Independent News

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We start today with Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic writing that while blue-state politicians are giving assurances that abortion rights will be defended in their states, those states might not be prepared for those that might eventually seek refuge in blue-states.

Blue-state politicians know that they can largely define how well rights are protected within their borders and, in the case of abortion, have promised to ensure ongoing access. After Politico published an article revealing that the Court may soon fully overturn Roe, California Governor Gavin Newsom pledged to enshrine the right to choose in the California Constitution. “We will do everything in our power to defend abortion rights in Connecticut,” Governor Ned Lamont said. “Let me be loud and clear: New York will always guarantee your right to abortion,” Governor Kathy Hochul stated.

What blue-state politicians are not doing is ensuring that people in other states can find refuge in Democratic states. For decades now, what was once commonplace—Americans moving from state to state—has been made exceedingly difficult, largely because of cost-of-living concerns. Declining rates of interstate mobility show that many Americans are stuck where they are, consigned to the political decisions of governments they may profoundly oppose, without an escape valve. Low-income Americans have also been forced out of expensive, typically blue states to less expensive, typically red ones, where their access to basic government protections may be nonexistent, but at least the average home price doesn’t exceed $600,000. Those who stay are resigned to watching more and more of their paycheck go to rent, and record numbers find themselves teetering on the edge of homelessness.

In a federal system, access to housing undergirds access to many of the civil rights Democrats claim they want to protect. If the price tag for those rights is $3,200 a month, that tells me all I need to know.

And as one other story in today’s APR points out, abortion rights isn’t the only reason that thousands of people (at the very least) may seek to move from a Republican-controlled state to a Democratic-controlled state.

Given the current SCOTUS make-up and the explicit threats contained in the Alito draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade to LGBTQ rights, I will probably never return to live in my home state of Michigan, in part, because this law is still on the books.

Robin Givhan of The Washington Post wonders why Chief Justice Roberts and various U.S. Supreme Court watchers are clutching their pearls over the leak of the Justice Alito draft opinion.

Alito’s draft opinion was published Monday evening by Politico and Tuesday afternoon, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. confirmed that it was authentic but not final and that he’d ordered an investigation into how the confidentiality of the court had been breached. People are shocked by this lapse of protocol, this egregious disregard for trust. But why should anyone be surprised? All the traditions and norms that have long held this country together have been breaking and fraying since the Trump era. There’s no wonder that the Supreme Court is coming apart at the seams, too. It doesn’t appear as though this country has the capacity to do anything with full-throated dignity and grace.

The other justices included in this tentative majority are Clarence Thomas, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. The draft is 98 pages long and spends a good deal of time expounding on the idea that there’s no tradition of a right to abortion because the subject of abortion rights didn’t come up until a few years before Roe was decided in 1973, which suggests that Alito believes that demanding full equality has some sort of due-by date or expiration date. Alito laments that there’s no precedent for recognizing abortion as a right even as he explains why the establishing precedent should be overturned.

It’s a head-spinning and sharply worded opinion and one that uses the political divide over abortion as a reason for the justices to eschew wisdom, mercy and compromise and simply throw up their hands and let the states do what they’d like, which is to essentially bend to the strongest political wind. For Alito, Roe v. Wade is bad because a lot of people found it upsetting and disagreed with it, even though the majority of the country actually believes it should be upheld.

Rebecca Solnit of the Guardian states the obvious that, nevertheless, needs to be said and repeated: elections and electoral coalitions are the only way out of this nightmare.

There are many kinds of actions to take in response to this likely overturning of a fundamental right to bodily self-determination and privacy. (And it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of people across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.) Direct support for the poor and unfree people who will be the most affected is already under way – and by unfree I mean those who are under the domination of a hostile partner, family, church or community. People have organized to offer travel to clinics for those far from them, access to abortion pills, and other forms of support. But by backlash I mean and am hoping for the kind of backlash Trump’s election and subsequent outrages provoked, the 2018 election that swept the Squad and many other progressives into office and took back the House of Representatives. A Democratic majority in both houses could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so.

What is striking this time around in the US both about the rightwing agenda and the response is that it is broad enough to build powerful coalitions. The human rights activism of the 1990s was siloed: though the same voters and politicians might support LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights and racial justice, largely separate campaigns were built around each of them, and the common denominators were seldom articulated.

