neonics.
Joined by Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed the lawsuit saying the petition it sent to the EPA in April 2017 regarding the continued use of neonics, or neonicotinoids, provided “the legal blueprint to solve this problem and the legal impetus to do it.”
“Science has shown that coating seeds with pesticides is not only ineffective, but can cause real harm to pollinators, workers, and farmers.”
“While EPA fiddles, grave harm to bees and other pollinators continues,” George Kimbrell, CFS legal […]
Stephan: Ron DeSantis, MAGAt governor of Florida, emboldened by the fact that Donald Trump has not been held accountable for a list of crimes from treason to grifting, is following the model. MAGAt world is making its move. That he is the governor of Florida, tells us that a majority of the people who voted in Florida support this anti-science, White supremacy, authoritarian man. That is alarming.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has offered up the use of this novel enforcement mechanism to fight the culture wars in classrooms and corporations, which should send a chill down any freedom-loving person’s spine. Called the “Stop WOKE Act,” the bill would allow any parent to sue a school district for teaching “critical race theory.”
While “critical race theory” is a scare term the right uses to make it sound like there’s some novel and esoteric indoctrination going on in schools, a little digging shows what Republicans actually mean by the term is any lessons or materials that acknowledge racism had any impact on American history. Conservatives groups are demanding schools ban books […]
