Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, Investigative Reporter - The New York Times
Stephan: Alabama, a reliably Republican state would be a third-world country, as this investigative journalism describes, if it were not part of the United States. And amazingly the voters of Alabama are so manipulated by racism and fear that they reliably vote Republican and keep this failed state going even though it makes their lives needlessly difficult and keeps them in poverty.
Credit: Trent Bozeman / The New York Times
In states like Alabama, almost every interaction a person has with the criminal justice system comes with a financial cost. If you’re assigned to a pretrial program to reduce your sentence, each class attended incurs a fee. If you’re on probation, you’ll pay a fee to take your mandatory urine test. If you appear in drug court, you will face more fees, sometimes dozens of times a year. Often, you don’t even have to break the law; you’ll pay fees to pull a public record or apply for a permit. For poor people, this system is a trap, sucking them into a cycle of sometimes unpayable debt that constrains their lives and almost guarantees financial hardship.
While almost every state in the country, both red and blue, levies fines and fees that fall disproportionately on the bottom rung of the income ladder, the situation in Alabama is far more dramatic, thanks to the peculiarities of its Constitution. Over a century ago, wealthy landowners and businessmen rewrote the Constitution to cap […]
Stephan: I clearly am not the only analyst who sees the implications of the Great Schism Trend. If you look at the social outcome data it is obvious that life for ordinary people in Red states is significantly inferior to life in Blue states. States like Texas, for instance, run by a fascist oligarchy is essentially a failed state, implementing policies remarkably like Russia under Putin. Personally, I think if the Red states want to become anocracies and the people of the Red states vote for such developments, so be it. What concerns me is that the Red states will try, as this article lays out, to use the federal level of government to impose on the Blue states the White supremacy christofascism the Red states are embracing. For example, it makes the governments of Red states crazy that Blue states support gender and racial equality, and want to educate their children in public schools using actual facts to do that instead of indoctrinating them in christofascist racist nonsense in religious and charter schools. Basically the same thing Putin is now doing in Russian schools.
Christofascist Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to reporters before the US Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 26, 2022.
It was a revealing sign of the times when the Supreme Court last week, in response to a lawsuit from the Republican state attorneys general in Texas and Louisiana, blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from changing a key element of federal immigration policy.
The case was just the latest example of how red states, supported by Republican-appointed judges, are engaging in a multi-front offensive to seize control of national policy even while Democrats hold the White House and nominally control both the House and Senate. The red states are moving social policy sharply to the right within their borders on issues from abortion to LGBTQ rights and classroom censorship, while simultaneously working to hobble the ability of either the federal government or their own largest metro areas to set a different course.
To a degree unimaginable even a decade ago, this broad offensive increasingly looks like an effort to define a nation within a nation […]
Stephan: The United States, because of the control the weapons industry has over the federal government, is the world's largest death merchant. Sadly, as this article describes the Biden administration has been woefully remiss in not changing this, which it could.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, shown in March, calls a Trump-era regulatory shift “essentially a giveaway to gun manufacturers. ” Credit: Tom Williams / CQ / Roll Call
Democrats in the House and Senate are rebuking the Biden administration over a decision to leave in place a Trump-era regulatory change that detractors argue caused gun exports to soar, including to countries with poor human rights track records.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden said he would reverse a decision by the Trump administration to move export oversight of firearms from the State Department to the Commerce Department. But 18 months into his administration, that has yet to happen — even as gun sales, including those of semiautomatic weapons, have ramped up steeply.
“There are fewer registration requirements, less oversight, more exemptions, and significantly curtailed congressional review,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, at a House Foreign Affairs hearing last week. “It was essentially a giveaway to gun manufacturers a few years ago, and it seems to have worked.”
Deepening the frustration felt by Capitol Hill […]
Stephan: This is a major trend getting almost no media coverage or discussion in the Congress. Americans are frightened, over half of us "feel like they’re in imminent danger at least once a day." This is shaping our culture in a very negative way.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK —Over half of Americans feel like they’re in imminent danger at least once a day. A new poll of 2,000 Americans analyzed how they feel about their personal safety and found 52 percent feel on edge every day.
Younger Americans were the most likely to feel concerned about their safety on a daily basis – with 75 percent of those between 25 and 34 agreeing with this statement compared to just 50 percent of those 45 to 54.
Dark streets and sidewalks trigger their anxiety the most, followed by neighborhoods they aren’t too familiar with. Next in line were parking garages and riding alone in a rideshare or taxi. Speaking of rideshare services, 39 percent of respondents completely avoid them because they don’t feel safe taking them. This jumps to 50 percent for those between 25 and 34.
Top safety tip: share your location
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Arlo, the survey asked respondents what tips and tricks they use to make themselves feel safer and found 56 percent share their location with […]
Stephan: This article about the way Americans view the Supreme Court ought to be seen as an enormous alarm bell. That it is not I find very significant. In fact I see this as one component of a trend. If you look at the various polls being conducted it is clear, to me at least, that there is a major rift between the American government and the American people. Three-quarters of Americans supported Roe, yet the Supreme Court paid no attention to that and overturned Roe. There is a very strong belief amongst Americans that something should be done about the sale of weapons of war to the general public. Congress doesn't have much interest in that. A large percentage of people, as I reported in the previous article are constantly frightened and in fear for their safety. Big yawn from Congress. A significant percentage of Americans do not trust the police, convinced -- correctly, I think -- that many police departments and sheriffs are facist over-armed racist bullies. All of this is destroying the sense of security a democracy needs to have to be able to prosper.
The U.S. Supreme Court Credit: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty
67% of Americans favor term limits for Supreme Court justices, per a new poll from AP and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Driving the news: That includes 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans.
43% of Americans also saythey have “hardly any” confidence in the court — up from 27% three months ago.