This time around – well, as I wrote when the news broke: “First they came for the reproductive rights (Roe v Wade, 1973) and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a uterus in its ovulatory years, because then they want to come for the marriage rights of same-sex couples (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015), and then the rights of consenting adults of the same gender to have sex with each other (Lawrence v Texas, 2003), and then for the right to birth control (Griswold v Connecticut, 1965). It doesn’t really matter if they’re coming for you, because they’re coming for us.”

And they have been coming for voting rights.

I assume that most of us understand why Ms. Solnit singled out Mexico, Ireland, and Argentina.

Niki Griswold of the Austin American-Statesman writes that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is now aiming for SCOTUS to declare the requirement of states to provide a public education for undocumented immigrants unconstitutional.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that Texas would consider challenging a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to offer free public education to all children, including those of undocumented immigrants.

“Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program, in a case called Plyler versus Doe,” Abbott said, speaking during an appearance on the Joe Pags show, a conservative radio talk show. “And the Supreme Court ruled against us on the issue. … I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler versus Doe was issued many decades ago.”

The remarks came days after a leaked draft of a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court opinion revealed that a majority of justices are poised to revoke Roe v. Wade, the landmark case establishing the right to abortion.

In Plyler v. Doe, SCOTUS overturned the Texas law by a 5-4 vote.

Benji Jones of Vox writes that coral reefs may be able to keep coastal cities above water in the future if only we take care of and protect them.

Tropical storms are among the most dangerous and costly natural disasters in the US. Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana last August, for example, cost Americans roughly $75 billion, cut power to more than a million homes and businesses, and killed dozens of people.

If that’s not bad enough, climate change is making hurricanes more destructive. Global warming raises sea levels and fuels storms with more water and stronger winds, increasing the risk of flooding. […]

Coral reefs are among the many ecosystems, including mangrove forests and wetlands, that can protect us. They function like natural breakwaters during a hurricane, helping to dampen or “break” waves that can flood homes and offices near shore.

The problem is that coral reefs are dying. Along with disease and pollution, climate change — the same force making hurricanes more damaging — has wiped out half of the world’s reefs. So to protect our coastal cities, scientists say, we should also protect and restore our coral reefs.

Who could have possibly known what would happen after the White House Correspondents Dinner last Saturday?

Chris Cameron/The New York Times

“Did none of you learn anything from the Gridiron Dinner? Nothing,” Mr. Noah said, referring to another elite Washington gathering in April, after which dozens of attendees tested positive for the coronavirus. “Do you read any of your own newspapers?”

By Wednesday, Mr. Noah’s chiding remarks at what he called “the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event” were beginning to appear prophetic as a growing number of attendees, including a string of journalists and Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, said they had tested positive for the virus. […]

The growing number of cases presented another sign of an official Washington that has largely returned to prepandemic routines, even as officials still urge Americans to take precautions, and has decided to live with the result.

Journalists across several major news organizations reported testing positive. Among those were Jonathan Karl, ABC News’s chief Washington correspondent, who shook hands with Mr. Biden during the dinner, and Steve Herman, the chief national correspondent at Voice of America. CNN reported that those infected also included staff members from its network, as well as NBC News, CBS News and Politico.

Eric Topol writes for The Los Angeles Times that COVID-19 Omicron variants continue to get more transmissible and are better at evading existing vaccines and boosters.

For perspective, Omicron’s BA.1 was about 50% more infectious than Delta, the variant it replaced. At the time, it was hard to conceive of a version of the virus that could be more contagious. But BA.2, which out-competed it here in the U.S., is 30% more transmissible than BA.1. And BA.2.12.1, now overtaking BA.2, is another 25% more infectious than BA.2. Accordingly, in recent months since Omicron was first recognized in the United States in late November, we’ve gone from a hyper-transmissible virus strain to two more that take that problem to another level.

To make matters worse, the Omicron-specific vaccines that are in clinical testing by multiple vaccine manufacturers, such as Moderna and Pfizer, use the BA.1 spike and will most likely not be adequately protective against BA.2.12.1 infections or other new Omicron family variants. […]

Although existing vaccines are not particularly helpful at preventing infections with or transmission of the new BA.2 variants, they do still work, especially with boosters, to protect against hospitalizations and deaths. We also have the Paxlovid pill pack for treatment of any of these variants, which has been shown to reduce hospitalizations and deaths by 89% in people deemed at high risk. While Paxlovid is variant-proof at this time, resistance can emerge, and there have been reports of early relapse, a problem that has not yet been adequately explained.

And more variants.

Natalia Datskevych of the Kyiv Independent details the economic costs to Ukraine of Russia’s invasion.

Fending off the war has cost big bucks for Ukraine.

