Ruth Marcus, Columnist - Reader Supported News / The Washington Post
Stephan:
The Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, criminal Trump, and the christofascist Republicans in the Senate, after years of effort, have achieved what they have wanted: a Supreme Court that is not a court based on justice and laws, but a court dominated by a corrupt political cabal. In one decision that cabal has transformed the United States from a democracy into a quasi-monarchy.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Credit: Getty
Ignore the majority’s protestations to the contrary. The Supreme Court has just ruled that the president is, in fact, above the law — absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for some conduct and “presumptively” immune for much else. This broad grant of immunity raises the stakes for November’s election immeasurably. The risk is no longer just that Donald Trump will evade responsibility for his actions as president, though that seems close to foreordained by Monday’s ruling. It is that he will be emboldened by the protection the court just gave him to behave even more unconscionably in a second term.
If I sound worked up, it is because a six-justice majority opinion in the aptly named Trump v. United States is bad beyond my wildest imaginings. The court might have had legitimate concerns about the implications of its rulings not for Trump but for future presidents who might be chilled in exercising their constitutional […]
Since we are now reduced to being a semi-kingdom, potentially ruled by a rapist and crook, if Americans elect Trump as king I think this is what we should prepare ourselves for: Military tribunals, and the persecution of anyone who has offended the monarch. Look at what has happened to people like Stormy Daniels who behaved as citizens should, and has had her life destroyed.
Liz Cheney Credit: DNYUZ
Former President Donald J. Trump over the weekend escalated his vows to prosecute his political opponents, circulating posts on his social media website invoking “televised military tribunals” and calling for the jailing of President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence, among other high-profile politicians.
Mr. Trump, using his account on Truth Social on Sunday, promoted two posts from other users of the site that called for the jailing of his perceived political enemies.
One post that he circulated on Sunday singled out Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who is a Republican critic of Mr. Trump’s, and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.
“Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” the post said. “Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.”
A separate post included photos of 15 former and current elected officials that said, in all-capital letters, “they should be going to jail on Monday not Steve Bannon!” […]
The christofascists have achieved yet another win in gutting public school libraries. South Carolina, a Republican Red State, of course, has now made it possible for the christofascists to make sure that school children can only read what they approve. As a result, an already rather poorly educated state will now become more ignorant. It is happening in Republican-controlled states all over the country. It is all part of the Great Schism Trend that is splitting us into two countries.
Ellen Weaver speaks in Anderson, South Carolina, on 22 August 2022. Credit: Meg Kinnard / AP
South Carolina has implemented one of the most restrictive book ban laws in the US, enabling mass censorship in school classrooms and libraries across the state.
Drafted by Ellen Weaver, the superintendent of education and close ally of the far-right group Moms for Liberty, the law requires all reading material to be “age or developmentally appropriate”. The vague wording of the legislation – open to interpretation and deliberately inviting challenge – could see titles as classic as Romeo and Juliet completely wiped from school shelves.
“All we’re going to have left is Lassie from here on out,” said Shanna Miles, an author and school librarian born and raised in South Carolina. “They’re not going to stop at one aspect of society they don’t like; they will keep on going. Now [that] they have a taste of power, this is never going to end.”
South Carolina’s recent regulation is part of an alarmingly broader nationwide fight against literature exploring race, sexuality, or anything seemingly contentious or divisive. […]
Loz Blain, Staff Writer - New Atlas / The Japan News (Japan)
Stephan:
Here is a fascinating bit of good news from Japan. The country’s engineers, scientists, and, leadership have come up with a technology to get freight-hauling trucks off their highways.
The Tokyo-Osaka automated logistics system, pictured using generative tools, will use conveyor belts or small, autonomous carts to move cargo. Credit: Japan News
The Japanese government is planning to connect major cities with automated zero-emissions logistics links that can quietly and efficiently shift millions of tons of cargo, while getting tens of thousands of trucks off the road.
According to The Japan News, the project has been under discussion since February by an expert panel at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism ministry. A draft outline of an interim report was released Friday, revealing plans to complete an initial link between Tokyo and Osaka by 2034.
Japan’s well-known population collapse issues foretell severe labor squeezes in the coming years, and one specific issue this project aims to curtail is the continuing rise in online shopping, with a forecast decline in the numbers of delivery drivers that can move goods around. The country is expecting some 30% of parcels simply won’t make it from A to B by 2030, because there’ll be […]
Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus, Jennifer De Pinto, and Kabir Khanna, Reporters - CBS News
Stephan:
The only way the U.S. or any other country is going to survive climate change is by making fostering wellbeing its first priority. Neither party really seems to comprehend what is coming, except for Bernie Sanders and a few others. The whole Biden age issue is not how old he is now, it is that he will be 86 the last year of his term, and four years from now the world will be radically different and beyond the abilities of either octagenarian.
My personal hope is it would be helpful if both criminal Trump and Biden had something happen and neither could run. We need a man or woman of a younger generation with the skill, energy, and commitment to fostering wellbeing. On another front, the Supreme Court decisions today and in the last recent days are turning the United States into Hungary, and my hope there is that the Senate is overwhelmingly Democratic and four more justices are appointed for a total of 13, and the Electoral College is eliminated.
For months before the first debate, the nation’s voters repeatedly expressed doubts over whether President Biden had the cognitive health enough to serve.
Today, those doubts have grown even more: now at nearly three-quarters of the electorate, and now including many within his own party.
And today, after the debate with former President Trump, an increased number of voters, including many Democrats, don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president at all. Nearly half his party doesn’t think he should now be the nominee.
(Trump, for his part, does better, but still only gets half the electorate thinking he has the cognitive health to serve.)
The move came across the partisan board, but it includes a double-digit movement among Democrats, and movement among independents.
Given that, today nearly three in four voters also don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president in the first place. That’s a higher-percentage sentiment than in February, when almost two-thirds said he should not run.
Most voters who say he shouldn’t run say it’s both […]