According to Danylo Hetmantsev, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s finance and taxation committee, budgetary spending has quadrupled compared to that of peacetime. The monthly budget deficit currently ranges from $5-7 billion, most of which goes to the military and social support.

At the same time, the state’s main sources of income are in trouble. Total budget revenues have fallen by 75%.

Dividends paid by state-owned enterprises, which previously covered 30% of all revenues, are going down. Other forms of income are also expected to decline. Before the war started, Ukraine’s Finance Ministry planned to collect $18 billion of taxes on imported goods, $14 billion in value added tax, and $2.6 billion in excise taxes in 2022.

After one month of all-out war, the country’s customs managed to collect only a fifth of the planned revenues – $240 million instead of the expected $1.3 billion.

Ukraine is going to need something like a Marshall Plan.

Greg Miller and Shira Rubin of The Washington Post report exclusively on the failed efforts of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to negotiate with Vladimir Putin and that those failed efforts have shielded Abramovich from being sanctioned by the United States.

While recasting himself as a back-channel diplomat, Abramovich has gone further than other Russian oligarchs in exploiting political connections and calling in favors to protect a financial empire that has sustained significant damage in the fallout from the war. It’s a gamble that risks ultimately backfiring by exposing his connections with the Russian president — ties that he had previously strongly denied.

Abramovich has enlisted support from unlikely sources, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who pressed both President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to refrain from imposing sanctions on Abramovich while he served as a channel to Putin, according to U.S. officials and others with knowledge of the matter.

Biden agreed to grant Abramovich a reprieve after a Zelensky request that seemed almost inadvertent, officials said. In March, Biden used a call with Zelensky to run through measures the administration planned to announce to support Ukraine, including sanctions targeting a list of Russians. Only when Zelensky heard Abramovich’s name did he ask that the administration hold off in hopes that the oligarch could prove useful in talks with the Kremlin, officials said. Zelensky’s intervention was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Shura Burtin writes a very long report for the Russian independent media outlet Meduza about how Russian citizens feel about the war in Ukraine.

“You know…The negative…”

I’d heard that word already, from my mother. On the third day of the war, I went over to her house and she suddenly started talking about targeted strikes and “where were we looking for the past eight years.” I started telling her about the bombings, about a girl I knew in Kharkiv who’d called me, terrified, during a break in the shelling. I explained that there was a real war going on and that I didn’t understand how people refused to see this monstrous thing. My mother sat there stupefied, staring down at the floor.

“People are tired of negativity,” she sighed.

That phrase explained something. In the past 20 years, every time I’ve happened to overhear what’s being said on television, they were frightening people with something: migrants, “Gayropa,” Banderites — the main thing is that these people are just “others.” I suppose that the audience itself had wanted this. Having something specific to fear was more manageable than the free-floating terror of the unknown that people were forced to live with during the 1990s. […]

When you read Hitler’s speech from September 1, 1939, you just can’t believe your eyes. At first I even thought it might be a Ukrainian fake. The night before the war, I got a similar shock from the reports of Ukrainian saboteurs invading Russia: a direct calque of the Gleiwitz incident. And on June 22, Hitler explained to the German people that there were 160 Russian divisions on the border ready to invade Europe. I don’t know who came up with this nasty joke, history in general or some specific cynics out there.

Here’s a (translated) transcript of Adolf Hitler’s speech before the Reichstag given on September 1, 1939 and here’s a (translated) transcript of Vladimir Putin’s televised address of February 24, 2022 announcing the special military operation in Ukraine.

Markus Becker, Jan Puhl, Mattias Gebauer, and Fidelius Schmid of Der Spiegel report that the European Commission is preparing to take steps to deal with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

In his speech given on March 15, the anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, which was quelled with Russian support, Orbán effectively gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a gift. Hungary, whose security and economic well-being is guaranteed by NATO and the EU, pursues only its own interests, even if neighboring Ukraine is brutally invaded. “God above us all,” were Orbán’s closing words. “Hungary above all else!”

With those words, Orbán alienated himself from the last allies he has left in Europe. Germany and the EU, meanwhile, are facing the wreckage of their policies toward Hungary. They largely stood by idly as Orbán established an autocracy in the middle of Europe. At the European level, the European People’s Party, which included Orbán’s Fidesz party alongside Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and it’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), hesitated to kick his party out of the bloc in the European Parliament for years. The Hungarian leader then withdraw his party on his own last March. The CSU, in particular, has courted the self-styled illiberal democrat from Budapest, while longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to contain Orbán through appeasement. […]

Last week, the European Commission activated its new funding withdrawal mechanism for the first time. In a 43-page letter obtained by DER SPIEGEL, the EU executive accuses Hungary of “systematic irregularities,” particularly in public procurement. It states that Hungary is steadily deteriorating in the fight against corruption. The abuses have continued for many years, despite constant reminders, the Commission stated, and it no longer had any other choice but to trigger the budget mechanism to prevent further abuse.

Robert Muggah writes for Foreign Policy that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is preparing to use all matter of “election-related chicanery” for Brazil’s October 2022 presidential elections.

Bolsonaro, his sons, and his closest advisors are widely recognized as the most prolific purveyors of such election-related chicanery. The president alone is accused of making more than 5,000 false or distorted statements to date, including repeated attacks against the TSE and supreme court. After setting up a dedicated unit in 2019 to fight fake news, the TSE received over 100,000 reports of misinformation and disinformation during the 2020 municipal elections. In order to accelerate efforts to reduce the spread of digital harms, the TSE and the Brazilian National Congress signed a new cooperation agreement in 2021. Meanwhile, a three-year investigation into fake news led by the STF is exposing a web of vested political and economic interests reaching the highest echelons of power.  Last year, the TSE even authorized a formal investigation into Bolsonaro’s claim that efforts are underway to defraud the 2022 elections. Yet Latin America’s “Teflon president” has shrugged off these probes and continues to spew lies into the ether.

A growing number of Brazilian institutions are cracking down on such digital misdeeds. In 2021, Brazil’s federal police accused Bolsonaro and a constellation of his top advisors of coordinating a “hate cabinet” that reportedly played a “direct and relevant” role in spreading falsehoods about the electoral process. The feds reported how the secretive cabinet targeted opponents and disseminated disinformation to incite animosity against legislative, judicial, and military bodies on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and especially WhatsApp and Telegram. A separate parliamentary investigation warned of the risks these so-called digital militias pose to democracy.

Finally today, The Diplomat’s Uzair Younus reports that while Pakistan’s Parliament set former Prime Minister Imran Khan free, Khan and his followers just keep hangin’ on.

To come to power…Khan had to make certain compromises. He not only needed the approval of the country’s powerful army but also its powerful business tycoons, who began to fund his party. Professional turncoats, who change loyalties based on whom the establishment is signaling support for, were welcomed, and political opponents alleged that the playing field was not even.

Following the 2018 elections, his party managed to cobble together a coalition, with Khan becoming prime minister with only a four-vote margin in the lower house of the parliament. The compromises he made along the way, however, meant he was on a slippery slope right from the outset. This is why it was no surprise that within months of a fallout with Pakistan’s military establishment, the opposition was successfully able to win over political allies. To maintain a grip on power, Khan tried to subvert the constitution, only for the country’s Supreme Court to push back. Finally, a late night vote on April 10 in Pakistan’s lower house of parliament led to Khan’s removal from power.

But while Khan has lost the prime minister’s office, his core base of supporters has not abandoned him. They are rallying to his cause with increased vigor, and while Khan has said that he was ousted by the United States — an outlandish conspiracy theory — his supporters on social media and in private conversations blame the military establishment.

Everyone have a good day!

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The now-telegraphed likely end of federal abortion rights in the United States continues to send the Republican politicians who have plotted that end for decades scurrying for cover; abortion rights remain overwhelmingly popular in this country, despite decades of demonization efforts by far-right theocrats, and the party must now turn its ample hoax-crafting powers on inventing reasons the public should not blame them for the very outcome that Senate Republicans and state lawmakers have devoted their professional lives to bringing about.

National media continues to struggle as well, with political reporters spending more of their time fluffing stories about the indignity of the Supreme Court leaking the draft decision than about the bizarre nature of an Alito decision that scrubs centuries of recognized abortion rights to replace them with eugenics-premised theories and the legal musings of a ravingly misogynistic British witch-hunter.

It may be fitting that the continued constriction of American civil rights is met yet again with media befuddlement and political dissembling, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Some of today’s news:

• Amazon. Google. Coca-Cola. These are some of the companies that funded the end of Roe v. Wade
• Swing-state Democrats go on offense on abortion rights as Senate Republicans dive for the bunkers
• Matt Gaetz calls women upset about Roe reversal ‘over-educated, under-loved millennials’
• Alito cites racist eugenics theory to support overturn of Roe v. Wade
• Texas provides a chilling glimpse into our post-Roe future
• McConnell has never been so desperate to change the subject as with his Supreme Court gutting Roe

The ground situation in Ukraine continues to be largely stagnant, with battered Russian forces accomplishing not much while their superiors hunt for a Putin-pleasing miracle (or war crimes that could be bent to serve as such):

• Russia tries to counter Ukraine’s counterattack … and fails
• Mapping positions at the start of day 70

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

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In a sea of absolutely brutal, exhausting news, it can be truly refreshing to focus on something good—or at least, something that doesn’t involve literal human rights and freedoms. As Daily Kos covered at the time, beloved country music star (and humanitarian) Dolly Parton politely declined a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in March, and the Hall rather hilariously rejected her rejection. Ballots had already gone out to voters, according to the organization, and they left it up to the people to vote. And vote they did!

As reported by CNN, Parton will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame anyway. Others who made the cut for 2022 include Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Duran Duran, Eminem, and Pat Benatar. According to NBC News, this is the first year that six women will be inducted into one class, which is a pretty cool milestone. The induction ceremony is scheduled for November 2022.

But how does Parton feel about winning something she opted out of? Well…

RELATED STORY: Lawmakers in 19 states vow to offer legal refuge for trans youth displaced by Republican hate

We don’t actually know yet! But, Parton spoke to NPR in an interview about just that hypothetical scenario last week, saying she’ll “accept gracefully” by saying, “Thanks.” She added to the Morning Edition she would ultimately accept the win because fans vote. She also added that she initially thought the award was meant for rock musicians, though a number of non-rock artists have been inducted over the years. 

In a statement, John Sykes, who serves as chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, described the inductees as a “diverse group” with a “profound impact” on the “sound of youth culture” who ultimately helped change the course of rock and roll.

“Their music moved generations,” he continued. “And influenced so many artists that followed.”

Other awards include the Musical Excellence Award, which went to Judas Priest, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis, as well as the Early Influence Award, which went to Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten. Lastly, the Hall also offers the Ahmet Ertegun Award, which went to Allen Grubman, Sylvia Robinson, and Jimmy Iovine. 

Musicians who were nominated, but ultimately not inducted this year, included Dionne Warwick, Beck, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Devo, Fela Kuti, New York Dolls, and MC5.

In an otherwise terrible news cycle, folks on Twitter found some joy and humor to celebrate Parton both for her win and lately for herself. She is just that good of a person, really.

Mind you, pretty much all of us look like angels compared to Elon Musk, but Parton especially so. What do you think about her inclusion in the Hall? 

Contribute now to support abortion funds providing financial assistance to people seeking abortion care

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Chief Justice John Roberts is understandably upset about the leaking of his fellow conservative, Samuel Alito’s, wrathful, misogynistic diatribe representing the views of (apparently) the majority of the Supreme Court toward the subject of abortion. In an exceedingly rare statement following the publication of the leaked opinion, Roberts huffed about the impropriety of it all:

To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.

We at the  Court are blessed to have a workforce—permanent employees and law clerks  alike—intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This  was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.

Contribute now to support abortion funds providing financial assistance to people seeking abortion care.

Justice Roberts’ indignance at what will most certainly be the final nail in any perception that the operating majority of this court as currently constituted is anything but a cabal of extremist right-wing Federalist Society hacks—specifically bred and cultivated for one purpose—likely stems from his realization that, ultimately, his own incompetence will be blamed. And that’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment. This type of premature “leaking” of an opinion—let alone one carrying such magnitude—has never happened before in the history of the court, and the blame for it, whatever the facts may be, ultimately rests on his shoulders as chief justice. He senses this, or he should. And elected Republicans, adopting this same line, appear to be far more outraged at the bare fact of the “leak” rather than the actual content of what was “leaked.”

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

The irony here is inescapable. Roberts bemoans the “betrayal of confidences” displayed by the public dissemination of a judicial opinion that represents just such a betrayal. Presumably, he is complaining about this rude infringement upon the court’s prerogative to deliberate and fashion its opinions privately, without exposing its inner workings to the public (a “right of privacy” so to speak, which is particularly rich given that the entire debate about abortion centers on privacy, and the entire premise of Alito’s opinion seeks to eviscerate that right). 

But “betrayal of confidence” also means a breach of trust, and the draft majority opinion is exactly that: a betrayal of confidence in all American women and those who may become pregnant. It is a betrayal of their expectations, their convictions, and most importantly, their personal autonomy to make one of the most intimate, personal decisions imaginable. In fact, it is worse than a betrayal; it is a statement of wholehearted disrespect and disdain. That is the real essence of Alito’s hate-filled rant.

Perhaps even worse than that, it is a staggering betrayal of the very “rule of law” that Roberts leaps here to defend. It is a betrayal and disregard of the duty of adherence to prior precedent which is, in fact, the only glue that bestows any legitimacy on a judicial body. And now that this court has seen fit to abandon that duty based on political considerations and ideology, the world sees just how hollow this supposedly hallowed institution has become.

He calls it a “singular and egregious breach of that trust,” but he spares no consideration for the millions of those Americans who placed their trust in his court, their trust that the state would never become weaponized against them, now seeing their rights suddenly ripped away. And not just “any” rights: rather, the basic, visceral, biological, and personal right to make one’s own reproductive decisions, a right that had existed under the Constitution and was explicitly validated by his own forbears for half a century. He complains of an “affront” to the court’s decorum, ignoring the colossal affront his own colleagues have just perpetrated.

This is your court, Mr. Roberts. They just showed all Americans exactly what they are. So please, just spare us your paeans to propriety and “decorum.”

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On Wednesday, John Doerr announced that he and his wife Ann gave $1.1 billion to Stanford University to establish its first new school in 70 years: The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Doerr, a venture capitalist whose most recent book focuses on addressing the climate crisis, has been investing in sustainable technologies since 2006 and believes that the next generation is eager to address one of the most pressing issues to face humanity. “This is what the young people want to work on with their lives, for all the right reasons,” Doerr told The New York Times. Aside from its proximity within Silicon Valley, Doerr has plenty of good reasons to choose Stanford as the university he’s placing a big bet on: The school recently transitioned to 100% renewable energy and has supported a series of promising studies on sustainable technologies.

According to the Times, the school will include academic departments focused on planetary science, energy technology, and resource security, along with interdisciplinary institutes and a policy and technology solutions development center, which somewhat goes hand-in-hand with Doerr’s guide to reaching net-zero by 2050. Doerr’s “Speed and Scale” includes conversations with other billionaires seemingly invested in the climate crisis, including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, though some of the world’s richest people barely invest in climate change compared with their overall worth. They also are some of the biggest individual culprits driving climate change. Their emissions, of course, are nothing compared with major fossil fuel companies, but it’s kind of frustrating that the rich talk a big game but do little to actually move the needle on reaching net-zero when the clock is ticking and they’re only getting richer.

Inside Philanthropy founder David Callahan seems to echo my fears, telling The New York Times that it’s difficult to imagine one of the most selective, costly schools in the country establishing a climate and sustainability program isn’t exactly doing a whole lot for the common good, unless you’re only concerned with those privileged enough to attend. “I don’t see how giving a billion dollars to a rich university is going to move the needle on this issue in a near-term time frame,” Callahan told the paper. “It’s nice that he’s parting with his money, but that billion dollars could be better spent trying to move this up on the scale of public opinion. Until the public sees this as a top-tier issue, politicians are not going to act.”

In terms of solutions, Doerr’s own book argues that the top way to “accelerate the transition” is to “win politics and policy.” “Speed and Scale” presents nine policies in hopes that the top five global emitters—China, the U.S., the E.U., the U.K., and India—adhere to them, with net-zero commitments at the top of the list. Doerr does offer some good suggestions on how to appeal to the decision-makers who may make a difference in reducing emissions, such as holding regional utilities more accountable and building voting coalitions, but throwing money at Stanford can only do so much. In Doerr’s own words, “no tool is more powerful or accessible than civic involvement at the local level.” Were he to practice what he preached and instead offer support for on-the-ground organizers and groups, he’d likely see a far higher return on investment in communities that are the most severely impacted by climate change.

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Let’s face it: This Republican-packed Supreme Court was always going to overturn Roe v. Wade. The only question was which B.S. justification it was going to use to do it. I was a little worried they’d cite Godzilla vs. Mothra or one of Ginni Thomas’ texts as precedent just to shove it in our faces, but what actually happened is arguably worse.

The GOP’s decades-long campaign to turn all childbearing-aged women into agency-free Easy-Bake Ovens has now reached its stunning denouement with the leak of Slimin’ Sammy Alito’s draft majority opinion eviscerating 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Alito’s opinion is horrifying on its face, but it’s even more problematic upon closer inspection, what with its name-dropping of an old-timey English dude best known for executing witches and blithely defending rape.

From Jezebel:

In case you needed any further proof that the modern anti-abortion movement is an outgrowth of many centuries of virulent misogyny and violence against women, Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft striking down Roe v. Wade relies heavily on a 17th century English jurist who had two women executed for “witchcraft,” wrote in defense of marital rape, and believed capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14.

“Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito wrote in his argument to end legal abortion across America, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.”

So how many of you woke up this morning thinking you were guilty of “great misprisions”? Not many, I’ll wager. But clearly, a great many of you are up to your blowsy neck wattles in them. 

How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world.

Pleas of the Crown? Were there no relevant passages from Archie Comics? Honestly, at this point, I’d trust Mr. Weatherbee’s legal judgment far more than Clarence Thomas’. 

For instance, there’s this kernel of homespun wisdom from the noble Sir Hale’s full-throated defense of rape: “For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.”

Now there’s a moral paragon for you! Say, is this kind of thing actually supposed to convince anyone, or is this just the “fuck you, we can do what we want” sort of message we all expected from Boof Kavanaugh and his band of merry Squees? I used to think Supreme Court decisions needed to be based on sound arguments from unimpeachable sources, but after seeing Alito’s big bowl of bonkers I kind of want to drop Hitler’s plum strudel recipe into my next loan application just to see what happens. I mean, why not? We’re just making it all up as we go now, right?

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Hale also sentenced two women to death following “one of the most notorious of the 17th century English witchcraft trials.” And now his desiccated antediluvian finger is wagging at witchy women from beyond the grave, thanks to Sam Alito and his personal Wayback Machine. 

So maybe it’s time to do something about it. In the wake of all this, it may be hard to decide whether to donate to Democratic candidates, Planned Parenthood, or choice advocacy groups. I can’t answer that for you, of course, but ActBlue is a good place start, as is EMILY’s List. 

You know what to do.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

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A fired Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy was arrested and charged with murder, the district attorney’s office announced on Monday. In fact, the officer, Edsaul Mendoza, was being held without bond, charged with first degree murder, third degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and possession of an instrument of crime in the death of Thomas “TJ” Siderio, according to the office of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Krasner said in an initial statement that Siderio was killed on March 1 in the Girard Estates section of the city. What he didn’t confirm at the time—the heartbreaking details of the case—he later released at a news conference on Monday and with an unsealed jury presentation from the investigating grand jury.

RELATED STORY: Three officers finally charged in shooting death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility after months of protests

Siderio was with a 17-year-old friend, NK, on the day of his death, and they were riding their bikes at about 7:30 PM when Philadelphia officers in an unmarked car and plain clothes “initiated a pedestrian stop” on the boys because they suspected NK was connected to a stolen firearm investigation involving someone named Santo Primerano, according to a summary in the jury presentation. Kwaku Sarpong, the officer driving the undercover car on the scene that day, pulled over and activated emergency lights and as he did so a shot was fired, hitting the rear window of the car.

Siderio and his friend took off running, eventually separating, the grand jury found. Mendoza was chasing Siderio, who was initially carrying a gun, according to the jury presentation, but it was the officer who fired at Siderio. “He fired at Thomas Siderio a total of three times,” the grand jury wrote. “His first shot was at the bottom of the block, near the intersection of 18th and Barbara Streets. He fired his second shot, mid-block, after Thomas Siderio had discarded his gun.

“Unarmed, Thomas Siderio then stopped running, and either fell or dove to the ground. PO Mendoza then fired his third shot from less than ten feet away from the child, and fatally wounded him.”

After the shooting, Mendoza’s partner asked him where the gun the child was carrying was, and Mendoza responded, “somewhere around there,” the grand jury wrote.

“When Officer Mendoza fired the third and fatal shot, he knew the 12-year-old, five-foot-tall, 111-pound Thomas Siderio no longer had a gun and no ability to harm him,” Krasner said during his news conference. “But he fired a shot through his back nonetheless that killed him.”

Thomas was not the subject of the officers’ investigation, according to the grand jury. They stopped him despite department directives requiring that “police officers in plainclothes and detectives will not routinely make traffic stops unless the actions of the violator are a clear danger to pedestrian or vehicular traffic and no marked unit is readily available.”

“None of the CIU Officers had seen either of the boys in possession of a gun when they made the decision to conduct the pedestrian stop and none of them saw the boys involved in any criminal activity,” the grand jury found. “Nothing either boy did, before the initiation of the stop, required the CIU Officers to initiate the stop in an unmarked car with officers in plainclothes.”

Officers even cited conflicting reasons for initiating the stop. Alexander Camacho and Robert Cucinelli, who were riding in the unmarked car with Sarpong and Mendoza, testified that they were making the stop in relation to the stolen firearm investigation. Sarpong and Sgt. Vincent Butler testified that the officers stopped the boys for riding their bikes in the wrong direction on the street, according to the grand jury.

Attorney and legal analyst Rebecca Kavanagh called Thomas’ death, which was captured on neighbors’ doorbell cameras, an execution. Officers weren’t wearing body cameras, Kavanagh said.

“If ever there were a case that warranted the word execution, this is it,” she tweeted. “Mendoza didn’t just shoot 12-year-old TJ in the back as he was running away [altho he did that]; when TJ fell to the ground, he stopped, stood over him and shot him dead.”

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House Homeland Security chair Bennie Thompson is urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release one of the hundreds of workers swept up during the largest workplace raids in a decade. 

ICE initially detained Lladi Ambrocio-Garcia in 2019, following cruel and retaliatory raids targeting food processing plants across Mississippi. While hundreds of immigrants with roots in the U.S. were deported, no high-level corporation executive faced charges. Ambrocio-Garcia reentered the U.S. to reunite with loved ones but has now been detained by ICE for months. The Mississippi lawmaker is among those urging her release.

“I welcome the administration’s decision to end mass worksite enforcement operations and prioritize workplace enforcement against unscrupulous employers,” Thompson said in a letter last month. “I ask that ICE also consider providing relief to victims of previous mass worksite enforcement operations that targeted exploited workers.”

RELATED STORY: 230 workers deported, hundreds of others remain in limbo two years after Mississippi ICE raids

Thompson is pointing to a welcomed memo by the Biden administration last fall that announced an end to ICE’s workplace raids. This practice disproportionately punished undocumented workers while, again, leaving many abusive employers relatively unscathed. But while this practice of workplace sweeps has stopped, ICE is clearly still punishing victims of these raids.

”In a letter, Ambrocio-Garcia’s advocates described her health plight since her imprisonment,” Mississippi Free Press reported last month. “They wrote that Ambrocio-Garcia had suffered from COVID 19, as well as kidney infections on two separate occasions. ‘Today—as a direct result of ICE’s wrongful and retaliatory workplace raids—Lladi is detained at ICE’s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.’”

Lumpkin’s Stewart facility has been called one of the brutal detention centers in the nation. Prism reported last year that four people at the prison had died of COVID-19 within the span of a few months, and disabled immigrants have said they’ve been hurled to the floor from their wheelchairs by abusive guards.

The fact is that Ambrocio-Garcia should have never been targeted by immigration officials in the first place. Southern Poverty Law Center has been among advocates noting that the raids were a retaliatory tactic against immigrant workers who had spoken out about workplace abuses. “Rather than screening and protecting them though, ICE arrested and deported potential worker victims and witnesses,” SPLC said. 

Mississippi Free Press reported that advocates have repeatedly rallied outside Thompson’s office, in hopes he can “intervene to get Ambrocio-Garcia freed from ICE detention since he is the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman.” Thompson held a hearing the fall after the sweeps, noting at the time that children came home from school to find their parents were gone. When lawmakers pressed an ICE official on how many families were separated by the raids, he said he had no idea. “Do you realize how indicting that answer is?” Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee responded.

“We were out there; we were standing in front of the office,” Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity Labor Rights organizer Miranda Bolef told the Mississippi Free Press in advocating for Ambrocio-Garcia. “With our signs, we were showing that Lladi is still detained; this is still an injustice that’s happening right now.”

The Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) said in a 2021 report that 230 workers were deported and hundreds more remained in limbo two years after the raids. “Many don’t have access to work permits,” MCJ’s Amelia McGowan told WLOX. “Many don’t have jobs. Many have suffered from COVID.” IAJE and NDLON said at the time that a worker who had been deported, Edgar Lopez, was horrifically kidnapped and killed attempting to return back to his own family in the U.S.

Mississippi Free Press reports that was initially detained for more than a year before she was deported in 2020. “In those eight months, Lladi suffered through contracting COVID and is reliving the trauma of her previous arrest and detention in Mississippi,” her sister Aura Ambrocio-Garcia said in the report. “Meanwhile, she faces serious threats on her life in Guatemala and is extremely afraid of returning.” Her advocates have collected thousands of signatures in her support. Click here to add your name and demand Lladi Ambrocio-Garcia’s release.

RELATED STORIES: ICE’s workplace raids have devastated workers for years. Biden admin says these sweeps will now end

Mississippi families call for family reunification, defunding ICE on anniversary of workplace raids

11-year-old who cried for dad’s release after Mississippi raids reunited after months of separation